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Comment by mixmastamyk | Hacker News Reader

So many tall telephone and power poles with wires everywhere in LA, but rarely mentioned. Can’t survive really high winds.

It’s not clear why they’re not buried other than cost. A few bent poles must now be replaced in our neighborhood at great expense.

Looks like they’d be cheaper buried in the long run.

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It is mainly cost – like 6x more. Utilities like LADWP eventually want to underground everything but the time scale of such a project is probably eons.

AFAIK most of the fires in recent years have been started by PG&E power lines.

cost and regulators generally have been unwilling to approve the rate increases necessary for resilience

plus we make our utilities pay prevailing wage

Yeah because those are where the money’s going.

https://www.google.com/search?q=pg%26e+profits

1. a 10% profit margin this year - they are not even profitable over the last 10 years and barely profitable over the last 25.

2. yea, prevailing wage requirements are definitely relevant to the marginal cost of a labor intensive undergrounding project

3. why is pg&e the topic of discussion here?

The last batch of fires were, AFAIK, caused by under-maintained PG&E infrastructure. I would not be surprised if it turns out these were, too.

LADWP (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power) and SCE (Southern California Edison) provide almost all electricity near these fires.

PG&E does not operate in the Los Angeles area: https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_MAPS_...

GP is referring to these fires: https://apnews.com/article/af0ec776efd4b3049f7800ff981bff88

> Pacific Gas & Electric’s outdated equipment ignited wildfires in California that killed more than 100 people, wiped out entire towns and led the company to confess to crimes driven by its greed and neglect.

> The decision by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali clears the way for PG&E to pay $25.5 billion for losses from devastating fires in 2017 and 2018.

I think you missed half the post: "I would not be surprised if it turns out these were, too."

Whoops, I did. Thanks for the correction!

Ah! You’re correct, thank you for the correction. I’ve been LADWP for so long I forgot the rest of the area was SCE.

I have a friend who does power pole inspection, and boy, the stories. Infra is crumbling.

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