[HN Gopher] Harvesting electricity from high-voltage transmissio...
___________________________________________________________________
Harvesting electricity from high-voltage transmission lines using
fences
Author : beardyw
Score : 99 points
Date : 2024-01-28 08:12 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (hackaday.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (hackaday.com)
| beardyw wrote:
| Is it theft?
| DamonHD wrote:
| Probably, in some cases/jurisdictions.
| beardyw wrote:
| But technically do you think this adversely effects the
| electricity company? If not, it's just overspill.
| lukan wrote:
| One of the comments says, it does effect the electric
| company (why shouldn't it, energy does not come out of
| nowhere) and they can meassure it.
|
| "Velemu says: There was one case in Finland in The 90s,
| where someone did this to power their summer cottage. When
| Power company found, where the extra parasitic load came
| from, they sued the guy to hell and back again. This kind
| of load is actually actively measured by Power companies,
| since it is also used to find other failure modes on
| powerlines, and is easy to detect. Just don't do it...."
| card_zero wrote:
| Tim Hunkin's cartoon encyclopedia (from the 80s) mentions
| a conviction in Canada.
| https://www.rudimentsofwisdom.com/pages/power%20lines.htm
| nickcotter wrote:
| Some other cases mentioned here:
| https://www.industrytap.com/electromagnetic-harvesters-
| free-...
| 15457345234 wrote:
| I think the main reason the electricity companies
| discourage this is the hazard it presents. The
| 'collector' is basically a current transformer, which
| means:
|
| 1. If the outputs of the 'collector' go open circuit
| (because the rectifier/capacitor/whatever dies) the
| voltage at those terminals is going to rise theoretically
| towards infinity - insulation breakdown and discharge
| will occur which is likely to result in a fire.
|
| 2. The current generated by the 'collector' is going to
| be proportional to the transmission line current; if a
| ground fault occurs on the line the current in the
| collector winding is going to spike up to some silly
| level; that will probably result destruction of whatever
| is connected to the collector outputs and subsequently a
| fire.
| shagie wrote:
| Imagine the alternate history political and legal mess if
| PG&E had found such a setup in proximity to the start of
| the fires back in '21 and '22.
| userbinator wrote:
| I'm not an RF expert, but I believe this is a matter of
| near field vs far field.
|
| In far field (like typical radio broadcasts), there's no
| "coupling" between the transmitter and receiver so the
| former just radiates its power and cannot distinguish
| whether it's being received.
|
| In near field (RFID etc.), there is a coupling and the
| transmitter can definitely tell whether a receiver is
| present and absorbing the power.
|
| Thus, and IANAL either, but IMHO harvesting from the near
| field definitely seems more like stealing, while the far
| field doesn't; is it stealing to effectively recover "waste
| energy" that would otherwise just be dissipated uselessly,
| and wouldn't cause any measurable increase in consumption
| from the power company?
| jacquesm wrote:
| This is exactly it. If you were to do this 'at scale'
| you'd end up having to generate more electricity to
| compensate for the losses, so it's clearly theft. Whether
| your grid coupling uses a capacitor or an inductor isn't
| relevant, clearly you are taking energy from the grid and
| is the thing that matters.
| DamonHD wrote:
| Indeed, and thus I stand by my original point, though
| downvoted!
|
| The UK Wireless Telegraphy Acts made it illegal to listen
| to something that you weren't meant to by fiat without
| need of any proof of harm AFAIK, so there could easily be
| random laws in various places outlawing this extraction
| of power that has to be made up by other generation, even
| if small.
|
| You generally aren't allowed to extract even small
| amounts of power from the system unmetered with a wire
| either, without specific permission.
| lukan wrote:
| Since they operated directly under the wires, I think
| this is clearly a near field.
|
| Generating power from far fields does not seem likely to
| get any meaningful yield. I remember my father showing me
| how to build a passive radio receiver using a strong
| sender nearby and it worked. No other power source
| involved but you could listen to the (weak) output. So in
| theory possible, but not really useful.
