It seems kind of primitive to have power lines just hanging on poles, right?
Bit unsightly too
Is it just a cost issue and is it actually significant when considering the cost of power loss on society (work, hospital, food, etc)?
It seems kind of primitive to have power lines just hanging on poles, right?
Bit unsightly too
Is it just a cost issue and is it actually significant when considering the cost of power loss on society (work, hospital, food, etc)?
Is that the real cost differential? Someone else said it’s only 5-7x more expensive which doesn’t sound that bad
Not to discount the significance of such expenses but 5-7x is way different than 100x the expense
also the value of lost power can be significant, if someone dies you lose all their economic output for life and some people can work from home so even a few hundred people losing power could add up and have been worth paying for underground cables
Heat dissipates easier in open air than in conduit, meaning the conductors can be undersized drastically compared to if they’re in conduit. Ever notice how the wires from the weatherhead are 2/0 awg, and on the poles and to your house (even after the transformer so same operating voltage), are way smaller? More like 12 awg on poles? The cost for the larger wire buried underground would be massive.
Also, as others have said, maintenance is significantly easier.
Every major infrastructure project that involves tunneling or digging runs into massive cost overruns, so basing the number on a cost estimate is already fishy. 100x is probably overkill, but not absurdly so. US infrastructure averages 8-12x more than elsewhere in the world, and it’s getting worse. New York adding less than two miles of track to their subway still cost more than double the estimate. California is spending infinite money on a rail line that may never exist.