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Electric Safety Presentation — Transcript

by Holy Cross Energy · 5,669 words · 701 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:02Cool, hi!
0:04How many people have seen this before?
0:08How many have not seen it?
0:10Oh, cool 50/50.
0:13Uh, I give you my spiel, um, whenever anyone talks to me like I'm talking to you
0:19I always think
0:21I always think they don't know what they're talking about.
0:24So I want to give you my qualifications.
0:27I turned 18 May 5th, 1981.
0:32Chris and I graduated June 6th that same year.
0:35And July 6th I went to work here at Holy Cross.
0:38So I was barely 18
0:41As you can see, that's 32 years ago.
0:43I've seen a lot of good stuff electricity can do
0:46and I've seen a lot of bad stuff electricity can do.
0:48Today we're going to talk about the bad.
0:50I do 5th grade classes.
0:52Usually in the 5th grade they learn about gas, water, power.
0:55They know about the atom, so
0:575th grade - every question I ask you today
0:59is at a 5th grade level, so you better get them.
1:02The other cool thing about this
1:04is any question you have about electricity I can show you right here.
1:08We don't have to do K sub H times pi * r squared.
1:11Please ask me questions. It helps me out and I can show you.
1:14Okay
1:17Um, let's go. I'm going to do some accidents.
1:21I'm going to do some basic electricity.
1:24A couple accidents
1:25We'll do some more basic electricity
1:27and then I'll show you a whole bunch of accidents that happen nationwide every day in America.
1:32Cool?
1:33Everybody say this:
1:35If you can see it
1:40186,000 miles a second
1:43Say it again.
1:45(audience) 186,000 miles per second
1:48We'll say that a lot today. We're going to do it all again one more time.
1:52One hundred eighty-six thousand miles a second.
1:56That's the speed of light. Electricity is just a little bit behind it.
2:01So, first 5th grade question is:
2:03What is 186,000 miles from here, Glenwood Springs (Colorado)
2:07(audience) The moon!
2:08The moon's not quite.
2:11Any more guesses?
2:14I did this for a 5th grade class, this old science teacher, I'm looking at him like
2:19"He shouldn't even be ALIVE, let alone teaching."
2:22He comes up after the class, and he says,
2:24"5 times around the Earth."
2:26And I said, "what?" and he goes, "that's the answer to your question."
2:28So I looked it up on my cell phone
2:32From pole to pole, it's 24,901.55 miles.
2:38And around the equator is 24,859.82.
2:42So it's further pole to pole than the equator.
2:465 times around the Earth in one second.
2:48So forget that. Just go with China. One thousand one, we're there.
2:53Very fast.
2:54Cool?
2:55Let's do some accidents. This is my little village.
2:59The star of my show is Burnadette.
3:01If it was a little boy, his name would be Ashton.
3:04This one's already burnt. If you guys were 5th graders, she'd be all nice and pretty and ready to go, okay?
3:11There's something wrong with my village. Usually it takes an older person to see it.
3:15Don't be offended if you're the first one to see it.
3:19Anyone?
3:22Shannon?
3:24(laughs)
3:25What's happened here is the aerial antenna has blown into the power line.
3:30This, you guys, is 14,400 volts. Exactly what we have here at Holy Cross.
3:35Just
3:36to scale.
3:38So we're going to learn a little bit about electricity.
3:42Burnadette is on the ground she's safe.,
3:44She goes from the ground to the ladder, she's safe.
3:47She's on the house, she's safe.
3:49This whole house is energized at 14,400 volts.
3:53It's not until she comes in contact with the aerial antenna touching the overhead power line
3:58and the ladder touching the ground that she's going to get burnt.
4:01All electricity wants to do is get to ground. That's how we use it.
4:04We turn on the light switch and let a little go through the light bulb, it goes to ground, we use it.
4:09Silicone chip in our computers: silicone stops it, remembers how much went through, goes to ground.
4:14That's how we use electricity. That's all it wants to do.
4:17We'll explain that a little later.
4:19Ground.
4:20Ladder
4:20House
4:21She gets between the aerial antenna and the ladder touching the ground and she gets burned.