| DamonHD wrote:
| The earliest radio receivers that I built as a kid were
| entirely passive, eg a tuned circuit and a diode, and the
| captured energy was enough to drive a ('crystal')
| earpiece. I was many many (tens/hundreds of) miles from
| the transmitters.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Technically, yes it does adversely affect the electricity
| company. It's not 'just overspill', that's how electricity
| moves from one place to another.
| apetersson wrote:
| I suppose not. If my neighbour has a water sprinkler, it's not
| theft if I put a tree where it spills on my property. It's
| rather debatable if the strong electric fields are a
| disturbance to the environment and the power company should be
| obligated to insulate better, potentially leading to higher
| transmission efficiency.
| greyface- wrote:
| What if your neighbor has a water sprinkler that is watering
| their own lawn, adjacent to yours, initially with no
| spillage, and you install a big array of fans on your
| property to induce air currents that cause it to start
| spilling over onto yours?
| arwineap wrote:
| What would the fan be in this case?
|
| I'm feeling like the initial analogy fit the premise
| better.
| greyface- wrote:
| The fan is analogous to the antenna - it changes the RF
| landscape, such that a small amount of energy that would
| otherwise have stayed in the transmission line begins to
| flow into the antenna, similar to how the fan changes the
| air current landscape.
| cjdell wrote:
| Is this similar to "transformer action"?
| batch12 wrote:
| Wouldn't this be the same or greater if the fence is
| grounded?
| littlestymaar wrote:
| From a physics perspective, the initial analogy doesn't
| hold at all though.
|
| The antenna array is actually distorting the
| electromagnetic field and whatever is plugged to it is
| actively _draining_ power from the power line. If there
| 's no antenna the power line lose no energy through the
| field[1], it's not as if you were collecting lost power.
|
| [1] in fact, you can even say that the energy is not
| carried in the cables themselves but in the air
| surrounding the cables!
| littlestymaar wrote:
| > If my neighbour has a water sprinkler, it's not theft if I
| put a tree where it spills on my property
|
| From a physics perspective It's not the same thing at all:
| with the water sprinkler, the water is lost no matter what
| for your neighbors. But with the electric field, there's no
| power loss unless you tap into it.
|
| To get back to your water sprinkler example, it's as if your
| neighbors' hosepipe got trough your garden to get to his
| sprinkler: you can argue that this is a environmental
| disturbance to your garden, but that doesn't allow you to
| take water from the hosepipe for your own use.
| shrubble wrote:
| It depends, if it is considered radiation then it is "landing"
| on your property; so you have the right to use it, same as the
| radio frequencies that pass by you are legal to listen in on,
| such as AM or FM radio...
| advisedwang wrote:
| It isn't the same at a technical level though. AM/FM is "far
| field" where you are many wavelengths away and are truly
| emitting radiation. This is "near field" where you are with a
| wavelength and are coupled with the source. This is actually
| drawing power.
| jacquesm wrote:
| Yes.
| thsksbd wrote:
| If you unscramble the tv signal entering your home are you
| stealing?
|
| Also this is taking. This isn't power the gris would have lost
| anyway, you're coupling it on purpose increasing the leakage
| thsksbd wrote:
| To be clear I don't think unscrambling a TV signal is theft,
| Im just pointing out that it is a matter of law. The Tv
| provider didnt loos anything.
|
| The grid provider, however, did _loose_ something, namely
| they have to burn more fossil fuels to overcome the increased
| resistance on the line.
| Thri4895o wrote:
| It is. Energy drain through induction, depends on conductivity
| of environment. By putting cables there, you increase energy
| loss on main line.
| TT-392 wrote:
| The same goes if the fence is there and grounded though?
| bradfa wrote:
| I believe the intent matters. If you need a fence and
| you're not trying to use the electricity then it is not
| theft. If your intent is to consume the power then it is
| theft.
|
| Doing this kind of power harvesting off transmission lines
| is a standard Electric Power university course exam
| question for intro to transmission lines courses.
| 127361 wrote:
| No more theft than putting a solar panel under a street light
| that's shining on your property.
| agsnu wrote:
| Not true, either physically or legally.
