How is this possible? What is voltage? 7.2 KV going through this small wire?

[foolios]

I finally got to see the inside of a voltage transformer as one happened to blow up and I got to view a part of it. The wild thing was that since it was a 7200 volt transformer I thought that there would be some thick wire in there. Well, the top portion of it has one little itty bitty wire traveling through it and it blew my mind that it could carry such high voltage without difficulty, well, unless somehow a high current load is drawn through it causing it to blow. Heh
Here is the pic of what I'm talking about:

Ok, so then what is voltage? I have read many times about how it's what pushes current. But what the heck is "THIS", the this that's pushing? I get the idea that current is the atoms moving through something. Current I can imagine. But voltage? I can't imagine what voltage is. How can something push when it's not anything at all?
What gives????

Thanks in advance!

P.S. And why can so much voltage transfer through such a small wire? It's weird how the wire connecting to the top is so thick....

 

[Mark.W]

It all starts at the generator in power plants, (electrical generators transform mechanical energy into electrical energy) power stations produce electricity in many ways such as burning coal, water turbines etc That push that you refer to comes from the mechanical energy....!

With regards to the small cable, it's not voltage that has an effect on cable it's the current.

Imagine we want to supply a small town with electricity. The average power needed by the town is 100 MW. If we use a small transmission voltage (of 20 kV), there will need to be a large current in the transmission cables (5000 A) in order to supply 100 MW. This will make the transmission lines very hot and waste energy. If we use a high transmission voltage then the current that needs to flow to the town will be less (and still deliver the same power). A smaller current causes less heating in the transmission cables. So there is less waste. An examples is power stations only produce at 25kV but then use step up transfromers to increase the voltage to 400kV for transmission purposes and then use step down transformers to deliver the power to us.

We can use smaller cables by transmitting at higher voltages which causes less waste and is cheaper!

P = I x V

Hope this helps!

 

[kung]

Good post Brightspark !

 

[Yooj]

Think of a water supply, and voltage is pressure, and current is flow....Therefore you could have a very small bore pipe, no flow but very high pressure...to contain this pressure (Voltage) you would need very stong pipe walls to contain it, but if the bore is very small then the flow (Current) would be small. However, a suitably high pressure and small flow will have the same energy as a large flow under low pressure.

Yooj

 

[Spudnik]

It all starts at the generator in power plants, (electrical generators transform mechanical energy into electrical energy) power stations produce electricity in many ways such as burning coal, water turbines etc That push that you refer to comes from the mechanical energy....!

With regards to the small cable, it's not voltage that has an effect on cable it's the current.

Imagine we want to supply a small town with electricity. The average power needed by the town is 100 MW. If we use a small transmission voltage (of 20 kV), there will need to be a large current in the transmission cables (5000 A) in order to supply 100 MW. This will make the transmission lines very hot and waste energy. If we use a high transmission voltage then the current that needs to flow to the town will be less (and still deliver the same power). A smaller current causes less heating in the transmission cables. So there is less waste. An examples is power stations only produce at 25kV but then use step up transfromers to increase the voltage to 400kV for transmission purposes and then use step down transformers to deliver the power to us.

We can use smaller cables by transmitting at higher voltages which causes less waste and is cheaper!

P = I x V

Hope this helps!

Did you swallow a book or summink?