4:25She gets burnt at:
4:28(audience) 186,000 miles per second
4:31Didn't take very long, did it?
4:33She's done with that. She's going to go climb in her tree house.
4:36Trees are very conductive. We'll talk about that later.
4:38She doesn't notice this service wire going to her house: 120V / 240V.
4:42Bared off spot. She climbs to there, she also gets electrocuted.
4:46So my point is here: way, way, less voltage
4:49same speed.
4:51K
4:54Cool
4:59Let's talk about electricity real quick.
5:11All you 5th graders.
5:16Tell me real quick the parts of an atom.
5:21Proton, neutron,
5:23Electron. In the center of the atom is the nucleus.
5:27Nucleus is made up of protons
5:30...which are positively charged, which is how they get their name, and neutrons, which are neutral.
5:36Around the nucleus
5:39There's a wonderful word: electron.
5:42Electrons are negatively charged.
5:46If I have an atom with the exact same number of electrons as protons, the positive charge holds the negative charge in like a magnet.
5:54It's like a solar system. They're going around there.
5:57So the positive holds the negative.
6:00That atom is very stable. It's an insulator. Glass, porcelain, rubber.
6:06All very good insulators. If you were in the 5th grade, I'd pass these around
6:10tell them it's very special rubber from Cambodia. You can't get it, but you guys are all going to handle them today (or you did this morning).
6:17Insulator
6:19Some atoms have up to 400 times more electrons.
6:25on the outside
6:28What happens is the positive charge can't hold the negative charges in and they fly off.
6:34As they go around the solar system they fly off. That's called a free electron.
6:38Another good word we use is "Electricity."
6:41That's a conductor. Gold, copper, aluminum all have way more electrons than they have protons.
6:48Make sense?
6:49So, we start the generator in Craig, the free electrons flow from one atom to another
6:56186,000 miles per second. They get here easy.
7:00They go back and forth, that fast.
7:03That's alternating current (A/C)
7:06We've all heard that word. That's how the water gets back to the lake. Kind of.
7:10That's not really how it works, but that's how it works.
7:12186,000 miles per second, it does it very easy.
7:16Everybody cool with that?
7:17Questions?
7:19Let's do some more accidents.
7:23This happens all the time.
7:26Happened when I was in high school at Canyon Creek on Public Service's line.
7:31Guy was killed on our line about, oh, 7 years ago I guess now. Very same accident.
7:37But our deal is with Burnadette.
7:40She's gone. She's absent. Okay.
7:43Three kids are walking across a field and they spook up a rabbit and it runs into an irrigation pipe.
7:48And they want to get that rabbit. How are you going to get that rabbit?
7:53Stick it up. Kids say throw a rock down it. They say crawl in it. I say it's 4 inches around.
7:58Pretty soon these three kids, same thing, they're going to pick up the pipe. Slam it down, two of them, and the third one is going to grab the rabbit.
8:05When they did that, they didn't notice the high voltage power line above them.
8:10I'm going to show you something else about electricity.
8:14Right now this pipe is taking all the electrons to ground.
8:17So it's at ground potential. It's like our neutral wire. We'll talk about that a little more later.
8:22So
8:23Burnadette's alright because she's at the same potential, even though 14,400 volts are flowing through this pipe.
8:28But the minute they pick the pipe up
8:31She becomes the pipe. She becomes the path to ground and she gets electrocuted.
8:36So when this happened
8:37One boy lost a foot. One boy lost a hand. And the other one lost a leg.
8:43What happened to the rabbit?
8:49It's fine?
8:50That's correct. The rabbit doesn't become the path to ground.
8:54Only if the electrons go through your body, which we'll explain here in a minute, do you get burned.
9:01Make sense?
9:06Ahh, let's go one more.
9:11Burnadette gets a little bit older
9:14She buys herself a cool Mustang car
9:17She's headed to Glenwood Springs High School on a nice Winter day when the roads are icy.
9:26She's texting, which is a big no-no with you 5th graders.
9:30Slips on the ice, hits the power pole, breaks this insulator, phase wire comes down on her car.
9:35Everybody cool with what's going on?
9:38Burnadette's in the car, she's safe as a kitten. How come?
