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
An analogy is a bicycle chain. The power plant is your pedals and your house/devices are the wheel.
When you pedal your bicycle, an individual link in the chain will go to the wheel and then come back. Why can’t we just “reuse” the motion in the links going back to the pedals?
The answer is that is more accurate to think of the chain as a connector between your pedals and the wheels. The links all connect to each other to transfer that force.
Likewise, the wires connect your devices to the power plant, and all the individual electrons push on each other to transfer that power.
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