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?
It costs money? (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, it would be nice to put it underground, but it costs more that way...
Re:It costs money? (Score:2, Interesting)
What about in the long term, though? Rather than putting a powerline underground, put in a conduit. Workers can work down there without the need for expensive cherry pickers, having to haul equipment up to polls, without affecting traffic. Work would probably be easier and more efficient. Need to run fiber optic/cable/whatever? No problem - the
Re:It costs money? (Score:5, Informative)
Long term it still costs more.
Its a lot harder to maintain buried conduit. Plus, there's the problems of accumulated gases in any piping you lay down, plus drainage, plus trash/dirt/crap accumulation at the manholes.
Look what happens when buried conduit deteriorates - the resulting fire is nasty because its more concentrated than in the open air.
Re:It costs money? (Score:5, Interesting)
Getting to the underground lines is a bear and then making any changes is even worse. In most scenarios, they actually wait for the equipment to fail (eg. ignite and/or blow up) before they can do anything because the alternative is that they take down multiple city blocks for hours...
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Informative)
AFAIK, all of it, except for substations and the electrification of the Northeast Corridor rail line coming in from Baltimore. There's some old law prohibiting basically any overhead wires, and it's strictly applied - even the new trolley line in DC will have to use third rail (AFAIK, electrified only when a tram is passing on a given section) because of it.
-b.
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Informative)
As someone who works in a water utility (where pipes are laid in the ground and expected to stay there for the next 100 to 150 years) let me be the first to point out the hazards of trying to keep such records for such a long period of time. Standards change.
This is TRANSMISSION.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of the thing *not* discussed here is that there are huge amounts of the power distro system in DC which *is* underground
That is because the *distribution* systems are not even part of this discussion. Transmission lines present a whole different set of challenges. Firstly, they are longer, second they are MUCH higher voltage--hundreds of kV, and third a transmission line serves a much larger area than distribution lines.
In most scenarios, they ac
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 in
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 over
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if you add up the costs over, say, twenty years and find you've spent more under the above ground scenario, it may still cost more if you include "opportunity costs". Suppose I could spent $25M to put in an above ground transmission system in an area, and pay out $25M over twenty years, vs. spending $50M for underground and for sake of argument 0 for maintenance of the same period. It's not a wash, because in the second scenario you have $25M in your pocket you can invest; in the first scenario you miss out on the interest.
There's an even simpler explanation as well. There is no market for power distribution. If you are dissatisfied by the reliability of your electrical grid, you cannot switch to a competitor's grid. The owners of the grid will charge you the cost of running the grid plus as much as they can get away with over that. They have no incentive to take their money and, effectively, bury it in the ground to give you another sigma of reliability. All they have to do is get you enough power so they can charge you, and not get nationalized by a furious public. Which might not be a bad thing, if you compare the interstate highway system to the electrical grid.
The most amazing thing about the electrical grid is that it works at all. And indeed most of the time it works well when compared to, say, Iraq. But although it works in routine cases, it does not work in even moderately exceptional cases, such as peak demand for air conditioning. And it certainly does not work to address problems like the California power crisis of several years ago.
Looking forward two to three decades, the electrical grid is probably the single most important piece of infrastucture to improve if the US is to remain a viable economic power. As oil production drops, and world demand rises, prices will rise. The grid is critical in enabling us to respond by bringing more diverse energy sources on line. The roblem is that many of these sources: wind, solar, tidal, geothermal etc. aren't located where the power must be consumed. And others, such as nuclear, are not politically practical to place neir population centers. And you can't build them overnight. Although we can see a trend of increasing oil prices into the future, when it comes it probably won't be smooth upward ratcheting off prices. It will probably come as a series of shocks (if it hasn't started already).
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Informative)
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:5, Informative)
Ithink it shouldn't be to hard to design those tunnels in a way where you can use robots like in the sewage systems.
Really? The reality is that sewage work is still done by humans, not "robots". There's no way that a "robot" can dig up a street to replace a broken water main or sewer pipe, and the fibreglass inserts/patches are NOT a long-term fix when a pipe breaks.
Besides, you've overlooked the installation costs. It can easily be 100x more expensive to run a wire underground than overhead. Overhead - 2 cherry pickers, 5 guys, a few spools of wire, a day, and a couple of blocks are rewired (they just upgraded all the wiring on the street 2 blocks over last week - took 2 days because of the trees. On the other hand, 3 years ago they did a major upgrade along about 40 blocks - in one day - with a larger crew of cherry-pickers and support vehicles). Underground - backhoes, loaders, dump trucks, flatbed, concrete saw, gravel, conduit, manholes, manhole covers, asphalt repaving, cement mixer, sidewalk repair, 2 weeks, easily 30-40 people involved (gas, sewer, waterworks also have to be coordinated).