9:44What's that?
9:45Not part of the circuit is the correct answer.
9:47Everybody says rubber tires
9:49Not true. Steel belted radials. If a dump truck gets in our power lines, the tires are the first things to go.
9:54She's not part of the circuit. She's not the path to ground.
9:58Until she steps out of the car and becomes the path to ground
10:01she's safe.
10:03Stay in the car if it's not on fire.
10:05Stay in the car. Call Holy Cross.
10:08We'll make sure the power line is off. You'll be safe.
10:10Your cell phone will work fine because it's not part of the circuit.
10:15Okay?
10:18This happened in Pennsylvania.
10:20Family of seven.
10:23The Mustang's taking off.
10:25A phase wire fell down on the car and the house, the mom freaked out. She told the kids to get out of the house.
10:29I don't blame her. The house is on fire. There's a phase wire on it.
10:32All seven kids were getting into a station wagon next to the car that had the phase wire on it.
10:38One kid opened the door, touched the other car next to it, energizing the car they were getting in.
10:42Killed all of them instantly.
10:45So, my point is if I had seven Burnadettes here, everyone would get their share of electricity in that car.
10:51There's path of least resistance, that's true, but I'll show you that later.
10:56Cool?
11:01Let's go again.
11:10Okay, let's go to the kite.
11:19Kites. You've all seen them. We all have them.
11:22$4.59 kite.
11:26The kite string's conductive. Wal-Mart now makes a kite string with a metal filament into it.
11:32that, uh
11:33keeps it from breaking
11:35Kite string by itself is conductive. That's how...
11:39... we found electricity. A key and a kite.
11:43Okay, this kite's on the line. How are you going to get it down?
11:495th graders? What's that?
11:52"Leave it there" is a good answer.
11:55um
11:57If your local firemen come out and they haven't had my class they're going to use a ladder. Bad idea.
12:02Saw that before. How about a tree branch? Knock it down.
12:07Trees are very conductive. A lot of our power outages around here come from trees.
12:12That's why we have breakers. I'll explain it later, but
12:15Trees are very conductive.
12:182x4, dry wood, still the same thing. 14,400 volts
12:22How are you going to get that kite?
12:24(audience) Call the electric company?
12:26That's the correct answer and the right answer!
12:29At the end
12:30This happened in Colorado Springs.
12:3211-year-old kid.
12:34This exact thing happened. He was going to climb up this pole
12:37Arm for arm, 260 feet, get his kite, arm for arm back.
12:43Eleven years old.
12:44There was a shed built under the guide wire. He got on the shed, got a hold of the guide wire, swung over
12:49Phone, cable TV, perfect ladder. We've all seen poles like that.
12:53He gets up, gets between the phase and the neutral
12:55Is electrocuted.
12:57This kid, 11 years old with enough gumption to think he could do that lost both arms and a leg.
13:03Eleven years old.
13:05Spent the rest of his life
13:07with one leg for a $4.99 kite.
13:12Horrible story.
13:14How are you going to get the kite?
13:17Call Holy Cross.
13:19Yes, we'll gladly come get your kite.
13:22We got all the cool trucks, cool sticks.
13:24We'll get your kite any day of the week.
13:26You see tennis shoes on there all the time nowadays.
13:29150 bucks. Hard thing to go home and tell your parents.
13:32Call Holy Cross. We'll get your shoes.
13:34(audience) Do we charge for that?
13:36No, we...
13:37No. Free of charge.
13:41We're a non-profit organization.
13:45We get the kite, though.
13:48Okay, I'm going to explain this loss of arms and legs.
13:51Everybody rub your hands together.
13:54Dave?
13:56Alright, let's do this!
13:57Rub them, what are they doing?
14:00They're getting warm. How come?
14:01(audience) Friction?
14:02Friction causes heat. If you could rub them together at 186,000 miles per second, what would happen to your arms?
14:09They would burn off.
14:10Just on your way home tonight, put them out on the street at 70 miles per hour and see what happens.
14:15Friction causes heat.
14:17An electrical burn
14:19All fire comes from heat, oxygen, and fuel.
14:23Yes?
14:25(inaudible)
14:27You get a shock. We'll talk about that. That's induction.
