The triple alliance in electrical insulation

IF AIR were not an insulator, the generation, transmission, and utilization of electric power would be beset with almost insurmountable difficulties. For example, lamp sockets or any other exposed portion of the electric wiring in homes would support no voltage and would carry no current to lamps or other electrical appliances. In the powerhouse conditions would be even worse, unless perhaps the generators were placed in a high vacuum. If humans lived in a water medium, as fish do, the comforts electricity has provided almost certainly never would have been known. Perhaps the only advantage of a conducting medium would be the complete elimination of lightning, for then the clouds would not become charged. Conducting air, however, would be a high price to pay for removal of the danger of lightning.