SJS wrote:
begin quoting Andrew Lentvorski as of Fri, Mar 14, 2008 at 12:07:05PM -0700:
SJS wrote:
I'm told that fluorescent tubes ... fluoresce ... when brought in to the
vicinity of high-powered transmission lines. If you lived near enough to
such a line, and could light up your garage without running wires, I
don't think I'd have any problem with you doing so.
You may not, but the law is explicit on this. This is theft.
Maybe.
The problem is that to make the "theft" charge stick, you're deprived of
the ability to use fluorescent lighting in your garage. I live farther
away from the transmission lines, so I can do exactly the same thing,
and the law wouldn't begin to care.
Um, you do realize that this requires you to be *really* close to
*really* high voltage lines.
The power company doesn't just leak power if they can help it. The
lines are configured such that the radiated power drops off at least as
as r^2 (and actually, I think it's more like r^4).
Most powerlines have a right-of-way that is covered by a lease or a
purchase. Almost no power is leaked beyond that right-of-way.
What is legal isn't always what is right, and what is right isn't always
legal, and sometimes none of it makes any sense.
That is quite often true.
So while the law would consider that sort of thing theft, *I* wouldn't;
and if you sued the power company for wearing out your fluorescent tubes
through inappropriate power leakage, I'd side with you.
Heh.
So those people who protest the uber-high-powered transmission lines by
waving around fluorescent tubes could be arrested for theft.
There's something that stinks about that.
And they could likely be arrested for trespass.
My opinion about the high-powered transmission line protesters is
another post for another day.
-a
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