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posted by martyb on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:30AM   Printer-friendly
from the better-ask-Betteridge dept.

It is the height of a highly destructive hurricane season in the United States. The devastation of Harvey in Texas and Louisiana caused nearly 300,000 customers to lose electricity service, and Hurricane Irma has cut service to millions of people. Soon, winter storms will bring wind and snow to much of the country.

Anxious people everywhere worry about the impact these storms might have on their safety, comfort and convenience. Will they disrupt my commute to work? My children's ride to school? My electricity service?

When it comes to electricity, people turn their attention to the power lines overhead and wonder if their electricity service might be more secure if those lines were buried underground. But having studied this question for utilities and regulators, I can say the answer is not that straightforward. Burying power lines, also called undergrounding, is expensive, requires the involvement of many stakeholders and might not solve the problem at all.

Would burying power lines render them more weather-proof?

Read the full article on The Conversation.


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:15AM (30 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:15AM (#567558) Journal

    It's a noob-assed question.

    And yours is a noob-assed answer.
    E.g. for a starter, pray tell, how much that "whopping hell of a lot longer" actually is, how frequent they actually need repairs and at what cost? Then compare the repairing cost of utility and the incurred cost of the consumers.

    Hint: the TFA show they did model such things. You may dispute their assumption and modelling if you like, but I doubt you have the right to dismiss their study with the "It so obvious it doesn't worth discussing" handwave.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
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  • (Score: 2) by hopp on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:18AM (27 children)

    by hopp (2833) on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:18AM (#567649)

    Really the problem is the cost and right of way. The utility owns it's own above ground poles by me. For burial the copper is 3x as thick (because not as much cooling as non buried) and they have to get right of way on a bunch of places they already have poles.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:38AM (25 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:38AM (#567657) Journal

      Really the problem is the ... right of way

      Eminent domain?

      (yeah, I know. I'm sorta teasing the "violently imposed monopoly" guy in here).

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by tomtomtom on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:03AM (24 children)

        by tomtomtom (340) on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:03AM (#567703)

        The labour and equipment cost of digging the trenches is the major hurdle - it's very significantly higher than the cost of putting up poles (perhaps 6-10x higher). Then you have the logistical issues of finding enough reliable contractors to dig those trenches in the first place. It's probably a 15-year-plus project to get it all done. The Nordic countries have started down this route after some severe storms a few year back led to loss of power for a few weeks during winter - in countries where consumers rely on electricity for heat. It does demonstrably make recovering from severe storms significantly quicker though (substations, generators and other parts of the infrastructure can still be affected). The question is, who will pay for it? It will make a meaningful difference to people's bills, often quite a while before they themselves see any benefit. It will take a lot of political will to make this happen.

        • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:40AM (20 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:40AM (#567725) Homepage Journal

          Try 10-100 times. Two poles that handle a hundred yard span can be set, spliced in, and powered up in a morning fairly easily. This is not remotely the case with any reliable and serviceable form of underground cabling.

          The really fun bit here is all the morons with their mega-urban-colored glasses on. News flash, dipshits, most of the world lies outside of million plus population cities. Any utility company that was foolish enough to spend the billions necessary to put in serviceable, underground cabling for even a small state with several large cities would bankrupt itself, if it could even find anyone willing to make a loan that insanely doomed to failure.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:05AM (19 children)

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:05AM (#567731) Journal

            Try 10-100 times.

            You joking, right? It is called trench digger [google.com]. They use them even in India [youtube.com]. I can't believe it's an unknown tech is US.

            Besides, it's more a matter of zone development - you put the cables under even before developing the roads in a new development area. This happens for at least 15 years (if not for longer) here in Australia - the only areas where you see aerial cables are on the steep hill sides, where the stability of the terrain is hard to guarantee with costs within reason.

