A New Radioactive Lightning Protection

Abstract

The protective zone of conventional lightning rod (Franklin's rod) is very small. In order to enlarge it, a greater number of such lightning rods can be set up or the Faraday cage employed. In the case of high objects or those covering large areas, this kind of protection is not economical. The use of radioactive sources for air ionization around the lightning rods enlarges the protective zone considerably. A comparison is given of the radioactive lightning rod, which use alpha emitters and are widely employed in some countries of western Europe and Africa, and the proposed radioactive lightning which uses a gamma radiation source.