In article , Paul Burridge
writes:

I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

Simple.

Electrons come into your house (supplied by the utility) and then they go back
out.

You don't buy them - you just pay rent for the time you have them.

73 de Jim, N2EY

In article ,
N2EY wrote:

I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

Simple.

Electrons come into your house (supplied by the utility) and then they go back
out.

You don't buy them - you just pay rent for the time you have them.

Well, you have 'em in your house whether they're being pumped around,
or not.

It's more like a turnpike - you pay for the amount of distance driven,
times the number of vehicles that you drive. Doesn't matter whether
you're driving north, south, or north-and-then-south again. You
drive, you burn gas, you pay the toll.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Paul Burridge wrote:

On 12 Nov 2004 16:34:12 GMT, (Troglodite) wrote:



The way it was explained to me, the electric company sends you the stuff on one
wire, but it goes right back to them on the other wire. You should only be
paying a small rental fee, as you don't get to keep any of it, and they keep
re-selling the same electricity back to you and everyone else.

Doug Moore KB9TMY



Thanks, Doug. I'm glad *someone* here has some sense!
And another thing: many of us here in Britland use earthed neutrals,
so the power co. gets it's current back via earth alone. I don't mind
my own current being returned via my own garden, but why the hell
should everybody else's' current pass through my land en route back to
the power station? If the telephone company wanted to run a line over
my property, they'd have to pay me for the privilege (it's called a
"wayleave") but the power co. are paying me *nothing* for all the
other customers' earth returns running via my garden. What a rip off!



Paul; You could drive ground rods into opposite corners of your property
and extract some of the power from the earth and run your house for
nothing at all! In fact If you dig a deep enough trench in the middle,
you could isolate the ground and get a bigger return current!

--
Joe Leikhim K4SAT
"The RFI-EMI-GUY"

The Lost Deep Thoughts By: Jack Handey
Before a mad scientist goes mad, there's probably a time
when he's only partially mad. And this is the time when he's
going to throw his best parties.

Paul Burridge wrote in message . ..
The power company run a line to my house. They supply me with
electricity. This amounts to a 230V, 65A facility at the distribution
board in a cupboard under the stairs. I run all my stuff from that
board. The board contains several RCBOs that trip-out in the event of
any leakage current being sensed. If current in = current out; they're
happy and won't trip. Because they don't trip out, I conclude I don't
use any current.

Two things flow along wires: charge and energy. The energy flows fast,
while the charges flow slowly. The charges flow in a complete circle
(you don't use any up,) while the energy is absorbed by your appliances.

OK, here's the big question: which one is the electricity?

If an electric current is a flow of electricity, then "electricity" is
not energy, and the utility companies neither produce nor sell any
electricity.

It all depends on how we define the word "electricity." And unfortunately
the reference books don't agree with each other. Some books follow
the scientists of old, and define electricity as charge (so a quantity of
electricity is measured in coulombs, and a flow of electricity is measured
in amperes.) Other reference books ignore that definition, and instead
they insist that electricity is energy... so a flow of electricity is
measured in watts, not amps.


The voltage supplied is 230VAC RMS. Since this is alternating between
equal positive and negative half-cycles, the average level of this
voltage supply is zero.
I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

The path for electric current is CIRCULAR. For every bit of charge that
the electric companies force into your appliances, an equal amount of
charge goes back out through the other wire. The current is also
oscillating (the charges don't actually flow, instead they vibrate
back and forth over extremely tiny distances.)

On the other hand, the path for electrical energy is one way. The
electric companies send electromagnetic energy over enormous distances.
It's this energy which your appliances consume. Unfortunately for
our definition of "electricity," this energy is composed of electric and
magnetic fields, and it travels in the space surrounding the wires.
Do we really want to state that electricity is made of EM fields?
Do we really want to say that no electricity travels inside of wires,
but instead it travels in the space outside? If we say that electricity
is a form of energy, that's the same as saying that electricity is
just some travelling waves of electromagnetic field.

Possible solution: never use the word electricity at all. If you
want to say that electrical energy flows along a circuit, then say
exactly that. If you want to talk about flows of charge, then
speak of charge and not "electricity." As long as we never mention
the word "electricity," then amperes and watts are no longer mistaken
for each other, and we can get on with explaining the joules and
coulombs in ways that make sense.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:56:34 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 13:42:19 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:

The power company run a line to my house. They supply me with
electricity. This amounts to a 230V, 65A facility at the distribution
board in a cupboard under the stairs. I run all my stuff from that
board. The board contains several RCBOs that trip-out in the event of
any leakage current being sensed. If current in = current out; they're
happy and won't trip. Because they don't trip out, I conclude I don't
use any current.
The voltage supplied is 230VAC RMS. Since this is alternating between
equal positive and negative half-cycles, the average level of this
voltage supply is zero.
I use no current and they effectively supply no voltage. Why do I get
billed for electricity usage when I clearly can't have used any?

