A Southern California Edison lineman reaches a metal rod toward a live 500,000-volt line. There's a blue arc, and then he takes the wire in his hand and gets to work. He's alive for the same reason a bird on a wire is. Why do power lines run at such high voltage, what actually moves through the wire, how do people work on live lines, and what should you do if a power line ever comes down near you?

This is the story of the power line: the Hoover Dam line that started sending electricity 266 miles to Los Angeles on October 9, 1936, at what was then the highest line voltage in the world, why the heat in a wire grows with the square of the current, the transformer, and the 1893 Chicago World's Fair contract that Edison's direct current lost in the War of the Currents, the bare wires hanging from strings of porcelain and glass discs and the corona that buzzes under them in wet weather, electrons that crawl at a snail's pace while the energy travels through the space around the wire, Harold Rorden's first bare-hand procedures of 1960, the conductive suits Southern California Edison calls Faraday suits, the helicopters that have placed linemen on live lines since the early 1980s, the Soviet line that ran at 1,150,000 volts in 1985, the Chinese direct-current link that runs at 1.1 million volts today, and why running from a downed power line is the worst thing you can do.

CHAPTERS
00:00 A Man Grabs a 500,000-Volt Line
00:40 Why Power Lines Run at Such High Voltage
02:50 The Transformer and the War of the Currents
05:04 Bare Wires, Buzzing and Corona
06:46 What Actually Moves Through the Wire
08:41 Why the Lineman Survives
09:53 Working on Live Lines: Suits, Rods and Helicopters
14:31 How High Can Voltage Go?
17:40 If a Power Line Comes Down Near You
18:38 Back on the Wire

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SOURCES
Southern California Edison, "Human Birds on a Wire" (October 27, 2023)
OSHA Electric Power eTool, "Live-Line Bare-Hand Work" and "Energized vs. Deenergized Work"; 29 CFR 1926.964
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Boulder City historical overview; History.com, "Hoover Dam begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles"; IEEE, "Lightning performance of 287.5-kv Hoover Dam-Los Angeles transmission lines"
U.S. Energy Information Administration, transmission and distribution losses (about 5%, 2018 through 2022)
U.S. Department of Energy, "The War of the Currents: AC vs. DC Power"; Large Power Transformer Study (June 2012); CESER Electricity Grid Backgrounder (2023)
ETHW, "Early Electrification of Buffalo" (Niagara to Buffalo, November 1896); Adams Power Plant Transformer House
OpenStax, College Physics 2e (20.1, 20.5, 23.7) and University Physics Volume 2 (15.6)
Transmission line textbook chapter, "Transmission Line Parameters" (Baylor University course notes)
PG&E environmental assessment filed with the California Public Utilities Commission (corona and induced currents); CPUC Sycamore-Penasquitos DEIR (2015); Hubbell Power Systems on corona discharge (2018); ETHW, "Transformers at Pittsfield"
The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume II, Chapter 27
University of Exeter on garden snail speed (2013); Guinness World Records, snail racing (1995)
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on birds and power lines; Avian Power Line Interaction Committee (2006)
Wikipedia, "Live-line working" (Harold L. Rorden, American Electric Power, 1960)
American Electric Power, "765 kV Transmission" (Apple Grove test line 1961, first 765 kV line May 1969)
Michels Power on barehand and energized line work (company claim, up to 765 kV)
Smithsonian Air & Space, "High Tension" (USA Airmobile, 1981)
Boeing AERO (2012); FAA Lessons Learned, N709PA; National Weather Service on lightning and airplanes
Hitachi Energy (2020), Changji-Guquan 1,100 kV UHVDC link
ScienceDirect, "UHV Transmission Technology" (Ekibastuz-Kokshetau, 1,150 kV in 1985, 500 kV since 1992)
Electrical Safety Foundation International, "Power Lines Safety Tips"

Kilowatt Nation tells the story of the American power grid through the people who built it, the money and deals that shaped it, and the nights it failed.

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