There are hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines, and millions of miles of distribution lines in parts of the US where every single house is on a

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines, and millions of miles of distribution lines in parts of the US where every single house is on a well. Because water delivery is centralized and power distribution is not, the size of the power grid is approximately 3x that of water infrastructure. And the percentage of lead pipes makes up a small part of the whole (9.2 million lead lines out of 100 million total, from the EPA report) while the percentage of above ground power lines makes up a very large part of the whole. Replacing those 9.2 million line segments is estimated (heh) to cost $30 billion. At $1 million per mile, needing to replace 82% of the distribution system and 99.5% of the transmission system would cost: $1 million x (5.5 million * .82) + $1 million x (500,000 * .995) = $5 trillion dollars. $5 trillion is $5,000 billion. $5,000 billion > $30 billion. By a lot. Above ground percentages: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7250 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7250 Line type mileage: https://ifp.org/how-to-save-americas-transmission-system/ https://ifp.org/how-to-save-americas-transmission-system/ I don't know how much it costs to bury power lines but this article says it costs $1 million per mile for water pipes so I figured that would be a good starting point: https://www.americaninfrastructuremag.com/flowing-forward-addressing-americas-aging-water-infrastructure-challenges/ https://www.americaninfrastructuremag.com/flowing-forward-ad...