| 127361 wrote:
| The line losses are so huge anyway, this would barely even
| register. Heck a few large trees close to the power line
| would drain more energy than this. Considering such a
| trivial act as "theft" is completely ridiculous.
| speff wrote:
| It's interesting how confidently they asserted something
| plain wrong.
| defrost wrote:
| A more accurate analogy would be old style overhead drive
| shafts that powered many machines in large early industrial
| revolution factories.
|
| This is equivilant to throwing an extra belt over the shift
| to power your own machine.
|
| There's only so much power available and as more and more
| machines are driven there's less and less ommph to power
| more.
|
| This is literally adding "drag" to the overhead power line
| and decreasing what reaches the end point of transmission.
|
| It's not equivilant to scooping up photons that were being
| thrown on the ground anyway.
| 127361 wrote:
| It's not possible to abstract any sizable amount of energy
| this way, unless the line is kilometers long. It's the
| scale of the "theft" that matters, which is so trivial
| compared to the inherent losses in the transmission line.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Is it OK to eat a grape for free in the grocery? Why or
| why not?
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| Yes, when done in good faith. This is customary like
| trying tastes of beer from a bartender when selecting the
| beer one wants a pint of. Draining electricity with an
| antenna is neither customary nor done in good faith...
|
| Your analogy would be better if it were asking if it's
| okay to walk through the store daily and take a couple
| grapes to add to my fruit basket at home.
| Ekaros wrote:
| You mean it is customary to place your mouth on beer tap
| and take a sip? Strange customs over there...
| maxerickson wrote:
| The more interesting legal analogy is probably water rights.
| If the state decides to protect the power line, it will be
| illegal to draw power without permission, regardless of the
| physical circumstances.
| 127361 wrote:
| But again he is barely even abstracting a single watt of
| energy. To take legal action for such a trivial "offense"
| is beyond ridiculous.
| hiddencost wrote:
| You're very confused. And posting incorrect statements
| all over this thread. If you're excited about questions
| of legality, maybe you'd be interested in attending law
| school to learn more about the topic?
|
| Enforcement and legality are separate things. Many people
| break the law under the assumption they will not be
| prosecuted. They're still breaking the law.
|
| That's OK. But it's worth knowing because eventually
| enough of those small choices add up to something that
| does trigger the laws attention.
|
| There's another reason this behavior might elicit
| enforcement: in many cases, failure to enforce property
| rights can become grounds for losing rights or being
| unable to enforce them in other contexts. So a large
| company may have an incentive to go after someone like
| this just to make sure that other people don't start
| doing more ambitious versions of this.
| 127361 wrote:
| Your stance here is ridiculous. Common sense says it's
| wrong to arrest and/or prosecute people over such a
| trivial matter.
|
| So much for all your supposed "justifications" for doing
| so. Have you completely lost all sense of proportionality
| here? Or has the legal system gone completely bonkers,
| then? Or are you trying to gaslight me?
|
| We're talking about 0.1 watts of electricity being
| "stolen" at most.
| Kab1r wrote:
| I love this so much because there's no contact, but because the
| voltage on the power line is so high, the inductive power is not
| only measurable, but significant. I have no idea what the
| legality of stealing power wirelessly (potentially obliviously),
| but it is undoubtedly cool.
| littlestymaar wrote:
| I couldn't find it, but I think French courts have a
| jurisprudence on this already (unless it's an internal urban
| legend from EDF, who knows): one day a EDF (French electricity
| producer) who was living close to a power line built an
| "antenna" like this to harvest electricity, and he bragged
| about it. EDF sued, and the defendant claimed that he was just
| collecting electromagnetic waves that were leaving anyway, but
| EDF and the experts summoned by the court argued that it wasn't
| the case and that he was in fact draining power. He was found
| guilty because he was doing that on purpose, and even if he
| believed it was doing no harm, he should have checked
| beforehand especially since he was working in the field he
| should have been able to know or at least get the information
| about what was going on if he checked.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Very likely an offence in some jurisdictions as " _abstracting
| electricity_ " [1], which is a form of theft.
