Why aren’t we burying power lines?

On September 8, the Salt Lake Valley was hit with 100 mph hurricane-force winds that toppled trees and shut down power to more than 170,000 households. My son wasn’t spared by the mayhem, lost two huge trees and, worst of all, had no electrical power for one full week.

So the first question he had for me as we talked after the mess, was : “Why in the world don’t we bury power lines?” Good and logical question for sure. The response I keep hearing is that there would be a huge cost and some potential problems, should we decide to bury underground power cables in older residence like his. 

Yet, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that underground distribution would be less subject to damage from severe weather and other accidents both natural and man-made. There are also other benefits like getting rid of unsightly wires, or freeing more land under power lines, and a decreased risk of danger to wildlife, or flying objects. 

Obviously, the high cost of burying power lines is estimated at roughly $750 per foot, compared with $70 per foot in aerial installations. The problem is that no one seems capable of estimating the economic cost of these outings and that of its repair. 

Of course, we are talking about short-term expenses vs. long-term investment, the later sounding woefully un-American these days. 

Still, buried power lines are protected from wind, ice, and tree damage that are common causes of outages, and suffer fewer weather or vegetation-related outages, but some naysayer claim that buried lines are more vulnerable to flooding and earthquake, while still able to fail due to equipment issues or lightning… 

So when there is little will, there won’t be a way, and expect to see more and very expensive outages caused by wind and fallen trees as global warming heats up and natural disasters multiply!