You don't get billed for current, you get billed for energy - in the
UK the measure is the kilowatt hour. Multiply your voltage by your
current instant by instant, take the average (gives you power) and
multiply that by the duration in hours and you have your consumption.



Er, ????

You get billed for "Power Consumed" which is covered under the
umbrella of "Energy". Now POWER is consumed when a voltage potential
causes a current to flow in a circuit. If that circuit happens to be
through a heater or refrigerator then CURRENT flows. Since the supply
voltage is constant (or should be) then the load requirement
determines the current which flows and in some cases it will be small
and in others it will be large. Now since CURRENT x VOLTAGE = POWER,
you do get charged for CURRENT usage and the amount you get charged
varies dependant upon how much current flows and for how long.

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:09:35 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 16:48:00 GMT, (Don
Pearce) wrote:

Aww c'mon - if you multiply a positive voltage by a positive current
you get positive power. If you multiply negative voltage by negative
current you get positive power.

Sorry, Don, you obviously haven't thought this through. Since *all*
their current is returned, I cannot have used *any* of it. Whatever
the voltage might be, multiplying it by zero Amps still gives zero
power!

Paul, perhaps you should be a politician...

What you are charged for is the use of the current as it flows through
your appliances etc. Because the current flows in your appliances it
places a load on their generating plant. Because millions of houses
are also doing the same thing at the same time the load on the
generating plant is enormous and in order to supply the large amount
of current required by all users (yes, even though they do get it back
in the return feed), the generating plant has to be enormous itself.
Now, power stations aren't something you pick off a tree, they have to
be built and maintained and they consume "energy" in order to be able
to generate the large amount of current which flows.

Now even a dill can see that the cost of building and running the
plant has to be paid for and the cost of doing this is usually
amortised over a period of 15 or 20 years and after that it is pure
profit. So you are paying for the current which flows through your
systems to generate heat, cool and cook your food, run your stereo
etc, etc. Now despite your fallacious arguments about supply voltage
summing to zero and the supply authority getting all their current
back after having gone through your house, you can't argue that you
shouldn't be charged purely for no other reason than the law stating
the conservation of energy.

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but may only be changed
from one form to another."

The supply authority is changing one form of energy to another in
order to generate electrical energy and you are changing the energy
they supply into other forms required to generate heat, cooling etc in
your household. I can tell you this, converting energy from one form
to another doesn't come free and not even a politician would be stupid
enough to believe that it does.



Anyway - are you cleaning and refurbishing those amps before you give
them back?

Why should I? That's *their* job. I pay enough!

They wear out, you know.

You mean they like lose their charge after a while? That would make
sense as I've found as years have gone by, I've had to turn the
heating up more and more. The thieving *******s!

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 09:57:13 -0600, John Fields
wrote:

For a purely resistive load, since P = I²R, the sign of the current
going into the load gets squared, so that when it goes in negative it
comes out positive.

Seems like there's an opportunity for free energy kooks there.
Put positive and negative current in alternately, averaging zero,
but get all positive power. :-)

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:09:35 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:


What you are charged for is the use of the current as it flows through
your appliances etc.

You are not charged for using it. You are charged for BORROWING it.
Ian.
--

Ian Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:09:35 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:


What you are charged for is the use of the current as it flows through
your appliances etc.


You are not charged for using it. You are charged for BORROWING it.
Ian.

Yes, there's an extra fee if you keep any half cycles without returning
them on the following half cycles. It's called the Semi-Unused Cycle
Kinetic Electricity Return fee.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

In rec.radio.amateur.homebrew Roy Lewallen wrote:
Ian Jackson wrote:

On Fri, 12 Nov 2004 17:09:35 +0000, Paul Burridge
wrote:


What you are charged for is the use of the current as it flows through
your appliances etc.


You are not charged for using it. You are charged for BORROWING it.
Ian.

Yes, there's an extra fee if you keep any half cycles without returning
them on the following half cycles. It's called the Semi-Unused Cycle
Kinetic Electricity Return fee.

Roy Lewallen, W7EL

Be thankful that you have ac power coming to your home. Back in my days in
the old country, I used to walk 5 miles through snow and sludge in the
middle of winter to go to the next village to buy a couple of batteries so
that my father can listen to his nightly stories on our wireless. :P

--
Alf Beta.