Thread: Bipartisan Bill Seeks To Make Puerto Rico The 51st U.S. State

There's a machine, a horizontal drill, that threads the utility line underground from a small hole, that's how the power lines, cable and phone lines are laid, even water lines. That's how they lay natural gas lines, too. This technology has been used for decades to run underground lines of all types. They run them under streets, driveways, yards, highways, whatever.

Originally Posted by Judy

There's a machine, a horizontal drill, that threads the utility line underground from a small hole, that's how the power lines, cable and phone lines are laid, even water lines. That's how they lay natural gas lines, too. This technology has been used for decades to run underground lines of all types. They run them under streets, driveways, yards, highways, whatever.

I lived in Breda, The Netherlands and Frankfurt, Germany during the Cold War and I thought above ground lines were strange when I came back to the US.

There's no comparison but apparently people aren't bothered enough by it to want to upgrade plus there seems to be a lot of misinformation about what's involved floating around.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

Most areas are above ground. Very unattractive.

It's never bothered me, I guess because I'm use to it. They've been there all my life.

Originally Posted by GeorgiaPeach

Some wealthy individuals and businesses have their utility lines underground. Nicer neighborhoods are underground. Easier to do in planning.

Generally newer neighborhoods where, as you say, planning is done. I hauled to new housing tracts. Early on they would put in the streets, then build the houses. But as they installed utilities, they would end up digging up the street. So they began paving the streets as the last step. In existing neighborhoods it is hard to get right-of-way, then dig up the streets. Homeowners and businesses don't like the inconvenience. So retrofitting is not that popular.

In Los Angeles, many years ago, they put in a subway under Wilshire Blvd. and others. For about 6 months the street was closed to traffic. People could not get to businesses along those streets for that period. I'm sure a few went out of business. Obviously many of those business owners were against the project.

In the L.A. area when they put in the light-rail transit system, the debate was whether to go underground, surface or elevated monorail. Underground would cost about three times as much. Surface rail interfered with street traffic and has proved hazardous to pedestrians. Monorail was unsightly to many. You can't please all the people all the time.

Originally Posted by Judy

There's a machine, a horizontal drill, that threads the utility line underground from a small hole, that's how the power lines, cable and phone lines are laid, even water lines. That's how they lay natural gas lines, too. This technology has been used for decades to run underground lines of all types. They run them under streets, driveways, yards, highways, whatever.

I have not seen those used for major projects. I have been out of the construction business for about 20 years. But what I saw was such lines, water, gas, cable communication, and power, are fed through preexisting vaults. For instance, they will feed a new flexible water line or gas line through an existing water or gas line. It may be more restrictive to flow, but it is cheaper than digging up a leaky line. But the vault is usually installed by digging a trench. In an existing neighborhood, there are so many underground water, sewage, and gas lines that trying to drill risks hitting them. Many of the projects I have been around, when they dig the ditch, it is cluttered by lines hanging across it that they have to carefully dig around, then thread the new pipe or vault around, without interrupting those existing systems.

These boring machines are amazing, they actually bore the hole underground horizontally and then thread the line. You can't really tell they were ever even at your property.

Originally Posted by Judy

These boring machines are amazing, they actually bore the hole underground horizontally and then thread the line. You can't really tell they were ever even at your property.

Yes, but they are useless for retrofitting a neighborhood. If you have homes on both sides of a street with 100 foot wide lots, they have to be hooked to the gas line, water line, or sewer line, every fifty feet or so. While a horizontal drill can feed the line, you can't hook up to it without digging. Such drills are useful only when you have to go under something like a building or a mountain.

Originally Posted by jtdc

Yes, but they are useless for retrofitting a neighborhood. If you have homes on both sides of a street with 100 foot wide lots, they have to be hooked to the gas line, water line, or sewer line, every fifty feet or so. While a horizontal drill can feed the line, you can't hook up to it without digging. Such drills are useful only when you have to go under something like a building or a mountain.

Like I said, you dig a small hole to start your boring line, you drill and bore and thread underground with the machine, then you dig another small one at the exit point to hook up to the circuit breaker or equipment depending on what type of line you're running, and it makes no difference whether it's a new property or an existing fully developed neighborhood. I've run 4 different utility lines to existing property this way.


I've installed natural gas lines this way, power lines, telephone and cable lines to existing fully developed properties. They call ULOCO and mark theh lines, so they know exactly where other lines are. They wail about the cost, the cost isn't in the underground lines, the cost is in the pad transformers they use instead of the pole transformers. The pad transformers are more expensive.

Originally Posted by Judy

and it makes no difference whether it's a new property or an existing fully developed neighborhood.

Of course it does. If it is an existing neighborhood, you have to disconnect from the old line. Then you have to connect that to the new line. They generally feed a flexible line in the hole, these are not distribution lines, they are trunk lines that don't have a connection every 50 feet.

Originally Posted by Judy

They wail about the cost, the cost isn't in the underground lines, the cost is in the pad transformers they use instead of the pole transformers. The pad transformers are more expensive.

And you think Puerto Rico will go for that? They can put up new poles and string lines quickly and cheaply. The people can't wait two more years for utilities. In the long term, they may convert to underground, but in the current emergency, they need to get up and running. And many, probably including you, don't want to donate huge amounts of money to Puerto Rico. So who pays the bill up front?

"The North Carolina Utilities Commission and the electric utilities explored the feasibility of burying the state’s distribution lines underground and concluded that the project would take 25 years to complete and increase electricity rates by 125 percent.

