It seems kind of primitive to have power lines just hanging on poles, right?

Bit unsightly too

Is it just a cost issue and is it actually significant when considering the cost of power loss on society (work, hospital, food, etc)?

  • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    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.

      • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        You would pay thousands for each meter of duct built including resurfacing whereas you would likely stand two poles with the same distance for less than a grand.

        Take it that overhead is more likely to cause future issues, they would need to be significantly more for that to be the case. Where this comes in is regulations on SLAs and fines, loss of service costs. But on a pure cost basis it likely would take a long time for underground to balance out.

        Companies also dont care and would prefer to lower build costs at the risk of future operational costs

        • hector@lemmy.today
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          1 day ago

          It would definitely depend on circumstances on this one. In california it would pay for itself with less fires alone. But all areas would have less service costs fixing them after storms. My power just went out a few weeks back here, and last year north a ways all the power got knocked out, some for weeks, in an ice storm that left .5 to over 1 inch of ice on stuff or something.

        • hector@lemmy.today
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          1 day ago

          At best they do not care no. They are extracting money for donors. As such more often they oppose more efficient ways of doing things on behalf of the ones doing it now.