
California power lines spark wildfires and prompt blackouts. Why not bury them? - onetimemanytime
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/10/11/bury-california-power-lines-wildfire-blackout-fix-unlikely-work/3946935002/
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Pinckney
> A report prepared by the Edison Electric Institute, “Out of Sight, Out of
> Mind, An Updated Study on the Undergrounding of Overhead Power Lines,” found
> that while most new commercial and residential developments across the
> United States tuck electrical facilities underground, burying existing
> above-ground electric distribution systems can cost up to $5 million a mile
> in urban areas.

They've linked to 2009 version of this report, although the numbers they use
are from the 2012 version. If that confused anyone else, the 2012 version can
be found here:

[https://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/electricreliability/unde...](https://www.eei.org/issuesandpolicy/electricreliability/undergrounding/Documents/UndergroundReport.pdf)

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tomohawk
Burying AC power lines causes them to incur higher losses than aerial, as the
alternating current interacts with the surrounding earth. This generates heat
in the insulation and eventually the insulation will fail. Our neighborhood
recently had the lines dug up and replace due to this - they were 35 years
old. The aerial lines to the neighborhood are much older and have never been
replaced.

To get around this, you can go HVDC, but that really only makes sense when you
have a long distance line. Pretty pricey.

Varmints like gophers will dig down, encounter a power line, and then attempt
to dig through it. Those are fun to repair.

Also, varmints with backhoes have been known to take them out.

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campfireveteran
Yet another idiotic, ignorant conflation between HV distribution lines, which
CANNOT be buried (not without lots of cost-prohibitive infrastructure), with
local distribution lines, which CAN be buried. Hell, why not just pipe in
hydrogen or methane ONLY to homes and generate power at the neighborhood
level, and skip the losses and dangers incurred by
inter-(regional/state/national) HV distribution? Then those lines, at 208-380V
range from local generation over short distances can be easily buried as many
are now. No more power going out from stormy, windy, icy, hot or dry
conditions, same check underground utilities maps before digging process. It's
much safer to pump around high energy-density LP fuels than maintain top-down,
nonredundant electrical grids that cause fires, go down and take out hundreds
of thousands of customers, are inherently risky to lives and property, and
require constant and extensive arboreal maintenance.

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zw123456
Hmmm, how does the gas company afford to bury the gas pipes then ? If it's
cost prohibitive for electric lines why does it pan out for gas ?

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rumanator
> Hmmm, how does the gas company afford to bury the gas pipes then ?

According to Wikipedia, pipelines tend to be buried because soil acts as a
thermal insulator, thus reducing thermal fatigue and consequently maintenance
costs.

Electricity isn't transported through pressurized pipes, thus it isn't
subjected to the same constraints.

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Pinckney
Actually, most existing underground transmission cables run through
pressurized pipes full of oil. Look up HPFF; it's pretty wild.

Newer cables tend to be solid, though.

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mike_d
tl;dr: It would cost $243 billion, or $15,000 for every customer. Also makes
repairs a pain in the ass.

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rasz
Burying cable would cost more than building 25K kilometers of fast rail in
China, sure, that totally checks out.

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onetimemanytime
a gazillion, trillion, million permits of all kind, cost of labor, land
buyouts. Compare them to China

