Dundee man accused of 'recklessly producing household electricity'

[Peterae]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-20463857

Charles McKenzie is alleged to have rigged up a "dangerous transformer assembly" at his flat in Dundee's Dudhope Court to generate power.

Who needs MIB when the Police can do an equally good job.

How long before wires are banned being sold unless you have a licence to buy them.

I wonder if he was on the top floor of that block of flats and using the earth wire and altitude potential 

[exnihiloest]

The accusation concerns the danger of his process (suspended transformer with cans of petrol nearby), not the fact to produce electricity.
If I lived in an appartment, I wouldn't like have this guy as neighbour, at least I should have a solid insurance policy in case of fire  .

The interest to produce electricity at home in winter (with conventional means) is that, even if the efficiency of the conversion into electricity is bad, the wasted energy can be used to heat the home.

[BEP]

I wonder if he was on the top floor of that block of flats and using the earth wire and altitude potential 

Gasoline and a transformer? That sounds like one of my projects 

I wonder if he had a water-hose running from the ground to the top of the building wound with a coil of wire? Maybe the transformer was just used to step voltage down 

[Paul-R]

These civil servants need to be given something real to worry about.
Like redundancy notices.

It reminds me of Tesla's all night sessions with people like Mark Twain,
getting a knock on the door. The local Police asked Mr Tesla to kindly
refrain from sending lightning bolts across the street since they are
receving complaints and it frightens the horses.

[Peterae]

Gasoline and a transformer? That sounds like one of my projects  Cool

Ex
Petrol needs air to explode, if it's in a can it should be pretty safe.
I know of very large transformers that use oil as a coolant, doesn't sound good does it.specially if the oil burns  

Is there a law that says you cannot have petrol and transformers together in the same room, not that i know of.

[giantkiller]

Was a picture of the device shown anywhere?
After all he did have the necessary height.

[Peterae]

Not that o know of, he was obviously successful though, hence the title he was generating electricity 
When i lived in a flat i was only on the 1st floor and my collector was working, if i lived on the 20Th floor god only knows how much power i would have got.

[Peterae]

He went off-grid, allegedly.

http://www.anorak.co.uk/340393/strange-but-true/dundee-man-charged-with-recklessly-producing-household-electricity.html/
It gets better, he went off grid and they did not like that 

[Peterae]

They can prosecute a man for having a can of petrol and a few pieces of wire in a block of flats, yet they can build a nuclear reactor next to a highly populated area and not be done, i would expect the people running nuclear reactors to be arrested very soon as these are much more dangerous than a closed container of petrol, i mean every car has wires and petrol and these park in underground car parks which are built under blocks of flats so there's no difference apart from he was generating free energy.

It is obvious the real reason he has been arrested, ex will never see it though.

[EMdevices]

Last time I went off the grid, I got right back on!  lol

I think Mannix turned him in to the authorities, he's obsesed with safety.  lol

Alway drain a bit of juice from the grid, they won't suspect a thing.

EM

[Peterae]

LOL

[exnihiloest]

Ex
Petrol needs air to explode, if it's in a can it should be pretty safe.

I know that. I suppose that if he have cans, it's not for keeping them closed. And we all know the consequences of an electric spark when oil is present.
Storing oil is always a potential danger, even for professionals. Drastic conditions must be respected by oil station owners. It's not responsible to store oil at home, especially when your home is not an isolated house.

Is there a law that says you cannot have petrol and transformers together in the same room, not that i know of.

As well there is no law that prevents from cooking a barbecue inside an appartment, and we saw the case with families from arab culture, making a fire at home for roasting mutton  . Fortunately these events can be related to laws about security concerns and now be prohibited.

[Farmhand]

Safety is no small matter especially in a block of flats, how many people have trouble with mobility there. In a private home is a different matter entirely,
I think it could be a matter who is legally responsible should a fire kill 10 people, the tenant, or the landlord who was aware of what he was doing, knew it was dangerous and did nothing about it, duty of care thing.

Possibly, being that the landlord could not evict the tenant because of the law the tenant was using to stay put, the landlord had no other choice than to take it to the police when the tenant refused to rectify the safety issue.
It's about safety I think not the generation of electricity.

Just as an example, a bunch of oily rags in a pile can self ignite and start a fire, believe it or not. these types of hazards are often over looked.
If it was necessary for the landlord or other people to enter the flat periodically they have right to complain.
Not that I agree with being charged with anything, but surely he must have refused to clean up. And for anyone to even know of what was happening they would need access to the flat.
There might be more to the story. I am totally against legal actions unless it is a real safety issue that he refused to address.

Cheers

Maybe it was a Tesla transformer putting out 3 foot long streamers licking at the fuel container. Some people are pretty crazy, just look an you tube. People connect MOTs to the grid make them resonant and draw 2 foot long power arcs, it's complete madness, how many of them are dead do we hear about the deaths ? They don't post on you tube how they got fried when they are dead.

Skip to 7:00 minutes in this video. If I seen this guy doing that in the flat below me I would not be happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKSn8OkBeQg

All those silly unsafe video's should be removed from you tube, in my opinion. The kid is juggling 4 balls of death.

..

[Paul-R]

Petrol needs air to explode, if it's in a can it should be pretty safe.

...and of course, what applies to petrol applies to Whisky.

[exnihiloest]

According to some of my experiments, there is a rather significant and potentially dangerous energy in a peated single malt whisky at least 16 years old. Try Talisker or Lagavulin

[Farmhand]

Most fuel cans have some air inside them. Depending on a few factors if a spark was to form inside a almost empty fuel container it could explode. maybe.
More danger would be in spilled or leaked fuel. Yes the effects of consumed alcohol can be one of the most dangerous things there is. I gave it up myself
about 7 years ago, I've had my fair share.  I'm no stick in the mud though, I like to play with big sparks myself, but safety is number one concern, and if I was causing anyone else problems ( if I got a complaint) I would have to adjust my activities, we don't have the right to knowingly cause problems for others. Human intelligence allows us to predict what is likely to cause problems and what isn't before the problem exists. At least we should have that capability. My weakness was Mezcal 

Cheers

[Paul-R]

According to some of my experiments, there is a rather significant and potentially dangerous energy in a peated single malt whisky at least 16 years old. Try Talisker or Lagavulin

..as we sometimes see whenever Celtic meet Rangers.