Then there are the transformer rooms (since you can't just hang them from a pole) - concrete pads, etc. Money money money.
Underground conduit laying robots exist today (Score:3, Interesting)
And another about a robot for laying conduit in sewers. [telephonyonline.com]
And those are just the first two hits on a google search for "underground conduit robot."
Re:It costs money? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't have any hard numbers, but I seem to recall a figure of AUD 1 million/km being bandied about for burying high-tension lines in Perth (Western Australia). Most local councils here are already in the process of putting the residential supply underground, but the higher voltage distribution network is just too expensive. Interestingly, one of the main reasons for underground power here (besides 'suburban beautification') is to prevent poletop f
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Informative)
I doubt you could run cable in a conduit next to high voltage power?
you could run fiber.
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://205.243.100.155/frames/longarc.htm#500_kV_S witch [205.243.100.155]
Re:It costs money? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.highland.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/CBDD84F3-
Has a lot of good info on underground vs. overhead for proposed new powergrid in Scotland.
Estimates of lifetime cost ratios (table 8 at the end of the document) are between 6.9 - 10.2 for traditional fluid-filled cable and still 4.9 - 7.8 for newer (and arguably less proven) XLPE insulation technology.
Also, this is recent tech which you would use to build your grid _now_ - go back a couple of decades and the difference was much larger. At Dinorwig - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinorwig_power_stati
Bottom line is that the overhead option is using a few feet of air to get its insulation for free, and it's always tough to compete with free.
Re:It costs money? (Score:4, Informative)
And how do the insulators get damaged? One way that happens more than most people would admit is it gets clipped by someone digging up something else. Say you are digging up the gas pipe in the street. If you just nick the electricity cables insulation, would you tell your boss so he can get the electric company out to replace the cable, delaying your work by hours, or are you just going to throw some dirt over it, so no-one will be able to tell?
I have worked for 2 Electric companies, so I know a little about this.
Re: shared costs (Score:5, Funny)
I presume that the Germans, because of the constraints of their language's syntax at the end of which their sentences most of their verbs must put, cultural constraints that ahead they must think required are.
Re: shared costs (Score:3, Interesting)
That might suggest that a single US utility consumer might be paying for a bit more infrastructure.
It is not the full 9x factor that the numbers imply since you can localize your sources, but it is a SIGNIFICANTLY larger distance that must be covered to convey the same service.
This is true of highways.
I find it absolutely amazing that our prices are even in the same ball park as those of Europe on goods and services that are impacte
Re: shared costs (Score:3)
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.
Re:It costs money? (Score:2)
This is a classic misunderstanding of stock price. If the company opts for burried cable representing a lower TCO, this will be reflected immediatly in the market price, not in 10 years. Thus a CEO could very well care about 10, 20 years profit with 3 year to maturity stock options. Although he would have to convince the market that his choice indeed represents a long term smaller TC0, and it's in the investors and speculators best interes
Re:It costs money? (Score:2)
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: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.
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?")
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 isn't free once it is in the ground either (Score:3, Funny)
What was that bright flash?
Our power line continuity tester!
Re:Hot Lines (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Interesting)
Costco gets hassled for paying their employees more than the industry avg, giving them benefits packages above the industry avg and for not charging consumers more on the goods they sell.
Wal*Mart, is quite possibly going to run its suppliers out of existence because of the razor thin profit margins it allows them. Wal Mart also happens to save massive amounts of cash (which go directly to the bottom line) by not providi
Re:It costs money? (Score:5, Informative)
On a high tension line, the capacitance per foot is much higher for a buried line than for an overhead line. For long distance feeding this capacitive load adds greatly to the power loss in the line. Burried is OK in New York City, but forget it for the grid. There are too many losses. Putting the 2 top grounded lines above the high tension lines have greatly reduced lightning strikes to the power conductors and their resulting outages from damaged insulators and substation equipment.
Disclaimer.. My father was a substation operator for Bonniville Power Administration. I've seen the MegaVar meters on some long lines.
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Informative)
Go DC and forget about capacitance. That's what seems to be done for 150kV and up around here.
