Bonded/Grounded Neutral on Transformer question (not shorting to ground?)

[Fried Chicken]

I recently poked around in the breaker box on the house to install some GFCI breakers feeding outlets under a sink (that the code at the time found acceptable given they are on separate breakers - the justification I still don't understand).

As I saw the shared neutral and ground bus on the breaker, a nagging question formed in my head that always bothered me about AC: How can we pull a neutral off a transformer connect feed it to ground without inducing a "short"?  It's my understanding current will "flow" into a nothing (unlike DC) as the "loop" that's formed goes into some weird unusual physics....  It's why you can feel a shock on just the hot wire of an AC circuit: the capacitance of your body allowed the current to "flow"... so how can we take a wire off a transformer and connect it into the earth without shorting out the entire electrical grid, or pulling a massive current from the power plant going into nothing?

[uer166]

In your context it's galvanic isolation: the center tap of a Y-output transformer is isolated from the grid (as are the phases). To re-reference the phases back to earth, the neutral is staked into the ground. This is not universal though, in some countries the systems use isolated earth (mains floating relative to the earth conductor, but also relative to the physical ground you're standing on). There's no weird physics here.

[ejeffrey]

It's why you can feel a shock on just the hot wire of an AC circuit: the capacitance of your body allowed the current to "flow"...

You can feel a very small current.

so how can we take a wire off a transformer and connect it into the earth without shorting out the entire electrical grid, or pulling a massive current from the power plant going into nothing?

There is probably some capacitive coupling across the transformer.  That current will flow to ground via the ground rod (or maybe the transformer has internal screening? I'm  not sure).  But it's a small current because the capacitive impedance at 60 Hz is very large.

[Fried Chicken]

I don't get it.  I understand it's galvanically isolated, but would there still not be AC on the other side of the transformer, and wouldn't that carry current?

[Someone]

I don't get it.  I understand it's galvanically isolated, but would there still not be AC on the other side of the transformer, and wouldn't that carry current?

Some current.

It's my understanding current will "flow" into a nothing (unlike DC) as the "loop" that's formed goes into some weird unusual physics....  It's why you can feel a shock on just the hot wire of an AC circuit: the capacitance of your body allowed the current to "flow"... so how can we take a wire off a transformer and connect it into the earth without shorting out the entire electrical grid, or pulling a massive current from the power plant going into nothing?

People can feel in the order of 1mA, but appliances use in the order of 1A or the entire house 100A. Some mA of leakage is <<< operating conditions that it is ignored.

Much more is lost along the way (partly through radiation and the "weird unusual physics"):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_power_transmission#Losses