Nonsense.
I can go stand under a high-tension power line, and a sensitive fluorescent bulb will light up.
Does this drain power from the line? Nope. It just captures some of the power that is already overflowing from the line and uses it.
It’s similar to a radio station. It uses the same amount of power whether one set is receiving or a a million. Just isn’t relevant.
Or it’s like capturing and using waste heat from an AC system to heat domestic hot water. It doesn’t increase energy usage of the system, since that heat just disippates in the air if it isn’t captured.
Totally agree. To think otherwise is to have the same mentality of the jerks who believe in carbon taxes.
Sherman, you are wrong. The line is not “overflowing” with power. Power companies have spent and do spend a lot of time and money in research and engineering towards reducing line losses.
They found the chicken-coop parasitic heating system because the parasitic loss on that transmission changed enough or was different enough from similar runs that it was detectable.
Yes, the florescent light bulb lights up, held in the right way under a high tension line. But there’s no magic. Every fractional KWH emitted in light or heat by that bulb is EXTRA power being drawn from the terminals of the power generators feeding that area of the grid.
It is NOT like capturing waste heat from an AC system. That AC waste heat gets lost to atmosphere if not captured, the AC unit does not pull more power to generate more waste heat because you capture some of it. Capture all the waste heat you want! Not one fractional BTU captured will result in any additional load on the power grid.
I can go stand under a high-tension power line, and a sensitive fluorescent bulb will light up.
Does this drain power from the line? Nope. It just captures some of the power that is already overflowing from the line and uses it.
Actually, it does. Thanks to the "Conservation of Energy" law, what's going on is that you're placing an inductive load on the supply, which DOES reduce the amount of power being transmitted to the destination, and is detectable if the load is high enough. It's really no different than tapping into a communications channel, even if you're not physically tapping into it. In fact, this is how "secure communications channels" are monitored, when using copper. And even fiber lines can be monitored for signal loss, if a "tap" is placed on them as well.
Mark