|
| There may be no physical contact but induction still causes
| energy to be extracted from the line.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstracting_electricity
| 127361 wrote:
| I doubt anyone would prosecute over it, it would get thrown
| out of court because it's so petty? No worse than littering,
| etc.
| ysofunny wrote:
| depends on how much the energy stolen is worth?
| masklinn wrote:
| Also probably depends whether you brag about it or not.
| If you wilfully undermine plausible deniability the
| network's custodian may not be _able_ to ignore you even
| if they don't care because of the precedent it creates.
| If you start hewing close to civil disobedience you also
| bring more attention to yourself you would not otherwise
| warrant.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| There is a housing estate near me that has these lines going
| right through it. I often wonder what the impact of that is on
| the people that live there.
| hulitu wrote:
| The main advantage is that you don't need to pay for
| electricity for lighting.
|
| Now the disadvantages: most electrical equipment and the
| human body are not build to function in a continous (as in
| always present) electromagnetic field.
| ta1243 wrote:
| > Now the disadvantages: most electrical equipment and the
| human body are not build to function in a continous (as in
| always present) electromagnetic field.
|
| They literally are. The Earth has a continuous magnetic
| field, and has done for the entire history of the human
| race
| fragmede wrote:
| yes and we'd better be grateful for it - it acts as a
| shield against cosmic radiation and charged particles
| from the Sun and the Van Allen belt.
| saiya-jin wrote:
| You can't live without salt. Too much of it will kill you
| quickly. Why is it so hard to understand that both such
| statements can be true?
| ta1243 wrote:
| There was a lot of talk about a link between people living
| near high voltage lines and leukaemia back in the 90s. There
| have been various studies which have a correlation, but I
| don't believe anyone has managed to find a causation.
|
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7460-large-study-
| link...
| retrac wrote:
| The correlation is most likely that, power lines are
| unsightly and people don't want to live near them, so it's
| actually measuring socioeconomic status.
|
| Some sort of electrostatic attraction of pollutants is
| another idea that gets floated.
| weinzierl wrote:
| During the Dot-com bubble, I remember a startup in Germany that
| placed boxes under high-voltage transmission lines to measure the
| current and sold that data to analysts.
|
| Never heard of them again, so I guess in the long run it was
| either cheaper to buy that data.
| Thri4895o wrote:
| Network frequency changes and fluctuates around 50hz. This
| change is random and unique. It is also captured on video/audio
| recording as background hum.
|
| This data is quite valuable. You can reconstruct exact time
| (and region) when any video was taken.
| 127361 wrote:
| The police keep track of this, and it can be used to validate
| audio recording evidence.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_network_frequency_a.
| ..
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38161677
|
| https://datethis.app/
| 7952 wrote:
| There is a lot of interest at the moment in monitoring lines.
| The capacity of a line can change due to things like weather
| conditions. The capacity is rated based on a conservative set
| of assumptions. Sensors mean that they could send more power
| safely. This could help connect more renewable power.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38983886
|
| https://electrek.co/2023/12/07/heimdall-power-meteomatics-
| gr...
| idiotsecant wrote:
| You can get all that data and more for free now on most
| interchange websites.
| DamonHD wrote:
| The various EU transparency laws/directives may mean that such
| data is freely published via ENTSO-E or similar...
| 127361 wrote:
| People on that forum are trying to call this "stealing", which is
| ridiculous. This involves less that 1 watt of power. The law
| should not concern itself with trifles. It's more of a health and
| safety issue than any "theft".
|
| They don't seem to get the nuance of the situation and can only
| see it in terms of black and white and following "the rules".
| I've personally seen this behavior a lot in the amateur radio
| community, where people were harassed or threatened for breaking
| some minor rule.
|
| You should see what hooligans in Belarus and Russia get up to,
| now _that_ is a legitimate problem:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4zO2gB70ps
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqRT7J86rco
| ysofunny wrote:
| people think copying files can also be stealing which is even
| dumber
|
| love those crazy russian youtubers, they're always so
| reckless... they're fun to watch from a safe distance
| tomohawk wrote:
| If you attach a load to an electrical line, then you are
| transferring power from the line for your use. This power is
| then no longer available for paying customers to use.
