I See Where Thousands Again Are Out Of Power Due To Storms...

[global1]

This weather has got to be costing utility companies a lot of money. There are two things that I always think about when these power outages happen: 1. Why do they keep repairing above ground lines instead of burying them and protecting them from the weather? and 2. When are the utility companies going to realize that global climate change is contributing to their losses and when are they going to become vocal and put pressure on Washington to do something about it?

A lot of people can be put to work to upgrade the power grids.

[RB TexLa]

1. Cost less to rebuild them above ground.

[Firebrand Gary]

2. Not when they have to rebuild them so frequently. nt

[RB TexLa]

3. Yes, even when they have to rebuild them over and over.

[Ron Obvious]

8. Externalities...

Sure, but nobody looks at the overall picture, i.e. the hit to the local economy when the power goes down, not just the direct cost to the utility involved itself. And what about the costs to consumers, even if we're only talking spoilt food? If we looked at the overall economic impart, I think it would be a no-brainer to bury the power lines.

I live in Seattle. We lost our power for 4 days a few years back right in the middle of Christmas shopping season. And yet, the discussion seemed to be just on the money loss for the power company when anyone brought up burying the power lines. The local economy lost an order of magnitude or more because of it.

[NutmegYankee]

10. Have you ever dug a hole in New England?

The ground is extremely rocky and has stones of various sizes spread all throughout. It's a result of the glaciers that once covered this part of the country, and it makes digging hell. Add in hilly terrain and thin soils and it's just not going to happen.

[NYC_SKP]

4. Not all Utility Companies are in climate change denial:

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2009/09/22/204686/utility-pge-quits-us-chamber-of-commerces-extreme-position-on-climate-change/

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=au4dgEfKQBXo

From the Bush years: US Climate Action Partnership http://www.us-cap.org/

USCAP Members Include:

AES
Alcoa
Alstom
Boston Scientific Corporation
Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
Chrysler
The Dow Chemical Company
Duke Energy
DuPont
Environmental Defense Fund
Exelon Corporation
General Electric
Honeywell
Johnson & Johnson
Natural Resources Defense Council
NextEra Energy
NRG Energy
PepsiCo
PG&E Corporation
PNM Resources
Rio Tinto
Shell
Siemens Corporation
The Nature Conservancy
Weyerhaeuser
World Resources Institute

[-..__...]

5. Burying them underground?

It would be cheaper and more realistic to cut down each and every tree that posed a threat to power lines.

[madrchsod]

6. the cost of burying cable would be astronomical

it`s cheaper to fix the above ground network.

[kentauros]

7. It also has to do with the local geology.

You know, things like high water tables, unstable soils, and solid rock. Those things make it very impractical to bury.

The best way to have a strong grid is to do constant maintenance and upgrading. Locally (Houston) our power utility did that kind of work all the time only a few decades ago. When Hurricane Alicia hit in 1983, power wasn't out for more than a week across the city, and often for only a few days. They had crews everywhere! And they were all their own people, not contractors.

Now, it's all contracted out, there's no constant maintenance and no upgrading unless something breaks. When Hurricane Ike hit in 2009, power was out for 3-4 weeks and longer in some areas. There's a mix of above ground and below ground power distribution here, with most of the underground stuff in the neighborhoods that are more concerned with aesthetics than practicality.

Personally, I'd like to see some application of all that superconducting technology that was all the rage in the media several decades ago. If all it's being used for is electronics, then we're missing out on the possibility of using that on a large scale for power distribution. I have no idea how that would work, but have to wonder if those with the knowledge and background have at least studied and considered it...

[Selatius]

9. In any given quarter, it would be cheaper to maintain above-ground wires.

The costs that would have to be undertaken to bury the lines would show up large on the balance sheets. Remember in business that you do not take on such large costs unless you expect such a large investment to pay off in the future in the form of higher profits, and typically, the "future" may mean the earnings report that comes out at the end of the year. If you bury power lines underground, you're still basically delivering the same product, but now you have an added large liability you now have to carry in the form of the costs of moving all your lines underground. This is likely the wisdom or some iteration thereof that is guiding power utilities on this issue.

[HarveyDarkey]

11. Wonder what these guys think about it?

[NNN0LHI]

12. Preventive maintenance is a lost concept in this country