Dirty Electricity - Yes there is such a thing

[Shiftless2]

And it's probably not what you thought (if you're like me you probably assumed it had to do with the pollution resulting from the generation of power - it's not). And you can add it to the list of conspiracy theories along with 5G, vaccines, chemtrails, and the like.

The Dirty Secret of Dirty Electricity

Is there such a thing as a type of electricity running through your home's wiring that delivers horrific health impacts to anyone living there?

skeptoid.com

 

[sear]

S2 #1, from link:

" ... electronic devices would somehow corrupt the municipal power supply, and fill your home with a dangerous form of electricity that would irradiate you with damaging electromagnetic radiation. This would cause cancer, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer's, and
The odd thing about this, and the thing that blows my mind, is that there is nothing even vaguely plausible about any of this."

The Dirty Secret of Dirty Electricity

Is there such a thing as a type of electricity running through your home's wiring that delivers horrific health impacts to anyone living there?

skeptoid.com

Not so slow skeptoid.
I've read plausible accounts that those that live very near high-voltage cross-country (XC) [sometimes called "high tension"] commercial power grid cables experience a statistically non-insignificant elevated risk of some diseases, cancer for example.
In the previous millennium I read a warning to hang-glider pilots about loitering too near broadcast towers, in that article the health risk was cataracts.

I'm all "rah-rah" about exposing pseudo-science [false] alarmists. But if these most extreme exposures can impart detrimental health affects, at what point does exposure drop below any health risk level?



With this topic we're at the ugly interface of science, and paranoid myth. I'm not prepared to sign a petition to ban all electricity, so we can go back to living safely as hunter-gatherers.
Part of the problem is, such risk serious or not is mainly invisible, though I have traced the perimeter of a strong electromagnetic field with a simple magnetic compass.
Note: one may be able to illuminate a CFL in a microwave oven, NOT recommended.



From Macaroo's Freethinker's Pub, Rambo123UK correctly observed that if a plug-in electric car instead of burning Lead-free gasoline as some other automobiles, is recharged from a coal-fired power-plant, it will pollute more per kilometer than its gasoline-burning cousins.

 

[sear]

PS
Not sure whether the intro. article is satire, or the same pseudo-science it ridicules. From the link:
"An inverter, as you might use in an RV to convert 12V DC to 120V AC, might produce clean or dirty power; so again, choose the right one for the job — choosing one that produces a pure sine wave will mean you're always covered." skeptoid

That is not the category of science that is my primary area of expertise, but I consider it nonsense. I know of no science that says square wave AC is dangerous but equally powerful sine wave AC is safe. Based on what?

"The electrical wires in your home do produce electromagnetic radiation. They have to; it's a part of the physics of conductance over wiring. Electrical testing tools like clamp meters that you can buy at the hardware store rely on this. They have to be right up against the wire, or very close to it; this radiation drops off very rapidly ..." skeptoid

I gather omnidirectional energy dissipates according to the "inverse square" rule.
But radiation along an axis such as the electromagnetic field that accompanies a charged power cable is not omnidirectional.

Is there a formula or rule for this energy dissipation? I imagine as the distance from the charged cable increases the field strength is reduced exponentially. But what's the formula?

 

[Shiftless2]

In the case of a power cable the inverse square rule applies at right angles to the cable.