|
| The load in question here is an inductive load, coupled through
| the air to the transmission line through well known physical
| principles.
|
| If caught, you could be charged with theft for sure.
|
| This is regardless of what people are doing or not doing in
| Belarus or Russia.
| tankenmate wrote:
| If you harvest loss that was happening anyway then it isn't
| theft; you can't be charged for theft for something someone
| else threw away.
| dieortin wrote:
| That's not really true, you're not harvesting "loss". When
| you use that electromagnetic field to induce a current,
| you're creating another electromagnetic field that opposes
| the first one, and which resists the current in the high
| voltage line.
|
| I'm not saying this is stealing, but it's certainly not
| "harvesting loss".
| 127361 wrote:
| Well the ground is creating that exact opposing electric
| field anyway. If trees were planted to the same height as
| the wire, then the loss to the electric company is the
| same.
|
| He's just in effect increasing the height of the ground
| slightly and tapping the potential difference. You might
| as well park a car underneath it, attach a wire between
| the body and ground, and get same or better results,
| because the surface area is larger (capacitively
| coupled).
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| It's not, you're increasing the total resistance felt by
| the line. There is no free energy.
| ta1243 wrote:
| > you can't be charged for theft for something someone else
| threw away.
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13037808
|
| A woman has admitted handling stolen goods after being
| accused of taking potato waffles, pies, and 100 packets of
| ham from a bin outside of a Tesco Express in Essex. But if
| something is thrown away, when is it illegal to take it?
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53724620
|
| Getting all your cardboard recycled may often seem like a
| pain, but there is big money to be made from all this so-
| called "beige gold". And sadly this is attracting criminals
| around the world.
|
| Thieves are making a fortune from stealing used cardboard
| that's been left out to be recycled, and selling it on.
| This means that legitimate recycling firms, and the city
| and other local authorities who take a cut from their
| sales, are missing out on tens of millions.
| 127361 wrote:
| Yes, caught for "stealing" 63 milliwatts of electricity, from
| charging the 88uF capacitor in that video from 426V to 489V
| over a period of 40 seconds.
|
| If that was running all year round it would consume 0.6kWh of
| electricity, which is probably capacitive losses to the
| surroundings and would be lost anyway.
|
| If it ever got to court, it would be thrown out instantly.
|
| This is the same mentality behind thousands of bullshit
| complaints to the FCC by radio amateurs because someone broke
| a petty rule somewhere, and it's why I want nothing to do
| with the amateur radio hobby at all. The vast majority of
| them the FCC ignores.
| Simulacra wrote:
| Inductively. You're not actually splicing into the line, or
| damaging the equipment to retrieve the power. It would be
| the same as putting a rain barrel to capture water runoff
| from a public road.
| dmd wrote:
| which is, in fact, illegal in several western us states
| kernelbugs wrote:
| I'd imagine illegal for environmental reasons, however,
| rather than financial losses of some other party.
| dmd wrote:
| You would imagine wrongly, then. (At least in Colorado.)
| jacoblambda wrote:
| Eh it's both. Rain water collects through the watershed
| and somebody owns the rights to that water.
|
| So you can get into some really funky situations where
| you are "technically" stealing that water if you improve
| rainwater->groundwater retention on your property and as
| a result either have to dismantle the retention
| mechanisms or have to pay out damages.
| devsda wrote:
| Interesting. Do these rights also come with
| responsibilities ?
|
| If the rights owner fails to collect their water in a
| timely manner( like heavy rains or blockages leading to
| water logging or flooding), should they be held
| responsible in any way ?
| voakbasda wrote:
| Water rights must be used in accordance with the terms
| dictated by the State when they were assigned. It's
| literally "use it or lose it".
|
| I finished building three ponds on my farm in 2022. The
| permits dictated the times of year that I could store
| water (vs letting the flow pass unimpeded), what I can do
| with the stored water, and the size and function of
| bypass channels. If they decide it's necessary, they can
| tell me to install flow meters and depth gauges.
