Back in 1982 I met a marvelous retired electrician, whose name was Bill S. He taught me a whole lot of neat things, and had been a very creative and versatile person.
One of his stories, pertinant to your comment on induction:
When rural electrification came through in the Depression, his parents were essentially run down by the utility company, who forced them to allow the power lines to transit across their property with no compensation at all! Furthermore, they didn't offer to sell them electricity at a reduced rate, either. Naturally, they didn't like that deal at all.
They strung a single strand of wire for about 1/4 mile, immediately parallel to the high voltage power line. Apparently, the poles were not very tall in those days. With that single wire, hanging close to the primary, they picked up enough induced current to run their farm for many years, all for free.
If they got too many appliances going, like the well pump and the clothes washer, they had rigged their wire so that it could be tensioned a bit more for higher current by being closer to the wire, and lower tension when they didn't need as much current. They hooked a light bulb up close to the rope that pulled the wire tight, and watched it carefully for how bright it got.
The power utility was obviously not liking that plan, but they kept loosing the lawsuits, as the judges decided that the property owners were just catching the electricity that the primary wires were throwing away!
He told me that eventually they got it banned in court by declaring that it was too hazardous, that there was no way of stopping the delivered voltage. Bill S. agreed that this was true, and that the utility eventually raised the poles too high to steal current from anyway.
Although I had understood induction prior to that tale, it clearly showed me the real-world risk from induced current in parallel wires, and has helped me understand many other different situations.
You should hear some of his other stories...
opcorn:
