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Faraday-caged drone triggers and directs lightning strikes https://newatlas.com/drones/faraday-caged-drone-lightning/

In a world first, Japanese researchers flew a lightning-proof drone in a thunderstorm, using it to induce and direct natural lightning strikes. The team is now working on how this flying lightning rod might capture and store lightning energy.

There's a decent bit of energy in the average lightning strike, as you might expect; Real Clear Science estimates about a billion joules. That translates to around 278 kilowatt-hours, or enough to charge a standard Hyundai Ioniq 6 nearly six times over. There are around 1.4 billion lightning strikes every year globally, or about 44 every second, representing some 383.6 terawatt-hours of electricity flashing out of the sky for free. That's nearly 1.5% of global electricity consumption (at 2023 levels) – and quite a decent resource if we could capture it.