How much electricity in the tank?

[randyjustin]

On the power pole by my house there is a gray colored tank. It's about 20 inches tall and maybe 15 inches round. The wires that go to my house are hooked to it. I noticed that the neighbor has a bigger one, probably 28 by 20 inches. The one by the store on the corner is even bigger yet. I bet that one is 36 by 25 inches. I suppose they make them bigger because they hold more gallons of electricity. But why does my neighbor have a bigger one than me? I probably use more gallons or electricity per day than he does because he dont have a big screen tv and I do. I plan to call the electric company and order a bigger tank. How do I figure out the number of gallons each one holds? I want one that can hold at least 50 gallons of electricity. That way if there is a power outage I wont run out of electricity so fast.

Randy

[RBM]

The size of those tanks are carefully regulated by the utility company. Keep in mind that the wires are constantly pumping new electricity into them. Usually the smaller ones only supply one or two buildings, while the larger ones can supply a whole street. They are designed so when the power goes out, everyone's tank empties at the same time

[jJim McLaughlin]

Now thats a good troll. Much better than the brush fire / propane tank troll.

Give this one a 7 out of ten.

[PV]

A good spring cleaning tip:

Climb the pole and drain the tank, this removes stale electricity from the winter ensuring your home will run on clean fresh electricity.

An added benefit is reduced annoying posts on Usenet

PV

[Jeff Wisnia]

Not to feed a troll, but I recently read a cute article (I think it was in this month's Discover magazine.) titled something like "The Weight of The Internet".

The author started with an assumption of the number of bytes constantly moving through the solid state memories of all the computers and servers all over the world and assumed that half the bits in those bytes were ones and the other half zeros.

He then made a WAG at the number of electrons required to store a single "one" in a typical solid state memory cell, multiplied everything out and came out with a really huge number of electrons, the weight of which he stated was only equivilent to that of a grain of sand .0002 inches in diameter.

Fun stuff, huh?

Jeff

[Tim Smith]

It's not just the tank size you need to worry about. You need to consider whether they pull the electricity out of the top or the bottom, and you need to consider your usage patterns.

That's because the heavy electricity will sink to the bottom of the tank. So, if they tap the tank at the bottom, you'll get heavy electricity in the morning, and light electricity in the evening. (They refill the tanks at night...that's why you don't see birds sitting on the lines at night--the lines are full of electricity to refill all the tanks then, so the birds only sit on the lines in the daytime, when the lines are mostly empty).

Conversely, if they tap at the top, you'll get the light electricity first.

You need to keep the heavy electricity away from things like computers. Because the electronics in computers is so small, heavy electricity has trouble in them. It can't make the tight turns to get up the pins on integrated circuits, and you'll get poor performance.

Things like big electric motors, on the other hand, work best on heavy electricity.

So, figure out when you mostly use your computer or other electronics, and when you mostly use things like refridgerators or vacuums or washers or dryers, and get a tank that is tapped appropriately to deliver the right weight of electricity at the right time.

[Charlie Bress]

You may be overreacting. This may simply be a situation where your electricity is more densly compacted than the others.

[GWB]

If you keep the tank refrigerated, the electricity last longer.

[gfretwell]

These tanks must store the electricity as a liquid. One blew up near me (relief valve must have failed) and there was gooy stuff all over the place.

[larry]

Did the EPA men in the space suits get it all cleaned up?

-larry/dallas

[dean]

You might still have electricity for some time after a power cut, if the tank is pressurized. If its not, then depending on the level of the exit pipe, you may have just a trickle for a while (so that you can run a laptop), but you could never run the well pump.

[willshak]

I have to disagree with that. It seems that we often run out of power in the winter, especially after a freezing rain.

[Dean]

Well Ya need to wrap the pipes and use heat-tape! Just plug in to the tank but put an insulated jacket on it first,,,,good to -40F.

[Oren]

I don't know why? I keep several one gallon buckets of electricy on hand; just for that purpose.

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[GWB]

That's because of the humidity.

[GWB]

That's incredibly dangerous. Didja ever see what happens if the bucket spills?!?

[Oren]

Good reason to send the helper for the bucket. :-\\

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[Tim Smith]

All kinds of unexpected things can happen with electricity. I once made a stack consisting of several layers, each layer consisting of a penny, a paper towel soaked in salt water, and a dime. That produces a voltage, which I tried to use to zap a friend.

And then the police burst in and took him to jail! He was charged with a salted battery.

[Oren]

WATT degree?

-- Oren

"The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!"

[Lil' Abner]

randyjustin@___mail.com wrote in news:ijd843puc6mkl8mpp9cnjjs5hiqgjh1ba8@

4ax.com:

Remember that I = E/R This means that you get about 3.1416 volts per foot that the tank is above your house. If your tank is lower than your neighbor's then although you'd have a little lower voltage, it would last longer.