On Mon, 25 Nov 2013 23:36:07 +0000 (UTC), Danny D'Amico
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Nov 2013 13:43:23 -0800, wrote:


As has been explained a dozen times now, there is a complete
circuit and under normal conditions, the earth is *not* part of
it. You continue to ignore the *neutral" and the fact that with
a balanced 3 phase load, the entire current flows in the 3 phase
conductors.

Let's stop arguing *our* viewpoints and come up with references.
I found a half dozen references which said the ground is the
return path to the power company, including one physics forum.

Let's now try to find a reference that refutes that.

Specifically, let's find a reference that says the ground is
*not* the return path to the power company.

Note: It will likely be easy to find references that don't
state either, so, the important point is to find a reference
that specifically says the ground is *not* the return path.
Try
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electri...tion_sy stems

I know, it's only a WIKI, but in part it states:
"A ground connection to local earth is normally provided for the
customer's system as well as for the equipment owned by the utility.
The purpose of connecting the customer's system to ground is to limit
the voltage that may develop if high voltage conductors fall down onto
lower-voltage conductors which are usually mounted lower to the
ground, or if a failure occurs within a distribution transformer. If
all conductive objects are bonded to the same earth grounding system,
the risk of electric shock is minimized. However, multiple connections
between the utility ground and customer ground can lead to stray
voltage problems; customer piping, swimming pools or other equipment
may develop objectionable voltages. These problems may be difficult to
resolve since they often originate from places other than the
customer's premises."

Only in some rather rare circumstances is the "ground" actually used
in place of a current carrying conductor - eg. In New Zealand,
Australia, Saskatchewan, Canada, and South Africa, single wire earth
return systems SWER are used to electrify remote rural areas.Here they
use galvanized iron wire in place of copper and run higher than
normal voltages to compensate for the extra resistances involved.
Obviously these are only single phase, single voltage distribution
systems where a multi-tap transformer is used to adjust the end user
voltage.