14:30Good question.
14:32Friction causes heat.
14:34Heat, oxygen, and fuel cause a fire.
14:37There's no - not much - fuel in me.
14:40Running through this wall is a power line that's running very cool.
14:44Not much heat. Feeding my village. How come it's so cool?
14:51Low resistance.
14:53Insulation is the correct answer.
14:55It's a very good conductor. It has lots of free electrons. Runs cool.
14:59There'll be 4 inches of ice on power lines, drags them down, you've all seen it.
15:03The very second I touch that it becomes as hot as the sun.
15:06I become as hot as the sun. I'm a conductor.
15:08A poor conductor. You guys all have electric stoves, toaster ovens.
15:12The friction of the electrons going through that poor conductor heat it up.
15:17Rodney has very little fuel. 90% water.
15:20But the minute I touch that, it excites the electrons in my body - hot as the sun - it's that fast.
15:26I'm going to burn for one week.
15:28So when a lineman gets burned, everyone's like, "How's Rodney? How's Rodney?"
15:31You don't know for one week. It's like Wendell taking the hamburger off the grill.
15:35It's still cooking.
15:37So, Monday I'm going to burn some more.
15:39Just a pinhole, we'll talk about that later.
15:42Burns the flesh. They take out the burnt flesh.
15:44Tuesday there's more.
15:46Wednesday there's not enough muscle to use that joint. They cut it off.
15:50By Thursday I may lose it here.
15:53That's why people lose their arms and legs in an electrical accident.
15:56It's not that they touch the power line and their arms blow off.
15:59It burns for one week. They lose that much
16:02Meat, if you will, in their joints.
16:04Cool?
16:08What else do I got?
16:10Let's do some more accidents.
16:13Until I do my job.
16:16This happens all the time.
16:19Lost my microphone.
16:20It happens every day. We've had accidents like this at Holy Cross.
16:25um
16:26Happens every day. For us 5th graders
16:30Scenario is here, a construction crew left their crane on a playground.
16:33It rained and rained and the tons of that crane made it lean over in the mud.
16:37It's touching the power line.
16:39Burnadette wants to come play on it. She doesn't hear this going on.
16:43Goes to climb on it. Gets electrocuted.
16:45Becomes the path to ground.
16:48The path of least resistance. Do you see that?
16:50Bob's operating the crane, doesn't pay attention, swings it into the power line. What happens to Bob?
16:54(audience) He's fine.
16:55How come?
16:57He's not the path to ground. I'm doing my job!
17:00Frank's down here holding on to the 2x4's.
17:04What happens?
17:05What should Bob do?
17:08Stay on there. The minute he gets off, he's going to get electrocuted.
17:12Tires have nothing to do with it. When a track hoe digs up one of our underground power, which we'll talk about in a minute,
17:17Solid steel on the ground, the whole thing's energized: 14,400 volts.
17:23Cool?
17:25So let's talk about
17:27Underground
17:29While we have time.
17:32Okay, in my power lines.
17:35Three things I need.
17:36I need a conductor
17:38Insulator
17:39And a ground.
17:40So my conductors here
17:424 feet of dry air insulates this. Air is a conductor, we'll talk about that in a minute.
17:47But dry air, this 4 feet insulates this phase from the other.
17:51Okay, neutral wire.
17:53Neutral takes the imbalance back to the generator, so to speak.
17:57So
17:58Paul comes home, throws his clothes in the dryer. He's using a little bit of electricity.
18:03Keith comes home, starts welding. He's using a little more.
18:07I come home, dry my hair, I'm using very little.
18:09(laughs)
18:10Now, I'm talking about all the houses from here to Aspen.
18:13The difference of what we're using comes back in here, 14,400 volts but it's at ground potential.
18:19When us linemen climb up there we might get a little shock, but it's like that pipe.
18:2314,400 volts
18:25Ground potential. It's not until we cut that wire and become the wire that we would get burnt.
18:30Make sense?
18:31Inside, underground.
18:33Exact same thing. You guys will be touching this today.
18:37Conductor
18:38Insulator. This is a semi-con that keeps electromagnetic field equal
18:43And the neutral.
