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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: 3, Informative) by bradley13 on Thursday September 14 2017, @09:34AM (1 child)
Everywhere else in the Western world, the power lines are underground (except the long-haul, 400kv lines). There are a lot of reasons for that.
Damage is very rare, because what can happen? No more downed power lines. Almost the only power outages we have are planned ones. There was one about three years ago, when then needed to do some major work on a substation, and we were warned in advance. Before that, it's been so long that I don't remember the previous one.
Maintenance is nearly nonexistent - no need to trim trees, check poles, etc.. Your infrastructure is not exposed to the weather. If you do have damage, is easier, because the cables run in conduits. No need to mess with poles, much less climb them.
This needn't be any more expensive. You already have to install water and sewer service to all buildings. Install the power line conduits at the same time.
And finally, it looks a lot nicer, not having poles and wires all over your cities.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Thursday September 14 2017, @03:50PM
Somebody severs one of them while digging blind? I feel like this is a thing we hear about all the time.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"