You will NEVER see a bird land on an energized transmission line 69KV or greater

[Halbhh]

And for the final, and toughest question, and if you can answer this one, then you will have solved everything; what is the reason why the pilot and the lineman have to wear metal suits while bonded to a phase of a 500 line, but birds don't?

Sure. We want better protection than birds have against random unexpected things that could happen, like an unexpected path for current flow, or lightning strike.

One would not usually need it.

It's a metal enclosure, which protects against you becoming part of a current flow path.

Analogy: it's like having an air bag in your car. You don't usually need it even if you are driving fast or driving in rain.
Usually you don't need it. But you want it there in case the unexpected happens. In that rare moment it could save your life.

My own air bags have never deployed, not over 150,000 miles or more. But I'd pay to have them if I didn't already.

 

[Halbhh]

The simplest answer is your screwdriver is largely made from metal, birds are not.

The more technical answer is when you bring your screwdriver close to the wire you have two conductive materials, the screwdriver and the wire with an air gap in between; you have created a capacitor which arcs due to the dielectric failure of the air gap.

I explained previously why a bird does not have an electric potential.
The reason why your screwdriver does have an electric potential is the valence or outer most electrons in metals become delocalized and are free to move. This is why metals are highly conductive.
These free electrons behave as point charge sources which are affected by the external electromagnetic field from the wire, hence an electric potential exists.
By comparison a bird which is made out of organic material does not have delocalized electrons and instead are tightly held together by covalent bonding.
As explained previously the only way a bird can have an electric potential is for it to become polarized in the electric field which doesn’t occur.

Since a large potential difference exists between your screwdriver and the wire the air gap undergoes dielectric breakdown and arcing occurs.

It's helpful and clear I think to talk terms of pathways for current flow, and resistance. The bird has less resistance than air. I think the bird has electric potential while on the wire (if you measured with a voltmeter), though a smaller amount than the wire.

Here's a useful link of how to explain clearly:
MIT School of Engineering | » How do birds sit on high-voltage power lines without getting electrocuted?

I think his way of talking about flow path is much more clear than most ways of explaining.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Sure. We want better protection than birds have against random unexpected things that could happen, like an unexpected path for current flow, or lightning strike.

One would not usually need it.

It's a metal enclosure, which protects against you becoming part of a current flow path.

Analogy: it's like having an air bag in your car. You don't usually need it even if you are driving fast or driving in rain.
Usually you don't need it. But you want it there in case the unexpected happens. In that rare moment it could save your life.

My own air bags have never deployed, not over 150,000 miles or more. But I'd pay to have them if I didn't already.

That's an interesting hypothesis.

...I'm just not sure what we're considering "random unexpected things", and why we would need to be concerned with them.

The arc from a screwdriver occurs every single time, and the arc from the wand of a helolicopter occurs every single time. I'm not aware of any rare or random situations that could take place on an energized line, that the metal suit would be in preparation for.

...Because no matter the voltage or current, as your argument suggests, a bird on a wire is always a bird on a wire, and is safe from any level of electricity, including a lightening strike hypothetically, because the conductor is more conductive.

...So the purpose of the metal suit seems mysterious under this pretext.

 

[Landon Caeli]

...I'm sticking with my own hypothesis, from my experiences. My hypothesis is as follows:

The sharper the difference in potential, the more violent the exchange of electrons becomes.

 

[Ophiolite]

...So the purpose of the metal suit seems mysterious under this pretext.

I take it you have had no involvement with court cases where corporate deficiency in providing adequate employee safety protection is alleged.

 

[Halbhh]

...I'm sticking with my own hypothesis, from my experiences. My hypothesis is as follows:

The sharper the difference in potential, the more violent the exchange of electrons becomes.

What you stated is simply correct, and part of the standard theory, the remainder is that current flow also depends on the amount of total resistance over the total distance involved, and air normally has high resistance, most of the time, until that resistance is overcome. Therefore, normally, a bird is perfectly safe on a high voltage live line, because almost no current flow through the bird happens since it has nowhere to go past the edges of the bird, unable normally to break through the resistance of a significant air gap to the next conducting surface.

 

[Halbhh]

...I'm sticking with my own hypothesis, from my experiences. My hypothesis is as follows:

The sharper the difference in potential, the more violent the exchange of electrons becomes.

Lightning happens when the charge difference, electric potential, gets so high it finally overcomes the resistance of the air and a current begins, which itself quickly creates a low resistance pathway, and boom, the charge difference is freed to flow all at once.

https://scijinks.gov/lightning/

 

[GirdYourLoins]

That's an interesting hypothesis.

...I'm just not sure what we're considering "random unexpected things", and why we would need to be concerned with them.

The arc from a screwdriver occurs every single time, and the arc from the wand of a helolicopter occurs every single time. I'm not aware of any rare or random situations that could take place on an energized line, that the metal suit would be in preparation for.

...Because no matter the voltage or current, as your argument suggests, a bird on a wire is always a bird on a wire, and is safe from any level of electricity, including a lightening strike hypothetically, because the conductor is more conductive.

