Ask Lemmy

physics. cost.

lived a lot of places, some of which (like here in PNW) have neighborhood buried cables. It's lovely, and hella reliable. We don't lose power in windstorms or floods or snow.

It is expensive. And not appropriate for all places - for example, places with high water tables won't be able to do it, like Louisiana - you can't keep the water out year round even with a billion pumps. Also hard to do in places with bedrock near the surface for expense reasons.

One reason for my region: overhead lines on wooden poles will better withstand an earthquake and will be quicker to rebuild after a major disaster. Stuff underground will get all shifted around or filled with water and mud.

Don't make the mistake of looking at one region and generalising to a universal. Where are you looking at?

Here in Switzerland practically everything <1kV is buried.
For high voltage lines they have only built one section to experiment so far. It's pretty expensive, heats the ground a bit and blocks water with all the concrete, so it's not so clear if it's a good choice for agriculture happening above.

I've wondered a lot why they don't bury more infrastructure in hurricane regions in the US for example.

Because it's much harder to bury things above ground.

Harder to maintain if it is underground.

You don't pay for all the space between poles. Its also cheaper ad quicker to stand a pole than to build a manhole.

It would be better for everyone if was all underground. It is purely cost with a smidgen of time efficiency.

They are. In developed countries.

They are in most residential areas here in Denmark.

Let me reverse the question

Why do power cables need to be buried in non dense urban area?

Yes it will make it a bit ugly, but so what?. It's not like it being ugly will do anything anyway. It's not like being a bit ugly is a very annoying thing unlike when there a trash heap and it smells bad.

I think we should just keep it up there for sub-urban and rural areas, and invest the saved money on other things.

Also, im from developing country so my perspective is bit different for this topic.

They are safer and less prone to fault underground.

It just costs more.

places with above ground lines are effectively low priority for the municipality and utility companies. it's the common way in places where it's common because short term benefits are always treated as more important than long term benefits

In Germany: They are in the more urban areas.
The more rural have it either on street poles, poles on the roof, both or underground.

Almost anything infrastructure related, however it exists is probably the most efficient cost/maintenance ratio for that area. That is basically the only requirement for the engineers in charge of designing that kind of shit.

Unless you're the Texas power grid. Then it's literally the cheapest possible way to still be able to bill people for it.

Probably harder to maintain easier fixes in colder areas where the ground freezes for half a year.

It's roughly 5-7 times as expensive per km to bury the cables. It's mainly a cost issue.

It makes sense in dense areas, it does not make sense everywhere. Critical infrastructure has backup power anyway because digging does not solve all reliability issues.