How could an organism produce energy from electricity?
So I've created this planet that's about 90% the size of Earth, orbits a binary yellow dwarf star and has an extremely electrified atmosphere. Cloud plumes coming from volcanoes contain various conducting compounds, resulting in huge lightning storms which occur almost every night globally.
This planet's equivalent to plants - phytids - use the electricity in much the same way that our own plants use light, in a process called electrosynthesis. My question is: what sort of biology would these phytids have that could allow them to convert electricity into energy for growth and reproduction?
They have long, rigid spires made mostly of copper-based proteins which face upwards into the air to conduct this electrical energy into their bodies, but that's about all I know. What would they need to do with the electricity once it was inside of them?
This post was sourced from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/q/30463. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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