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.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @01:23AM (4 children)
Lacking that, I would go with as short wires as possible. E.g.:
1. from my solar panel to the home battery (expensive now, early adopters and whatnot, but progress has been fast in the last decade); or
2. from the suburb block's/city skyscrapper's own compact fusion reactor to the consumer [wikipedia.org] (I suspect the "perpetual 10 years to commercial availability" applies)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:00PM (3 children)
wait that goes against tmb's statement that utilities are entitled to a profit. you're denying a profit AND not using their cheap lines!!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:31PM (2 children)
I'm entitled to profit as well, If/when I can afford the investment, I'll do it and compete with them in my backyard.
I'll call this "backyard capitalism"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 15 2017, @03:31AM (1 child)
I just call it regular capitalism. Capitalism ain't about making corporations wealthy. It's about you owning your effort and me owning mine. Competition is the mechanism that makes capitalism work. You're, on a very small scale, competing with the power company. Good for you. More people should. Monopolies, natural or acquired via corrupt politicians, are not capitalism, they're what destroys a working capitalist system.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday September 15 2017, @04:12AM
Poe's law and all that, the AC I was answering to suggested denying others a profit is against ... whavevs, thus my urge to make a distinction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford