I am genuinely curious why in a rich country like the USA, wires aren't dug down. I realise using my own country - Denmark - is an unfair comparison, since it's much smaller, but all wires leading to houses are dug down here. Even out in the rural countryside.
However, even a small state like Rhode Island has plenty of overhead wires, despite being a tenth the size of Denmark.
But surely a rich state like California could dig down wires in areas where it would significant benefits. The benefits are everywhere, obviously, but some areas would gain more benefits than others.
Can a state/country really be considered rich, if it cannot afford to dig down electric wires?
There are certainly places where underground power lines are feasible in the US but not in the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. If you saw where the lines in question span you'd be in awe of the terrain.
Perhaps we are rich because, in this and a thousand other small decisions, we are not forced to make the economically inefficient decision? Cables are underground where it makes sense (higher density neighborhoods where you have to dig during construction anyway) and above ground where it doesn’t (lower density rural areas).
Every time people are forced to make an inefficient decision, the cost is multiplied a thousand fold over time throughout the economy. Money spent burying cables isn’t available to invest elsewhere; a factory goes unbuilt; it doesn’t produce material wealth; it doesn’t hire a young worker into an entry level job; that worker never has a chance to grow and apply their mind to solve new problems; he doesn’t build a new, better factory or tech company one day.
I don't think it is fair to toss all infrastructure in the same bucket but for infrastructure projects where there are US federal dollars involved, the Davis-Bacon act is one reason why costs are high.
TL;DR Labor rates are above market rates due to the legislative requirements.
Burying is more expensive, but you eventually earn the money back. Density is so low in the country it could be 50+ years before you pay it off.
This is part of the trillion dollar sprawl problem we have. We have built a massive amount of infrastructure as cheap as possible, and now we cant afford to built it correctly. People would have never built houses in many places if they had to pay the actual costs.
Something I was reading recently claimed that total operational costs on underground lines also higher in the long run - dielectrics break down, faults are much more expensive etc. Found it counterintuitive, but hard to counter.
It would be interesting to see the cost comparison between an urban distribution line and one that is going through the Sierra Nevada mountains. Each has it's own challenges.
In Denmark, it appears to be about US$800,000 per kilometre.[0] The article mentions, that 17 billion DKK has been invested to dig down 3,200 km overhead wires. It further notes, that 5.7 billion DKK of the budget is spent on buying the cables from the regional owners, before they can be dug down.
The article further talks about people outraged by the amount spent on digging down these cables, as they are generally high voltage cables, and not those that actually reach houses. So I'd imagine regular wires cost less than the above calculation (which includes the 5.7 billion for purchasing the original wires).
3,200km is very little distance in the context of the USA and it's rural town sprawl. 3,200km might get you from coast to coast in a straight line, but 3,200km probably wouldn't even service every town in California once you take the landscape and numerous dotted towns.
Edit: A commenter further down noted:
> PG&E has 81,000 miles of distribution lines
So that's 130,357 kilometers. So at the same cost per km as Denmark, 5,312,500 DKK /km, that's 692,521,562,500 DKK or $105,117,847,971.88 USD, ($105.12 billion) USD.
Not considering how many miles of that is actually through mountain ranges and the extra cost of doing highly remote work.
I don't deny that the US is far bigger. And its density far lower, even in individual states. I'd imagine that does raise costs. But the US is also proportionally richer than Denmark, per capita ($62k vs $52k), not per square km, mind you.
That being said, I do get an impression that more money is lost in bureaucracy/company "fees" in the US than in Denmark.
Because doing infrastructure well - as opposed to holding it together with bubblegum and bailing wire - means spending money. And every dime spent is one dime less for shareholders.
As the saying goes: this suboptimal outcome is a feature, not a bug.
Building infrastructure well means telling people no. We have a problem with that in the US.
No. You cannot build in the floodplain.
No. You cannot build in the wildland urban interface.
No. You cannot build on a mudslide prone slope.
No. You cannot build in the surge zone.
We just don't do that. Instead we have a system where elect people to give us what we want without paying for the long term consequences. Simply put, we can't fix California, we don't have the money to. People in at risk areas need to be charged for the expense they add to the system, no new customers need added to the system.
If you wonder why the US doesn't build densely, it's because we don't pay for the true cost of our sprawl.
No that’s not how utilities work. Utilities are compensated for the approved capital they invest in infrastructure in the form of higher customer rates.
The upshot of this is that every utility in the country would love nothing more than to underground every overhead line in their service area. The reason this doesn’t happen is because public service commissions, who approve capital plans, aren’t willing to saddle customers with the astronomical costs of undergrounding lines (which runs $2-$3M per mile on distribution, depending on rock content of soil).
Let's say you want to bury a line 30 miles long. The upper end of your estimate is $90M. If the line services 50k customers, that's an average cost of $1,800 per customer. Charge an extra $50 on people's monthly bills for a period of 36 months, and your underground line is paid for.
It makes sense at the current rates. Solar can replace the entire grid. And instead of using large HVAC transmission lines, small communities can form small grids to help share battery stored energy (while still metered so the power usage is fair) or a resident could opt out of the community grid and do fully off grid solar as long as the had the ability to handle a few cloudy days.
PG&E has 81,000 miles of distribution lines. Even if they served all of California (they do not), that would be less than 15K customers for an average 30 mile segment.
>I am genuinely curious why in a rich country like the USA, wires aren't dug down.
Because if we catered to every "we're a rich country, why don't we" request across every subject we'd have a government financial situation akin to that of the USSR circa 1988.
Not to mention the fact that burying power lines across rural areas would be exorbitantly expensive. It's one thing to bury power lines in New Jersey. It's another to bury all the power lines in Wisconsin. For what it's worth, the power lines are generally buried in the more dense and rich (must be both, not just one) cites.
Unfortunately, there are too many places demanding money in CA, the Bullet Train, congested roads, teachers, homeless people, housing shortage, solutions to protect houses from wild fires.
They are dug down in many parts of the USA where it was found to be worth it. Chronic ice storms, high winds, etc. In California's defense, the risk/benefit equation has only recently shifted with the intensifying fire seasons & fuel buildup.
Newer construction in California are using underground wiring. With older areas the process is quite disruptives and expensive. You have to dig up the streets and private property. The state might be rich but then the labor cost of doing stuff is expensive.
However, even a small state like Rhode Island has plenty of overhead wires, despite being a tenth the size of Denmark.
But surely a rich state like California could dig down wires in areas where it would significant benefits. The benefits are everywhere, obviously, but some areas would gain more benefits than others.
Can a state/country really be considered rich, if it cannot afford to dig down electric wires?