Power is energy per time unit (thus: energy = power x time), so while the power of a lightning strike is very high (~10GW), the overall energy isn't because it only lasts for a very short duration (apparently the duration of a lightning event is hard to define, [1] says about 0,5 seconds, other places mention much shorter durations, ~10us). So if that 10GW lasts for 0,5 seconds, the total energy is 1,4MWh, which is 1/6 to 1/10 of the electrical energy an average American household consumes in a year[2].

[1] https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/16/547/2023/ [2] https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/electricit...

Right at the bottom under Frequently Asked Questions:

  How much lightning would we need to capture to power the entire U.S. electricity grid?

  Merely capturing the energy from 115 lightning strikes would supply all of the U.S.'s annual electricity needs.

I think we're dealing with someone who had limited experience with both Python and Ruby. This article is somehow getting more attention then it merits.

This is done because web servers are optimised to handle (many) requests from clients (including things like TLS termination, optimised handling of static files, orchestrate to which backend service to send a request and much more), while application servers are optimised to run the application code.

In this model, the web and app servers run separately, for example in separate containers and they have to talk to each other so you have to somehow connect them (often this is done through a network socket).

So what Nginx Unit does is combining the two: it can do the standard web server stuff (not everything a normal nginx can do, but often that's not needed anyway), but also run your application for you, which could, depending on your setup, make your life a bit easier, as now you don't have to tie the two together.