18:44Exact same power
18:46is in the underground as the overhead.
18:49K
18:52Boy, I just got a question for myself.
18:58Cool
18:59Okay?
19:01So
19:03Guys, green boxes. Everybody have them?
19:06Seen them? 5th grade?
19:08Yes?
19:09Alright, good answer.
19:11Where are the green boxes?
19:14In your driveway. In your back yard. There's little green boxes, and there's big green boxes.
19:19Where's the big green boxes?
19:24Where? Usually on the street corner.
19:27I'm fortunate. Almost every school I do there's a switch gear right in the front of the school.
19:32What's happening there is
19:38Big green boxes
19:40have fuses in them.
19:42So, an overhead riser pole
19:45has a fuse.
19:47Comes from one house
19:49to the other house.
19:51Switch gear.
19:52Switch gears have fuses in one side. They have great big switches in them.
19:56So, us linemen, we move the power from one city to the other.
20:00We close the switch, we open it. You never even see it blink.
20:02On the other side of that is a fuse.
20:04Coming out, going from transformer to transformer.
20:07The little green boxes take the 14,400 volts and make it the 120 / 240 you use in your house just like an overhead transformer.
20:14There's 5-7 houses on an underground box. That's why they're in your front yards.
20:19They're feeding your house.
20:21On this power cable that I just showed you, in the green box,
20:27is this.
20:28Load break elbow. You guys will see this today, too.
20:31Load break elbow. All it is is a 14,400 volt plugin.
20:36Just like I plug this in the wall
20:38to get the 120.
20:4014,400 volts
20:42If I have a little case of the noodle arm,
20:45don't plug it all the way on,
20:47car hits it
20:48Snow plows knock them on their backs all the time.
20:51Anything disturbs that transformer, it can dislodge this -
20:54I've seen them right against this metal to ground,
20:56sitting right there, hot.
20:58We leave them in there. 14,400 volts.
21:01Load break elbow.
21:03Cool?
21:05So, back to Burnadette.
21:08She gets in her cool Mustang car.
21:15Am I doing that right?
21:18Starting to lose my mind.
21:25Here, she doesn't need to be tied into the overhead.
21:31She's texting. She's driving in the snow.
21:34Headed to Glenwood High.
21:38I might have to change her name to Becca, Lib.
21:41(laughs) Sorry.
21:42She misses the power pole this time,
21:44crashes and knocks the underground transformer over.
21:48Okay
21:49What should she do?
21:51Stay in the car if she thinks she's involved with a power line.
21:55If she gets out of the car, she's going to become the path to ground.
21:58Any firemen coming to rescue her and don't know that that's involved with an underground thing,
22:02They're, all 7 of them, are going to get their share. Both car accidents.
22:06So I always tell the firemen, "Have your dispatch call our dispatch."
22:10We can - people can turn the power on on us with a phone.
22:14We lock and tag that out.
22:16We ourselves don't touch these power lines until we have an open.
22:18So if they call, 1. We know where to go. 2. We won't energize it on them. I'll talk about that later.
22:24Got it?
22:26Okay, another scenario.
22:37We're at the construction site.
22:39I use a maintainer. I could use the backhoe. Like I said, solid steel track hoe digs up our power line, it's going to be energized. 14,400 Volts.
22:48I use a maintainer because we're supposed to be 30 inches deep.
22:51Not always the case.
22:53So in this case, Bob scrapes up
22:56the underground cable. Cuts it.
23:00Pulls it down the conduit. Pulls the elbow off the transformer.
23:04Okay
23:07Bob's in the piece of equipment. What should he do?
23:10Why?
23:13Won't become the path to ground. He's like a bird on the wire.
23:17He's energized, but the electrons are not flowing through his body.
23:21Just like us in our bucket trucks with our rubber gloves.
23:24Stops the electrons from flowing through our body.
23:27We'll talk more about that later.
23:29He gets out of the piece of equipment
23:31Becomes the path to ground. Anyone touching this piece of equipment is going to get their share like the car.
23:36Now all of the sudden we have a locate problem. Wasn't located right.
23:38So we call the locator out. He's going to go re-clip on to the transformer.
