Why Aren't Powergrids Underground? 556
jonging asks: "It is common knowledge that an underground power grid is less susceptible to the effect of a large thunderstorm. The American Transmission Company cites numerous reasons why it (and other power companies I assume) do not bury their transmission lines underground (e.g. environmental concerns, cost of installation and repair, etc.). Exactly how detrimental are underground transmission lines to the environment? Wouldn't the time spent without a power outage generate more than enough revenue to offset initial costs? Aren't the need for repairs in cities with successful underground power grids rare?" The linked article goes into extensive detail about the disadvantages in initial costs of putting in underground lines, but doesn't go into any detail about the maintenance costs of either option. With storms getting worse and worse (Maryland, DC and Northern Virginia have weathered torrential downfalls this week), might underground lines prove more resistant to storm-related power outages?
because (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It costs money? (Score:5, Insightful)
example: We get damage in large item truck shipments. Averaged over ALL our shipments, it costs about $20 per shipment. We spent $5 per shipment to reduce it to an average of $10 per shipment (half the damage). Our net gain is $5 per shipment, plus less hassles with damage.
For about $40 per shipment, we could get almost NO damage, but it would not meet the TCO compared to just spending the extra $5. The goal isn't to stop ALL damage, it is the lowest average cost for all shipments. They are no different.
So there will be SOME areas where underground meets the TCO spread over, say, 10 years. Some won't. They key is having the guts to sacrifice short term profits for long term gains, which is tough if the CEO has stock options that expire in 3 years.
Water (Score:4, Insightful)
My power has gone out three times already, this year, due to water seeping in where it shouldn't and causing a major short. Aside from the obvious risk of losing power, there's also the possibility of pedestrians and pets being electrocuted.
~UP
Standardised/prefab roads and sidewalks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Upgrades : add phone, telco, cable, fiber (Score:3, Insightful)
My parents live in an area with everything undergound. It definately looks nicer, but their cable reception is on some channels is terrible, and has been that way for years. They've had the line going up to the house replaced and all the inside wiring replaced, but it's still not as good as it would be. Replacing the main line in the road would mean digging up the bottom couple feet of 50-60 driveways (most paved, some interlocking brick.. you usually can't find the exact same replacement bricks either, so it would never look the same). It's just not practical to do to fix a few snowy channels for a handful of houses (I'm not sure exactly how many people have the problem, but their immediate neighbours do at least).
Re:DC (Score:5, Insightful)
But yeah, there are 1 or 2 other important buildings in DC, so keeping them powered is probably just a bit of a priority, even though most of them probably have generators. The DC area seemed to have the most stable power of anywhere I've lived, going out only occasionally during freezing rain/ice storms, and never for more than a few hours.
The place I live now.. let's just say the clock on my microwave is rarely accurate for more than 48 hours straight. They're working on putting power lines underground in the "near future," but I'm taking it upon myself to get some solar panels, an inverter, and a nice bank of batteries. Even if they ever stabilize the grid, I'll still save a few bucks on my power bill.
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Insightful)
You may be thinking of swing or day traders, but the majority of stocks are held by institutions like university endowments, investment banks, pension plans, and mutual funds, which hire full-time analysts to make just such evaluations, and are concerned about long-term valuation.
The company management also has a vested interest in getting the word out about such cost-cutting investments, as a rise in the share price enhances their position in the capital markets.
Re:It costs money? (Score:5, Insightful)
The above statement is true. However, the decision to spend less money on the front end and more on the back end has nothing to do with the aforementioned truth.
What matters is profit today. Spend as little money as possible today while taking in as much revenue as possible today. This makes the stock price go up today, which makes your options (someone else mentioned these) go up today, and the Board of Directors happy today.
Do not concern yourself with trivialities like "tomorrow" or "TCO" or "long-term survivability." By the time any of that comes around, you'll have jumped (or been pushed) to another company that you can squeeze the same way. If you just so happen to still be around tomorrow, blame it on the office staff for using too many paperclips, and stop subsudizing employees' soft drinks.
Once you understand that business leaders are not running businesses for the long term, or even the medium term, it's very easy to understand the (il)logic of their actions. The company exists to be soaked by execs until it dies.
(Here, let me post my own reply: "Bitter much?")
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Insightful)
It isn't free once it is in the ground either (Score:4, Insightful)
Out in the air the water drips off and broken cables are easier to get to.
Companies like this rarely ever build infrastructure unless they can get an enormous government grant for it they can milk mercilessly while providing something that doesn't work or barely works - so are unlikely to be involved anyway.Re:It costs money? (Score:2, Insightful)
I would imagine that it would not only be more expensive to install the initial cables but also to maintain them. Problem on the line? Go dig up the cables. Want to inspect something? Go dig up the cables.
Re: shared costs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It costs money? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It costs money? (Score:2, Insightful)
No, this is bubble thinking, and it really applies to "growth stocks," which is mostly a code-name for crappy companies with no business plan.
When good companies correctly manage TCO, they refer to it as good "supply chain management," and they tend to be consistently profitable, which results in decent stock performance and consistent increases in the dividend they pay out. These companies usually manage their core business as tightly as possible, and grow their business (and stock price) by expanding into new markets. Well-run beverage companies are a good example of this.
It's a numbers thing. Most companies (and their management) out there are just naturally bound to be mediocre or sub-par. If it was easy to spot the really well-run ones, I'd be a millonaire.
