Posted 21 September 2008 - 05:53 PM Once again a really long post so if you trust my math scroll down to the

bottom for a comparison of Lightning vs. Nukes and Storms Vs. Nukes. This is a response to the claim made by our newguy: Lightning Boy. QUOTE (LIGHTNING BOY @ Sep 20 2008, 10:41 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> FACT: If you could harness the energy from just one severe lightning storm, you would have more power than all of the world nuclear weapons combined. I don't think so. Not even close. This is another one of those Tree Hugging Hipp y statements made in the everlasting search for MANBEARPIG. I can Prove it:

The energy released by nuclear weapons is measured in tons, kilotons (thousands of tons), or megatons (millons of tons) of TNT. In international standard units (SI), one ton of TNT is equal to 4.184 109 joule (J). "Nuclear explosive devices can have a wide variety of yields. Some older bombs h ad yields of about 20 megatons, or 1540 Hiroshima bombs. A megaton is the amount of energy released by 1 million short tons (907,000 metric tons) of TNT. Today most nuclear devices have yields of less than 1 megaton." The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book. 1999. 597. 84,000 TJ (large) < 4,000 TJ (typical) "'Castle/Bravo' was the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United Stat es. Before it was set off at Bikini on February 28, 1954, it was expected to exp lode with an energy equivalent of about 8 million tons of TNT. Actually, it prod uced almost twice that explosive power -- equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT." Worldwide effects of nuclear war. US Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, 1975: 3. 63,000 TJ (US max.) "The first atomic bomb, or A-bomb, exploded on July 16, 1945, Alamogordo, N.Mex. It produced an explosion equal to that of 19,000 short tons (17,000 metric tons ) of TNT." World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: Field Enterprises, 1975: 843. 80 TJ (Trinity Test) "By today's standards the two bombs dropped on a Japan were small -- equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT in the case of the Hiroshima bomb and 20,000 tons in the c ase of the Nagasaki bomb." Encyclopedia Americana. Danbury, CT: Grolier, 1995: 532 63 TJ (Hiroshima) 84 TJ (Nagasaki) "The world's most powerful hydrogen bomb was detonated on the 30th of October 19 61 [over Novaya Zemlya]. The bomb had an explosive force of 58 megatons, or almo st 6,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. The bomb was dropped by an aircraft, and detonated 365 metres (1,200 feet) above the surface. The shock wa ve produced by this bomb was so powerful, it went thrice around the earth. The m ushroom cloud extended almost 60 kilometres into the atmosphere." 240,000 TJ (USSR max.) Sources to [sic] radioactive contamination in Russian Counties of Murmansk and A rkhangelsk. Thomas Nilsen, Nils Bhmer. Bellona Foundation. "On October 30, 1961, Soviet physicists detonated a 50-megaton bomb, which remai ns unsurpassed in terms of its yield. This device was distinguished by its purit