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:34PM (18 children)

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:34PM (#567756)

              Its not the physical labor, its the time and delay of onecall to make sure you don't hit the gas line, going across the gas line anyway so you need to hand dig that portion, the ground is frozen a couple months of the year here so you have fascinating fun with temps, you can try to scare the hell out of landowners about digging stuff up all you want but you'll still have the time and labor cost of some idiot putting their shed or flower bed or buried pet across the right of way not to mention having to move movable things (Dude parts his RV there when he's not using it... where park it for a couple days while you're digging?)

              This is before we get started with the difference in operations policy between "send two dudes with trunk out to string aerial BAU" vs "OMFG set up up a construction dept project involving 15 guys and it aint happening until next season given the backlog"

              I worked at a couple utilities mostly in communication field and outsiders always confuse the heck out of the labor involved in personally wielding a shovel as a private citizen on their own property vs the labor required to accomplish a megacorporation-level project. Yes you can build a dog house at home by yourself in an afternoon, that does not mean a NYC skyscraper is just that but a little bigger.

              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:52PM (17 children)

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:52PM (#567760) Journal

                Its not the physical labor, its the time and delay of onecall to make sure you don't hit the gas line, going across the gas line anyway so you need to hand dig that portion, the ground is frozen a couple months of the year here so you have fascinating fun with temps, you can try to scare the hell out of landowners about digging stuff up all you want but you'll still have the time and labor cost of some idiot putting their shed or flower bed or buried pet across the right of way not to mention having to move movable things (Dude parts his RV there when he's not using it... where park it for a couple days while you're digging?)

                Ok, I see now. That's the difference between cheap and good when it comes to urban planning.

                onecall to make sure you don't hit the gas line,

                What's the onecall? (downunder, there's something called Dial before you dig [1100.com.au] - is it something like that?)

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                • (Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:59PM (16 children)

                  by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:59PM (#567799)

                  I'd say its more like a difference of scale. One dude working alone can kinda wing it, a long term multi site eternal effort needs organization. Aerial work (fiber, where I worked) scales to "two dudes with truck" (well, fiber termination van, but whatever), but burial just covers too many human labor specializations to not need a zillion people.

                  Let me give you an example. One interesting outage at work that I heard about but had nothing to do with personally, involved a heavy construction company proudly purchasing a brand new crane and driving it into their staging lot, being the biggest crane they ever owned or leased, it ripped out all our fiber, thankfully not severing any. Two dudes with fiber van went out, temp re-hung it, came out 3rd shift and spliced in replacement fiber (as the truck snag had not severed, but had F-ed up the fiber jacket). Its like two guys worth of specialized knowledge. You need lineman style height training from OSHA and stuff, some training about not licking the power lines while you're up on the pole, and considerable fiber termination and splicing training but not too ridiculous to hire people who can "do it all" for aerial.

                  Now another example is my back yard where the power company dug up the 75 yr old lines to replace then and dropped in more capacity and fiber for resale, new xformers, basically upgrade the service of the whole subdivision, etc. So first the planner and CAD guy and surveyor come out in the winter to let me know my garage isn't in the way but my neighbors was illegally-ish built over the right of way so they'll have to reroute a bit to be nice guys rather than bulldozing his garage, but it doesn't affect me directly although they'll be more work in my yard than normally, the point is whats on the map never matches whats on the ground and the plan never survives contact with reality. The onecall guys come out and cover my yard in spray paint up to 100 feet away from the future trench, dude if you hit the sewer on the other side of the property your trench driver must be drunk, but whatever. Then the landscaper guys came by and ripped down both my fences (as in each side of the yard) and put up temp construction fences and this weird soil erosion cloth stuff. Then the heavy equipment comes thru and does all the trenching and removal and burial in like one day. There's guys driving a truck to add or remove excess dirt as necessary and guys driving a giant trencher and guys for power and fiber and the same splicing van you'd expect, the point is there's like ten differently skilled dudes not just two aerial rated linemen. Don't forget that somehow service to my house was never significantly interrupted (like more than a minute or two) as they did some weirdness with temp lines, so there's crews working on that. Then the landscaping guys come thru and tidy up and re-apply grass seed and water every day for a week all the way across our suburban block. Then the power co purchased our willful cooperation in this whole BS by replacing everyone's fences with new fences, then they removed the temp construction fences. Our new fence looks pretty nice, I like it. Finally the project management team came by one last time to inspect everyones work, remind us we got "free" new fence out of this, and asked us to sign off on a general release, which I happily signed. In the business world there just aren't enough "jack of all trades" types to do buried work with just two dudes with a van, no matter how much in theory two highly motivated dudes could have done that project extremely slowly over the course of a couple weeks. Instead multiple huge teams of numerous specialists took mere hours per individual yard.

                  In the USA, having worked at multiple regional telecom companies, I can unfortunately assure you that every state has some kind of semi-govt monopoly system set up to mark underground cables before digging mostly for free. Mostly as in we got to pay a fee and provide our CAD maps for the privilege of being protected. It costs an excavator operator nothing to have the utilities marked, but the utilities pay a ridiculous amount of money annually, so everyone kinda pays. Like $1/mile/year in some states. We thought our fiber bill was bad, imagine what a gas or water util must pay per year. Hope there's a discount or something...

                  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:29PM (15 children)

                    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:29PM (#567808) Journal

                    I'd say its more like a difference of scale. One dude working alone can kinda wing it, a long term multi site eternal effort needs organization. Aerial work (fiber, where I worked) scales to "two dudes with truck" (well, fiber termination van, but whatever), but burial just covers too many human labor specializations to not need a zillion people.

                    Oh, come on! Australia is just (pretending to) upgrade its network infrastructure (the NBN [wikipedia.org] thingy) - it doesn't happen overnight, but it's still feasible with less than zillions.

                    Now another example is my back yard where the power company dug up the 75 yr old lines to ... Instead multiple huge teams of numerous specialists took mere hours per individual yard.

                    Epic, literally epic. But... isn't this a result of bad planning? (why do the things need to run under the backyard? What's wrong with under the front yard/footpath?)
                    Anyway, I must admit that, in this light, the 10-100 times factor estimated by TMB becomes plausible (gosh, doesn't this guy get bored of being right in details?)

                    --
                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:37PM (14 children)

                      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:37PM (#567813) Homepage Journal

                      Never. Knowing the truth and thinking with your brain instead of your heart are crucial if you prefer to advance society rather than destroy it.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:49PM (13 children)

                        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:49PM (#567821) Journal

                        Knowing the truth

                        The truth of whom? (I admitted you are right in the US specific details and nothing more)

                        thinking with your brain... to advance society rather than destroy it.

                        Speaking of which... my brain start wondering how come other advanced societies can have underground power cables, but US cannot?
                        Because it's evident that power cables in underground conduits require less maintenance, are less prone to risks and can be replaced faster than aerial cables once installed.

                        --
                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                        • (Score: 2, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:36PM (12 children)

                          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:36PM (#567848) Homepage Journal

                          Facts are not subjective and the truth is facts. I know this chaps the asses of the left, but tough shit.

                          Mostly because someone other than the power company had to pay astoundingly wasteful amounts for all those easily accessible, underground routes to be built. By someone, I of course mean the customers. Really, it was always going to be the customers paying for it. Personally, I have better things to spend my money on than getting rid of something simple and cheap that works.

                          --
                          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                          • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:21PM (9 children)

                            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:21PM (#567884) Journal

                            Mostly because someone other than the power company had to pay astoundingly wasteful amounts for all those easily accessible, underground routes to be built.

                            BS. I need only one counterexample to show you it can be done without astoundingly wasteful amounts; so, factually, here it is:
                            where I live, they were placed at the same time as water, gas and sewage pipes and the comms cables; using exactly the simple trench digger I linked previously followed by another machine which dropped the segments of the conduit (prefab concrete)
                            Done by the estate developer. Who would not get its development permit if it wouldn't do it this way.

