Now the next question: does the laser consume more energy than the lightning bring ? Because maybe we can use that to harness energy in storms.

The big problem is building batteries that could absorb some buttload-Joules of energy in a fraction of a second. IIRC some researchers tried (just with metal rods instead of lasers) and all they got was expensive fireworks.

You would certainly want capacitors rather than batteries to do the initial energy capture. That doesn't really help much though; the amount of energy in lighting is of a completely different scale from what we can handle with current technology.

How about using the energy to heat/boil water?

Well, maybe you could redirect the current directly into the grid and spread it accross it so that the power is divided accross the entire network and save fuel from power factories in the process. If you can predict the hits, you can balance the production accordingly.

Two words: Graphene Capacitors :-)

Graphene, the only hot new thing more versatile than USB-C.

But you certainly can use USB-C to store energy from lightnings!

Isn't this known / due to ionized air?