Is it possible to generate electrity using rain water ?

When water evaporates it utilises solar energy for evaporation of sea water.

Obviously this energy will be released when vapours are condensed back to water.

In industry we provide condensers for condensing the vapours where cooling water gets heated . Thus energy is recovered.

Is it not possible to recover the energy from clouds and have rains wherever required?

Further when rain water falls, potential energy is lost.
Is it not possible to recover this potential energy ?

Extensive research is required in this direction.

Please comment and indicate whether any other natural energy can be tapped economically.

P.J.LAKHAPATE.
plakhapate@rediffmail.com

Is it possible to generate electrity using rain water ?

When water evaporates it utilises solar energy for evaporation of sea water.

Obviously this energy will be released when vapours are condensed back to water.

In industry we provide condensers for condensing the vapours where cooling water gets heated . Thus energy is recovered.

Is it not possible to recover the energy from clouds and have rains wherever required?

Further when rain water falls, potential energy is lost.
Is it not possible to recover this potential energy ?

Extensive research is required in this direction.

Please comment and indicate whether any other natural energy can be tapped economically.

P.J.LAKHAPATE.
plakhapate@rediffmail.com
sO YOU'Re SAYING harness the minuscule amount of kinetic energy falling water can generate and the miniscule amout of heat generated by condensation. Even if you could tap these energies in any practicle way wouldn't minuscule be a key reason to not bother and build a windmill or solar cell or hydroelectric dam instead?

Build a closed-system dam

Yes. Have a big enough collecting bin and funnel it into a small hole and there you go. Oh wait, that's a dam.

If you collected rainwater from the top of a sky scraper, then ran it all down through a series of turbines connected to the side of the building, you could generate some electricity.

Altho this does not produce usable power, you can generate sufficient voltage to get some nifty sparks:

Lord Kelvin's Thunderstorm Machine uses streams of water droplets to create static electricity, so I suppose that rain could work.

http://amasci.com/emotor/kelvin.html

An image of the 1867 original:

http://www.sparkmuseum.com/STATIC_MISC.HTM

A sorta kinda variant is a device created by the university of alberta.
See last article "Pressure driven Battery"
http://www.aip.org/tip/INPHFA/vol-10/iss-1/p10.html

i just had to bump this

N Tesla! His idea was that the atmosphere could provide massive amounts of eletricity, the same way a lightning bolt is prouduced, you would need an cathode in the clouds and a anode in the ground I guess, and something in between to transform the charge and distribute it and or store it, I dont think it would be as hard to colllect the energy as it would be to transform it to usable electric current . Storing energy is the next big thing I think.

I wonder if you could use a high-altitude blimp dangling a wire? There wouldn't be any way to actually build a structure that tall.