y: 97 percent of its energy yield was derived from thermonuclear reactions. The complete success of this test proved that it was possible to design devices of v irtually unlimited power on the basis of the principle proposed by Sakharov, Vik tor Adamskii, Yuri N. Babaev, Yuri Smirnov, and Yuri Trutnev. The bomb was explo ded at an altitude of four kilometers over Novaya Zemlya, using a Tu-95 strategi c bomber piloted by Hero of the Soviet Union A. E. Durnovtsev." 210,000 TJ (USSR max.) The Khariton Version. Yuli Khariton and Yuri Smirnov. Bulletin of the Atomic Sci entists. May 1993. Source: http://hypertextbook...madKaleem.shtml Thanks, Kaleem. Here is what I can conclude about the evidence above. Those 1950 s and 1960s Russians weren't afraid to pull the trigger and flatten everything. Why do you think Russian Roulette came from there.? That being said, those Russi ans are long gone, but scarily enough their Prime Minister and former President Boris is a lot like those old Russians. I think he would end the world if it cam e down to us versus him. We are not living in a new cold war world, But Boris co uld certainly get us back there. Not when the Russians back off because we send a couple boats to sit off the coa st of Georgia. (Observation: There have been many protests for the USA going int o Iraq, and we haven't come close to backing off. Is it the leaders resolve that does this or his confidence in the Military might? If Russia thought they could stand up to the US moving in, they would have. However the chances that they wi ll share Nuclear secrets with some shitty little country and let them be the fir st to lob a big one our way? Pretty good.) OK I have gotten way off topic. Amount of energy released by typical lightning Bolt: Typical Lightning Bolt The power of a lightning bolt is awe-inspiring and potentially deadly. Each bolt varies greatly in shape and length, but each carries a surge of electronic ener gy that may equal or exceed a gigajoule. Interestingly, a lightning bolt s power i s not that great in comparison to other objects around you. For instance, the co mpletely filled gas tank of some cars contains more energy than some lightning b olts. A typical bolt contains between 1 and 10 billion joules of energy. Taking an average of those two extremes, one comes to a middle ground of about 5 billio n joules. Value In Joules: 5 billion (5 x 109) Value In Megatons: 12/10,000,000 (1.20 x 10-6) Equivalent In "Little Boy" Bombs: 796/100,000,000 (7.96 x 10-6) Equivalent In Gallons Of Gasoline: 37.9 (3.79 x 101) OK so now we have an equivalency test per lightning bolt measured against gallon s of gasoline. Lets apply the same principal against the wimpiest nuclear bomb o f them all: Little Boy, which wiped out a whole city and killed hundreds of thou sands: "Little Boy" Nuclear Bomb Little Boy is the code name for the infamous atomic weapon dropped on Hiroshima, J apan. This was the first of two nuclear devices used in World War II. The bomb w as deployed from a B-29 bomber and was detonated over 1,000 feet above the groun d, sending a deadly shockwave throughout the city. Little Boy used uranium as its explosive material, which produced its energy via a nuclear fission reaction.

Many sources give slightly different figures, such as 10, se values do not deviate much from one another, and so an ilotons seems satisfactory as a measurement of the bomb s er was probably figured by military scientists who worked exact method of calculation is most likely top secret.

12 or 20 kilotons. The average figure of 15 k yield. The explosive pow on the device, and the

Value In Joules: 62.8 quadrillion (6.28 x 1013) Value In Megatons: 15/1000 (1.50 x 10-2) Equivalent In "Little Boy" Bombs: 1.00 (1.00 x 100) Equivalent In Gallons Of Gasoline: 476 million (4.76 x 105) http://www.angelfire...nko/energy.html So let's do a mathematic comparison of the energy values in gallons of gas becau se that is an easy thing for most of modern society to visualize: Take 476 million gallons of Gas (The energy in the nuke above) divided by 37.9 g allons of gas (the amount of energy in one typical Lightning bolt) would give yo u the number of typical lightning strikes that it would take to be equivalent to one "Little Boy" Nuke, arguably the smallest Nuke ever detonated in our atmosph ere. 476,000,000 divided by 37.9= 12,559, 366 Lightning bolts would equate to the Wea kest Nuke ever exploded. Let's check that math and see if we come up with a similar ratio using the value in Joules, a direct measurement of energy albiet a little harder sometimes to g rasp: 62,800,000,000,000,000(J of Nuke) divided by 5,000,000,000 (J of Lightning)= 12, 560,000. Now lets compare our two results: The first example Gasoline as a unit of measur ement resulted in 12, 559, 366 Bolts of lightning to one Tiny Nuke, VS Joules as a unit of measurement came to 12, 560,000. The difference? 634 lightning bolts. How many energy is found in a typical severe storm? If the quantity of water that is condensed in and subsequently precipitated from a cloud is known, then the total energy of a thunderstorm can be calculated. In an average thunderstorm, the energy released amounts to about 10,000,000 kilowa tt-hours (3.61013 joule), which is equivalent to a 20-kiloton nuclear warhead. A large, severe thunderstorm might be 10 to 100 times more energetic. ^ Encyclopedia Britannica article on thunderstorms Notice this number includes the quantity of water in the energy formula, as all matter has energy. Energy Content Of 1 Kilogram Of Matter If any scientific equation stands out in the mind of the world, it is E=mc2. Thi s formula tells us that matter can be converted directly into energy, and it als o tells us how much energy is present in matter. The equation is surprisingly si mple to work out as well. The E represents the amount of energy, in joules, that i s present in a given amount of matter. The m represents the mass of that particula r piece of matter, in kilograms. The c is the speed of light, expressed in meters

