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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: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:14AM (5 children)
Where I live, we have underground electrical lines. I live on an island that periodically gets hurricanes (the last big one was in 2012) and only *twice* in my half century of living have we had pervasive power outages. The first was in 1977 [wikipedia.org] and the second was in 2003 [wikipedia.org]. There have been numerous hurricanes before, between and after those blackouts which had zero oe little impact on power. Why? Because all the power lines are underground.
In 2012, some parts of the island did lose power for several days as well. However, that didn't impact me in the slightest.
What's more, none of these power outages had anything to do with downed or damaged power lines. Why? Because they're all underground.
Having electric lines above ground makes little sense, except to the MBAs and power company execs who don't want to spend the money on it, and won't be affected by such things because, wait for it, they live in areas where the electricity cables are all underground.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Virindi on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:39AM (2 children)
Don't get me wrong, I would love buried power. It would be a big difference!
My point was that it would be prohibitively expensive to upgrade these neighborhoods. It is easy to say "it should be converted!" but someone would have to pay for it, and by someone I mean the taxpayer/end user. Would I be willing to pay $1000 to underground my power*? Yes! But I also have one of the least reliable lines anywhere. There are plenty of others for whom it would be a wasted expense.
However, tree trimming was part of the original engineering for the lines. It was done from 1940 to 2000 not because of some pointless reason, but because it was required by the original design. It should already be baked in to the cost, and does not represent a large upfront expense.
*One of my neighbors once asked the power company about undergrounding his line. He was quoted $100,000. The $1000ish number I am using is based on dividing the study cost of undergrounding the whole county by the number of county residents at the time of the study.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:03AM (1 child)
Your point is well taken. Public utilities should be required to maintain their infrastructure. Full stop. If they're not, there's likely a problem with corruption in your local/state governments.
That said, I'll just point you back to the last sentence in my original reply to you and assert that it applies in spades to your situation.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 3, Insightful) by RS3 on Thursday September 14 2017, @04:26AM
I fully agree- it's a problem of short-term MBA thinking (don't bury), versus long-term (bury them). And the better job they do initially, the longer it will last trouble-free.
Everyone is talking about $. Our obsession with $ makes us look bad to the rest of the world. Can you put some kind of value on how unpleasant life can be during, and as a result of many days or weeks without electricity? For example, I have a water well- no electricity, no water! Electricity runs furnace too. And there's all that spoiled food...
Your power company MBAs and execs. likely have generators, which really aren't terribly expensive considering the benefit... (shuffles off to check local cl for generators...)
(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday September 14 2017, @07:58AM (1 child)
Can you imagine power poles in New York City? What an eyesore and a hazard that would be! A disaster for the property values, for the curb appeal. You go to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, nobody knows more about money. You go to the NYSE, nobody knows more about business. You go to Trump Tower, nobody knows more about real estate. No power poles in sight! 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Thursday September 14 2017, @08:16AM
And if we go to your favorite place [untappedcities.com], there are powerful poles, but not electric ones!
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr