4 ms·

Of course you can protect those lines against drones: just bury them. Stop using aerial lines. There are always issues, though. A few years ago, in my city,

by realo 9y ago

Of course you can protect those lines against drones: just bury them. Stop using aerial lines. There are always issues, though. A few years ago, in my city, a neighborhood had an opportunity to vote for aerial or buried. Even though ´buried' made a lot more sense, they voted for aerial, because many feared "consequences" of being near the electromagnetic field of buried power lines. Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt ... all caused by inadequate knowledge. That is the #1 problem to solve.

jacquesm 9y ago
> Of course you can protect those lines against drones: just bury them. 'just' is not that simple, especially not for long distance. Underground cable is not necessarily cheaper either. On a local level it may very well make sense to bury the cabling, but for long hauls even in countries where they routinely do bury cables above ground is used more often than not.
- asynchronous13 9y ago
  > Underground cable is not necessarily cheaper either. Underground cable is definitely more expensive.
  - seanp2k2 9y ago
    Considering some of these lines run across the (salt water) bay, yeah; it makes a lot more sense to run tall towers given the very low risk of aerial strikes.
cmurf 9y ago
Further decentralizing power production, and making power distribution more modular and repairable seems like a much better investment. There are way too many cost and zoning barriers to bury lines. People are not going to pay to dig up roads, dig up backyards, fences, and bill citizens for their portion of the work, just to defend against this highly vertical risk (low liklihood, high penalty) of attack. And burying the lines has a massive opportunity cost. People won't even consider that option until there's an attack. And even then may come up with some other crazy idea, I don't know like lets invade some unrelated countries and fuck shit up for 30-40 years and then not really complain about the ensuing outcome all that much. You know, confusing vengeance with good public policy.

by realo 9y ago

jacquesm 9y ago

> Of course you can protect those lines against drones: just bury them. 'just' is not that simple, especially not for long distance. Underground cable is not necessarily cheaper either. On a local level it may very well make sense to bury the cabling, but for long hauls even in countries where they routinely do bury cables above ground is used more often than not.

asynchronous13 9y ago
> Underground cable is not necessarily cheaper either. Underground cable is definitely more expensive.
- seanp2k2 9y ago
  Considering some of these lines run across the (salt water) bay, yeah; it makes a lot more sense to run tall towers given the very low risk of aerial strikes.

cmurf 9y ago

Further decentralizing power production, and making power distribution more modular and repairable seems like a much better investment. There are way too many cost and zoning barriers to bury lines. People are not going to pay to dig up roads, dig up backyards, fences, and bill citizens for their portion of the work, just to defend against this highly vertical risk (low liklihood, high penalty) of attack. And burying the lines has a massive opportunity cost. People won't even consider that option until there's an attack. And even then may come up with some other crazy idea, I don't know like lets invade some unrelated countries and fuck shit up for 30-40 years and then not really complain about the ensuing outcome all that much. You know, confusing vengeance with good public policy.