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Re: [TCML] Running a TC in snow

Hello.
I recently watched a TV program where power maintenance workers were
cleaning insulators on  HV lines using a helicopter and a high pressure
water cannon blasting distilled water. The commentator stressed the
importance of the water being absolutely pure. I suppose otherwise it would
form a bridge no doubt between adjacent lines. So yes distilled water is
non-conductive: something I never knew until seeing that program. So if the snow was formed from pure water, which is very unlikely, it may be 
an insulator."

	I've watched Southern California Edison Company workers washing of insulators on the 220 kV transmission line near us.  Have tanker trucks with spray nozzle on top AND FILL UP THE TRUCK FROM THE FIRE HYDRANTS!!!!  I suspect the water is pure enough that they don't get an arc back along the spray.  I've never gotten close enough when they're spraying [not on public streets] to see if they have a safety ground but would think they must.  Maybe someone here with power company experience knows more.

	About 60 years ago I visited an SCE hydro station at Big Creek, CA, in the high Sierras.  One of the guys who worked there showed off by standing on a wooden stool with a screwdriver in his hand and drawing arcs off the 200 kV line leaving the station!!!!  Not particularly dry place since the hydro turbine was only a few feet away and room was cold and sorta damp.  As a matter of interest this was in 1948 and and Dr. Sorenson, head of the Caltech EE department and the guy leading the field trip, told us that that particular turbine [forget the power] had been running without a single shut down since he supervised its installation in 1913, 34 years before.  Hydro power is great and it's too bad the tree huggers are trying to get all of the big dams pulled down.  Wonder what Tesla would think about that movement?

Ed


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