Finally, a sane comment!
I'm an engineer, and I don't much trust us either. We think we know too much, as some of the posts here eloquently prove.
Above-ground powerlines are better. Lower initial cost, lower opportunity cost, lower maintenance cost, and lower total cost over any economically sensitive time horizon. The electrodynamics are far superior, too. As some here have wisely pointed out, too, many parts of the United States are geologically unfit for underground lines.
One reason I don't, as a rule, trust members of my profession is that so many of us are trying to improve something that works perfectly well, just for the sake of trying to improve it. Sometimes, you can't do this. It is not good engineering practice to have 100 percent disruption for even a short period of time in order to obtain a speculative-at-best tiny increase in efficiency over the very long term.
The money spent on conversion to subterranean power distribution would be better spent on research and development of methods to produce (or store) power locally, i.e. within individual city blocks. Some effective scheme of power-generation/storage decentralization would, of course, sharply reduce or eliminate widespread power outages. Yes, it's 50 years down the road, but so would completion of even an all-out effort to put the country's powerlines beneath our feet.
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Finally, a sane comment! I'm an engineer, and I don't much trust us either. We think we know too much, as some of the posts here eloquently prove. Above-ground powerlines are better. Lower initial cost, lower opportunity cost, lower maintenance cost, and lower total cost over any economically sensitive time horizon. The electrodynamics are far superior, too. As some here have wisely pointed out, too, many parts of the United States are geologically unfit for underground lines. One reason I don't, as a rule, trust members of my profession is that so many of us are trying to improve something that works perfectly well, just for the sake of trying to improve it. Sometimes, you can't do this. It is not good engineering practice to have 100 percent disruption for even a short period of time in order to obtain a speculative-at-best tiny increase in efficiency over the very long term. The money spent on conversion to subterranean power distribution would be better spent on research and development of methods to produce (or store) power locally, i.e. within individual city blocks. Some effective scheme of power-generation/storage decentralization would, of course, sharply reduce or eliminate widespread power outages. Yes, it's 50 years down the road, but so would completion of even an all-out effort to put the country's powerlines beneath our feet.
This is inaccurate. Mars actually has weather.