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- Hacker News
- Wow $3M a mile to bury lines is insane. It sounds like that’s the only solution though?by bix6
- Welcome to the world of NIMBYism.
It's not impossible to do things, but people (in the US) are extremely resistant to any kind of perceived change or self sacrifice.
It's a common story for any kind of infrastructure project in the US.
by qmarchi - Part of that cost is decommissioning and removing the existing tower-based system. But PG&E made the call years ago to use that fire-prone implementation to boost profits, and now we are paying for that short-sighted decision.by nonfamous
- Batteries are also a pretty good solution. It's possible that eventually there is enough battery storage on the grid that we can shut down the highest-risk transmission lines for longer periods of time without having power outages.
Casey Handmer has some interesting writing for people who are curious about this direction: https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2023/07/12/grid-storage-b...
The nice thing about batteries is that they get cheaper and cheaper over time, as opposed to generic construction in California, which seems to get more and more expensive over time.
by lacker - Better deploy some rooftop solar and a battery. Don’t depend on an unreliable grid provided by a criminally negligent and profit crazed corporation.by more_corn
- It's a complex issue, but the dumb part is letting the for-profit utilities decide to not provide the power people signed up for because those same utilities can't keep their own equipment from starting fires.by BrenBarn