23:42He's going to get electrated. Pulled the...
23:44Electrocuted. (laughs) Pulled the elbow off.
23:47Stay awake.
23:48The switch gear is the big boxes.
23:51It's a big box over open air conductors. Aluminum bars in there.
23:56So, same scenario. You're playing on it. Betty's jumping on it. Bends it in there, touches it. What happened to Betty?
24:02Nothing. As long as she stays on the box, she's not the path to ground.
24:05But everybody touching it is going to get their share of electricity.
24:13Cool?
24:15Let's talk about lightning.
24:17And I'll go down my list.
24:19Any questions?
24:24Shannon?
24:35Lightning step potential.
24:40This thing is
24:43Called a Jacob's Ladder. I call it the Frankenstein thing.
24:50Lost my other jumper.
24:54Right here.
25:05Okay, what's going to happen is that I'm going to energize this.
25:08The 4 feet of dry air that I talked to you about before is going to insulate it.
25:12Once I start that arc
25:15Once I ionize the air, it's going to become the conductor.
25:18The air is going to be conducting 14,400 Volts.
25:20It's hard to break that arc. That's why we have load break tools and stuff
25:24that you guys will be touching today.
25:25When we open an air break switch, we have our gloves on because if the wind blows the arcing into the pole
25:30It's 14,400 Volts
25:33In the air. And then we'll talk about lightning step potential.
25:35Okay?
25:39Let me start over.
25:40Energized.
25:41We're going to start the arc.
25:43It's hard to break.
25:45Very susceptible to wind.
25:48That's where all your electrical fires come from with the trees, the arc.
25:5214,400
25:55Same heat, but it's in the air.
25:57Bad connection in your house.
25:58Catches the wood on fire.
26:01Ionized air.
26:04Everybody cool with that?
26:07They quit talking.
26:09Okay. How's lighting work?
26:115th grade.
26:17(inaudible from audience)
26:19That's how you get hurt. How does it work?
26:24Alright, I'm on that.
26:26I did this at the Rocky Mountain school, and this kid was like,
26:30Giving me these formulas and stuff, and I'm like,
26:33Very good!
26:35Clouds bump together.
26:36The friction causes positive charges.
26:39So you've got clouds.
26:41Full of positive charges.
26:43Like I said, all electricity wants to do
26:46is get to ground, the same when you walk across the carpet.
26:49Build up a bunch of positive charges.
26:50The minute it can't take it
26:52It goes to the negative in the ground.
26:54Strikes the crust.
26:55Ionizes the air. The air becomes the conductor.
26:58Cloud to cloud,
26:59same thing.
27:01Once that lightning hits,
27:03it dissipates that energy out
27:06in a circle.
27:10Just like
27:12when I throw a rock in a lake.
27:14That energy is dissipated out in rings.
27:16Same thing when lightning hits the ground.
27:19So
27:20Forget that. When our phase wire hits the ground
27:23for math's sake, it's 14,000.
27:2613
27:2712
27:2911
27:31You guys ever hear about lightning striking and 5-6 cows die?
27:35Those unfortunate cows are in the step potential. So, same as me, if I'm standing here.
27:41Little Rodney.
27:44If I'm in that step potential, I'm going to get 1000 volts up one leg and down the other.
27:48Very dangerous. Something we deal with every day.
27:50Same with the firemen coming to rescue Burnadette in her car.
27:53They step across those rings of energy dissipating and they could be hurting.
27:56Severely.
27:58Call the power company. Have the power shut off.
28:02Step potential.
28:04Questions?
28:06She's got one!
28:07(audience) (inaudible)
28:11Yes.
28:11(audience) (inaudible)
28:15Uh-huh.
28:17(laughs)
28:19Correct.
28:21That's
28:23That's also induction. I'll talk about that later.
28:27Let's start with breakers!
28:29You guys ever be sitting at home? The lights blink once. They blink twice. They blink three times. The power goes out.
28:34That's our breakers.
28:36Working to keep your power on.
28:39Working properly.
28:41Better get my gloves before I turn the power on.
28:49What happens is
28:53Lost Burnadette, too.
28:55Tree falls into a power line.