Re:Europe vs The US (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: Long-term cost (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd say that's debatable. My power bills were more in Denver than an hour north. In Fort Collins, Colorado, a study found that the quality of life was higher because the skyline lacked the unsightly transmission lines. I can say, being here, that it is a benefit to creating an overall, less-clustered atmosphere (I like to see the mountains when the pollution isn't in the way). The plan to bury lines was started before the town started growing, so various infrastructure was already well established to handle a growing population, e.g., roads, schools, etc. The cost of labor, materials and fuel was also cheaper when they started the program over a decade ago. They continue to add more buried lines to new neighborhoods and are still burying exposed lines in the back of older neighborhoods to this day. I'd like to note that our city handles water and electric, not a privately-held utility, like our gas company, Xcel.
Sure, our town is in a budget crunch. Well, more like we have a six million dollar deficit, but there's other reasons for that. I've often wondered why places like Florida don't bury their lines as they suffer so many storm-related disruptions. That's got to take a bigger hit on the economy, but when you think that every person has to start over to some extent, they will spend their insurance money on a new PS2 as much as a new house (unless the insurance company goes broke trying to settle claims). The Miami Herald has an article about the debate to bury or not to bury:
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12502044.htm [miami.com]
The long-term cost of maintaining the conduit may be offset by increased services the government can give in the event of crisis because they don't have to bear the cost of repair and/or the cost of lost productivity when responding with reduced public services. I admit that the environment here is completely different than Florida. I would imagine, because it is dry here, we don't have to worry too much about drainage/plant related problems with our conduits, but ICBW... I also notice that our utility crews seem very well-prepared and, at least, look like they're working!
Re:Europe vs The US (Score:3, Insightful)
Why does this discussion suddenly demand an anti-european outburst? Is it wrong to point out Europe's good experience with underground powerlines?
You yanks can have as lousy an infrastructure as you please. The rest of the world doesn't care how poorly you arrange your society. In fact, the US neglect of it's infrastructure gives the rest of us a competitive advantage (and even more so in the future).
However, the original post talked about power outages from thunderstorms, which -- excuse me -- is a HUGE problem in the US. I have lived in your country for several years, and been on numerous visits, and my experience is that power outages happen frequently in the US, whereas in Europe, it is a rare event. I remember one ice-storm in New Haven that brought down all the city's powerlines and it took weeks to repair. What you have to ask (and the original poster does) is whether the electricity companies across the country are scooping the profits from consumers without making investments that will ensure/improve the supply for the future. The electricity company does not pay the economic losses of thousands of other companies due to power outages.
So why not leave your flag-waving patriotism behind for a few moments and relate to the actual problems?
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Insightful)
Under de-regulation, if powerlines go down, the power companies contract an emergency service repair, and charge it to their customers on the next bill.
However, power companies do have to pay out of their pockets for prophylactic tree service. So they stopped doing that, and their quarterly earnings improved dramatically.
This is de-regulation!
If powerlines are above ground, but tree service is kept up regularly, then power doesn't go down in storms.
Externalities (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that the positive externalities generated by the underground lines would not be captured by the power company. Even if the buried lines generate benefits to society far in excess of their high costs, the power company would see only a fraction of those benefits (e.g. less money spent on repairs, assuming that's even true.) The cost, though beneficial to society, is prohibitive to the utility.
Possible solutions of course involve government subsidies to bury the power lines, or perhaps requiring them to be buried and allowing the higher cost to be passed to consumers (for instance in Maryland, where electricity has been deregulated, it's only the generation of power that's deregulated. Retail delivery is still regulated.)
Re:Footpaths (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, this doesn't prevent water infiltrations, vermin, etc (you DO have trees and rats to contend with; rats will chew through anything, and tree roots can break foundations as well as conduits). If you've ever been down in the sewers (I have, 30' below ground, doing the "duck-walk" with a flashlight in one hand and an aluminium baseball bat in the other for the rats to do inspections), you'd know that underground work is hard, and expensive, and that most people are too chicken-shit to even go underground an a small, closed-in tunnel.
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Insightful)
There was one point where the article mentioned that underground wasn't even an option for lines over 345kV. What about a 500kV or 750kV? With the way power demand is increasing, lines of that size will become more and more common. I used to work for a small firm in the Northeast, US that tries to help power companies deal with thermal constraints and monitoring power lines. The owner holds patents on some of the technology they use and has been on many of the IEEE panels/committees that relate to power transmission. You can probably find out more about thermal issues and power lines here [cat-1.com]
Exactly my experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Andrew points out two important factors -- distance per customer and the need for ongoing network changes due to regional growth. These make the U.S. power situation different from many other countries. There are other issues as well.
Finally, Andrew's comment about the caliber of power company field people matches my own experience. I have constantly been amazed at how dedicated and public-spirited these people prove to be. When there's a bad storm or other emergency, nobody in the company sleeps, and everybody sweats the details. Having worked with clients in many different industries, I was quite surprised to find that most electric and gas utilities are full of conscientious people striving to make the right decisions. (This was very different from my experience with telecommunications vendors, for example, where many are good but many are appalling.)
Bottom line: This is an important topic, but I don't believe it is a no-brainer.
Re: Long-term cost (Score:3, Insightful)
The primary cause for blown transformers and junctions is abnormal load conditions on the power grid, and the primary cause for abnormal loads would be the problems created when exposed overhead wiring is grounded or shorted unexpectedly due to contact with foreign objects. Like blowing trees, falling branches, and similar problems which are much less likely to affect buried lines. The transformers may still be above ground level, but when properly installed, they should not be as vulnerable as exposed power lines.
When combined, problems can propagate outward as local load conditions cause failure on the local circuits, in turn causing abnormal load on nearby circuits and leading to a cascade effect from a large number of otherwise-local problems with last-mile lines.
The bottom line is that buried power lines are massively less susceptible to storm damage, despite the inherent difficulties of underground installation. It's not even close to being comparable.