With that insanely sci-fi concept in the can, researchers have begun getting down to the nitty-gritty: telling it where to go.

"If you are able to guide electrical discharges, you can guide lightning and it can go, for instance, where you can collect the energy of the lightning," said Matteo Clerici, the lead author of a new study released today in Science Advances that could help scientists do just that.

Clerici is part of a group at Institut National de la Recherche Scientifique in Quebec that has been experimenting with techniques for controlling electricity and say they have developed a way to use lasers to channel electricity along curved arcs and around solid objects.