Where does electricity go after grounding?

      Before starting this article i was surprised to see many has this doubt.  This is because it doesnt have a clear explanation anywhere.  I will try my best to explain about this in my article.  At first to clearly understand about the grounding and neutral click this text to read my article about it!

     First of all before we are going to discuss about this topic first of all we want to know something about the laws of nature and energy:

1. Energy can neither be created not be destroyed!
2. Energy can be converted from one form to another!

     From these condition we understood that energy cannot be created!  Then surprisingly you can ask that "Then from where initially the energy is created?"

      Actually its going to be trickier here because it has many hypothesis,  Some part of the group consider this act as god created this energy,  whereas the space explorers and researchers are trying to find that fact.  Actually our total energy of the universe is zero.  You think that i'm a fool but the truth is energy is subdivided into two parts  1.positive energy and 2.negative energy  Total equalizes and becomes zero.  It basically sounds like the energy busted out of nothing since(0=1-1).  As ancient hinduism quotes that we are in a null state.  And also we are the proud owners of zero lol.  But the truth is we didnt know that concept till now.

       Its going little hypothetical so back to our question, according to the laws of conservation of energy , energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  Electricity is a form of energy first of all we want to remember that.  For generating electricity we are taking energy from the earth!  as in the form of coal, radioactive isotopes, fossil fuels , etc.  Since we convert them as a high potential it gets seperated form the earth and resembles as a seperate network which isnt true.  Even in generating stations after generation while transmitting the neutral wire is grounded and only the high voltage cable is used for transfer of power.  To understand this concept click here to go to my article about it.

       So according to the laws of nature energy should return to the source from which the energy is created.  For clearly understanding this concept consider our household wiring system.  It consist of a phase and a neutral in case of a single phase and ryb and neutral lines in case of 3 phase systems.  To prevent static electrocution the grounding or earthing is done.  Also the neutral which passes through the all household systems are commonly collected near the transformer and grounded.  Thus it returns through the source which produces it.  See the below diagram for further explanation.

   

           If you connect a circuit to ground - it completes the circuit back to the source. So it does - in essence behave as a large resistance, but there are then many factors affecting the grounds ( Earth's) resistance back to the source. Some power systems are intentionally un-grounded, in these cases if you connect the energized conductor to ground not much typically happens. We use earth as ground because it is conductive - and it then serves as a common reference point. Also note the term electricity is relatively broad for the question - you should in this case think about current, and voltage. It is common to try to relate basic circuits - like a voltage source (utility) and earth with relation to electrons, but I believe this over-complicates the issue, you do not need to know or think about individual electrons. Much like when we talk about water flow we do not think about molecules of H2O... It is fine to understand the behavior of electrons as well - but their individual behavior is determined by their immediate environment - so trying to understand what the electrons are doing under your feet, relative to how the utility is connected, possibly hundreds of miles away is again too complicated.


        Here is a simple experiment that will teach you an important electrical lesson: On a cool dry day, scuff your feet along a carpet, then reach your hand into a friend's mouth and touch one of his dental fillings. Did you notice how your friend twitched violently and cried out in pain? This teaches one that electricity can be a very powerful force, but we must never use it to hurt others unless we need to learn an important lesson about electricity.
 
            It also illustrates about how an electrical circuit works. When you rubbed your feet, you will pick up some batches of "electrons", which are very small objects that carpet manufacturers weave into carpet so that they will attract dirt. The electrons travel through your bloodstream and collect in your finger, where they form a spark that leaps to your friend's filling, then travel down to his feet and back into the carpet, thus completing the circuit.

AMAZING ELECTRONIC FACT: If you rubbed your feet long enough without touching anything, you would build up so many electrons that your finger would explode! But this is nothing to worry about unless you have carpeting.

History:
            Although we modern persons tend to take our electric lights, radios, mixers, etc. for granted, hundreds of years ago people did not have any of these things, which is just as well because there was no place to plug them in. Then along came the first Electrical Pioneer, Benjamin Franklin, who flew a kite in a lightning storm and received a serious electrical shock. This proved that lightning was powered by the same force as carpets, but it also damaged Franklin's brain so severely that he started speaking in weird manner.

              After Franklin came a heard of Electrical Pioneers whose names have  become part of our electrical terminology: Myron Volt, Mary Louise Amp, James Watt, Bob Transformer, etc. These pioneers conducted many important electrical experiments. Among them, Galvani discovered (this is the truth) that when he attached two different kinds of metal to the leg of a frog, an electrical current developed and the frog's leg kicked, even though it was no longer attached to the frog, which was dead anyway. Galvani's discovery led to enormous advances in the field of amphibian medicine. Today, skilled veterinary surgeons can take a frog that has been seriously injured or killed, implant pieces of metal in its muscles, and watch it hop back into the pond -- almost.


              But the greatest Electrical Pioneer of them all was Thomas Edison, who was a brilliant inventor despite the fact that he had little formal education and lived in New Jersey. Edison's first major invention in 1877 was the phonograph, which could soon be found in thousands of American homes, where it basically sat until 1923, when the record was invented. But Edison's greatest achievement came in 1879 when he invented the electric company. Edison's design was a brilliant adaptation of the simple electrical circuit: the electric company sends electricity through a wire to a customer, then immediately gets the electricity back through another wire, then (this is the brilliant part) sends it right back to the customer again.

Back to topic:
             This means that an electric company can sell a customer the same batch of electricity thousands of times a day and never get caught, since very few customers take the time to examine their electricity closely. In fact, the last year any new electricity was generated was 1937.
 Today, thanks to men like Edison and Franklin, and frogs like Galvani's, we receive almost unlimited benefits from electricity. For example, in the past decade scientists have developed the laser, an electronic appliance so powerful that it can vaporize a bulldozer 2000 yards away, yet so precise that doctors can use it to perform delicate operations to the human eyeball, provided they remember to change the power setting from "Bulldozer" to "Eyeball."

         And dont worry of the returning electrons to earth considering that you are wasting money.  To be clear you are paying your bills for pumping these electons form the source not for utilizing or wasting.  Actually grounding prevents floating voltage references.  I will post an article about it later.

       Anyways I think I explained all the stuff in a well detailed manner! Although if you have any doubts comment below I will answer to that

IF YOU LIKED THE CONTENT PLEASE LEAVE A UPVOTE AND IN CASE OF ANY DOUBT PLEASE COMMENT BELOW WE WILL REPLY TO IT .PLEASE FOLLOW OUR GOOGLE PROFILE AND BLOG FOR FUTURE UPDATES! HAVE A NICE DAY! AND DONT GET FRUSTRATED WITH THE ADS SINCE IT HELPS TO PAY MY BILLS! LOL THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY BLOG ONCE AGAIN!

• Tweet
• Share
• Share
• Share
• Share

About Sooriyamathy

This blog is created to explain people the concepts, which they are finding difficult to understand in electrical and electronics world. This blog also post stuff related to stargazing.