per second. Thus, we can calculate the amount of energy present in 1 kilogram, o r any amount, of matter. Since we are looking for the energy content of 1 kilogram of matter, we will let the value for m equal 1. The speed of light is 298 million meters per second. Squ aring this gives us a value of 88.8 quadrillion. Multiplying 1 by 88.8 quadrilli on, we can tell that 1 kilogram of matter contains 88.8 quadrillion joules of en ergy, or 21.2 megatons. This energy is produced in its entirety when equal masses of matter and antimatt er collide with one another. 1 kilogram of matter touching 1 kilogram of antimat ter would thus yield an energy release of 178 quadrillion joules, or 42.4 megato ns. Value In Joules: 88.8 quadrillion (8.88 x 1016) Value In Megatons: 21.2 (2.12 x 102) Equivalent In "Little Boy" Bombs: 1,410 (1.41 x 103) Equivalent In Gallons Of Gasoline: 673 million (6.73 x 108) SO let's try to find the amount of energy produced by lightning alone in a sever e thunderstorm. I was able to find one source of a number of lightning strikes measured in an Ok lahoma supercell with unusually high levels of lightning strikes in 2003 or 2004 , when they were keeping records: http://www.nssl.noaa...tions/xlma.html 10 minutes revealed 492,344 pts or points where lightning was detected. That s a l ot less than the 12.5 million lightning strikes needed to equivocate "Little Boy ". But that is also only ten minutes of the storm. I couldn t find the total lengt h of the storm so let's find a typical supercell time for reference so we can us e math to determine how many strikes in a typical storm. "On March 12, 2006, an unusually long-tracked supercell thunderstorm moved acros s the central United States. It originated in northeast Oklahoma around midday, tracked across Kansas and Missouri during the afternoon and early evening, acros s Illinois during mid to late evening, and northern Indiana late evening into ov ernight, before finally dissipating in southern Michigan. The National Weather Service in Lincoln issued tornado warnings for 24 counties, severe thunderstorm warnings for 27 counties, and 65 severe weather statements during the course of the event. Some of these occurred during thunderstorms whic h developed during the afternoon, but the vast majority occurred from about 7 PM Sunday to 6 AM Monday." http://www.crh.noaa....ilx/?n=mar12tor This same storm is thought to have been the Longest lived severe thunderstorm ev er recorded: http://www.associate..._six_state.html So I think it is fair to say this is the EXCEPTION, not the typical results. That gives me a reasonable time frame of 11-14 hours for a super cell, as the ar ticle states that some of the thunderstorms started in the afternoon even though t the alerts didn t start until 7 pm. I am going to be generous and use the 14 hour mark, I think that is fair as it w

