SETI public: Radio lighting rods?

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It may be possible to use lighting to produce detectable ETI radio signals.
Perhaps Jovian lighting could be triggered using this procedure.
So the standard frequencies may not apply but the ability to produce upon demand a signal cheaply over a long time could be the logical choice.

Ron

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LASER LIGHTNING ROD. Lightning on demand, drawing down a bolt of
lightning for performing scientific studies, is usually done by
firing a rocket into an overhead cloud. The rocket spools out a
long wire, providing a conducting path between the charged-up cloud
and the earth below. Soon this might be done using laser pulses. A
team of French and German scientists has performed experiments in
the lab in which a laser beam ionizes air molecules between an
artificial thunderhead (a high voltage electrode) with another
electrode, the equivalent of "earth" (a grounded electrode), several
meters away. The experiment is unique in that it can trigger
megavolt discharges across self-guided plasma filaments in air
generated by laser pulses. (Here are the potent characteristics of
natural lightning: peak power of ten megawatts, peak voltage of 100
MV, peak currents of tens of kilo-amps.) One of the lab results is
the surprising discovery that rain does not much perturb the
triggering or guiding of the discharge process. Next the team will
perform open-air lightning experiments. The aim of this work will
be to obtain the ability to trigger lightning before it occurs
naturally at sensitive sites such as airports or electrical
substations. (Ackermann et al., Applied Physics Letters, 6 December
2004; contact Jerome Kasparian, Universite Lyon,
jkaspari_at_lasim.univ-lyon1.fr)

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