Hold Back on Power Line Burial

[Mbrooke]

How is it that countries with far less capitol managed to bury most of their medium and low voltage power lines but the US East Coast hasn't? I keep hearing about price, but honestly, I'm having a hard time believing that. What am I missing?

 

[jraef]

That "countries with far less capitol" are generally going to fall into the categories of countries with far less land mass, far less population with access to electricity, far less obstacles etc. etc. etc.

When the fires happened last year in California because of damaged overhead lines, there was a cry for burying the power lines. The estimates were around $250 billion JUST for the 81,000 miles of HV transmission lines, costing EACH ratepayer around $15,000 and taking approximately 1,000 years to accomplish. Then that's just ONE state...


" We are all here on earth to help others; what on earth the others are here for I don't know." -- W. H. Auden

 

[3DDave]

That would put it on a collision course with aging gas, water, and sewer systems that will get rip-and-replace in the next 50 years. It would also leave cable and telephone systems to carry the costs of pole maintenance, increasing the costs for consumers.

 

[bacon4life]

Putting power underground in green field applications is much cheaper than retrofits. Perhaps low capitol locations are more green field and have fewer underground obstructions?
Perhaps ditch digging labor is also cheaper in area with less capitol?
Perhaps lower capitol correlates with few regulations on shoring and traffic control?
Some countries skipped installing cable/phone networks and jumped straight to cell networks. This reduces the obstructions for running power underground. Eliminating phone/cable would also reduce overhead-to-underground conversion costs.
Perhaps they installed direct buried medium voltage cable, which is was relatively cheap to install, but will be very expensive to replace.