28:57Falls to the ground. That breaker just shut everybody off.
29:01All the way from here to Marble.
29:04Tree cleared itself. A temporary fault, we call that. Fell to the ground.
29:07Turns it back on. Everybody stays on. That's what we want.
29:10Tree falls in the power line. Stays once.
29:13Stays two blinks in your house, it's supposed to blow the fuse cutout.
29:16and
29:18Then 30, 40 homes, a whole subdivision goes out.
29:20Rodney, unfortunately, has to go out on double-time.
29:23Cut the tree off the line. Make a bunch of money.
29:26Tree stays in the main line. One. Two, three, four. It's going to lock the circuit out.
29:31Until we find the tree.
29:32Same with another accident. Happens every day. Burnadette wants to cut a tree down in her back yard.
29:37She's
29:38going to be holding the chain saw.
29:39Trees are very conductive.
29:42Okay.
29:43Let's say Davey and I go out at night.
29:47We're looking for this tree in the middle of pitch black.
29:50All of Frying Pan. How are we going to find it?
29:54Pretty soon we start flipping that switch. I'm like, "Can you see it?"
29:57Can you see it? We're hoping you call in and go,
30:00"Holy crap! My house is on fire!" And then we know where the power outage is.
30:03And we've got all this technology - David - we've got amps. We've got fault indicators. We use all that.
30:09But sooner or later, you've got to flip the power on.
30:12Scenario is
30:13You're watching the Bronco game. Your kid comes in. He pounds the nail in the wall.
30:17The room goes out. What are you going to do?
30:20You beat the kid. I always tell firemen, "Use your hose."
30:23But then you're going to go flip the breaker on.
30:26When the power goes out, you flip the breaker on.
30:29And that's what we do, with 14,400 Volts.
30:32So, like I said, have your dispatch call our dispatch.
30:361. We'll know where you're at. 2. We won't flip the power on you.
30:40We can lock and tag out people in Denver from turning the power on us.
30:44Please call.
30:48Breakers.
30:52Dispatch. Covered that.
30:54One shot. When we go and work on the power lines,
30:56us guys are up there in the bucket,
30:58we put it on One Shot. That way it's only going to operate that breaker once.
31:02It's for our own safety.
31:03Mike Dean says it best.
31:05186,000 miles a second. I'm 6 feet tall. Breaker goes 1/60th of a second. Whoop-dee-doo!
31:13It's to clear the circuit and not give you three shots.
31:19We've got breakers. We've got One Shot. We've got heat, oxygen, fuel.
31:24Volts and amps!
31:27Volts are pressure. Amps is amount.
31:29I got a 15 amp fuse in my car. You guys ever been jumping your car, you slam the hood, and it melts that
31:35One aught (1/0) cable?
31:37That's 12 Volts.
31:3815 amps.
31:40We're talking 14,400 Volts pushing the same 15 amps.
31:44Amount
31:45and pressure.
31:47Two different things.
31:48It's like water.
31:49If we turn on a hose and run it for miles and miles, it's not going to come out the end.
31:55That's why we have High-Voltage transmission lines
31:57feeding them. It's because we have line loss and we can only put the house so far from the thing.
32:02Same as water.
32:03Make sense?
32:05Volts and amps.
32:08A pinhole in this glove will kill me. How come?
32:12You saw me here test my gloves. We'll show you today how to do it.
32:15A pinhole will kill me.
32:17Same as my bare hand.
32:195th graders?
32:23No
32:24Okay
32:26The
32:27It's said that the nucleus, if it's a football stadium, an electron is a football a mile out.
32:33That's the size difference.
32:34An atom is the smallest thing known to man. An electron is THE smallest thing known to man.
32:38Billions go through a pinhole. Kill me just the same.
32:41Very tiny.
32:43Very fast.
32:45Very helpful. Very deadly.
32:49Step Potential, we talked about.
32:52There's 480 street lights, induction
32:56I'm going to show you the path of least resistance.
33:01I'm going to try.
33:08Lost my jumper. Lost my jumper.
33:12I'm going to answer a few more questions, I'll be done.
33:41See what happens.
33:47Same scenario
33:48Burnadette is texting.
