1. Electricity likes to stay on the roof, particularly flat roof buildings. Being at the same potential, we can walk about on them without shock. See flat electricity.
2. Electricity tends to obey the laws of gravity and will track to earth when possible. See lightning. viii.
3. Our wall sockets are linked to the roof via a meter.
4. Cheap wall sockets without switches leak electricity into our rooms in the form of harmless dust. Always turn them off. Still, some will escape.
5. Electricity resists manipulation, sometimes burning the live connection on a plug sending it black. See iv.
6. Wasteful, the government encourages us to buy vacuum cleaners which collect the expensive electrical dust and pump it via the neutral wire back to the roof. A successful means of further taxation from sales and the need to clean needing an electric appliance.
7. ? Non electric dust is filtered out and collected for routine disposal. As if it was only electric!
8. There are many forms of electricity. Being electro magnetic, can travel at the speed of light and needs to be slowed down and modulated.
i. Sound electricity. Buzzers, horns, radios. By filtering electricity through variations of coils, capacitors, valves or transistors; use of a microphone which vibrates in an electro magnetic field, our music and voices can be relayed by wires or:
ii. Radio, computers and mobile phones, all requiring power direct or from stored electricity - batteries.
iii. Light electricity, coloured or black and white, static photos or video.
iv. Hot electricity, by deliberately resisting the natural flow.
v. Water electricity. Water and electricity have a fickle but sure relationship. Water conducts electricity very efficiently but must be isolated from dry electricity. Hence dry powder extinguishers.
vi. Flat electricity. As with the electrodust example, rechargeable batteries clog up and the flat electricity needs to be pumped out to allow room for fresh electricity. Perversely by an electric charger.
This is DC lecky, different from AC which uses the other wire to allow roof replenishment.
Somebody surely must have questioned sloping roofs. A water drop can be seen to scuttle across dry powders but the tiles eventually soak. However the water is channeled away into the drainage system to rivers, lakes etc and can be used to run turbines, hydroelectric generators to such a degree it can be pumped back up to the reservoir at offpeak. Not very efficient, we only use 4% of our rainfall.
Some evaporates to become clouds again. 45" of sea evaporates annually. Rain tops it up.
A medium sized cumulus can weigh up to 200 tons. A litre of air can hold over 20 grams of water before it becomes saturated.
A cumulo nimbus is a towering furnace of power from hell.
Moving water can generate a static charge in plastic and copper pipes. You may have noticed a green and yellow wire under your household sinks to prevent unpleasant shocks and sparks during ablutions.
vii. Static electricity, the stuff of children's balloons and jumpers; at this level child safe but talking of clouds bumping together:
viii. Lightning. A hefty wack of 30,000 amperes on tap, 1 gigawatt, the bane of tall trees and all weather fisherman, both a boon and curse from Mother Nature, an airborne tsunami we are yet to harness - as mentioned, we need to slow lecky down a lot.
Interestingly, lightning, depending on the potential difference, can also arc upwards into the clouds at lower potential. The ground, the anode being a tree or pole will burn, similar to the live side of a loosely wired plug.
Another misconception, lightning conductors. No strip of copper will carry 30,000 amps. It merely mimics the ground potential thus not attracting a strike unduly. If struck it minimises damage to a degree, the strike only lasting a second..
9. Electronics.
Witchcraft. No space or time to explain. Decipherable by the type of people who can translate Egyptian Pyramid walls or Sanskrit. Easier to explain petrol to a caveman.
Nevertheless, dead handy. Until:
10. EMP. Electromagnetic Pulse. Arriving by missile from who knows where? An airburst will not destructively harm us, barring pacemakers but will overload all the wiggly amps and render our washing machines, phones, computers and modern cars useless.
If it's looking dodgy, wrap an old phone with a sim card in aluminium foil. Put it in a metal biscuit tin. Do the same with cheap walkie talkies off ebay. Store info on USB drives and wrap up that old laptop.
Down the scrappy for an old dynamo, jack up the bike and connect the chain to the dynamo.............practise rubbing sticks together.
Electricity likes to stay on the roof, particularly flat roof buildings
How much power can we get from the sun?
This is a tremendous amount of energy—
44 quadrillion (4.4 x 10 16) watts of power to be exact. As a comparison, a large electric power plant produces about 1 billion (1 x 109) watts of power. A second from a lightning bolt. It would take 44 million such power plants to equal the energy coming from the Sun.
Presumably in all directions but it'll burn us on a summer's day.
I read once that a day's sun would power the whole planet for a year. Photosynthesis does OK.
Don't tell Miliband. Rather, on a stormy day, tell him it's on the church roof. Reeves is up there already, nicking the lead.
***