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Well, you could bury power lines. It's just pretty expensive.
by eru 10mo ago
Well, you could bury power lines. It's just pretty expensive.
- defrost 10mo agoHorizontal directional drilling costs $10 to $30 (USD) per linear foot with upfront fixed costs of $30K or so. How does that compare to building above ground towers to support cable weight in all conditions? I'd assume / guesstimate that route planning, community advisement, actual cable length, etc. costs are more or less the same in either case.
- eru 10mo ago> Horizontal directional drilling costs $10 to $30 (USD) per linear foot with upfront fixed costs of $30K or so. Underground power lines are expensive, but not that expensive. As far as I know, you dig a ditch, put the power line into it, and then put the material back in over the top. Why would you drill?
- defrost 10mo agoTo pass under roads, under rivers, avoid digging up tarmac, houses, orchards, crops, things on the surface, etc. Trenching is straightforward, I mention horizontal directional drilling as that puts a cap on the total cost of going underground Vs pylons and above ground stringing.
- TkTech 10mo agoHard to understate just how expensive. Here in Montreal where ice storms kill and cause billions in damage, we still don't bury the main transmission lines. We been burying almost everything _in_ the city where having to repair millions of individual connections (again) would be impractical, but it's relatively simple to repair the limited major lines into the city. From CBC: > Current estimates are that it would cost five to 10 times more to distribute electricity to a big city via underground cables, and that not all of nature's problems would be alleviated even if that were done.