Great question! ⚡ Although a lightning strike does deliver millions of volts and up to hundreds of kiloamperes of current, it is not practical or safe to use for charging purposes—here’s why:

1. Lightning is extremely unpredictable

• You can't control when or where lightning will strike.
• It happens only sporadically and usually during storms, making it unreliable as an energy source.

2. Too much energy, too fast

• A lightning bolt lasts only microseconds (0.0001 to 0.001 seconds).
• It releases billions of joules in a flash, but the power delivery is explosive, not gradual like a charger.
• Trying to harness it would be like trying to fill a water balloon using a fire hose for one second—everything bursts.

3. Dangerous to capture

• The voltages (up to 100 million volts) and currents (up to 300,000 amps) are way beyond what typical circuits or storage systems can handle.
• Equipment would vaporize or explode under a direct strike without complex (and expensive) protection systems.

4. Storage issues

• Even if we could capture some of the energy safely, storing it is another challenge.
• Batteries and capacitors can’t absorb energy that quickly without damage.

5. Low efficiency

• Studies and experiments have shown that even with specialized systems, the amount of energy you can harvest is tiny compared to the lightning’s total energy.
• Most of the energy ends up as heat, light, and sound, not electrical storage.

Reality: There are better sources

• Solar panels, wind turbines, and hydropower provide steady, predictable energy that is far more practical and scalable.
• Even a small solar panel over a week produces more usable electricity than an average lightning strike.

Even though a lightning strike can carry massive currents (up to 100,000 amps) and extremely high voltages (millions of volts), it is not feasible for routine energy harvesting or charging because it only lasts a few microseconds and is highly unpredictable. An average lightning bolt contains between 1 to 10 billion joules of energy, which is about the same amount of energy required to run a 100-watt lightbulb for a few months. Its high power surge, random occurrence, short duration, and deadly nature make it nearly hard to capture that energy. Today's technology makes it both theoretically and financially impossible to design devices that could securely absorb and retain such an abrupt, high-energy pulse without being destroyed.