Show seek some method to use lightning much electric energy Is lost each year washington one billion kilowatts of electrical energy Is poured down don on the earth every year by thunderbolts the american meteorological society was waa told here recently at its annual meeting the tremendous potentialities for power from the clouds at present out of the reach of 0 man were described by dr B F J director dIrecE or of research for the institute of electrical engineers at johannesburg south africa the studies of the various phases of lightning and thunderbolts have been undertaken doctor said with the hope that knowledge of the mechanism and nature of thunderbolts may enable man to utilize at least part of the tremendous electrical energy agy being constantly built up in the clouds and ad discharged to the earth much new information the latest research to make lightning divulge its secrets has already yielded much new information its as to the speed of lightning its manner of building up voltages and the amounts of these voltages doctor said measurements of the electric potential in the cloud show that each centimeter of cloud has a voltage of or more than volts per linear mile generally the voltage Is dissipated before it reaches this high potential though some thunderbolts have been estimated to reach volts by far the largest part of the electrical energy in the cloud fully nine tenths of it la is discharged inside the cloud afore it reaches the earth and only one tenth Is discharged in the bolts bolt that reach the ground the research shows the electrical potential of volts to the inch it was determined is built up by the splitting of drops of water in the cloud the top of the cloud the experiments show Is positively charged ft hile the base of the cloud Is negative the large drops have a positive charge and the small have a negative one by gravitation gral tation the large drops tall fall down from the top of the cloud to a lower level where the small negative drops are discharged leading flash the downward movement of the large droplets carrying positive electricity tri city doctor stated accounts for nine tenths of the discharge and this takes tabes place within the cloud the negative charge from the base of the cloud to the earth accounts for the remaining one oile tenth of the charge the latest findings doctor added dispute the theory promulgated several years ago bi by prof G C Q simpson of london that the base of the cloud Is positively charged while its top Is negative experiments he said show the opposite to be the case by the device of a special camera doctor in collaboration with U collens of south africa it has been possible to make photographs of lightning which furnish data for measuring its speed the main flash the photographs show Is always preceded by a leader or trail blazer this pathfinder travels from the charged base of the cloud to the positively charged earth at speeds ranging froni from to miles per second the main flash travels in the opposite direction from the leader starting upward from the earth from the spot struck by the leader and following exactly the same path traversed by the leader back to the cloud the length of the leader was waa found to vary from 16 to 47 miles the longest time occupied by a leader stroke was measured at tall of 0 a second tor for the 47 mile stroke the quickest flash took sixty nine millionths of 0 a second to travel 35 miles |