...So the purpose of the metal suit seems mysterious under this pretext.

Electricity will always take the path of least resistance. In the case of a bird on the wire the path of least resistance is along the wire rather than through the bird which has more resistance and is a longer path. In the case of the metal suit, called a Faraday suit based on the faraday cage, the path of least resistance is through the suit which conducts the electricity.

 

[Landon Caeli]

I take it you have had no involvement with court cases where corporate deficiency in providing adequate employee safety protection is alleged.

Yes, but safety from what, is the question here.

 

[Landon Caeli]

What you stated is simply correct, and part of the standard theory, the remainder is that current flow also depends on the amount of total resistance over the total distance involved, and air normally has high resistance, most of the time, until that resistance is overcome. Therefore, normally, a bird is perfectly safe on a high voltage live line, because almost no current flow through the bird happens since it has nowhere to go past the edges of the bird, unable normally to break through the resistance of a significant air gap to the next conducting surface.

What about this possibility:

...In the above diagram, imagine the bird being the bulb on the right, and the conductor being the bulb on the left... Now imagine the bar between the bulbs being about 4 inches of air.

You might now be able to see, how a Conducter with a super-massive high potential would produce an extremely sharp, and 'violent' shift of electrons from the bulb on the right, as soon as the air is no longer able to stand in the way (about 4 in.)... Imagine the electrons being sucked, so violently, right out of the bird's foot, across the air, that it leaves behind a tiny open wound, about the size of a pinhole, near or around the birds talon.

...This is what I predict would actually happen in a 'real life' scenario. And I predict that birds actively avoid this scenario from occurring by using some form of sensory that we're not fully aware of.

 

[sjastro]

It's helpful and clear I think to talk terms of pathways for current flow, and resistance. The bird has less resistance than air. I think the bird has electric potential while on the wire (if you measured with a voltmeter), though a smaller amount than the wire.

Here's a useful link of how to explain clearly:
MIT School of Engineering | » How do birds sit on high-voltage power lines without getting electrocuted?

I think his way of talking about flow path is much more clear than most ways of explaining.

My reply was based on why a screwdriver near a power line results in arcing while a bird at a similar distance does not.
This is a capacitor issue where the dielectric breakdown of the air gap is the point of interest.

 

[sjastro]

What about this possibility:
View attachment 299956
...In the above diagram, imagine the bird being the bulb on the right, and the conductor being the bulb on the left... Now imagine the bar between the bulbs being about 4 inches of air.

You might now be able to see, how a Conducter with a super-massive high potential would produce an extremely sharp, and 'violent' shift of electrons from the bulb on the right, as soon as the air is no longer able to stand in the way (about 4 in.)... Imagine the electrons being sucked, so violently, right out of the bird's foot, across the air, that it leaves behind a tiny open wound, about the size of a pinhole, near or around the birds talon.

...This is what I predict would actually happen in a 'real life' scenario. And I predict that birds actively avoid this scenario from occurring by using some form of sensory that we're not fully aware of.

Nice piece of science fiction.
Remember this graph?

​

 

[Halbhh]

What about this possibility:
View attachment 299956
...In the above diagram, imagine the bird being the bulb on the right, and the conductor being the bulb on the left... Now imagine the bar between the bulbs being about 4 inches of air.

You might now be able to see, how a Conducter with a super-massive high potential would produce an extremely sharp, and 'violent' shift of electrons from the bulb on the right, as soon as the air is no longer able to stand in the way (about 4 in.)... Imagine the electrons being sucked, so violently, right out of the bird's foot, across the air, that it leaves behind a tiny open wound, about the size of a pinhole, near or around the birds talon.

...This is what I predict would actually happen in a 'real life' scenario. And I predict that birds actively avoid this scenario from occurring by using some form of sensory that we're not fully aware of.

As you've seen above from sjastro, a bird hasn't much electrical capacitance (one could approximate it as being close to zero) -- a bird doesn't have much ability to store charge. That's unlike a helicopter, which has some capacitance enough to matter, as the videos above show, so that it has to be equalized to the power line with a wand to transfer some charge until the helicopter is equalized and at the same potential.

Still, one could imagine having an even far higher (than high voltage power lines) voltage difference so that a bird body approaching close might get shocked enough from even the tiny amount of current flow that would happen until the bird reaches the same electric potential and such a zap in that scenario would be a shock that would cause the bird to flee, if it were alive. I don't know how high such a voltage would have to be. It might be so high it would break down air resistance over a large enough distance it could never be used in a power transmission line that is exposed. But that'd evidently be a far higher voltage than even the highest normally in transmission lines. How can I deduce that? Because if birds were getting even a small shock, they'd soon learn to avoid the existing lines, in order to avoid such shocks.