|
| In times of drought, they unilaterally can order me to
| leave my ponds empty and let all water pass through,
| because older water right holders get precedence. They
| can hold me accountable if I do not follow their terms,
| up to and including revoking my permits.
|
| Honestly, I'm not really sure it was worth the effort and
| cost, because the whole point was to improve water
| security on my property... but I have no meaningful
| control. It's completely bonkers, because my ponds have
| unquestionably improved the watershed's ability to store
| water. If anything, they should be paying farmers to
| build more small ponds like mine.
|
| In other words, these government regulations pose a
| significant impediment to solving the growing water
| crisis. No sane person would go near the process, which I
| now understand is why most of the ponds in this area were
| built without permits.
| 0xcde4c3db wrote:
| Not financial, but it's essentially considered to be
| stealing water from the river basin, which is allocated
| by an old agreement [1]. I don't know the details, but
| I've heard that this has been relaxed quite a bit in
| recent years, with collection limits replacing outright
| bans in several jurisdictions.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_River_Compact
| vajrabum wrote:
| Yes, somebody owns the water rights which are separable
| from and often senior to land ownership. The details of
| how that works varies quite a bit from state to state and
| jurisdiction to jurisdiction and may be spelled out in
| your property deed.
| dymk wrote:
| Your house is attached to the grid via transformers, and
| gets all its power via an inductive coupling. Trying
| reason that it's inductive, and therefore a form of power
| transfer that is not stealing does not follow.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| I'm interested. Can you give examples ? "... bullshit
| complaints to the FCC by radio amateurs ..."
| 127361 wrote:
| I can't be bothered to search for it.
| cf1241290841 wrote:
| This isnt a one way argument. If this is stealing so is
| pollution reducing throughput sabotage. Prosecuting one but
| not the other is a value judgement which gets us to the
| nature of laws. They are not an end in itself and often times
| so stupid they get changed when unintended implications
| become clear.
|
| edit: Someone posted
| https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/23799/has-
| anyon... a bit down with the following comment that
| highlights this quite well.
|
| >At least here in germany, it is unclear whether "stealing"
| via induction is really stealing, the corresponding law
| explicitly states that a conductor is necessary. There have
| been lots of urban myths about it being forbidden, but the
| fact is that near lots of high power mid wave radio stations
| you automatically "steal" lots of power, e.g. just by having
| a neon tube installed in the "correct" direction.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I think what drives some of the comments that it is illegal is
| a little bit of righteous indignation. "How dare you get free
| electricity, that's illegal because I'm not getting free
| electricity." It's kind of fake moral outrage
| 127361 wrote:
| Also power trips (especially by radio hams) and
| territoriality (impinging on "their" spectrum). It really is
| animal behavior there, people are supposed to react better
| than that when such trivial "offenses" happen.
|
| If there's deliberate high powered jamming going on, it's a
| completely different matter.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I can understand that, I'm a ham, if someone was doing
| something that was interfering with my station then I would
| be unhappy... Especially if it was deliberate. If it's not
| intentional, then, I really don't have much room to
| complain. I should better insulate.
| toss1 wrote:
| Ha! Fun videos, tho quite a problem indeed!
|
| Well, there is this cool physics/art installation of 1301
| fluorescent tubes being lit by high-voltage lines [0].
|
| There is the story I heard about early in the history of long-
| distance high-tension lines someone building an inductive coil
| to harvest electricity, and getting convicted of theft, which
| seem legit, since it is coupling with the lines and pulling
| more power than the grasses & ground would pull. There are also
| various references available online to cases, but the readily
| available ones don't seem to link to any court case (e.g.,
| [1]).
|
| I saw some back-of-the-envelope calculations about it being on
| the scale of 25 millivolts/mile, so you'd need quite a coil to
| get anything more useful than powering a bulb. Anyone with
| better calculations or actual measurements?
|
| [0] https://jimonlight.com/2009/03/01/field-by-richard-box/
|
| [1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/23799/has-
| anyon...
| pueblito wrote:
| Don't click that first link
| cf1241290841 wrote:
| Explanation would be beneficial. Without you just make it
| more likely that someone does.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| If in your jurisdiction there is a law against this then it is
| useful to be aware of it. This is not passing judgement, this
| is being informed. Then, you make your own informed decision
| and can argue your case if you get caught.
