AKBigDaddy t1_j5qijfs wrote
Reply to comment by vexingsilence in Why does this state seem to lose power so frequently? It’s always related to downed power lines from trees? Or is this a grid issue? by JayBisky
I don't disagree with the latter half of that, the line from QBC would be great. But it doesn't have to be a massive increase- a small increase, say 1c/kwh, and then use the proceeds to begin burying everything- start from the outside (rural areas will be easier to do this in and can be done with smaller impact to people trying to get around) and work your way into the cities. 1c/kwh across the entire state will not have a massive effect on each individual's bills, I'm a rather heavy user at 2800KWH and my bill would increase $28, but across the entire state, that adds up quickly.
Not to mention there are federal incentives for burying power lines (because the rest of the country has more or less figured out that burying them vastly improves resiliency against weather) to help offset the cost.
Last I saw it cost around $11500/mi to bury lines- not cheap by any means, but it could be covered in <10 years by a 1c/kwh increase statewide. Additionally, most new construction already has buried lines, no reason not to make that the standard.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5titgq wrote
> Last I saw it cost around $11500/mi to bury lines- not cheap by any means, but it could be covered in <10 years by a 1c/kwh increase statewide. Additionally, most new construction already has buried lines, no reason not to make that the standard.
Where did you see that? Because if it cost $2/foot to bury lines, the power companies would have buried all of them years ago.
The absolute cheapest per mile number I have found recently is $1.5 million to bury lines. Even in 2017, when Hydro Quebec floated the idea of burying 11 miles of lines (that didn't require any horizontal drilling, mind you), it was $4 million per mile
So if you have a way to put high voltage transmission lines in the ground for $2/foot, write Eversource and tell them because they'll be all over that.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uz5yg wrote
This was in regards to poles and local service, the long distance HV Transmission isn't commonly buried AFAIK.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5v0pnj wrote
Doesn't have to be long distance HV transmission. Even just like 34k or 46k that would serve a neighborhood is going to get costly to bury.
vexingsilence t1_j5qljju wrote
Rural maybe, if it doesn't interfere with their ability to upgrade the lines as the population grows. Cities.. that may be a hard sell. Doubt a lot of people would want their yards ripped up just to get the electricity that they already get.
That's all assuming your analysis is correct, which I'm skeptical of.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5qricx wrote
> Doubt a lot of people would want their yards ripped up just to get the electricity that they already get.
I dunno, a simple "Hey we're going to tear it up, put it back as best we can, but at the end of it you'll have power that will never go down due to weather" I bet the vast majority would be on board.
vexingsilence t1_j5qsc1u wrote
Doubt it since power outages in the cities are pretty rare. Then how would the street lights work? Have to replace the wood poles with ones with interior wiring? But then the cable/phone/internet and in some cases fire alarm are all hanging on the existing poles. To do it right would be a lot move involved.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5qtu89 wrote
> But then the cable/phone/internet and in some cases fire alarm are all hanging on the existing poles.
They solved this problem elsewhere... they buried those too, and is also a great way to defray the costs so it's not 100% on the electric company. Maybe ask ATT/comcast to dip into their portion of the $1,000,000,000,000 (yes, 1 TRILLION DOLLARS) that has been given to internet providers to increase broadband availability that never got used appropriately to cover some of the cost?
vexingsilence t1_j5qufgy wrote
Yea, right. They'd just jack our rates even more. Probably end up in court since the utilities won't look kindly on Eversource trying to pass on some of the costs. And it's not the same phone/cable company throughout the state, to complicate things further.
Or.. you know, just leave the wires on the poles and call it done.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5rxvzt wrote
Until the next storm and then we re hang them. Those will last until the next storm. And so on
vexingsilence t1_j5sev2v wrote
You make it sound like everything falls off the poles every storm. They'll fix it. If it's that much of a problem, get a generator.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uzk6e wrote
> If it's that much of a problem, get a generator.
What a solution! Instead of everyone paying a few extra dollars on their light bill and improving things for everyone, people should go out and spend $10k+ on a standby generator! Or $1k and only power a few items.
vexingsilence t1_j5v09de wrote
Precisely. Why do I want to pay anything extra for your comfort and convenience? You chose to live someplace where infrastructure is lacking, you weren't forced to live there. Find a solution with your own money, you're not welcome to mine.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5w174s wrote
Ok boomer. How does it feel knowing that you, and people like you, are actively making the world a worse place?
vexingsilence t1_j5w1zdk wrote
Move to a city if you want more reliable electricity. Geniuses like you choose to live in areas that don't have the creature comforts you want, then you bitch about it and try to force the rest of us to pay it.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5yglkj wrote
I grew up in fucking Alaska, they even figured this shit out. It's assholes like you digging your feet in holding everyone back.
vexingsilence t1_j5z1nm6 wrote
Move back to Alaska then. Or pay for it yourself. You're not even from around here but you want people to pay to increase the reliability of your electric service? That's some entitlement.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5z3576 wrote
> Or pay for it yourself.
That's exactly what I'm suggesting, I pay for my portion, you pay for yours, and by everyone pitching in and paying a small portion of it, we all get more reliable power.
vexingsilence t1_j5z3spi wrote
No, because it will cost a lot more per service point in rural areas than it will in denser city areas. Yet when work like this gets done, the costs tend to be evenly distributed. Besides which, we don't need this in the cities. The power doesn't go out that often. Might be nice for aesthetic reasons but it's not worth the disruption.
Tullyswimmer t1_j5tiew4 wrote
Except most people know that that would be a complete lie. The powerlines in front of your house are almost never the ones that cause an outage. Outages usually happen upstream when they affect thousands of people.
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uzd5h wrote
In 5 years in this particular house we've lost power at least a couple days every winter, it has consistently been local lines down due to trees or weather.
ElisabetSobeckPhD t1_j5s0gop wrote
they literally just raised rates like $.11/kwh
AKBigDaddy t1_j5uz0oo wrote
And would your lifestyle be dramatically different if they raised them .12 instead of .11?
ElisabetSobeckPhD t1_j5v175e wrote
Personally no, but just saying "raise rates $0.01/kwh and bury the lines" is likely a vast oversimplification. Retrofitting buried electric across the state is a monumental task, when you consider the geography combined with a bunch of people who don't want people interfering with their property. Also consider the huge amount of people that were struggling to afford living here, even before the rate hikes.
I read this article from 2009 that makes it seem fairly unpalatable.
>A rough price tag puts the cost at $17 billion or more. To put that in perspective, cleaning up from the ice storm cost the utilities about $80 million, enough to bury about 100 miles of line. It would take the cost of the damage from 90 similar ice storms to pay for burying half of the state's power lines.
>"It does become more economical to hope for the best and clean up the mess," said Seth Wheeler of New Hampshire Electric Co-op.
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