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Can they bury power lines in houston? I thought the water table was pretty close to the surface. (if you want a swimming pool, dig a hole!) EDIT: ok I looked
by m463 2y ago
Can they bury power lines in houston? I thought the water table was pretty close to the surface.
(if you want a swimming pool, dig a hole!)
EDIT: ok I looked
it seems there are two kinds of lines - transmission lines and distribution lines.
Distribution lines can be buried, but it might not be good in hurricane prone areas that are prone to flooding.
transmission lines are hard/expensive to bury, since the insulation requirements are technically challenging.
The hurricane seems to have taken out some large transmission lines in addition to distribution lines.
I wonder if maybe redundant lines might be cheaper than buried lines?
- ipython 2y agoFailed buried transmission wires caused the famous five week blackout of Auckland NZ in 1998 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_Auckland_power_crisis
- Gibbon1 2y ago> A 1998 ministerial inquiry criticized both the Auckland Electric Power Board and its privatized successor, which had halved its staff after taking over in October 1993 > The inquiry report also said, "Internal expertise in 110 kV assets was not maintained at a sufficient level" It's almost as if you put public infrastructure under the control of people who only care about collecting short term rents bad things happen. Other comment California has underground transmission lines. And yes sometimes they fail. Had a smaller one oops in my old neighborhood in San Francisco a few years ago. PG&E is spending about $20b to underground 10,000 miles of lines in fire prone areas. Seems like a lot but it's $40/foot. Still that's only 10% of the total. https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering-source/civil-engineering-magazine/article/2021/09/california-utility-to-underground-10000-mi-of-power-lines https://www.asce.org/publications-and-news/civil-engineering...