Also, interestingly, many birds at least are known to navigate magnetically, and of course high voltage AC power lines emit some alternating magnetic field (which does fall off rapidly with distance), so that one can stand under them with a 4 or 8 foot fluorescent bulb at night and see the bulb get activated some and emit some light. (I did that experiment very long ago, about age 25 or so -- fun)

 

[Landon Caeli]

Still, one could imagine having an even far higher (than high voltage power lines) voltage difference so that a bird body approaching close might get shocked enough from even the tiny amount of current flow that would happen until the bird reaches the same electric potential and such a zap in that scenario would be a shock that would cause the bird to flee, if it were alive. I don't know how high such a voltage would have to be.

It might be so high it would break down air resistance over a large enough distance it could never be used in a power transmission line that is exposed.

Don't you find it bizarre that nobody has published information on what level of a difference of potential, induction will occur across the air, and at what rate it occurs in proportion to both voltage and amperage combined?

...It seems like there's a whole arena of questions in regards to this electrical phenomena, that seems to be "disregarded", for some reason.

The big two-part question is this:
*At what numerical difference does the air become ionized between two ungrounded potentials..? How "vast" does that numerical difference need to be prior to the ionization of the air?*

Also, what role do hertz play in perpetuating this difference in potential?

 

[Halbhh]

Don't you find it bizarre that nobody has published information on what level of a difference of potential, induction will occur across the air, and at what rate it occurs in proportion to both voltage and amperage combined?

...It seems like there's a whole arena of questions in regards to this electrical phenomena, that seems to be "hushed up", for some reason.

The big two-part question is this:
*At what numerical difference does the air become ionized between two ungrounded potentials..? How "vast" does that numerical difference need to be prior to the ionization of the air?*

That's old stuff, but fun.
I'm on a smartphone and can't type much, but here's a video I just searched up

 

[Landon Caeli]

That's old stuff, but fun.
I'm on a smartphone and can't type much, but here's a video I just searched up

Interesting...

Something that might be useful in the study of how hertz, on a perpetually high voltage, high amperage high potential source of electricity, will react to a perpetually low-potential point in a vacuum -- Such as space.

Imagine if there are any potential uses for such an occurrence in space exploration. Perhaps that might be a good reason to delve into this currently non-useful electrical phenomena.

 

[Landon Caeli]

@sjastro, and @SelfSim, what do you suppose would be the effect of 500KV circuit in space, where there is no air? Would the arc be free to jump farther between the line and a capacitive material, or shorter, considering air is kind of insulation... Hypothetically.

I would imagine that in a vacuum, it would behave differently.

 

[Landon Caeli]

Essentially, what if we went to Mars' north pole, and created an extremely large generating station, and used satellites, surrounding Mars, as lower potential points, that gradually become lower and lower, directing an electric pathway across the *vacuum* of space, to Mars' South pole, where an extreme low potential point would be constructed (perhaps made of gold)?

...Would we have essentially created a magnetic field on Mars similar to earth's? To where life could one day reap the benefits, of a more proper atmosphere?

*think about it before answering*

Perhaps we also need a physicist, such as @Hans Blaster, to help out on this.

 

[Landon Caeli]

...And if it could work, we should name it the Caeli Effect, by all rights. Because the etymological roots of the name "Caeli" deal with space and constellations to begin with... And also, I thought of it.

Caeli definition and meaning | Collins English Dictionary

 

[sjastro]

What about this possibility:
View attachment 299956
...In the above diagram, imagine the bird being the bulb on the right, and the conductor being the bulb on the left... Now imagine the bar between the bulbs being about 4 inches of air.

You might now be able to see, how a Conducter with a super-massive high potential would produce an extremely sharp, and 'violent' shift of electrons from the bulb on the right, as soon as the air is no longer able to stand in the way (about 4 in.)... Imagine the electrons being sucked, so violently, right out of the bird's foot, across the air, that it leaves behind a tiny open wound, about the size of a pinhole, near or around the birds talon.

...This is what I predict would actually happen in a 'real life' scenario. And I predict that birds actively avoid this scenario from occurring by using some form of sensory that we're not fully aware of.

Since you didn’t respond to my post I will answer it for you.

The graph tells you the potential of an object increases as its distance from the source of the electric field decreases.

Using your screwdriver as an example, as you move the screwdriver closer to the wire, it becomes increasingly polarized as more unlocalized electrons are repelled by the electric field of the electrons in the wire leaving a positive charge on one side of the screwdriver and a negative charge on the other.

This explains not only why the screwdriver has a potential but also why it increases with decreasing distance.
For arcing to occur the potential of the screwdriver must greatly exceed the voltage in the wire as a large potential difference is required for dielectric breakdown of the air gap to occur.

Since it appears you believe a bird should behave like your screwdriver lets assume that for the time being.
The bird must also have a much greater potential than the wire so it corresponds to the bulb on the left of your diagram not on the right as you think.
This leads to another problem as your diagram shows the current which is composed of positive ions flow from a high to low potential while the electrons flow from low to high potential.
Hence the electrons are not being “sucked out” from the bird as you put it but from the wire.

As I have mentioned on previous occasions a bird is not like your screwdriver.
It is not conductive like a metal hence it is not polarized in the electric field of the wire as the electrons are not delocalized and are held in place by covalent bonding.