do you think a extention cord from fort worth to california travel the same speed of electricity?
411460
nope... it would have a delay.  I would guesstimate that it would take about 30-45 seconds for the light to come on.   I am just guessing here.
145391
I believe that you have described radio and TV transmission without cables.  If you could supe that up to practical power levels (lightning?) we would all become receivers and turn to toast.  But I do believe that Tesla had plans on how to transmit power through the air and you might want to check that out as he was an electrical genious.
1101238
Yes an electric one and if they get through that we should lay down a mind field. I live in a border state and the crap that goes on here is OUT OF CONTROL
679906
or is it maximun voltage?\n\nlike terminal velocity is maximum speed...
661128
there is no thumb rule or some defined distance for that. all what you do is keep half meter distance and of-course it depends upon the KW of the power cable. and if you do not have enough space for keeping distance you can make a concrete slab in between
887118
as long as the new phone line is homerunned (run back to the nid instead of daisy chained off another existing outlet) you shouldn't see any difference in speed.
855114
the majority of the lost time is not in the wire it is in the switch so you are going to get it wrong\n\nas for the speed in theory electricity flows at the speed of light but in actual use the resistance of the wire and the circuit slows it down but the speed is so great that unless you are talking milliseconds it is instantaneous
742095
Since the impedance of a coil at the 400Hz is higher than it is at 60Hz you can build smaller inductive devices for 400Hz. Weight counts on an airplane. An electric motor or a generator or transformer that produces the same power at a fraction of the weight is a winner when you have to fly it around.\n\nWhy did they pick the exact number 400 I don't know but lately fluorescent lamps are being operated at much higher frequencies so maybe 400 is getting obsolete and will be replaced by a higher frequency too.
75
California electricity is generated by several sources, including hydroelectric, wind, geothermal and nuclear (in addition to the more traditional natural gas).  The question is why these other sources aren't used more, and the answer is that historically, they've either been more expensive or have environmental risks of their own (esp. for nuclear).  As petroleum and natural gas sources start to get used up, and world demand for energy increases, the cost of electricity from natural gas will go up and the other sources will become more cost effective and more prevalent.\nIncidentally, solar power is another source used in California, but it's provided by individuals, not power companies.  If your house has solar power and you have the right equipment, you can sell your surplus electricity to the power company and your electric meter will literally run backward.
1187482
Kilowatt\nCost depends on method of generation and location
162542
AC has less loss over longer distance so is better for wide-area power distribution.  It is also better for high-voltage appliances with high amperage demands (like electric stoves, ovens, dryers, etc.).  Also, before the advent of reliable quartz crystals and such, AC provided a reliable timing source to synchronize signals for televisions (AC in U.S. operates as 60Hz) that is was much more difficult to obtain with DC.\n\nHowever, for local low-voltage, low-amperage power DC is more efficient as most of the types of devices that fit into this category cannot utilize AC directly - they need to convert AC to DC.  It would be more efficient to have a single DC power source using step-down transformers to adjust voltage, than have a bunch of separte AC/DC converters.\n\nIncandescent light bulbs don't care which type of current they are powered from (although LED's do).
762650
Please see the Wikipedia article on Electric Power Transmission below.\n\n- An electric power engineer
851619
No.  My DSL is faster than anybody's cable I've ever seen.  Cable starts off fast, but slows down the more people in your neighborhood gets cable internet.  Because you have to share it.
83799
Yes if the sub station were the power comes from goes down, it won't make a difference where your lines are
581222
It depends on the location of the transmission lines. The electrical power is usually brought to domestic consumers  at 11 kv or 11,000 volts and the same is brought down to 440 volts by transformers, for three phase distribution lines. To bigger industrial installations, the power may brought at 33 kilo volts also.  From generating power stations, the electricity is sometimes transported by upping it even to 400 kv sometimes. Higher voltage means lower current for the same power to be transported with a given cable which will cause less resistive heating i.e. less power loss in the transmission cables.
387680
Ok...you guys got this all wrong.  Voltage doesn't travel.\nThis is simple:\n\nSeries:\nAll series stuff see the same current\n\nParallel:\nAll parallel stuff see the same voltage
333904
It depends on the Voltage.   Imagine an electron (which has known charge q = 1.6x10^-19 and mass m = 9.11x10^-31) that is inside a wire which is a perfect conductor.   Since the electron will move in a perfect conductor, all the potential energy given by the power source (Voltage * electron charge) will transform into kinetic energy (K = (m*v^2)/2), so:\n\n(m*v^2)/2 = V*q     ;     where v is the speed of the electron and V is the voltage\n\nWith this we get:   v = (2*V*q/m)^(1/2)\n\nAll the electrons would move at this same speed, and so the "speed of electricity" is given by the above formula.   For a voltage of 110V, the kind we have at home, the speed would be:\n\nv = 6'216,016.3 m/s\n\nCompared to the speed of light:\n\nc = 300'000,000 m/s\n\nThis analysis is for didactic purpouses, since for such high speeds we would need to consider relativistic effects.   Also, remember that we don't have perfect conductors, so the actual "speed of electricity" at 110V would be a lot less than the value shown above.\n\nI hope this answer was good enough.   :)