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In big clouds of water vapor their could raise a difference in charges high and low in the clouds but is it necessary that there are clouds? Could there be lightning just with airstreams which create lightning?
Sometimes they say that life began in a mixture of liquids like methane hydrogen and ammonia together with lightning. But in the beginning of the earthlife were there already clouds to form lightning?
As far as I know; no. Lightning can either come from large amounts of friction in the atmosphere, or from a discharge of built up energy sourced from space (primarily solar radiation) captured by Earth's magnetosphere. The same energy that causes the Auroras.
That said, clouds will probably be present regardless of the source of the energy.
