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In this case, it's partly because PG&E negligence resulted in a massive gas explosion a few years back in Redwood City, and now no one trusts them to perform lo

In this case, it's partly because PG&E negligence resulted in a massive gas explosion a few years back in Redwood City, and now no one trusts them to perform long-term maintenance on their infrastructure — and evidence is mounting that their unmaintained infrastructure is responsible for both this year's fire in California _and_ last year's. So, everyone ought to do the things you describe, yes — but I can't fault residents of California for having a vested interest in keeping PG&E from burning them down every year, either. EDIT: It would have cost them ~4x the original build cost to bury all those power lines in the forest, but they chose not to spend on infrastructure and may be bankrupted by their poor choices.

mschuster91 8y ago
>EDIT: It would have cost them ~4x the original build cost to bury all those power lines in the forest That figure is valid for flat plains. Much more if you're all in a forest (e.g. in Salzburg a cost factor of 8-9x was projected). Ever tried to run a sewer pipe through a forest? I actually worked in trench digging, it's incredibly hard. Mostly we did telecom wiring, but one particularly fucked up job was running a sewer line with ca. 300m downhill through a forest. Can't use anything larger than a small tiny 1.4 ton excavator. For a 380kV cable it's even harder as you have to dig two meters deep and about 30m wide, and you're straight outta luck when you don't have 2m of soil but only 1m and hard rock below. The trenches required are massive. In addition the waste heat from the power lines heats up the ground (thus impacting the forest) and you gotta maintain the trench plus side margin space to be entirely tree free, as you absolutely do not want tree roots to pierce the cables.
- floatingatoll 8y ago
  I believe they said last week it was about 3.8x for the mountains that burned last year, but I can’t find a good source. Post here if you find their estimate?
eigenstuff 8y ago
You forgot about the part where they were also responsible for the entire plot of Erin Brockovich!

mschuster91 8y ago

>EDIT: It would have cost them ~4x the original build cost to bury all those power lines in the forest That figure is valid for flat plains. Much more if you're all in a forest (e.g. in Salzburg a cost factor of 8-9x was projected). Ever tried to run a sewer pipe through a forest? I actually worked in trench digging, it's incredibly hard. Mostly we did telecom wiring, but one particularly fucked up job was running a sewer line with ca. 300m downhill through a forest. Can't use anything larger than a small tiny 1.4 ton excavator. For a 380kV cable it's even harder as you have to dig two meters deep and about 30m wide, and you're straight outta luck when you don't have 2m of soil but only 1m and hard rock below. The trenches required are massive. In addition the waste heat from the power lines heats up the ground (thus impacting the forest) and you gotta maintain the trench plus side margin space to be entirely tree free, as you absolutely do not want tree roots to pierce the cables.

floatingatoll 8y ago
I believe they said last week it was about 3.8x for the mountains that burned last year, but I can’t find a good source. Post here if you find their estimate?

eigenstuff 8y ago

You forgot about the part where they were also responsible for the entire plot of Erin Brockovich!