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Lightning rods are so last century: Next-gen lightning protection and harvesting with high-powered lasers
2014-04-11 17:06:44| Extremetech
The standard way of protecting buildings (and their occupants) from lightning is pretty simple: You stick a lightning rod on the roof, and then some kind of conducting channel that takes the huge discharge of electricity and dumps it into the ground. This is a tried and tested method that is used by most of the world's tall buildings. In the case of something vital like lightning protection, I'm usually a firm believer in "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" -- but that was before I read about a new lightning protection system that uses lasers to redirect the lightning, so that it ignores the building entirely and takes a totally new route to the ground.
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Category:Information Technology