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Let's hope this thread is short on Bay Area Fire Season

under grounding in remote areas of CA (which is much of the infrastructure) isn't feasible. Not only is the cost problematic, but the time and supply of labor to do so isn't enough to have this complete in a reasonable period of time. Brett: I'm learning more and more the impediments to doing anything below grade. The pole replacement schedule is non-stop/ repeating with no end in sight...for remote areas alone. I put a pic of one of our S12's in the "what did you buy lately".
 
the power lines that are way out in the boonies on the giant towers are running at thousands of volts. part of the reason they're way up on those towers is to provide separation between the lines because air is a pretty good insulator which prevents arcing between the lines.

difficulty digging the trench is just one reason you can't bury the transmission lines.
 
Out here, there's a lot nearby that one of the house developers was looking into, but they were required to bury the lines that edge the property were they to develop it, and they estimated $1-2M to do it.
 
littlebeast said:
the cost quoted wasn’t for putting up new lines, it was for moving existing overhead lines underground. they are doing that throughout our area. because much of the divide we live on (long strip of land situated between two deep river canyons) is solid granite, they have to trench channels in roads, lay cable and then repave. very expensive. and just as an aside (costs that aren’t necessarily obvious), the poles they are taking out are hazardous waste (creosote soaked logs).
Click to expand...
I always thought that Creo treated timber was hazardous waste too, which is why I was very surprised to see railroad ties that you could smell from 10 feet away for sale at Home Depot in the garden center.
I imagine a Creo railroad tie half buried in the ground would be an excellent way for a fire to start weeks after it was extinguished
 
nakedape said:
I always thought that Creo treated timber was hazardous waste too, which is why I was very surprised to see railroad ties that you could smell from 10 feet away for sale at Home Depot in the garden center.
I imagine a Creo railroad tie half buried in the ground would be an excellent way for a fire to start weeks after it was extinguished
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i don’t know enough about it to comment further. my only experience is a couple of local parks departments asked for the poles they were taking down (to use for sports field lighting). offered to purchase them. we took the request to PG&E, and were told that they couldn’t do it because of the creosote, and they had to be disposed of as hazardous waste. otherwise, they would have gladly given them away.
 
Yup.. Hazmat.

I had some at my older than old house for landscaping and when I went to dispose them I got pointed to the SJ Hazmat dump. They were $75 bux a piece to trash. I only had 3 which was good. This was decades ago. I imaging they are more expensive now like everything else in the world.
 
Friend of mine is a hazmat inspector. He routinely does fire areas and says you absolutely do not want to be digging around burn sites without PPE. There's all kinds of toxic shit leftover from structure fires.
 
Climber said:
Wouldn't buried lines remove the need to turn power off during high winds?

I'm guessing that burying lines would actually be less expensive than putting up poles and all of the line pulling involved with re-wiring all of the neighborhoods. Does anybody know the costs of each option?
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Bingo

Also, the water tanks are filled with electric pumps. Hard to pump water when the power is out.
 
Climber said:
Does anybody else think that those figures are intended to elevate their profits?

$6.1 Million seems to be very, very expensive if they have the right equipment, it seems like they're positioning themselves to profit enormously if 'forced' to bury the lines.

What would be useful to the discussion is the cost to put up poles and string the wires, wouldn't the lines be a sizeable portion of the costs?
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$6.1m per mile seems about right for underground transmission lines.

Underground MV distribution is more reasonably priced but still expensive.

There is nothing cheap about underground distribution. The cable, terminations and skills needed to install are vastly more expensive than overhead methods.
 
Abacinator said:
Friend of mine is a hazmat inspector. He routinely does fire areas and says you absolutely do not want to be digging around burn sites without PPE. There's all kinds of toxic shit leftover from structure fires.
Click to expand...
This is making me think of a certain BARFer and the possibility that after a fire, crews would find about 2,000 pounds of molten lead.
 
Also of note, and I'm not sure if it was mentioned earlier, So Cal Edison stated that winds were not severe enough before the Eaton fire started for them to consider a PSPS
 
Butch said:
The Moss Landing power site is on fire right now. We have ugly stuff out there to burn.

kion546.com

Schools, state parks reopen as Vistra battery fire begins to burn out

Crews have responded to a fire at the Moss Landing Power Plant with first reports around 3 p.m.
kion546.com kion546.com
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Lithium ion fire at the Vistra power plant. Pretty brutal.

www.cbsnews.com

Moss Landing Power Plant fire forces evacuations, closes Hwy 1

The Monterey County Sheriff's Office issued evacuation orders Thursday evening after a fire broke out at the Moss Landing Power Plant that closed State Route 1.
www.cbsnews.com www.cbsnews.com
 
Lithium iron phosphate is what most are using these days. I’m fairly sure the Vistra plant is lithium ion, though I could be wrong the presentation I saw on it was a while ago.
 
It is, but I think I’ve been reading that some places are starting to use it. Not ready for EV use but acceptable for grid storage. Not flammable.
 
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