Tissue heating and nerve stimulation are well understood effects of ELF at high field strengths, and used for public exposure standards. Fields decrease rapidly the farther away you are, so you have to be pretty close to experience potential biological effects. From power lines to any device with a plug or battery, including your hair dryer, alarm clock, and electric blanket, ELF radiation can have a biological effect on your body if the levels are high enough, or if exposure time is long enough. That being said, generating, transmitting, distributing, and using electricity all expose us to ELF radiation. Many people forget about ELF, and only worry about the RF signals coming from your Wi-Fi routers, your cell phones, or your wireless earbuds. Typical power losses for conventional transmission cable are estimated to be about 30 to 40 W/m. There are also losses in the metal surrounding the cable and the insulation surrounding the cable, which is never perfect at insulating all power. The longer the cable, the more power is lost. However, the resistance of the line itself results in a fractional loss of power as the power travels down the cable. In an AC transmission line, the bare wire conductors are usually made of copper, aluminum, and sometimes reinforced with other materials, carrying the power through the lines. With no RF signals to worry about, power lines still emit radiation, known as ELF, or Extremely Low Frequency Radiation.ĮLF radiation represents the leak of energy in anything that carries or operates with AC or DC power. Unlike WiFi, they do not send wireless RF (Radio Frequency) radiation signals through the air. They are lines of wires that carry power, or electricity. Well, power lines are exactly what they sound like. Power lines are everywhere these days, bringing electricity to our homes, schools, and businesses-but what does that mean in regard to exposure to EMF radiation? How do Power Lines Emit EMF Radiation? Each interconnection represents synchronized machines-considered the largest machines on the planet!-that hum at 60 hertz (Hz). The Eastern Interconnection, the Western Interconnection, and the Texas Interconnection, which doesn’t even cover all of Texas. They convert power from 69,000 to 765,000 volts for more efficient transmission, then back down to 120-240 volts for use within your home. Now, high-voltage power lines stretch for over 200,000 miles across the U.S., which could wrap the Earth more than 8 times! These power lines move electricity from power plants to local distribution systems, which deliver it to your home. For the expanse of land in the U.S., it was too expensive and just wasn’t practical. Underground wiring also didn’t last long, although in many other countries underground wiring is used. In 1893, the Niagara Falls Power Company worked with Tesla and the Westinghouse Corporation to harness the power of Niagara Falls and send it 22 miles away to Buffalo, New York. Reciprocating steam engines powered generators, which produced direct-current (DC) electricity.ĭC didn’t last long as a means of electricity transmission alternating-current (AC) electricity was created by Nikola Tesla in the 1880s, where currents could be transformed from low to high voltage and back, increasing transmission efficiency and allowing power to be carried for much farther distances. Houses throughout lower Manhattan were connected to the Pearl Street Station’s bank of generators by underground copper wiring. power plant was started in New York, called the Pearl Street Station. In 1882, General Electric was launched, and the first U.S. However, as electricity took over modern life, more power had to be generated and distributed. Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb was the first practical use of electricity, powered by a small generator and patented in 1880, disrupting the existing gas lighting industry. This process is currently used-on a much larger scale-to create power. Michael Faraday figured out in 1831 that he could create an electric current by moving magnets inside coils of copper wire, called electromagnetic induction. So how did electricity first get harnessed? Many other scientists built upon Franklin’s work. A Short History of Power Lines and Modern Electricity His kite with the key experiment proved that lightning was electrical, thus jumpstarting (see what I did there?) the path to modern electricity, with power lines acting as the key vehicle to carry this power throughout the country. More often than not, when you think of the “invention” of electricity, many people think of Ben Franklin. Without electricity, our modern world would simply come to a halt.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |