PUBLIC utilities are beholden to the state on behalf of the public. They know what their costs are. Who is going to pay for this study?

Let's say that they are off by half. That's still $8 or 9 BILLION dollars. Who do you think is going to foot the bill for this?

I'm a born skeptic and a cynic, but at some point it's just plain silly

Do you have the slightest evidence for this claim that there is any union opposing the burying of power lines?

Of course you don't. You made it up: you guessed that it was probably true and then stated it as a fact because like many people you've been warped by unions-are-bad mantra pushed by those who make more money when unions are weak.

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This context is super helpful to know what they are saying , they being "utility officials'" . Such a study needs to be completed by a neutral public policy think tank.

"utility officials said it probably doesn't make sense to bury them to try to prevent power outages."

Key word here is "probably "

If 400k residents lost power, and their trouble was worth $100 a day, there you have 40milliion dollars. Airlines get penalized for late flights. The math changes depending on what they measured.example: public policy demanding customer rebates by outage day would change the math.

I'm not an expert either, but this Wikipedia article touches on the point of how underground cable length is affected by... stuff.

My background is in software development and sales. Electricity is pretty much magic to me.

This context is super helpful to know what they are saying , they being "utility officials'" . Such a study needs to be completed by a neutral public policy think tank.

"utility officials said it probably doesn't make sense to bury them to try to prevent power outages."

Key word here is "probably "

If 400k residents lost power, and their trouble was worth $100 a day, there you have 40milliion dollars. Airlines get penalized for late flights. The math changes depending on what they measured.example: public policy demanding customer rebates by outage day would change the math.

Look, how will our children be prepared for the future without a steady diet of mutagens.

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Things with upfront costs and only long term benefits are basically impossible with things the way they're set up now.

I’m not an expert but that just doesn’t sound right. Assuming the cables they use above ground would be the same as the ones for buried lines, and why wouldn’t they be, the cables will “carry” just as far

It's cost prohibitive - after the 2009 ice storm, where 400,00 NH residents lost power, WMUR did a short story on burying lines. Back then the cost was about $17 billion.

"...cleaning up from the ice storm cost the utilities about $80 million, enough to bury about 100 miles of line. It would take the cost of the damage from 90 similar ice storms to pay for burying half of the state's power lines."

https://www.wmur.com/article/should-nh-s-power-lines-be-buried-to-avoid-blackouts/5155920

Some parts of the U.S. do burn plastic for energy (this national lab says about 9% of all plastic waste went to that in 2019 https://www.nrel.gov/news/press/2022/nrel-calculates-lost-value-of-landfilled-plastic-in-us.html). But there are definitely concerns that burning plastic could create a lot of air pollution, and it emits greenhouses gases just like any fossil fuel: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/should-we-burn-plastic-waste

28 ish in concord

We live in the GRANITE STATE.

I’ve heard in parts or Europe they burn the plastic and convert that energy to electricity. Why don’t we do that? There’s a giant bio-mass plant in Berlin that’s going to provide heat to the downtown streets. What if the bio-mass was plastic waste instead?

No and that sounds crazy, but I believe it

I have to ask, have you been to areas of the state (such as Newcaste Island) where the water pipes are above ground, on the surface, because it is too prohibitive for many of the reasons listed above to have them below ground, like you see them in other areas?

Im confused as well because halfway between 4 and 5 it says 6 feet

Dig down six inches, hit solid granite ledge, and come back here.

I'm intrigued by this. Not sure why you're being downvoted.

This is just speculation, but from what limited knowledge I have about Alaska, even though it is not densely populated overall people tend to live in villages somewhat close to each other, correct? Even if a town only has a couple hundred people, if they all live relatively nearby to one another in a village, buried lines would make sense.

Another possible reason, response to downed lines is probably much more expensive and time consuming in such a large and remote area, so the larger upfront cost to bury lines may pay off quicker than in a smaller state like NH.

Are most long-distance transmission lines buried up there? Or just the distribution infrastructure that goes from building to building?

So what $ amount do you support this endeavor UP to?

Ok, so what income tax rate would you be ok with NH adopting? It would cost at minimum 20x the state's annual tax revenue so there would need to be additional sources of income to pay for it.

And if you want to complain about a crappy grid system? Move to TX.

Epic snowstorm reveals epic asshat OP who thinks the world revolves around them. When someone disagrees they go on attack. Got it.

> Did you see my edited link above that outages are costing the us economy $150 BILLION a year. > >

NH. This is a NH subreddit.

So that's a "no" then. You have nothing but your opinion on the subject. And that's fine, but in my opinion you shouldn't go around demanding detailed numbers from other people when you've got jack squat.

I'm all in favor of discussing the pros and cons of your suggestion but you've got nothing to discuss, just your opinion on the matter.