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Ask Slashdot: Why Is the Power Grid So Crummy In So Many Places?
An anonymous reader writes: I live in a relatively large college town that's within easy driving distance of several major metropolitan centers. In many ways, the infrastructure around here is top-notch. The major exception is the electrical grid. Lightning storm? Power outage. Heavy winds? Power outage. Lots of rain? Power outage. Some areas around town are immune to this — like around the hospital, for obvious reasons. But others seem to lose power at the drop of hat. Why is this? If it were a tiny village or in the middle of nowhere, it would make sense to me. What problems do the utility companies face that they can't keep service steady? Do you deal with a lot of outages where you live? I'm not sure if it's just an investment issue or a technological one. It hasn't gotten better in the decade I've lived here, and I can imagine it will only get worse as the infrastructure ages.
You already pay for it - so how is it in their interests to invest in improvement? Nobody is going to build a better grid to compete on price or quality.
This perpetual motion machine Lisa made is a joke, it just keeps getting faster and faster. - Homer
>For one, the US is big.. really big.. So it's not cost-effective to run power cables and alike underground. So that makes them more vulnerable.
Again and again this fallacy! When it's about espionnage everything is cost effective, distance does not matter. But when it's about basic and primary need local infrastructure, it's always too expensive. What is wrong with you guys?
Either way, storage is the "next big thing" for the electric grid. For one thing, it's essential for integrating intermittent sources like most renewables. But it will also help to make the entire grid more "islandable" -- diverse and distributed -- and thus more robust.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, you're not using enough of it. --AC
Generally, a public company will invest only if there is an expectation of an acceptable return, or if they are forced to by actual regulation. Businesses like power, water, public transportation, telecommunication, and others require huge investments to get into the market, where possible at all, so there is no real competition either.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the light cone.
No - it's not even a question. Bury the lines and you will remove a large number of causes for power outages.
Even more important - realize that each outage costs money for the community. In the long run buried lines will save money - even if you are in an area where the ground is filled with rocks.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
In the long run buried lines will save money - even if you are in an area where the ground is filled with rocks.
Hahahhaah. That was a laugh. Sorry but no. The cost of digging is astronomical for no reason other than the fact we can't look underground and we're super screwed when we hit something.
About 20 years ago I would have agreed with you hands down, but since then the cost of trenching has increased 10fold for any public works or works conducted in hazardous facilities. Dig a hole in your back yard? No issue. Dig it in the street, you may as well file for bankruptcy.
It's actually quite comical, we broke our lead in phone line on our property when raising a house and the conduit underground was broken so they couldn't easily run a new one. The options were pay $10000 to the telecom company for the cost of trenching + install, or pay some third party $500 to trench, and then pay the telecom company $500 to install the new line.
It's ludicrous.
In most European places I've seen, the long-distance lines are above ground (which constitutes the "grid"), and in cities and towns the cables are below ground. The size of the US doesn't matter, as we are talking about cities. As others have pointed out, the grid is redundant, but the cabling in towns and cities is not. No-one is talking about running rural lines underground, just those in cities, where it makes sense and provides a first-world power supply. Trotting out the "but we so biiiig!" argument when someone points out that the US's infrastructure is sometimes laughable only perpetuates the issues, and ensures that they will never be fixed.
As an American married to a European, I've often been asked by puzzled Europeans as to why Americans build houses from wood. Alexis de Tocqueville probably said it best (Democracy in America Vol II, Chapter VIII):
"I accost an American sailor, and I inquire why the ships of his country are built so as to last but for a short time; he answers without hesitation that the art of navigation is every day making such rapid progress, that the finest vessel would become almost useless if it lasted beyond a certain number of years. In these words, which fell accidentally and on a particular subject from a man of rude attainments, I recognize the general and systematic idea upon which a great people directs all its concerns."
Americans regularly get second mortgages and put additions and improvements to their homes, expanding and adapting them. The less this is true (inner cities) the less likely the home is made of wood. And that may turn out to be true of many high-line wires. I'm not sure about power lines, but would assume we'd pay for telephone cables to be buried at the same time, and that seems incredibly wasteful. If the USA paid to put all the telephone cables underground, how will it pay off if everyone goes wireless, as has happened in most rapidly emerging market cities? When I had my home rewired in 1998, I thought it would be wise to pay for double phone lines, put in for DSL cable. I wish I could get that money back and put it into a savings bond.
Gently reply
Storage is the "next great myth" - a solution looking for a problem. And government handouts.
I was stuck behind storm Sandy in New Jersey and discovered that 99% of the problems there were self induced. Guess what - they don't trim trees away from the power lines. Every time you get wind, dozens to hundreds (or thousands in this case) or branches snap the lines.
To be fair, when the utility company trims trees the residents raise holy hell.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I've often wondered about the possibility of not re-burying the trench: make the trench shallower, cover it with a walkable grate, and just leave it that way.
Looks terrible, creates a safety hazard (grates WILL be pulled up and people electrocuted), creates a metal theft problem, doesn't adequately protect the cable from freeze/thaw problems, doesn't protect from rodents & wildlife adequately, still vulnerable to weather, etc. Problems with doing this are legion. The biggest is safety. You do NOT want the general public to have convenient access to power lines because someone will inevitably do something stupid.
It's actually cheaper and safer to bury it. A grate like you propose would be kind of the worst of both worlds in practice.