ould peg the start of the thunderstorm activity at 4pm and end at 6 am. Since ou r unit of measurement for lightning strikes used a ten minute baseline we need t o divide out 14 hour storm into ten minute chunks. In every hour there are 6 ten minute chunks, multiply by 14 and you get: 84 chunks. Now the previous lightning measurement was during the peak of a storm and in the intrest of being reasonable I don t think that number would normally be fair to a ssume that that many lightning flashes happened in every single ten minute chunk of the storm. But this was the WORST STORM EVER! Lets figure out if there were that many lightning strikes per ten minute chunk if this was indeed as bad as EV ERY SINGLE NUCLEAR BOMB COMBINED! 84 (ten minute lightning strike chunks) times 492,344 (the number of lightning s trikes recorded during the peak of unusually large storms= 41,356,896. AHA! That s more than the "Little Man" Bomb dropped on Hiroshima, which was arguab ly one of the smallest tactical nuclear warheads. But now we have a number based on observations of some of the worst SuperCell thunderstorms on record as to ho w much lightning they produce. Keep that number 41.4 million (rounded up) as the number of lightning strikes in the most severe storm ever recorded in the modern age in the back of your head because we are going to compare that to the number of warheads in the world and the equivalent energy output. Globally there are now ~20,350 nuclear warheads (plus 5000 removed from US stock piles and that are slated for dismantlement over the next 20 years).This is a de crease from the global high of 70,000 nuclear warheads in 1986. http://www.web.net/~cnanw/a3.htm Typical Nuclear warhead yield? Earlier at the top of this post I cited 4000 TJ a s the typical yield vs. 63 TJ for "Little Boy" SO Take 4000/63= 63.5. That means a typical Nuke is 63.5 times more "Little Boy" was. Using math earlier we deter mined it would take roughly 12.56 million lightning strikes to equivocate "Littl e Boy." SO to find the number of Lightning Strikes necessary to equivocate a typ ical nuclear warhead: 63.5 times 12.56 million equals= 157,753,600,000,000. This is the equivalent amo unt in US Dollars that George Bush has placed the US Taxpayers in Debt. I was go ing to say Just Kidding, But now that I think about it I bet it's pretty close. Actually this gives us a BIG number. 157 trillion, 753billion, 600 million is th e number of lightning strikes that it would take to equivocate a typical Nuke. T ake that number and multiply it by the number of Nukes stockpiled: 20,350 We get 3 quintillion,210 quadrillion, 285 trillion, 760 Billion (the number of d ollars the US taxpayer will owe in three years thanks to the reign of Emperor Bu sh) But this is also the number of lightning strikes that equivocate every singl e nuclear bomb in the world. This number is also 3,210,285,760,000,000,000. Here is how the number of lightning strikes in the worst SuperCell storm ever vs . The number of lightning strikes it would take to equivocate every nuclear bomb in the world look next to one another: 41,356,896 3,210,285,760,000,000,000.

Worst Storm Ever (for lightning) All the Nukes. Somehow I don t think your original analogy was even close. Just in case you try to duck out on the argument that your quote (a wives tale m isnomer) meant the entire storm I did include figure in Joules of an entire stor m amplified by a 100X figure for a really bad storm; So for comparison sake: In an typical thunderstorm, the energy released amounts to about 10,000,000 kilo watt-hours (3.61013 joule) 3.6 Quadrillion Joules. Times it by a Hundred and you have the bad storm: 360 Quadrillion Joules of energy including wind and water combined with the ligh tning. These figures are cited with (sources earlier) Again The amount of Energy in "Little Boy" was 62.8 quadrillion Joules. Times th at by 63.5 our ratio of energy in "Little Boy" vs. A typical Nuke and you get: 3 , 987 Quadrillion Joules of energy in Just one typical Nuke, and times that by 2 0,350 (the number of Nukes world wide) and you get: 81,151,730 Quadrillion Joule s of energy. That s: 81 Sextillion, 151 quintillion, 730 quadrillion (the number o f dollars the bush offspring will cost us when "They" are elected president) So lets compare a really bad storm two times more powerful then I just figured f or you (200x more powerful than the typical Thunderstorm) with all the nukes raw energy output- Are you ready? 720,000,000,000,000,000 81,151,730,000,000,000,000,000 That s a ratio of 112,710 to 1. This means it would take 112,710 "14 hour supercell derived Hurricane mega storm s" to equal every single nuclear warhead. That s a considerable difference. Have you been talking to Al Gore?