World's largest Tesla Coil

"science" page, linked from the video: https://lod.org/research/research.html

They say they want to do lightning research, and for that they need two Tesla coil producing 8 megavolt. They then say this gem:

> But storm clouds produce DC voltage, and the Tesla towers produce AC. How will this work?

> ... The creation process of lightning is very fast, taking place on the microsecond timescale. The Tesla tower AC voltage moves at a slow rate, so during the lightning creation event it scarcely moves at all, acting for all intents and purposes like a DC voltage.

So if all they wanted is science, they could just use pulse generator, like Marx or even Van de Graaff. Commercial Marx generators are available in multi-megavolt range, and Van de Graaff voltage is limited only by it's arcing/corona -- Wikipedia says it's 5 MV easily.

It will be significantly cheaper and more practical, and also closer to the real conditions in the thunder clouds... but it'll also be only one spark every few seconds instead of cool non-stop Tesla lighting.

I have a feeling that this is basically "Let's do a cool thing!" rather than any scientific goals.