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Thomas Fritsch
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According to Could We Harness Lightning as an Energy Source?:

An average bolt of lightning, striking from cloud to ground, contains roughly one billion ($1,000,000,000$) joules of energy.

According to Visible light:

Red photons of light carry about $1.8$ electron volts (eV) of energy, while each blue photon transmits about $3.1$ eV.

So let's take an average photon energy of $2.5 \text{ eV}$.
Assuming all the energy of the lightning is converted to visible light, we can calculate the number of photons.

$$ N = \frac{10^9 \text{ Joule}}{2.5 \text{ eV}} = \frac{10^9 \text{ Joule}}{2.5 \cdot 1.6 \cdot 10^{-19} \text{ Joule}} = 2.5 \cdot 10^{27}$$

Thomas Fritsch
  • 41k
  • 13
  • 75
  • 144