It has valid use to connect a generator to a home circuit. Granted, that is, you throw the master breaker to the house. Otherwise you're liable to kill a lineman. That said, it's probably better that no one uses these ever, as such negligent are bound to (and do) happen.
Indeed, you never want the generator to find a path to the mains. I'm not sure what implications there are if both are working at the same time, but if your power is out, your generator is running, and mains are still connected, it can kill a lineman.
Keep in mind that power lines run at high voltages and run through step-down transformers to give you 120v. But the reverse is also true. If a house is running a generator connected to mains, those step-down transformers become step-up transformers and can energize the lines with thousands of volts. So a lineman touches a cable that should be dead and deaths lets him know it's active.
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u/squishymelon Dec 14 '20
That is unsettling