What is the temperature of electricity?

Obviously electricity can cause wires and devices to heat up and even burn. But that is only because of the amount of resistance it encounters. Traveling from point A to point B. But what is its temperature in its natural state. If it even has a natural state? Does it even have a temperature? If there is no resistance?

A quick Google search on the subject says, no. Electricity has no temperature.

There are many forms of energy, heat is just one form. As the energy is converted it creates heat.

Some times you go out in the winter and it is ten degrees below zero and you actually feel warm, other times you are freezing. It depends what is in the air that determines how the energy is converted in our bodies. sometimes cold air has lots of energy stored in it. Windchill is not the only factor.

a reply to: traintrain

Who knows. we have absolute zero, but yet no absolute heat.

if we could magically transport to the big bang, that could help a lot.

a reply to: traintrain


Ummm...good question...I would have to say that electricity itself isn't a conductor...most super conductor's are cooled with liquid nitrogen...I think...that's used to align the molecular structure of the conductor with the direction of the flow of the electrons in order to reduce resistance to a minimum...

Now...I could be wrong...









YouSir

Interesting question, take lightening for instance, it can reach temperatures between 17,000-50,000 degrees F. This is enough to turn soil and sand to glass in just a few milliseconds. It also ionizes the air ( I forget if it's positive or negative ions) but I don't know if that has anything to do with temperature.

One thing I'm not sure of, and maybe someone more knowledgeable in this subject can chime in, does the lightening essentially turn the air it's traveling through into a superheated plasma? I thought I had read that somewhere.

A little off topic but I wonder what would happen if we cooled a chamber to absolute zero, inside the chamber are things that can create artificial lightning, when it reaches absolute zero we then hit the switch for a lightening strike inside....
An odd scenario I know, and I know we have still to reach absolute zero but we have gotten close. Anyway I'm done rambling

8

Voltage is the potential for current to flow. Amperage is a measurement of current flow, and resistance is just that, resistance to current flow.
Electricity it’s self is a name for the process. Until current flows there is no changes to the temperature of the materials.

originally posted by: traintrain
Obviously electricity can cause wires and devices to heat up and even burn. But that is only because of the amount of resistance it encounters. Traveling from point A to point B. But what is its temperature in its natural state. If it even has a natural state? Does it even have a temperature? If there is no resistance?

If you take away the resistance, such as in a superconductor, then the superconductor doesn't heat up due to resistance because there is no resistance to the flow of electricity. Superconductors typically operate at extremely cold temperatures, but there are searches underway for "room temperature superconductors". None have been found yet as far as I know, but here's a thread on that topic:

US Navy Files for Patent On Room-temperature Superconductor

a reply to: traintrain

What temperature does your electric heater run?

Solid state physics heat capacity of electronics
is the specific heat of electrons.

In solids electrons conduct heat and in
solids electrons and photons transmit
most of the heat.

In Solid state physics heat capacity of electronics
is the specific heat of electrons.

In materials electrons conduct heat and in
solids and metals electrons and photons transmit
most of the heat.

Temperature is the measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a system.

Electricity is electrons in motion.

Ergo, electricity has no temperature.

What is the flavor of gravity?

I think the answer has been stated: electricity has no temperature itself.

All the materials that electricity has to travel through resist the flow of electricity to some degree. That causes the electrons to jostle other electrons in the material which is released as heat (and why your Pop Tarts get nice and golden brown: the toaster's coils are resisting the flow of electricity and release that as heat), or, it is the right kind of material, light (or both! Which why they wanted to ban a certain type of light bulb not realizing that people use it because it gives off heat (keeps the eggs warm in the incubator)). If the resistance remains too high (or your amperage, the amount of current, is way off) then you have the condition where the power cord melts; like the Pop Tarts with too much heat, if you over supply current you get your Pop Tart flamethrower!

That explains why lightening is "hot" and causes forest fires (or nuclear fusion up in the atmosphere, in small amounts).

Superconductors (SC) are crystal structures within the electric conductor that when under special conditions (really cold temperatures) flip their state from bein an insulator (does not conduct electricity; either that much or at all) to a conductor along the crystal edges that has no resistance. The dream is to have a material that does this with out having to cool it down to just above absolute zero (even "high temperature" one are colder than liquid nitrogen). Because of material resistance in the high tension power cables, they say 5 -10 % of all electricity generated is actually heat and is never used as electricity because of resistance.

The goal is less loss of electricity through room temperature superconductor power lines. It would also be good for the environment since we would no longer have to over produce electricity and create even more greenhouse gasses.

Chicago is currently testing "high temperature" (HT) power cables (the insulation and cooling jacket surround the HTSC allowing DC current from renewables to reach its destination, only several hundred feet, without loss. May not seem like much but it is a start! The cooling parts are at both ends of the cable). They started in 2018, I think, so we are still awaiting results.



ETA: I should have looked! Chicago's HTSC power cable is 3.5 KM. There are many around the world doing both AC or DC with lengths around 1,000 meters being typical. Link. (Has a cross-section picture of how HTSC cable is laid out).

a reply to: rickymouse

Right, it’s called Humidity and wind chill. 10 degrees F in Nevada’s super dry air in the winter sunlight zero wind feels warmer than being in 40 degrees F with 60% humidity with 5 mph winds In North Carolina.

originally posted by: 38181
a reply to: rickymouse

Right, it’s called Humidity and wind chill. 10 degrees F in Nevada’s super dry air in the winter sunlight zero wind feels warmer than being in 40 degrees F with 60% humidity with 5 mph winds In North Carolina.

In march sometimes, it can be ten degrees outside and it seems like thirty, I will go out and shovel or clean the car off in my teeshirt and pants with no gloves. Before the middle of January that rarely occurs, and our furnace runs more in December and half of January burning more fuel than it does in the period after that even if it is way colder. We have been keeping track of our heating here at this house for thirty years now and I have noticed some weird stuff when it comes to keeping the house heated, I guess I was a trained insulation specialist and it blew away everything I was taught.

The air can contain energy and still be cold, that energy collects on what it hits and heats it. That is what I have concluded, but just don't know what is doing it for sure. UV light on the house puts a charge onto the house that cancels out the current flow that draws heat towards cold. I know that and have found information of that in Physics articles. Lots of the stuff we can buy to save energy incorporates just what I said in their design. Somehow the UV could be exciting the ions in the air yet is not converted to heat till it hits a catalyst, a chemical that can convert it to heat. But that is a guess. That energy field that builds up on your house, often concentrated on top of snow than flows up on the sidewalls if you bank the house, is also present on trees in the winter and summer, on the outside of the bark.

a reply to: traintrain

I have an electric refrigerator.

originally posted by: MachineMan
What is the flavor of gravity?

Chartreuse

a reply to: traintrain

Electricity is not a material; it can have no temperature. One might as well ask what is the color of thought or what does gravity smell like?

The reason materials conducting electricity heat up is due to the resistance (as several others have pointed out). As electrons flow through a material, there is a resistance to them moving; they want to stay still. The force that keeps them moving is the voltage, and how many electrons are flowing past a point in a given amount of time is the current. All materials (except superconductors) have some resistance... insulators have a lot, which means very little current will flow even at very high voltages. Conductors have very little resistance, so large currents can flow even with little voltage.

As electrons move through the materials, the materials heat up based on the current, voltage, and resistance. That's not the electricity heating up; electricity can have no temperature itself. It's the materials that heat up from the electricity, and their temperature is dependent on the amount of heat produced in them, the surrounding temperature, etc.

TheRedneck