A thunderstorm is a common enough event around the world which sees lightening light up the sky and roars of thunder roll by. The sight may be a familiar one, but scientists are now considering an unfamiliar concept – capturing the power of lightening and harnessing it for their own use. Can something as random as a bolt of lightening actually be harnessed?

A single bolt of lightening can produce a great deal of energy. That is an undeniable fact. The random nature of its occurrence is what has made it an unpredictable and rather unreliable source of possible power. So what has changed now?

Scientists have now tried to use lasers  to direct the lightening away from striking the ground and instead striking target points from which their power could be used to generate electricity. Andre Mysyrowicz has actually managed to deflect lightening using laser lanes onto a specific target in Paris.

The science project at the optical lab of the Ecole Nationale Superieure de Techniques Avancees has even made lightening travel a curved path between electrodes. Their ground breaking work makes it possible for us to believe that in the not so distant future it may be possible to generate electricity by capturing the power of lightening.