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Informative)
True enough for DC voltages. however with AC voltages, any resistance between the capacitor and the inducter is greatly multiplied. IE you will have a ringing current passing between the capacitor and inductor, and that ringing will pay the price to resistance every pass. so if the capacitance is spread out over hundreds of miles, away from the inductance, you will have huge increases in resistive losses becaus
Standardised/prefab roads and sidewalks? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Standardised/prefab roads and sidewalks? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It costs money? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It costs money? (Score:2)
But with fewer repairs,and high quality service they could begin decreasing there workforce through attrition over time.
Q.E.D. (Score:2)
What? Do you think it would be cheaper to put lines underground?
No, I do not have the numbers, but the folks who put the lines on poles do... of that I am sure.
Re:Q.E.D. (Score:2)
However, I doubt it is because it is cheaper - it is only because it is required (by local ordinance).
In California, even though property taxes are limited by law (to protect the innocent fixed income people whose only crime was to buy property in an appreciating area), it doesn't mean the legislature hasn't figured out how to tax more anyhow... google "Mello-Roos" to see how some pay more taxes than others.
Re:It costs money? (Score:2)
DC (Score:5, Interesting)
My office, which is about 3 blocks from the White House, has never had a major event that would have an effect on our network. In about 10 months of running monitoring 24/7 on our UPS, I've never seen a major "power event" (outage, surge, something else big). I've never seen a big spike or dip. Hell, I've barely seen any variation at all in the signal.
Perhaps it's a function of living in the big city. Perhaps it really is the fact that I'm on the same power grid as the White House. Perhaps it's just a coincidence and some really nice wiring, and me with a little too much tinfoil in my hat. Regardless, I think something is special about the power grids in the DC area.
Re:DC (Score:2)
My office, which is about 3 blocks from the White House, has never had a major event that would have an effect on our network
Coincidence?
You prove the point (Score:5, Informative)
Or downtown DC is close the the Whitehouse... (Score:3, Informative)
Power has gone out at least once a year for the past five years to my (Downtown San Francisco) neighborhood. Due to underground power lines. A couple months ago an underground substation exploded and burned the hell out of a woman walking
Re:You prove the point (Score:3, Informative)
In fact, it's only gone out, fairly briefly, once or twice in the four years I've lived here. In that same timeframe the underground fiber at work, a few miles away, has been severed twice by const
You proved another point. (Score:3, Interesting)
Burying cables makes them harder and more expensive to upgrade, so it brings a risk of inadequate capacity planning.
Exactly, so indirectly the parent to your post is in fact correct. If Georgetown did not bury its transmission lines they could've afforded to upgrade them as peak demand increased. Now, these people face the prospect of digging a very
Re:DC (Score:5, Funny)
"In about 10 months of running monitoring 24/7 on our UPS, I've never seen a major "power event" (outage, surge, something else big)"
If William of Ockham were here he would point out the obvious conclusion: The monitoring on your UPS doesn't work.
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:DC (Score:4, Interesting)
That's insane! The law is clear: if you called (and hand dig in the indicated areas,) the utilities are responsible for the damage and repairs. But if you didn't call and you cause damage by digging, the repair bill is 100% yours.
I've had them out to mark my lot three times in the last three years for various projects and home improvements. The service is completely free, and they guarantee all utilities will be marked within 48 hours. I can't imagine the amount of stupidity required to assume the risks of both injury and liability just because someone is too lazy to dial an f'ing telephone number.
because (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:because (Score:2)
From my squirrel observations, I would assume they would walk on wooden fences, grass (lawns), tree limbs, my bird feeder... just to name a few. I think it would be safe to assume that if squirrels ever learn how to surf the web, they would visit squirrels.org [squirrels.org].
Re:because (Score:2)
and (Score:2)
They're not? (Score:2)
I can tell you why Nashville has overhead lines. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true that underground lines require less maintenance. A lot less maintenance. If we changed all our lines from overhead to underground, NES would have to layoff 4/5 of their maintenance team. Rather than realizing that it would take years to convert every powerline in Nashville from overhead to underground so they'd have excellent job security until they retired, they have decided not to convert to underground lines. I wouldn't be surprised if this is true in other areas, but I know that's the deal here. So everytime there's a thunderstorm the power goes out, and the cable goes out with it, cause the cable lines follow the powerlines.
Interesting Story... (Score:4, Interesting)
And you know what? I'd say it looked pretty damned nice.
You know what else? I sound like a old rambling grandpa. I remember in my day to get to Taliesin we had to walk 5 miles uphill both ways in the snow...
Simple physics (Score:4, Informative)
DC does not have this issue however then you have all the problems that killed Edison's original DC power distribution in favor of Telsa's AC distribution.
Peter.
Re:Simple physics (Score:5, Funny)
Another answer is to move the users closer to the power stations! We should make the stations smaller and have more of them. What if every transmission pole was a power station? We should put a solar panel on top of every pole, and if we spin it around at 60 RPMs, voila! A/C!
Re:Simple physics (Score:4, Informative)
Anyway, we're almost certainly talking about different things. Nobody is suggesting burying long-distance high-tension lines. Just the last half-mile or so. That's enough to eliminate the visual clutter and keep the neighborhood from losing power after a tree limb breaks, etc.
Re:Simple physics (Score:3, Informative)
Yes he is sure. In any wire there are a few factors causing problems getting power from one end to the other without loss. First is resistance. Too much current simply heats the wire. Power lost in the wire is power put in and not delivered to the other end.
In addition to resistance, two conductors near each other are a capacitor. Capacitance goes up if the conductors are placed closer together or are larger, or the material between them is something other than a vacu
Flooding (Score:2)
I have some friends in the Baltimore area. There has been severe flooding in the area.
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
Re:Water (Score:3, Informative)
over a 10 years study, outages where less and the duration of outages was shorter.
what aren't people electrocuted when the rain has soaked the power polls and lines?
Re:Water (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's a link to the article summary, [chireader.com] though you'd have to pay $2 to actually read it.
Re:Water (Score:5, Informative)
We have learned from our mistakes. All newer high voltage buried cable is coaxal in design. The hot conductor is surrounded by a grounded jacket. A fault shorts the cable to the grounded jacket tripping the overcurrent protection instead of putting lots of voltage to the ground.
Higher transmission losses with UG lines... (Score:5, Informative)
With all the public concern about EMF exposure, the situation would be made much worse when all those distribution transformers move from 40' up a pole to concrete pads at ground level. And then there is the everpresent problem of "backhoe fade"...
Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... (Score:5, Informative)
Three conductors in free air 15 feet off the ground the power companies can run a #2 sized cable for 200 amps. Yet that same wire underground needs to be 4/0 or 250 MCM which is several times larger.
The cost of goods to run lines over head is considerable less even if you take into account storms trashing it. Just from a dollar point of view you can competely rebuild a surface grid two or three times for the cost of doing it once underground. Digging costs that much more. Digging near roads is even worse.
I think it makes long term sense to go underground but I do see the cost advantages of going above. Plus the union can hire more people.
Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... (Score:3, Informative)
Their layout also manages to zap people & pets during the winter/wetter parts of the year.
backhoe fade (Score:5, Funny)
The Backhoe, The Internet's Natural Enemy [slashdot.org]
Always carry a length of fiber-optic cable in your pocket. Should you be shipwrecked and find yourself stranded on a desert island, bury the cable in the sand. A few hours later, a guy driving a backhoe will be along to dig it up. Ask him to rescue you.
Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Higher transmission losses with UG lines... (Score:3, Informative)
Two words: Fire Ants (Score:3, Interesting)
Footpaths (Score:4, Informative)
When I discuss it with the people here, they give me all kind of reasons why it should be above ground (limited but not only to unable to quickly repair, the famous cable cut from people digging and, believe it or not, the people who are doing the repairs now would be jobless).
Just a quick glance about how it could be done and you'll see that it would be quite a trick anyway: All footpaths in Australia are large blocks of concrete or asphalt, and the nice small tiles you see in shopping centers are also just laying above a concrete layer. Opening up that would be a major++ operation. Compare it to the Netherlands where all footpaths (and most of the bicyclepaths) are just 30x30 cm tiles laying on top of yellow or black sand, you'll see that it has a historical tradition to put things underground and have them easily accessible.
But... (Score:2)
Having power out for an extended period effects people more (and are harder to privately circumvent) than more, quicker outages.
Official report from Edison Electric Institute (Score:5, Informative)
I'll also mention that 4 of the 5 NYC boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx) have their electricity distribution almost entirely below ground. It was a massive investment, but it was long ago.
Just an Electrical Contractors point of view... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not an option in high water table areas (Score:3, Informative)
Try putting underground *anything* in gulf-coast Florida, etc.
-1, Implicit Enviro-Troll (Score:2)
DIffers (Score:4, Interesting)
Here in Japan, on the other hand, it's all above ground. In part because of the relative lack of zoning laws (Japanese city architecture is delightfully, ah, surprising as a result), but according to people here it's mosty because of the prevalence of earthquakes, the one thing buried cables are not protected against. Sure, overhead cables will break too, but it'll be easier to fix.
