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Re: Power Lines



cost -- why insulate wires when air is good enuff.

here (PG&E land) the 220 lines (to the houses) are wrapped around the
uninsulated ground (return when load is unbalanced). The ground (steel,
I think) serves also as the support for the low strength Cu or Al.

bc


p.s. if your referring to my story, they were multi-kV. lines. I doubt,
except in inclement weather, 440 V. lines would electrocute a bird

"Carl E. Mungan" wrote:

Okay, time for what's probably a really dumb question. Why would a
bird touching two lines get electrocuted: Isn't there any plastic
insulation on ordinary electrical power lines? (I'm not talking about
the ultra-high long-distance high-voltage lines, just what one might
find in a neighborhood.) Carl
--
Carl E. Mungan, Asst. Prof. of Physics 410-293-6680 (O) -3729 (F)
U.S. Naval Academy, Stop 9C, Annapolis, MD 21402-5026
mungan@usna.edu http://physics.usna.edu/physics/faculty/mungan/