Oddbean

https://youtu.be/sOabkUn53B8 the earth discharges upwards too, not only does charge in the atmosphere go downwards the earth is a giant capacitor and tapping the energy it absorbs is probably the end of the energy problem for us here on earth

if you search youtube you can find videos where it is demonstrated that a flame is more conductive than normal air this means that a flame is in a semi-plasma state, thus the decreased resistance and thus, it also logically follows, that rock that is so damn hot it's liquid, is probably in a semi-plasma state, which means that it is conductive, and thus, my hypothesis is that this upward flowing volcano lightning is actually a negative discharge of earth's collected electrostatic energy, in to a positively charged smoke cloud, (usually) it just seems DUH to me that if electricity zaps upwards from an erupting volcano, that probably there is jigawatts of electricity in the earth if we just knew how to make a positive charge pole to suck it up and catch that current and drop it in a capacitor/and/or charge batteries or pump water uphill or whatever

all of the celestial bodies have an electromagnetic thing the big absurdity of modern climate doomers is that only heat and albedo matters (how much we absorb and how much we reflect of heat) but negatively charged dust is key to cloud formation, water does not form droplets without negatively charged dust to stick to... and cloud formation itself stops albedo anyway, as most of it is reflected back upwards due to total internal reflection of the water droplet's high refractive index it's the same kind of phenomenon as crystallization, the crystals always form on some tiny bit of garbage with the right electrostatic field around it i for one am keeping my ears open for clues about how you draw electrons up out of the earth deliberately, because drilling holes and sticking long metal rods down to conduct this electrostatic charge (yeah, i am thinking what these nerds are calling "electric fields" are really the same thing as electrostatic) and how to catch that in a giant array of capacitors and then discharge it slowly into batteries or drive pumps to move water so the energy can be stored later

that is necessary first step, really, it's just the question of what you can do to create a massive positive electrostatic charge on a material so when a conductor is connected to a negative charged object the current jumps through the conductor and you get your discharge

yeah, damp ground is important, as is carbon levels, as both increase conductivity but i think the hard part is how to make something that has the required positive potential at the upper end of your conductor it obviously can't just be another capacitor, because that's what is at the other end, you see what i mean? needs to be some kind of device that induces a massive positive charge somehow, or some material that you can induce this state repeatedly or cheaply i mean, think like, why does wool carpet and many kinds of polyurethane rubber when rubbed, pull electrons out of the rubber and then discharge when you touch earth? whatever this rubbing process entails, how can i get that passively, how can i make an electrostatic adsorbing surface dump all its electrons so it can suck them up from somewhere the key would be how you can bootstrap that process, because i'm pretty sure you could make it run overunity so long as you aren't pulling more up than is down there