I know it may be dumb, but water is a good conductor of electricity. If it is even possible, would it be fast and how efficient would it be?
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1$\begingroup$ FYI: "Cable" does not mean "electrical conductor." Cables are long, and flexible, and somewhat round in cross section, and if they are electrical cables, then they also conduct electricity. On the other hand, there are other things ("cords," "bus bars," "wires," etc.) that are used for transmitting electric power or electronic signals, but which are not called "cable." $\endgroup$– Solomon SlowCommented Dec 10 at 17:09
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1$\begingroup$ For DC, you will have a big problem with electrolysis. $\endgroup$– PeltioCommented Dec 10 at 17:13
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$\begingroup$ Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking. $\endgroup$– Community BotCommented Dec 10 at 17:39
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2$\begingroup$ "water is a good conductor of electricity" You are going to want to quantify what you mean by "good" $\endgroup$– hftCommented Dec 10 at 17:41
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4$\begingroup$ "water is a good conductor of electricity" Not de-ioninzed water... $\endgroup$– hftCommented Dec 10 at 17:42
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Tap water’s conductivity is up to around 1500 siemens per centimeter, which isn’t awful, except when you compare it to around 5.8 billion siemens per centimeter for copper. It would be far too inefficient to ever work for any real purpose.
(Tap water because pure water doesn’t actually conduct electricity. The ions and other impurities in regular drinking/municipal water is what makes it conduct; we even add some of those ions ourselves to make it healthier. $\text{H}_2\text{O}$ on its own does not conduct electricity. See the source I cited for water’s conductivity, noting that it’s around 0.5 S/cm for distilled water.)
Also consider that water is hard to contain. We can make copper wires much, much thinner and much, much more precise than tubes of water. We can’t etch water onto circuit boards, at least not effectively. If we did, it would just boil when it heats up due to electrical resistance. Copper, conveniently, doesn’t boil easily.
This also doesn’t consider the many things that happen to water when you subject it to electricity, for example (as Peltio kindly pointed out in comments), electrolysis - the production of highly-volatile gases (hydrogen and oxygen) right next to each other right on top of your live electrical equipment.
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$\begingroup$ You could also answer the obvious next question: what about salt water? $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 10 at 17:29
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1$\begingroup$ It’s a good point. It doesn’t look much better, siemens-per-meter wise, than tap water. Plus, the electrolysis remains. - I don’t like that I can’t get consistent data on this, so I’m going to go home after work today and actually test this, water vs pure water vs salt water. I have a multimeter, why not? $\endgroup$ Commented Dec 10 at 17:32
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$\begingroup$ Electrolysis of sodium chloride solution is fun. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chloralkali_process When I was a kid, we used carbon rods from old batteries as the electrodes. $\endgroup$– PM 2RingCommented Dec 10 at 18:13