I’m trying to catch on to this photography thing, a hobby to which I’m relatively new. I’m also hoping it’ll help me in other creative work as well, since some days I think I possess the design skills of a carrot. Having a camera on hand at all times helps a person look for relationships, geometry, and perspective. In this case, I was driving along and noticed the line of towers heading southeast from 93rd Street. I figured it was worth a quick exercise in photography, so I positioned the truck just right, stood atop the cab, and this is the result. I like the line formed by the towers as they march off into the horizon. I had snow on my shoes and almost slipped off the truck, but thankfully I made the save. I try to save bouncing my head off the asphalt for racing season, when I wear a helmet!
Power lines like this are pretty wild; when I was part of the electricians’ union I got to see a big chunk of power line. They had it on display in a meeting room, with different layers peeled back. This is pretty heavy duty stuff! These big “wires” are capable of carrying a lot of electricity, and if I had to pull a guess out thin air I’d say these are probably 230kv lines.
Because the electricity generated by power plants has to travel such long distances, they step the voltage up as high as they can to prevent loss. These wires have a certain amount of resistance to them, and they are less efficient with high current than they are at high voltage. If I remember correctly, power loss is proportional to line current, but inversely proportional to the square of the voltage. So the higher the voltage, the less power loss. That means more efficiency, more generating capacity, and more money too. But they can only bump the voltage up so far before it starts to cause loss too; make the voltage too high and it’ll start to arc. It’s kind of a corona effect, and probably pretty dangerous too.
One of my favorite spots to watch Northern Lights is near one of the bigger towers north of town. On a calm night I can hear crackling overhead…talk about spooky! I also heard the same crackling while taking photos for the feds right outside a power plant. That’s not a reassuring sound, believe me. There were no visible signs of arcing in either case, but anytime you can hear electricity it’s best to move down the road a ways.
Well, I’ve satisfied two things here: I’ve geeked out and taken a photo I’m happy with. Time to go play with PJ…he’s babbling now, and he LOVES his daddy! I can get him to smile so wide just by playing with him and talking to him. On the drive home from this power line photo my mind wandered to taking him on daddy-son field trips, showing him how things work, getting him his first library card…I guess he’ll be a geek like his dad. We’ll sure have a good time though!