One of my favorite groups working in the field creates artificial plasma arcs of hundreds of meters in length. A paper is here. (The author is one of several scientists who may submit an article to the journal.)
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/jap/110/9/10.1063/1.3660386
Yes, a...more
If the public is as generous as you, in their interest to fund the publication of independent and novel science, success is very likely! There are quite a few different fields wherein lightning may have some practical application (e.g. agriculture, with electricity increasing mushroom harvest yi...more