| People have powered lighting systems for houses using large coils of wire in | there attic. They have used many turns of wire parallel to the line. I | believe they were only able to operate flourscent lighting. | Some of the people who did it caught and proscuted by the power company. | Examples of it are used in some electrical engineering classes. Stealing | power is however still stealing .
However, there are legitimate natural sources of power. A huge coil in an attic is not one of them that I am aware of. However, there are such sources in the ground, especially as storm clouds are moving overhead. So what if I were to set up some long wire ground stakes and gather up some of that power? The catch here is that utilities also leak power into the ground (as well as the air). Taking _their_ power may still be considered stealing, but I think they should have no right to block me from taking natural power on my own land.
| How they were caught I don't know. IF you live near a radio transmitter it | might be ok to tap their signal for power. The difference is the power | company is there for power and the radio station is putting out the signal | to be used.
To the extent that your tap interferes with their service, I think you can be held accountable for the troubles. But to the extent that the power company wants to use your air space to hold up their magnetic fields, I think what you can tap into is just compensation (obviously some judges don't agree with me). To make this right, of course, it has to be entirely on your own land and outside of the right of way of the power line.