They float into electric lines and cause power outages, more than 800 in California last year, utilities say
I’d really have to see the data on that one. With the amount of open air vs. the amount of space an electric line takes up in it, I can’t see this being even remotely possible.
Me too. How many vehicles run into those same poles?
None necessary.
Common sense and a little education is all you need.
Power lines come in two types. Those that carry one side of a circuit and those that carry the other.
These lines are nowhere near each other for obvious reasons.
Should a balloon with a string get entangled one a power line, in order for it to cause a problem, it would need to contact the line AND a ground source. The only one I could think of near a power line would be a tree. If that is the case, then people are releasing these balloons very near the base of the tree. This seems even less likely than the string conducting electricity. Even if all components of this scenario came together, the result would very, very likely be only a burnt balloon. Not a power outage. Think of birds and squirrels on the lines. Only when they contact ground (such as a tree) do they get fried and even then there is rarely a loss of power.
If 800 baloons caused power outages in California, how many were caused by squirrels, how many by fried birds, and how many by other circumstances?
Or are they saying 800 power outages and implying they were all caused by balloons?