                            So, again, the truth of whom?

                            Personally, I have better things to spend my money on than getting rid of something simple and cheap that works.

                            1. until it doesn't work and costs an arm and a leg to repair in a short term, emergency situation
                            2, suddenly is no longer about the advance of society, but the spending of personal money

                            --
                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:57PM (3 children)

                              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:57PM (#567929) Homepage Journal

                              And you don't think digging a trench, laying concrete pipe, and being unable to ever service it without a major undertaking didn't raise the cost of your home significantly? Dumbass.

                              Having to spend your personal money on wasteful bullshit for aesthetic reasons is about the advancement of society. Society is improved markedly by people having more disposable income in their pockets. It is not improved by not having to look at power lines.

                              --
                              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:19PM

                                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:19PM (#567948) Journal

                                And you don't think digging a trench, laying concrete pipe, and being unable to ever service it without a major undertaking didn't raise the cost of your home significantly?

                                Nope, I don't.
                                it's all about demand and supply - I'm amazed that you still think that the price you pay is in any relation with the production cost. Especially for non-captured markets.

                                Having to spend your personal money on wasteful bullshit for aesthetic reasons is about the advancement of society.

                                I may or may not give a dam about the aesthetics, but the tree in from of my home offers part of AC by the shadow it casts for 3hours/day and does not require extra money I need to pay for "vegetation management".
                                Not to mention that underground power cabling is more secure and easier to maintain once in place

                                So, the truth of whom, wisebutt?

                                --
                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:56PM

                                by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:56PM (#568049)

                                this is hilarious

                                I have never lived in a community in the US with exposed power lines. I live in a windy tornado prone area right now, and it isn't all double underground or something. everything is. the telco, even gigabit fiber internet offerings. it's all 100% underground. there are a few areas out of the substations where wires lead into the ground, but from there--they are still in the ground.

                                Even the hook up to my home -- is underground. There are no exposed wires at all anywhere in my subdivision, except for people with an antenna on the roof and their antenna wire is exposed prior to going into the house.

                                if we had to worry about what you are proposing to be the cheap way to do it, I'd go out of business because of the power outages, and things would break

                                It's like you say no because you are not open to change. ya'll aint dumb so please consider views outside of your personal anecdotes. lots of businesses would like to pay their employees to work and make money to provide that jingle in the pockets you mention.

                                no one here is worried about what the power lines we cant see look like

                                so really have you never planned for failure, or do you just expect the employer to buy replacements? its really amazing how narrow of a view you have for this, and its so narrow i expect it to be political. but it doesnt make sense to make this political. blue AND red houses lose power when the lines fall down

                              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:15PM

                                by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 15 2017, @04:15PM (#568515)

                                And you don't think digging a trench, laying concrete pipe, and being unable to ever service it without a major undertaking didn't raise the cost of your home significantly? Dumbass."

                                Hmm, let's consider homes with sewers. So... adding a couple more pipes into an already dug whole where you're already adding other pipes compared to putting in a bunch of telephone poles and running wire between them all and you think putting up the poles is cheaper? LOL! Oh and it might be harder to service, maybe, or it may actually be cheaper depending on how it's laid out. You don't know, I don't know, but I like your unbiased assumption.

                                I'm not sure whether you're the mule or the donkey, but the prefix definitely fits you.

                            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:03PM

                              by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @05:03PM (#567933)

                              Your example is NEW infrastructure, not replacing old infrastructure. There is a huge difference champ.

                            • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 15 2017, @11:13AM (3 children)

                              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @11:13AM (#568374)

                              they were placed at the same time as water, gas and sewage pipes and the comms cables;

                              Here that would not meet code for "safety" reasons. Not saying you're wrong because there's as many codes as municipalities (and there's a lot of those) but am making the point that we can also thank government regulation for making things expensive.

                              The idea of running natgas pipes thru the same hole as power is kinda disturbing to me regardless of code.

