Why can’t electricity flowing out of my house be re-used?

548 viewsOtherPhysics

I have a very basic understanding of how electricity flows, so apologies in advanced if this is a dumb question. As far as I understand, electricity comes into my house and goes to my devices, and then is returned through the neutral wire to my panel, where it goes to ground.

Why can’t that energy returning from my devices through neutral be used to continue providing power instead of just going to ground?

What I think is the answer (please correct me if I’m wrong): in order for the current to even flow, the circuit needs a path to ground

In: Physics

11 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

I’m sure someone with a better grasp of physics can poke lots of holes in this analogy, but you can *kind of* think of electricity in a closed circuit like water flowing downhill. (or down a pipe from an elevated tank)

Once water has collected at the bottom, it has no more potential energy, you’d need to pump it back up. (or wait for more rain, or whatever)

Similarly, if you just let electricity flow through something without generating more, the electric potential difference (voltage) will eventually drop to nothing.

(in this analogy, voltage is comparable to how high up your water-filled tank (or the hill the water is flowing from) is, or how high the pressure is, and current is the volume of water flowing)

You are viewing 1 out of 11 answers, click here to view all answers.