I can understand the situation here in Japan, but really, it's a pretty hideous sight. So your power may end up getting slightly more expensive as a result (though this is dwarfed by other factors), but it's worth it. If saving money is all there is about city living, why not allow people to dump their trash in the street as well?
Old Cities versus new cities (Score:2)
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).
Insulation (Score:2)
non-trivial amount of heat and burying them might aggravate the situation?
Induction (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I can dream.
Power Sink (Score:3, Interesting)
If New Orleans didn't learn to do it different before Katrina, why should we learn to do it different after Katrina?
It's not just upkeep... (Score:3, Interesting)
Underground wires will require insulated wire to replace much of the uninsulated wire used in overhead lines.
Underground wires will require that thousands of miles of trenches be dug.
Underground lines will require that houses have power inlets underground rather than on the roof, as present.
Underground lines will require that Millions, if not billions, of towers and poles be constructed.
Underground lines will require pole-top transformers be moved to ground level or below.
The costs of converting are staggering, and will take probably at least a decade.
As a resident of the DC suburbs (southern MD to be precise) we aren't having too many power outages due to these recent storms. Mostly flooded roads.
The situation in Ukraine (Score:3, Informative)
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.)
Its a cost vs. distance problem. (Score:3, Informative)
As a firefighter, I have had on many occasions to stand by near broken transmission lines or transformers to wait for power company repair trucks. While it seems to the person sitting at home to take a very long time, let me assure you it seems longer for the poor bastard standing in the rain or snow waiting. That said, when there is a problem that is isolated they usually show up within minutes. During a storm, they make every effort to prioritize based first on danger, second on the number of outages that can be fixed in a single repair, and dead last based on cost. When we have a reported fire, they drop everything to get to where we are as quickly as possible to disconnect service to the location -- so that we can be able to do our work more safely.
I've never met a single careless or lazy power company lineman. I suppose any that start out as such are soon quit or dead.
Exactly my experience (Score:3, Insightful)
Andrew points out two importa
Re:Maybe in Hawaii? (Score:3, Informative)
State's utility system in better shape now [honoluluadvertiser.com]
Some key points:
Since 1966 new neigborhood's have been built with underground electrical cabling.
Since hurricane Iniki devestated the island of Kauai in 1993 a lot of utility wiring has been moved underground.
Only about 40% of Hawaiian Electric Company power lines are underground.
At least here on Oahu we have plenty of power lines and during bad storms some areas of the island often lose power.
Re:This counts as a stupid question. (Score:2)
A better analogy would be: "I read a concise and simple explanation on msn.com, but as a slashdotter, i figure there must be some kind of ill-concieved conspiracy theory behind all of it. If you could link Bill Gates to the answer, that would be appreciated."
All kidding about the 3V1L of M$ aside, my point is that the site linked above is by no means unbiased since it comes from one of the power companies involved.
Re:what about liability? (Score:2, Interesting)
Nowadays, most telecoms cables are buried, which puts them witin reach of problems you'd probably not consider likely.
Termites, we discovered, will eat lead sheathing and just about anything else. So will rats. In fact rats will gnaw at anything. Then there are chemicals in the ground. Water is an issue. All our cables were pressurised with air to keep the water out. In short, you ca
Re:what about liability? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Introducing other dangers (Score:5, Interesting)
To address the issue with power loss through induction, yet it happens and it's dangerous. We had a run of pipe being welded up directly under a 100+ kV line leaving a substation. After getting several hundred feet welded up, they started having spot fires in the area. After several calls to the local FD, the FD Chief was getting pissed so they were walking the area down, heard a zzzzzssshhhtt (best I can describe) and sure enough the lines were inducing a current into the pipe (creating a large cap) and once the charge was large enough it arced to the ground, sometimes in a area with dry leaves & pine needles.
Also on another project we had a 12kV line in a ductbank piggybacking a 100pr data cable which fed our T1/T3 lines and we kept blowing the phone companies coils on their end and causing havoc with our digital phone system. Finally one day I was re-wiring the phone system and got zapped. Voltmeter showed 60V, not sure of amerage but it smarted. Idiots who installed the 12kV line didn't bond the shield so we had a current inducted into the 100pr.
So, yes power can be run underground but you better encase it and know what you're doing or hire someone who does.
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 HUG