|
| I suppose that one angle is not that one person is extracting a
| very small amount, it is that if you allow it then everyone can
| do the same.
| 127361 wrote:
| Then they can start cracking down on the problem if it
| becomes widespread. But not when it isn't.
|
| When the punishment far exceeds the loss caused by the
| "crime" then it is absolutely unfair, it undermines the rule
| of law itself.
|
| Just being arrested over it could be considered punishment
| itself. Especially if it's a young person who gets into
| trouble, it is traumatic for them. It is also sending the
| message that the system itself is unjust, and he/she might
| not think twice before committing a real crime, e.g. real
| theft or fraud when he/she grows up.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _When the punishment far exceeds the loss caused by the
| "crime" then it is absolutely unfair, it undermines the
| rule of law itself._
|
| What about punishment as a deterrent? People can commit a
| crime many times and only get caught once. Should they be
| punished only up to the cost of the one crime they were
| caught doing?
| throwup238 wrote:
| It's not one crime, it's all of them. The cost of
| enforcing one instance is more than the cost of all
| infractions, by all people. Enforcing such laws would
| turn the law into a farce.
| tantalor wrote:
| Joanna: [Confused] So you're stealing?
|
| Peter Gibbons: Ah no, you don't understand. It's very
| complicated. It's, uh, it's aggregate, so I'm talking about
| fractions of a penny here. And over time they add up to a lot.
| throwup238 wrote:
| And it woulda worked too if not for that pesky red stapler!
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| 1. It is stealing
|
| 2. Its a tiny amount of power
|
| Both can be true. Taking a single grape at the supermarket is
| illegal but no one would arrest you for it.
| samstave wrote:
| "Stealing"
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-
| room/blog/2022/10/26/the...
|
| And those are just the ones that are so obvious the POTUS
| needed to make a statement.
|
| Corporations _steal_ trillions through dark patterns,
| intentiona obfuscation, mailicious marketing, price fixing,
| collusion, fraud etc.
|
| Every piece of personal data shared between every online
| entity I have no relation to, or awareness of - is stealing
| from me.
|
| _stealing_ , in this case is a broad, vulgar term.
|
| If you don't like stealing - then you wont get any place in
| successful business it would seem, based on the observable,
| documented, litigated and governmental precedents throughout
| history.
| 127361 wrote:
| It depends on who's doing the theft. If it's a high status
| organization or individual they get away with it, including
| those behind the 2008 financial crisis. If it's a low
| status individual, they get put behind bars. It's a
| dominance hierarchy and those at the top hold all the
| cards.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| "One person steals so other people stealing is ok" seems
| like a difficult moral position to defend.
| weinzierl wrote:
| _" Taking a single grape at the supermarket is illegal but no
| one would arrest you for it."_
|
| Petty crime can have serious consequences regardless. In
| Germany we had a famous case, where a supermarket cashier
| redeemed a deposit receipt worth 1.30 EUR a customer had
| forgotten.
|
| She was let go without notice for that and only got her job
| back after fighting through three instances. Only the highest
| court found the termination disproportionate and only because
| she had been working this job for 31 years.There was never a
| debate if this was stealing or not, just if the termination
| proportionate .
| bombcar wrote:
| It can have serious consequences even (especially) if
| ignored.
|
| If every customer slurped one grape, eventually there would
| be no grapes. Death by a thousand paper cuts and tragedy of
| the commons.
| foobarian wrote:
| The HV lines run over someone's property, which implies there
| is some sort of contract in place, that presumably spells out
| what the property owner is allowed or not allowed to do. I'm
| not sure if this would be any kind of criminal issue instead
| of a private dispute.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Seems like they've never driven over the speed limit
| Metacelsus wrote:
| Lol, the name of that channel ("Elektryka Prad Nie Tyka") is a
| Polish saying, "electricity doesn't touch the electrician". I
| guess these hooligans weren't electricians!
