... Sometime AFTER I receive a patent, I'll do some extensive economic planning to determine the feasibility of collecting and storing DC electricity (using then-current rates, not today's rates) and the economics of selling hydrogen and oxygen from the output of an electrolyzer. All costs, including the prices for hydrogen and oxygen may very well be different by the time I get my patent, which I expect will be two good years from now.
A perfect example of the cart before the horse. A rational person makes at least a crude economic model before seeking a patent on a new means of producing hydrogen, which even the simplest model can show it at least 1000 times MORE expensive than the current means of producing hydrogen.
Perhaps you do not know that it will cost you at least $3000 to get a patent. I have 10 patents, but only paid for one at less than half the normal cost. (My employer paid for the 9 others and owns them. Two are secrete patents, relating to detection of submarines. I am enjoined not to even tell their names. The US navy holds many patents, they will not sell. They do this so they will not need to pay any later inventor.) My cost was low because I was able to get a friend in my employer's patent office to help with the drawings.
I have had a couple of courses in engineering drawing with one afternoon lab each week for a year when at Cornell so am quite skilled in this area, but would never try to make drawings as the patent office requires. For example, they must be done with India ink. The width of the lines is specified and several different widths are required as the width does indicate information also. Patent drawings are a highly specialized profession. Only a fool would attempt to do his own. My friend in the patent office was a professional - My employer submitted about 300 applications each year and he did more than half of them. He only charged me $750 (or $500, I forget) dollars, as I recall (and that was more than 30 years ago).
Don't you think it would be wise to check the economic feasibility BEFORE you spend several thousand dollars conforming to the detailed requirements of the USPTO on the most economically silly plan I have ever heard of?
I tried to think of a comparably economic silly idea / plan one could patent. Best I could come up with was a new way to make bricks. - Basic idea was two take free beach sand (like your "free" lightning) and then mix it with a moderate fast glue (with a cost like your capacitors) and then with my patented super sonic air gun, shoot the moist sand particles, one at a time, into a brick shaped steel form which had hinges so the firm brick could be removed the next day (sort of like you waiting several weeks for the next lightning strike).
Woops, I should not have told you the details of this new brick making method. - You may beat me to the patent office as you believe one should patent first and then do the economic analysis AFTER the patent is issued.
Benny your have more than a dozen carts before one horse.
PS
It is also wise to do a patent search before spending the money on a patent application. I do not know about now, but 30 years ago, you could do that yourself. I did as I worked in Maryland, not far from the USPTO. It was a fascinating couple of afternoons. My patient relates to solar energy use. One patent I found in that field was for an airplane with cylindrical lens glass wings. The inventor hope to make a fortune selling such planes to the army - On sunny days, he suggested they could fly over the enemy's trenches and at least blind the soldiers if not set them on fire. Yes you may be able to get a patent, but I assure you no one will buy it from you and you will find it totally useless to try to use yourself.