The project was never begun, as the price increase was not seen as reasonable for consumers."==========

Should the US put power lines underground?

September 12, 2017 10.34pm EDT

1. Theodore J. Kury Director of Energy Studies , University of Florida

It is the height of a highly destructive hurricane season in the United States. The devastation of Harvey in Texas and Louisiana caused nearly 300,000 customers to lose electricity service, and Hurricane Irma has cut service to millions of people. Soon, winter storms will bring wind and snow to much of the country.

Anxious people everywhere worry about the impact these storms might have on their safety, comfort and convenience. Will they disrupt my commute to work? My children’s ride to school? My electricity service?

When it comes to electricity, people turn their attention to the power lines overhead and wonder if their electricity service might be more secure if those lines were buried underground. But having studied this question for utilities and regulators, I can say the answer is not that straightforward. Burying power lines, also called undergrounding, is expensive, requires the involvement of many stakeholders and might not solve the problem at all.

Where should ratepayer money go?

Electric utilities do not provide service for free, as everyone who opens their utility bill every month can attest. All of the costs of providing service are ultimately paid by the utility’s customers, so it is critical that every dollar spent on that service provides good value for those customers. Utility regulators in every state have the responsibility to ensure that utilities provide safe and reliable service at just and reasonable rates.

But what are customers willing to pay for ensuring reliability and mitigating risk? That’s complicated. Consider consumer choices in automobile insurance.

Some consumers choose maximum insurance coverage through a zero deductible. Others blanch at the higher premiums zero deductibles bring and choose a higher deductible at lower premium cost.


The damage from Hurricane Irma on the Florida Keys was extensive. Putting power lines underground will make electricity service more resilient to wind damage but also make flooding a bigger concern. AP Photo/David Goldman

To provide insurance for electricity service, regulators and utilities must aggregate the preferences of individual customers into a single standard for the grid.

It’s a difficult task that requires a collaborative effort.
The state of Florida’s reaction in the wake of the 2004-2005 hurricane seasons provides a model for this type of cooperative effort. Utilities, regulators and government officials meet every year to address the efficacy of Florida’s storm hardening efforts and discuss how these efforts should evolve, including the selective undergrounding of power lines. This collaborative effort has resulted in the refinement of utility “vegetation management practices” – selective pruning of trees and bushes to avoid contact with power lines and transformers – in the state as well as a simulation model to assess the economic costs and benefits of undergrounding power lines.

Nationally, roughly 25 percent of new distribution and transmission lines are built underground, according to a 2012 industry study. Some European countries, including the Netherlands and Germany, have made significant commitments to undergrounding.

Burying power lines costs roughly US$1 million per mile, but the geography or population density of the service area can halve this cost or triple it.

In the wake of a statewide ice storm in December 2002, the North Carolina Utilities Commission and the electric utilities explored the feasibility of burying the state’s distribution lines underground and concluded that the project would take 25 years to complete and increase electricity rates by 125 percent. The project was never begun, as the price increase was not seen as reasonable for consumers.


Construction at the Moody Air Force base in Georgia to put power lines underground in 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Schelli Jones, CC BY

A 2010 engineering study for the Public Service Commission on undergrounding a portion of the electricity system in the District of Columbia found that costs increased rapidly as utilities try to underground more of their service territory. The study concluded that a strategic $1.1 billion (in 2006 dollars) investment would improve the reliability for 65 percent of the customers in the utility’s service territory, but an additional $4.7 billion would be required to improve service for the remaining 35 percent of customers in outlying areas. So, over 80 percent of the costs for the project would be required to benefit a little more than one third of the customers. The Mayor’s Power Line Undergrounding Task Force ultimately recommended a $1 billion hardening project that would increase customer bills by 3.23 percent on average after seven years.

Shifting risk

In addition to the capital cost, undergrounding may make routine maintenance of the system more difficult, and thus more expensive, because of reduced accessibility to power lines. This may also make it more difficult to repair the system when outages do occur, prolonging the duration of each outage. Utility regulators and distribution utilities must weigh this cost against the costs of repairing and maintaining the electricity system in its overhead state.

Electricity service is valuable. A 2009 study from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated an economic cost of $10.60 for an eight-hour interruption in electricity service to the average residential customer.

For an average small commercial or industrial customer the cost grew to $5,195, and to almost $70,000 for an average medium to large commercial or industrial customer. The economic benefits of storm hardening, therefore, are significant.

Beyond the economic value of undergrounding, one could consider other benefits, such as aesthetic ones, which may be more difficult to quantify. But all costs and benefits must be considered to ensure value for the customer’s investment.

In terms of reliability, it is not correct to say that burying power lines protects them from storm damage. It simply shifts the risk of damage from one type of storm effect to another.

For example, it is true that undergrounding can mitigate damage from wind events such as flying debris, falling trees and limbs, and collected ice and snow. But alternatives, such as proper vegetation management practices, replacing wood poles with steel, concrete or composite ones, or reinforcing utility poles with guy wires, may be nearly as effective in mitigating storm damage and may cost less.

Also, undergrounding power lines may make them more susceptible to damage from corrosive storm surge and flooding from rainfall or melting ice and snow. Areas with greater vulnerability to storm surge and flooding will confront systems that are less reliable (and at greater cost) as a result of undergrounding.

So, the relocation of some power lines underground may provide a cost-effective strategy to mitigate the risk of damage to elements of a utility’s infrastructure. But these cases should be evaluated individually by the local distribution utility and its regulator. Otherwise consumers will end up spending more for their electricity service, and getting less.

http://theconversation.com/should-th...erground-83771