| Someone wrote:
| > People on that forum are trying to call this "stealing",
| which is ridiculous
|
| I strongly disagree. Many jurisdictions call it theft to tap
| off electricity, even though no electrons are taken
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_theft,
| https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/power-
| th...)
|
| I would think that using a transformer so that one need not
| physically connect a wire wouldn't necessarily change that (it
| would if the law in question mentions that connection a
| conductor is needed)
|
| This is a sort of transformer (a very bad one, but still one),
| so I think many jurisdictions still would call it stealing.
| Whether they would think it worthy of prosecution is a
| different question.
| teo_zero wrote:
| I think the GP was making a point about the _dimension_ of
| the business. Even if it 's theft, stealing a mere watt
| should be negligible.
| graphe wrote:
| Those fences could be used for electrofarming.
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2304360-can-electric-fi...
|
| tl;dr
|
| Electricity kills all bugs and insects good and bad, lowering
| pesticide use. They also increase water evaporation, forcing
| plants to grow faster.
| WIlliamLove wrote:
| So, what about the electricity affecting something like a
| cochlear implant, would this be considered an environmental
| impact for deaf ppl via pollution?
| tomohawk wrote:
| An artist used this effect to create a display of fluorescent
| light tubes.
|
| http://www.infoniac.com/environment/artist-created-network-o...
|
| This exam question is based on a news story about a farmer using
| a coil of wire to power his farm.
|
| https://users.physics.unc.edu/~deardorf/phys25/rwp/exam1rwps...
| Simulacra wrote:
| That's so cool! I think it could absolutely be harvested. Of
| course, the government will probably pass a law or regulation
| that you can't stand or sit, or have any whatever close to the
| lines, but for now, I don't see really any reason why you can't
| do this. It's like any byproduct that is being actively
| discarded.
|
| I want to try this and see if it could charge a battery.
| jokabrink wrote:
| A really nice example. I tracked the data acquisition and fit an
| ordinary charging curve. For anyone interested, a 25 line script
| w/ data is here: https://pastebin.com/R0b1XSV0
|
| Some insights:
|
| - The peak DC voltage seems to be around 1.15 kV.
|
| - The time constant is around 440 s. If you were to assume a
| simple RC-circuit with a constant voltage source (which it
| probably isnt), you would end at around 100 Ohm for the resistor.
|
| - The start of the charging curve is not at the same time as in
| the video indicating that some voltage was already present from
| experiments before the video
|
| Also, I am pretty sure it is not inductive coupling but
| capacitive because of several reasons:
|
| - It doesn't look like a coax cable but more like an ordinary
| thick wire.
|
| - I am pretty sure he didn't ground the cable at the far end and
| thus did not create a loop necessary for induction. And if he
| were, inductive coupling with ground in between would result in a
| very large voltage drop - If it were inductive: A single loop
| covering that little area would need way more turns than just
| one.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| They said they collected 36J which is around 0.01 watt-hour, so
| this is not something you'd be using to power your house.
|
| There's stories of farmers building coils to harvest power from
| powerlines to run their house or barn, but I'd be surprised if
| they were true unless the coils were built very close to the
| powerline.
|
| https://www.industrytap.com/electromagnetic-harvesters-free-...
| hermannj314 wrote:
| Can we create a lora network running along these? You've got free
| power and almost always line of sight.
| retrac wrote:
| With the right conditions underneath AC power lines, you can
| light (dimly) a standard fluorescent tube by, literally,
| grounding one end of it.
|
| Gets turned into an art project now and then:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/bristol/content/madeinbristol/2004/02/...
|
| If the current is indeed enough to cause the tube to glow,
| touching the air-end of the tube with your finger will increase
| the coupling with the overhead lines (you're salt water - good
| conductor) and the brightness will increase. Personally, I don't
| like to walk under HV power lines. I know it's safe. And yet, so
| very unsettling to think of the sea of power being waded through.
| RecycledEle wrote:
| While I appreciate anyone experimenting with anything, I will
| caution that some jurisdictions consider any harvesting of waste
| energy from power transmissions lines to be a serious crime.
|
| I would NOT do this in my hometown.
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