🌩 Non-profit aims to harness the power of weather events

A new non-profit organization called Project First Light has a goal to both protect people and come up with a new innovation when it comes to energy. First off, their team is designing a tower-based internet broadcast system that will warn its users of upcoming weather events such as hurricanes or wildfires.

However, in the long run, Project First Light wants to use the US 'already existing fossil fuel and electrical networks to transfer energy collected from lightning strikes, according to Optimist Daily. The non-profit will use lightning collection technology on its towers, turning them into a vessel for harnessing the power and delivering it to communities. An average thunderstorm can power 20 000 US homes.

Besides this, Project First Light is developing a type of rapid-charge battery that they will use to store their lightning energy. The project is planning on collecting this energy both on land and at sea.

Project First Light is also gaining support to transform Platform Holly, which is a decommissioned oil rig off Santa Barbara, California, into what they call “The Green Lighthouse”.  

Optimist Daily writes “With natural rock placed around the base of the structure, The Green Lighthouse will develop into a habitat for diverse sea life, a wave breaker for the onshore community, and a wind and wave energy collector.”