Why don't we bury our electrical cables?

Came across a crew repairing downed lines from a tree limb yesterday, and made me think of this again. Okay, it's cheaper to string the things in the air than it is to insulate them and bury them. But surely the long-term picture is more profitable when you figure in that buried wires will break less often, and there's less chance of people getting electrocuted?

Watch out for those live wires!

without enough expenses the bosses would have to make billions per year rather then just hundreds of millions and people might get mad?

Story about yes/no bury utility wires:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003515961_underground09e.html

And the price went up four times between the letting of the contract and the undergrounding of the lines.

My power comapany gave me the choice.

New construction gets buried, but they just keep putting lines in existing areas in the air and the keep getting knocked down by storms.
I would think it would economics.

They say that there is too much resistance (electrical resistance) when put underground. In spite of many explanations of that statement, I still don't understand it.

to redo the old ones! I've said the same thing for years, but the places you see MOST of the overhead cabling is in and around OLD established cities. Hell, they can't even keep the bridges from falling down and the roads from faing apart! If your computer activates when you plug it in, BE HAPPY!

Another problem is avoiding existing underground utilities, e.g. gas, sewer, water, when burying lines. Their locations don't always exactly match the maps the the locater services use. I had to get my sewer repaired recently, and we got much closer to the 4" gas line than expected. Another example: a new fiber company has been burying cable in my town over the last few years, and they've caused more than a few gas leaks and water main breaks.

On top of that, it can be really tough to get equipment in between houses in established neighborhoods to reach utilities that run through the back yards. People build fences and decks, plant shrubs and trees, and generally don't expect a ditch witch or excavator to be coming through any time soon.

But we are paying for it ourselves and it is really expensive (my cost, alone, was over $18K).

And the cost increased four different times between the letting of the contract and the actual undergrounding.

and theres always problems with a circuit that has an underground.

are less likely to short when they get damaged and it's raining, and burying them is no protection against lightning strikes.

Plus, Joe Homeowner is less likely to send himself to the great beyond when he's planting shrubbery without asking the utility company to point out where they are in his yard.

They lobby heavily for free advertising space.

isn't that the truth.

and the power and cable companies rent space on them. So, you gotta get at least three companies to agree on burying the cables and how to allocate the cost.

And the cost is huge, even worse in suburban or semi-rural areas.

oh, you weren't talking about THOSE cables. Never mind.

(Did you known that for their first birthday every Minnesota child gets his first pair of jumper cables? You cannot be too prepared.)

just not all of them. I worked one summer in college on a construction crew that buried phone cable for a telco in NC. Assuming that the issues are the same for electrical cable, there are several different methods:

If the area is clear earth without obstructions, cable can be plowed with a wheeled device pulled behind a truck. It's just what it sounds like -- the cable goes right off a spool and is plowed about three feet under the earth. That does not work, however, if there are already driveways or other frequent obstructions in place. In that case, poling is much more practical. Cable can be buried by a combination of backhoes, trenching machines, and hand digging (which I did when necessary :)), but it is slow and expensive. It is easy to damage the cable and is not practical for long distances.

Safety has to enter into it with electrical cables, but economics probably have to play a role also. Under traditional forms of price regulation, utilites were usually allowed to recover their costs plus a profit, and would actually have had financial incentives to put more money into their outside plant.

Our power is a BIT more stable that other places I've lived. However, when the grid goes down across the entire area, we go down as well.

There's also problems whenever ANY utility needs to dig something up. (Our phone, cable TV and fiber are also all buried.) It never fails that when one utility does some work, they slice up something else. Then there's a big finger pointing fiasco, and people might have no TV or phones for a few days. (Power always seems to get set back up pronto.)

So, buried wires aren't a cure all.

Some guys doing a cable upgrade put a backhoe through the gas-line. That was fun. Guys were punching holes all over my back yard trying to test the soil for gas contamination.

But I like all the infrastructure being underground.