SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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 LoRdTAW on Thursday September 14 2017, @12:40PM (1 child)
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
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....