Harnessing Lightning for Electricity

Harnessing Lightning? Personally I am sceptical about the whole thing.
There was a story about an attempt to harness a lightning bolt some
years back with a massive capacitor - the whole lot blew up, which is no
surprise at all. That was then, but now Alternative Energy Holdings
(AEHI), want to be the first to harness lightning and eventually sell of
the electricity for cheap. Now I have done a little thinking on the
subject and have been wondering just how they intend to pull this off.
Obviously their technology and methods will be closely guarded. However
there is mention of "collecting power from the area surrounding the
lightning strike" which gets me thinking that maybe they will not be
using some 'lightning hits the pole and then into the lightning holding
chamber sort of thing'. Those ideas tend to blow up in ones face, like
the capacitor story. Power from surrounding ground brings on a totally
different approach, which means they could be using the ground as a sort
of shock absorber so you don't get the brunt of a strike which fries
everything. When lightning hits the ground some of the energy also moves
outwards in a circle and dissipates, much like throwing a stone in a
pond. So if the outer energy is a bit less potent, it could be a bit
more manageable for whatever device to store some of the energy, and not
blow up. The next clue is that there is mention that the supply of
electricity to the public will only be after 4 - 7 years after
successfully tapping lightning. What? Why so long? I think the answer
there could be because they will not be capturing the full force and
power of the lightning strike, but rather smaller doses. So, maybe when
it comes to harnessing lightning, one needs to think small to think big.