St. Elmo’s Fire

BOULDER — The theory: Stick an antenna high enough in the sky to find an area charged with atmospheric ions, and a corona effect can be created, allowing electrons to be pulled up to that corona discharge through a wire, and you’ve created current.
It has long been with us, this fascination with the power of the skies. But whether it was in mythology, such as a lightning-slinging Zeus, or popular fiction, such as the lightning-fueled reanimation of Frankenstein, it was mostly in the power of storms.

For a small team of relatively young scientists at Boulder-based sefe Inc.,…