Why do batteries drain out.....

Yes, any living tissue in the vicinity of greater than normal radiation is at greater risk of developing cancer. Note the word radiation - its a term applied to heat (infrared light), visible light, UV light, microwaves, radio waves and so on. All are basically the same except for their frequencies or wavelengths and it is this that determines if its harmful or not. Heat and visible light are known to all - heat below a certain limit will not harm and visible light is almost 100% safe. UV is cancer causing, microwaves can be damaging if in enough amount (like putting yourself inside a microwave oven).

Looking at this its not HT lines but proximity microwave towers or other such transmitting antennae that can lead to cancer.

Hi everyone,

I was looking into why car batteries discharge faster under a high voltage (say 240 kV) power lines and came accross this site, so its my first time posting. I went through the previous posts and from what I could understands it seems that the internal load of the car (even when not on) is what will draw most current from the battery. Now the powerline does induce alternating electomagnetic fields but from what I read here that won't cause much change since the battery will charge during the positive cycle and dicharge during the negative, but from what I have heard when the car is parked under the line battery discharging is accelerated i.e. the battery dies faster. What would cause the battery to die faster, does the magnetic field increase the leakage current or something? The load in the car will draw the same amount of current regardless of where the car is parked, so if the battery is discharging faster under the line it has to be the electromagnetic field that causes this, does anyone know the technicality behind this?  

Hi,

A very old thread, but some new interests. Surely the thread does help and as already concluded the HT wires do not affect the battery discharge rate. Also, as said in the first post, the reason why the cell phone discharges so fast while travelling in trains (not only electric trains) is that since you are travelling, even inside a city where the signal strenght is quite good, your cellphone antenna just disconnect the link with the tower from which its is going farther away and establishes connection with the tower towards which it is nearing. This is the reason why our call doesn't get disconnected while we are moving from place to place. Hence, this repeated disconnecting from existing tower, searching for new stronger signal and establishing connection with the new tower drains more battery. That is also the reason why while travelling our voice is heard with a lot of disturbances. This effect is more pronounced while travelling out of city.

This may not be related to cars, but it is surely related to batteries and I just wanted to share an information in the most appropriate place.

If the conducting cable is completely surrounded by a closed magnetic field (like in a motor) then there could be a current flowing from battery positive to battery negative through the electronics in the car that are still alive but in sleep mode. This depends on the polarity of the magnetic field. In the case of power transmission lines, these are AC lines and hence any magnetic field they create will be alternating between positive and negative. It is possible that whatever trickle current is drained from battery in the first half cycle, will be restored in the second half cycle, 50 times per second.

The major reason for power drain is active electronics when the ignition is off, even though the electronics will be in sleep mode. The most common issue is the Headlights and tail lights and dome lights, being left on after the parking.  Most american Cars have an automatic headlamp shut-off timer in their software that shuts off the headlamp and tail lamp and dome lights 10 mins after the ignition key is removed.  Simple feature to do in software of the car's body-control module. i dont know why Car manufacturers dont make this a standard feature and save battery drains.