MAE-East still no generator

Sun Sep 8 04:44:31 UTC 1996

Original message <199609080429.XAA10713 at westie.gi.net>
From: Alan Hannan <alan at gi.net>
Date: Sep  7, 23:28
Subject: Re: MAE-East still no generator
> 
> 
>   Howdy,
> 
>   To stay in the tradition of the NANOG mailing list, I will take
>   this subject a bit off topic.  :-)
> 
>   The common American household and business operates on Alternating
>   Current mainly because of distance.
> 
>   Over long distances, Alternating Current loses less energy in
>   transferring energy than Direct Current.  For proof, imagine the
>   energy actually moving from point a -> point b (as in DC) or
>   moving back and forth in millions of sets between points a and b.
>   (and not moving as far) (as in AC).

The real reason that AC is more efficient to transmit is that transformers
work on AC, and that means you can, with little effort, trade amps for volts.
Then you get to transmit the power at high voltage, but low current draw. 
That means thin wires (saves copper) and less resistive loss (saves energy). 

Are we far enough off topic yet?

-matthew kaufman
 matthew at scruz.net