jgk@osc.COM (Joe Keane) (02/05/90)
In article <8139@sybase.sybase.com> maas@shanti.UUCP (Mike Maas) writes: >As long as we're going to get into this topic again does anyone have any >authoritative information about the harmful effects of living near high >tension lines? Would living within 100 feet be mush less dangerous than >living withing 10 feet etc.? If you mention dangers of electromagnetic fields, people translate this to electric fields, and thus think about high-voltage transmission lines. This is understandable, since these are the most visible and imposing part of the power system, and everyone knows you don't want to climb a tower and play with the wires. However, i think this is a dangerous simplification. I think the real danger comes from the magnetic fields, and thus it is high current that you should watch out for. But this is much more difficult, since high current conductors are much less visible; you can be standing on top of a secondary carrying thousands of amperes and not even know it. Whether this is more dangerous than standing right under a high-voltage transmission line is hard to say; certainly the energy density involved is orders of magnitude higher.