Enlarge / Hand-colored lithograph published by Currier & Ives in 1876, probably the most widely distributed illustration of Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment. Franklin is wrongly shown to be holding the string in one hand above where the key is attached. (credit: Public domain)

Most Americans are familiar with the story of Benjamin Franklin and his famous 18th century experiment in which he attached a metal key to a kite during a thunderstorm to see if the lightning would pass through the metal. That's largely due to many iconic illustrations commemorating the event that found their way into the popular imagination and became part of our shared cultural lore. But most of those classic illustrations are riddled with historical errors, according to a new paper published in the journal Science and Education.

Franklin's explorations into electricity began as he was approaching 40 years old after his thriving career as an entrepreneur in the printing business. His scientific interest was piqued in 1743 when he saw a demonstration by scientist/showman Archibald Spencer , known for performing various amusing parlor tricks involving electricity. He soon started a correspondence with a British botanist named Peter Collinson and began reproducing some of Spencer's impressive parlor tricks in his own home.

He would have guests rub a tube to create static and then have them kiss, producing an electrical shock. He designed a fake spider suspended by two electrified wires so that it seemed to swing back and forth of its own accord. And he devised a game dubbed "Treason," whereby he wired up a portrait of King George so that anyone who touched the monarch's crown would be shocked. And he once infamously shocked himself while trying to kill a turkey with electricity.

Enlarge / Westlands Solar Park, near the town of Lemoore in the San Joaquin Valley of California, is the largest solar power plant in the United States and could become one of the largest in the world. (credit: Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times via Getty)

California’s San Joaquin Valley, a strip of land between the Diablo Range and the Sierra Nevada, accounts for a significant portion of the state’s crop production and agricultural revenues. But with the state facing uncertain and uneven water supply due to climate change, some local governments and clean energy advocates hope solar energy installations could provide economic reliability where agriculture falters due to possible water shortages.

In the next two decades, the Valley could accommodate the majority of the state’s estimated buildout of solar energy under a state plan forecasting transmission needs [PDF], adding enough capacity to power 10 million homes as California strives to reach 100 percent clean electricity by 2045. The influx of solar development would come at a time when the historically agriculture-rich valley is coping with new restrictions on groundwater pumping. Growers may need to fallow land. And some clean energy boosters see solar as an ideal alternative land use.

But a significant technological hurdle stands in the way: California needs to plan and build more long-distance power lines to carry all the electricity produced there to different parts of the state, and development can take nearly a decade. Transmission has become a significant tension point for clean energy developers across the US, as the number of project proposals balloons and lines to connect to the grid grow ever longer.

Enlarge / MIT scientists think the corona discharge known as "St. Elmo's fire" could help reduce the risk of aircraft being struck by lightning during thunderstorms. (credit: Anton Petrus/Getty Images )

The electrical phenomenon known as St. Elmo's fire manifests during strong thunderstorms as a flash of blue light, usually at the tips of electrically conductive structures like cell phone towers, telephone poles, and ship masts—which is how it got its name, in honor of the patron saint of sailors, St. Erasmus of Formia. On the ground, St. Elmo's fire glows more brightly in windy conditions because the wind helps further electrify the surrounding air.

But MIT scientists have discovered that wind has the opposite effect on ungrounded structures such as airplane wings and turbine blades, according to a recent paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. They discovered this while investigating the possibility of using St. Elmo's fire to control the electrical charge of an aircraft, thereby helping protect it from lightning strikes.

St. Elmo's fire is not a form or lightning; it's essentially a continuous electric spark known as a corona discharge, like the glow of a neon sign. The friction that builds up in storm clouds gives rise to an electric field extending to the ground. If it's strong enough, the friction breaks apart surrounding air molecules, ionizing the air to produce a plasma (charged gas). All the excess electrons knock the plasma molecules into an excited state, which then emit photons to produce that telltale glow. The color of the glow depends on the type of gas being ionized. Since Earth's atmosphere is primarily made up of nitrogen and oxygen, the glow takes on a blue or violet hue.

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