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Because ya'll don't have any trees. Wooden utility poles are made from a single piece of wood, usually the trunk of a pine tree. It's cheap to toss a bunch of
by nwallin 5y ago
Because ya'll don't have any trees.
Wooden utility poles are made from a single piece of wood, usually the trunk of a pine tree. It's cheap to toss a bunch of them on the back of a truck and drive them to wherever, but they're typically longer than a cargo container, so putting them on a ship is annoying.
The forests in North America has lots of tall, straight pine trees but there are fewer forests in Europe and what forests there are tend to have more deciduous forests, where the trees are shorter, narrower, and ... squigglier.
You could have shorter poles and fit them into cargo containers more easily, but now you're stuck with short utility poles. Concrete or metal utility poles are a thing, but they're more expensive.
- Symbiote 5y agoConcrete poles are almost as cheap as wood, once the longer lifetime and lower maintenance are appointed for. And anyway, Europe has plenty of farms pine/spruce forests. That Ikea furniture doesn't just appear. Europe buries power lines because they're considered ugly.
- smcl 5y agoIKEA furniture isn't generally made from large, straight individual pine trees though. They're pretty notorious for using particleboard
- pvaldes 5y agoAll, wooden, concrete and metallic poles over a concrete block are common in Europe. Sometimes is buried, other not. Maybe is not the best solution where the phreatic water level is too high (i.e. most mediterranean cities in the coast).
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]