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1970-01-01

If we can rip and replace all lead pipes in just 10 years, we could also bury all nearby high voltage electric cables. But we won't.

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Replacing lead pipes is a no-brainer (net-positive brainer really) that has essentially nothing but hugely positive results.

Burying electrical cables isn't anywhere near as clear-cut of a benefit, AFAIK. Better in some ways, worse in others, ~always more expensive.

Most electrical cables are AC. Burying them just leads to higher losses.

Almost all new construction homes will be built with utilities buried: all electrical, water pipes, drains, and high speed fiber go directly to a foundation. That loss argument is valid, but in practice it isn't slowing anything down.

Are we sure that microplastics from the new pipes aren't just as bad? Can you make your water reasonably microplastic-safe by running it for 2 minutes in the morning?

> Are we sure that microplastics from the new pipes aren't just as bad?

In general, yes, for all the comparisons of good vs bad that I can think of. Long term effects of microplastics vs neurotoxic metals is "we aren't quite sure long term, but not measurable brain damage" vs "guaranteed measurable brain damage short to long term".

If plastic bits are big enough, it's obviously a different equation (acute vs gradual), but that's not the implication I understood.

Usually limescale build up inside water pipes and should avoid further microplastics release into the water.

There was also a study which showed that boiling tab water with microplastics binds those in the line which builds up.

Yes, we are sure it's not as bad.

And you pipes shouldn't emit any measurable amount of microplastics. Any emission is a flaw somewhere that you are better fixing. But even with all the flaws, the microplastics are not even remotely as bad as lead.

Next on the line, yeah, eating dirt is safer than concentrated potassium cyanide, and swimming drunk in a water pool is safer than in a lava pool.

There are a few California towns that would have benefitted from buried power transmission lines in recent years.

> There are a few California towns that would have benefitted from buried power transmission lines in recent years.

Is it possible to bury high voltage transmission lines?

Yes

I don't think the person you responded to is saying we shouldn't bury any lines, but rather questions the wisdom of investing enough to bury ALL lines retroactively.

There are hundreds of thousands of miles of transmission lines, and millions of miles of distribution lines in parts of the US where every single house is on a well.

Because water delivery is centralized and power distribution is not, the size of the power grid is approximately 3x that of water infrastructure.

And the percentage of lead pipes makes up a small part of the whole (9.2 million lead lines out of 100 million total, from the EPA report) while the percentage of above ground power lines makes up a very large part of the whole. Replacing those 9.2 million line segments is estimated (heh) to cost $30 billion.

At $1 million per mile, needing to replace 82% of the distribution system and 99.5% of the transmission system would cost:

$1 million x (5.5 million * .82) + $1 million x (500,000 * .995) = $5 trillion dollars.

$5 trillion is $5,000 billion.

$5,000 billion > $30 billion.

By a lot.

Above ground percentages: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7250

Line type mileage: https://ifp.org/how-to-save-americas-transmission-system/

I don't know how much it costs to bury power lines but this article says it costs $1 million per mile for water pipes so I figured that would be a good starting point: https://www.americaninfrastructuremag.com/flowing-forward-ad...

Why would we want to bury high voltage electric cables?

Power on telephone poles have a couple problems, mainly involving trees/cars/miscreants breaking them and causing power outages (and sometimes fires). Some people also feel they're unsightly.

However, underground cables can be also be broken (e.g: by water leaks or backhoes), and in these cases, it can be more expensive and time-consuming to find and fix the break. I believe initial installation is also more costly.

I see, thank you for the explanation.

They're much safer, have much less maintenance, and higher lifetime 'uptimes'.

Reduced fire risk is the main reason. The $ value of damage after a big fire often isn't THAT much smaller than the cost of undergrounding cables in that area. There's also some fringe benefits for aesthetics, electrocution risk, and maintenance costs (underground maintenance is more expensive but less common)

Prevent fires - and overhead power lines are ugly AF. You don't notice it until you go to a place where they don't have them and wonder why the scenery looks so nice.

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