It has been proven that up to 23% of the Electrical power we buy gets wasted thru a power factor and magnetic fields of are electric motors and dirty power. People really don't care and would rather go out and buy a toy or cell phone that they can tell people about.
The United States Dept of Energy in 2005 residentail and small business had waste over billion Kilowatts hour of power. If you would to see more go to my web site and watch the video www.anaturalhomesolution.com
Some intelligent farmers with large power lines on their farms, occasionally get free power by simply running a wire accross their land near the power lines.
The power company isn't actually charging you for the wasted power, well not in the US. So you don't actually pay for it. The exception to that is in the case of where power is controlled by another device, an electric fence for example when the grass grows too high and touches the wire.
Okay, I'm going to get technical to illustrate how it works.
All conductors produce a magnetic field at 90 degree angles to the conductor, a 90 degree angle in a magnetic field makes a conductor, so there is always power at a much less rate flowing back to the power company.
If they don't get a specific level of electric juice, they know the power got lost in transmission. :)
That's why a lot of money and attention is currently being devoted to smart grid technology. The goal of smart grid design is to plug leaks, anticipate power demand and shunt power to those areas, and try to balance power production with demand.