                              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 15 2017, @11:24AM (2 children)

                                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @11:24AM (#568379) Journal

                                The idea of running natgas pipes thru the same hole as power is kinda disturbing to me regardless of code

                                Heck, no, where did you get the idea they are in the same place?
                                I said "in the same time" - different trenches, different trade persons, within the course of 1-2 weeks for a block.

                                --
                                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                                • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 15 2017, @05:40PM (1 child)

                                  by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @05:40PM (#568570)

                                  OK sounds much better. Still an interesting topological puzzle to route four thingies separately without crossing over each other excessively...

                                  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:08AM

                                    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday September 16 2017, @06:08AM (#568855) Journal

                                    Different depths, one would guess.

                                    --
                                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
                          • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:39PM

                            by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:39PM (#568037) Journal

                            Facts are not subjective and the truth is facts. I know this chaps the asses of the left, but tough shit.

                            We like to see the evidence for a claim before we decide whether it's a fact or not. You have provided none.

                            Put up or shut up.

                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:15AM

                            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 16 2017, @11:15AM (#568915)

                            Facts are not subjective and the truth is facts. I know this chaps the asses of the left, but tough shit.

                            Only for the morons, of which there are plenty of on both sides.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:41AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday September 14 2017, @10:41AM (#567726) Journal

          It's probably a 15-year-plus project to get it all done.
          ...
          The question is, who will pay for it?

          Bottom line? The consumer. In both cases:

          1. the case in which the poles go down (and their food spoils, the pole goes down over their car or the grandparents die of heat stoke without AC or of waterborne diseases because the water station/boosters don't have power to keep the pressure up and bacteria seep in the mains in places where before there were leaks, etc)
          2. the case in which they pay the utility the extra price to sink the cables
          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:40PM (1 child)

          by LoRdTAW (3755) on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:40PM (#567757) Journal

          The labour and equipment cost of digging the trenches is the major hurdle - it's very significantly higher than the cost of putting up poles (perhaps 6-10x higher).

          The majority of new medium voltage work I see being done is trenchless. Few years back they bought a new circuit to the industrial park where I work. They had only a few small holes in the ground and pulled a new feeder from an enclosure near our building to a pole on the main road about 550m down the road. Last month I saw another trenchless install where they ran a jumper between a gap in the poles next to a small airport. Though, they did have to excavate about 10-15m because the soil had a lot of large rocks in the way.

          • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday September 15 2017, @11:16AM

            by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 15 2017, @11:16AM (#568375)

            trenchless

            Its interesting how the same tech has different names in related industries. Telecom of several varieties, at least around here, calls that tech "directional bore"

            If you're gonna need the machine to go under streets and sidewalks may as well directional bore the whole thing....

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @11:07AM (#567732)

      For burial the copper is 3x as thick

      Except power lines are aluminum wires around steel core.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overhead_power_line#Conductors [wikipedia.org]

      Problem with underground is access to the line. Access is needed more than just for maintenance. Think upgrades. Upgrading the line for higher current, and you may need to wire entire new line. In other areas, the ground is not quite stable enough for underground deployment. Florida also has a sinkhole problem, so, maybe not best place for underground power lines? But who knows, that depends on many factors. I think it's best for utilities to manage this than for armchair "feasibility experts".

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:20PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @02:20PM (#567806)

    Hand waving obvious bullshit us 80% or more of TMB's commentary.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by driverless on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:01PM

    by driverless (4770) on Thursday September 14 2017, @06:01PM (#567974)

    +1. Most of our power lines (non-US country) are underground. I can't remember the last time we had an outage, it was between five and ten years ago. We don't pay more for power than I was paying in the US. So it's safer from disruption, a lot less ugly, no more expensive, and the power's more reliable than it was when I was in the US. Seems like a win all round.
    As a more general comment, the power infrastructure in the US, at least in the place I've seen it, is closer to third-world than first-world. It's not so much a case of undergrounding it or not, it's getting it into a state where it's just basically fit for service, which currently it doesn't seem to be.