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Bird on a wire…….

  • by MRambler
  • Aug 10th, 2005
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  • Gripes, Oklahoma
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  • 4 comments

    • Yeah, you see birds sitting on highline wires all the time….. They can get away with it because their legs are too short for them to be able to touch more than one wire at a time and unless they fall with the wire, they’re not going to come in contact with the ground and the wire at the same time, therefore, the wires do not present a problem to them…..

    I want to take away this highline perch that birds seem to love because humans are not so lucky….. If we are not running into the poles that hold the wires or touching the wires with tent poles, Mother Nature’s knocking ’em down on us usually with electrifying results….. In Oklahoma, most of the rain we get (which isn’t much) is accompanied with thunderstorms, which result in power outages, which result in repairs, and we all know who pays for repairs: the customers….. This is a never-ending cycle and the electric companies are making a killing (or causing quite a few of them)…… Why do people just naturally accept as fact that power lines have to be above ground?…… Besides the ugliness of utility poles and highline wires all over the place, they’re really very, very dangerous…… I’m sure that when electricity came to Mayberry, above ground was about the only way the wire could be placed due to insulating problems, but I think the technology has existed for quite a while that allows for the wires to be placed underground, out of sight, out of Mother Nature’s way, and away from stupid humans…… I don’t see many, if any, power lines/poles in downtown areas and high class shopping and eating complexes (in Oklahoma City that would be “BrickTown”, although I call it “PrickTown” because of the people who own it and how it came into being, but that is for another post)……

    I think that state and local governments should require electric companies to replace so many miles of existing above ground power lines with underground lines per year…. The electric companies already have a monopoly on the area that they serve, so why not force them to improve such service by providing better safety and a more reliable product for their customers at a reasonable cost…… What a concept!……..

    MRambler posted this entry on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 at 4:49 pm. Posted in the category Gripes, Oklahoma You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

    4 Responses to “Bird on a wire…….”

    1. #1 by Jek
      August 10th, 2005 at 11:53 pm

      The idea of underground power lines is certainly cool from an aesthetic standpoint and for saftey reasons you state, though there are some costly cons to consider: Here’s a FAQ from Florida Power & Light that basically states that underground lines have about the same reliability as those above ground, but problems are harder to diagnose and repair. They also cost more to maintain and are subject to flooding.

    2. #2 by MRambler
      August 12th, 2005 at 12:37 pm

      You went to the “Fox in the henhouse” for your answers….. Florida Power & Light stated that underground and above ground reliability was “comparible”…. Just exactly what does “comparible” mean?….. What I mostly read from their FAQ was the word “MONEY”…. They stated that they had placed both distribution and main power lines underground and would be happy to do so for any community or individual who would bear the additional cost for materials and labor…. My question is just how much do they expend in repairs directly relating to above ground installation?….. I know in Oklahoma it would far exceed the cost of placing such lines underground….. Like I said, everytime it rains we have power outages, and sometimes the cost is in the millions….. The last major tornado we had left some customers without electrical service for over three months and most of these lines were the same lines that were damaged by the tornado that preceded that one!…. At present it is a never-ending cycle of power outages and rate increases and everyone just accepts it as normal….

      Now, maybe Florida might have flooding problems, but here in Oklahoma that problem does not exist…. Our problems lie in the wind and the destructive force of storms by which we get almost all of our rain…. Every Spring and Fall you can watch the weather in Oklahoma and see video footage of power transformers being blown out due to a thunderstorm moving through the area, and this just repeats itself with the next storm…..

      I don’t think the electric companies want to give up all this repair revenue and are not interested in improving safety or service unless forced to…. Florida Power & Light on their FAQ stated that it was not their responsibility to furnish or pay for underground service, and that they are required only to furnish customers with the cheapest electric service available…. The Big Buck wins out again!…..

    3. #3 by Jek
      August 13th, 2005 at 9:53 pm

      I agree it is possible that FPL serves a bias view of the issue, but what they say is in agreement with this study by Edison Electric Institute, the association of United States shareholder-owned electric companies, international affiliates, and industry associates worldwide. [from About EEI] Here is the Executive Summary of the report. I added the italics.

      Executive Summary
      It is an unpleasant fact of modern day life – big storms such as hurricanes and ice storms
      cause major power outages. Sometimes these outages in heavily damaged areas can last for days
      or even weeks. In the post mortem that follows a major storm related power outage, there is
      almost always a public clamoring for burying overhead power lines. For many, it seems only
      intuitive that placing electric wires underground should protect them from severe storms.
      This report provides a summary overview of previously completed studies [in the US and
      abroad] and examines historical performance data for underground and overhead lines to
      evaluate the benefits and costs of placing more of our existing overhead electric distribution
      infrastructure underground.
      The report finds that burying overhead power lines has a huge price tag, costing about 10
      times what it costs to install overhead power lines.       When compared to overhead power systems,
      underground power systems tend to have fewer power outages, but the duration of these outages
      tends to be much longer. Underground power systems are also not immune from outages during
      storms. The bottom line – reliability benefits associated with burying existing overhead power
      lines are uncertain and in most instances do not appear to be to be sufficient to justify the high
      price tag that undergrounding carries.
      There are however, other substantial benefits for burying existing overhead power lines, the
      most significant of which is improved aesthetics. Many communities and individuals want their
      power lines removed from sight. While the benefits derived from these kinds of undergrounding
      initiatives are difficult to quantify, they are real and they are substantial. Because these projects
      cannot be justified based on standard economic criteria, community and government decision
      makers often struggle to determine who should pay and who should benefit from undergrounding
      initiatives based on aesthetics.
      The report concludes with summaries of innovative programs that communities and local
      governments have adopted to help pay for burying their overhead power lines.

      As you can see, it is VERY expensive to run underground lines and the reliability benefits are uncertain, so I expect a cost-benefit analysis would need to be done before OG&E would truly consider putting power lines underground.

    4. #4 by MRambler
      August 15th, 2005 at 2:21 pm

      I don’t think you have to worry about OG&E doing a cost-benefit analysis!…. I think they have already determined it would cost too much and they would lose their repair benefit….. My question is how can they accurately compare the reliability of underground and above ground service with so few underground installations in existence?…. Seems like to me they’re guessing and projecting results to their benefit….

      Okay, say underground installation is too costly….. Why has there been no attempt to improve the reliability of the above ground installations?…. I see no basic change of any kind in the poles or the wires over the last 50 or 60 years to make them more wind resistant or to provide lightning protection for the transformers…… As an example, less than four hours after I made comment #2, we had some freak, unpredicted thunderstorms pop-up in Oklahoma City….. These were accompanied with 40-60 mph winds (defined by our weathermen the wind was caused by a microburst)…. The storms were totally gone within 30 minutes and 7,700 electric customers suffered power outages….. Sure, OG&E was immediately on the case, but, 7,700 customers in 30 minutes!….. The reliablility factor kinda goes down the tubes because these same customers are in line for the next storm that comes our way (and in Oklahoma that’s fairly often)…..

      So, I guess we’ll just have to live with it….. Fighting the electric company is like trying to fight city hall…..

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