33:50Knocks the power line down on her car. Fireman comes to rescue, and he's like, "What's going on over there?"
33:54Well, this right now is taking the path to least resistance. But the minute he goes to rescue her...
34:01He's going to become the path to least resistance.
34:05So, just because it's not right there doesn't mean it's not going to become the... (path to ground)
34:11So, like I say with the 7 kids.
34:13One kid's not going to take it all. That'd be like our biggest house taking all our power.
34:17The path of least resistance is real, but it's...
34:19Everyone's going to get their share.
34:25Induction!
34:26We've had a lot of accidents here at Holy Cross
34:29with induction. Underground cable can be induced.
34:33What's happened here is I have a bare wire
34:36sitting on insulators.
34:38Nothing connected to it. No
34:40No
34:41jumper connected to it.
34:43Same as when we're hot stringing. You know, we lay out the hot phases on the side and we pull the new ones in.
34:47Bare. No electricity connected to it.
34:49But the electrons traveling in this wire
34:52186,000 miles a second
34:54They excite the electrons in this bare wire. That's how a transformer works.
34:58Never touches each other. Induces.
35:00If I go up there
35:03Think this wire is dead. Right here is 14,400 to ground.
35:07Here's the induction. Can you hear it?
35:09So, the other two wires have induced the bare wire. So that's why we ground them.
35:14Not grounded, not dead, to protect ourselves from induction.
35:17Miles of this adds up to a lot.
35:22480 Volts
35:24480 Volts is all your large power. Any grocery store. Any ski area. This building's 480.
35:30It's very efficient. That's why we use it.
35:33480 Volts. If you grab it, it makes your muscles contract. You can't get away from it.
35:37A very dangerous voltage. You ever hear about a coal miner, goes down into a mine,
35:40sizzled there all night?
35:42480 Volts.
35:44We don't direct meter it. We step it down.
35:51In the old days, the firemen used to pull the meter to get the power out of the house so they could start fighting the fire.
35:56I always tell them, "These tiny little wires ain't feeding City Market."
36:00So, they don't do that any more, because of this reason, but.
36:03Just because you pull the meter doesn't kill the house.
36:09Street lights!
36:10Street lights have transformers.
36:14that, uh
36:15The sun starts to go down, two lights to on. (vrrr) It's going to feed those two lights.
36:19Sun goes down a little more, turns on 4 blocks.
36:23It's going to pump more power to those four blocks.
36:25Once the lights - or blocks. Once the sun goes all the way down, it's going to feed all the lights.
36:31So I could have tiny little wires sticking out of a street light. If I go grab them, it's going to go
36:36"Holy crap, the whole town's dark!" and it's going to pump as much amperage and voltage as it needs to feed that little wire.
36:42People are hurt, real bad, with tiny little wires.
36:46Street lights: be careful.
36:48Did path of least resistance.
36:51Size doesn't matter.
36:53Like I said. A kite string. Linemen have gone up, done their job, taken their gloves and sleeves off. Went to get a kite wire, been burnt.
37:00Size doesn't matter. It's going to burn that fuse until it's gone.
37:03This is the smallest wire we have.
37:06Three of these in a three-phase power line could feed half of Carbondale, easy.
37:11So just think about that. All that heat. All those elevators. All those motors.
37:15Are in this tiny little wire. If that were a drive shaft on a truck, you wouldn't touch it for nothing.
37:20That much power's in this wire.
37:25One more, Mitch.
37:27(Iaughs) Skirts.
37:29You guys ever notice how transmission lines have great big bells?
37:32Then they get smaller, smaller, smaller.
37:34This right here is a termination in a switch gear.
37:37Or the epoxilators that you guys are going to be using. We have six skirts.
37:4014,400 Volts
37:42Dead ground.
37:44That's only about 9 inches.
37:46But the electrons have to travel over each and every skirt.
37:49To get there. That's why the skirts get bigger the more electricity
37:53That - if I add that up,
37:55That's 4 feet. That's the smallest fiberglass stick we can touch it with.
37:59That's why there are more skirts for more power.
38:02Questions?
38:05None?
38:06Thank you.
38:08(audience clapping)

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