Because the crappy reporting gave no information about what kind of power this "invention" creates. Electricity has voltage and current. Voltage is potential energy, current is kinetic energy. They both matter for the feasibility of a power source. This is the reason why you can power your entire home from a generator the size of a footstool but if you covered your entire roof with photovoltaics you'd be lucky to run the refrigerator and the vacuum cleaner at the same time.
More like by splitting atoms and releasing the bonding energy in the process. Let's gloss over the toxic waste they make as part of the "clean energy" argument huh?
Wrong. Lightning is a result of atmospheric disturbances, driven by the sun. The entire atmosphere is a giant heat engine. The power source in the case of lightning is the sun.

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Current stable:
1995 E320 157K (Nancy)
1983 500SL 125K (SLoL)

Gone but not forgotten:
1986 300SDL (RIP)
1991 350SD
1991 560SEL
1990 560SEL
1986 500SEL Euro (Rusted to nothing at 47K!)

Gone and wanting to forget:
1985 524TD 167K (TotalDumpster™) [Definitely NOT a Benz]

Yup. Hydroelectric and wind energy also both come from the sun, not to mention hydrocarbons, which are essentially stored ancient solar energy.

I'm guessing that nuclear and geothermal are the two energy sources that don't derive from the sun. The water vapor energy in the OP might be of little more significance than static electricity.

Nuclear might yet have it's day in the sun, awful pun intended. There's a guy here - B'fest refugee GregDpanda - who is a tireless advocate of the Integral Fast Reactor, a type of breeder reactor. I was skeptical at first but it does appear to be a significantly better design than that of the thermal-neutron reactor, the default type at present. The IFR has issues - it is cooled (energy transferred) by liquid sodium, this to avoid neutron absorption, and sodium doesn't play well with water. IIRC a ruinous fire or two took place around that.

The advantages - allegedly, I'm not a nuke scientist - it's meltdown proof and can process existing spent fuel, using it for more power and leaving it much less problematic than nuke waste as we currently know it.

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Te futueo et caballum tuum

1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K