• BougieBirdie@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      I think the long distance transmission lines are kind of neat. They often become roosts for hawks and eagles here, gives you a chance to see some nature near the city.

      The linked comic is ugly as sin though, that’s a high voltage rat nest. And I’m sure there’s a happy medium to be found with that sort of electrical pole, but it doesn’t give me the feeling of serenity that the high tension towers do.

      Underground transformers seem to be the better approach for denser connectivity

  • vzq@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    Overhead transmission lines are so 1950s.

    Invest in your country.

      • aeronmelon@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Japan is slowly burying all their overhead lines into the sidewalks. A lot of urban streets look so much nicer now than they did 10 years ago.

        It’s probably no worse in an earthquake than the water mains, which would inherently be a lot more rigid than cables with intentional slack built into every segment.

    • EldritchFeminity@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      Interestingly, underground lines aren’t feasible in my hometown because of how close the water table is to the surface. Any trench deep enough to bury cables in would have to worry about flooding with groundwater or saltwater in some places.

      The water table is so high that not only are there many places where basements would flood 100% of the year, but the majority of homes still have septic tanks instead of town sewage lines, and you can find houses where the lawn has been raised up with 3 or 4 feet of concrete to raise the septic tank to comply with modern regulations to avoid contaminating the groundwater supply.

      • vzq@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Interestingly, underground lines aren’t feasible in my hometown because of how close the water table is to the surface.

        I’m 4 meters below sea level. We don’t have basements because the buoyancy of the empty space would cause the houses to literally float on ground water. But we do have buried power lines.

        You are being lied to.

  • weker01@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    I know it’s a very unpopular opinion but I actually like the aesthetics of infrastructure and industry.

    When I see a steel mill, an oil rig or powerplants like wind parks, hydro- or nuclear power I am reminded of the human ingenuity that went into it. How many people needed to band together to work on something bigger than their tribe. I am reminded of our awe inspiring power to shape our environment completely.

    Of course with great power… You know the rest.

    • hangonasecond@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Even though I hate car centric infrastructure, watching a new highway or bypass spring up out of nothing is an incredible testament to our ability to work together to achieve great things

    • Sam_Bass@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      we have a “wind park” a few miles west of here. i get some of my power from it. slightly less than half of them are inactive at any given time. dunno if its intentional or a rotation scheme. never see any crew trucks around the dead ones

      • LwL@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        They have to shut off if there’s too much power in the grid, it might be that

    • ameancow@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I traveled across Southeast Asia drawing powerline tangles and run-down alleyways in a sketchbook. It’s definitely a thing.

  • mizuki@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    6 months ago

    If I’m gonna be entirely honest, I think power lines are really nice looking. I even have them as my phones wallpaper. Maybe it’s just because I have a interest in infrastructure or something, idk

  • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
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    6 months ago

    I actually kind of enjoy powerlines and junction boxes. There’s a level of engineering that is both rough and delicate that is magnified by how orderly and chaotic they are alike.

    Now if the power lines are at the expense of a view through trees, that’d be more a bummer. Likewise if the trees remain that’s a hazard waiting to happen, which is also a bummer.

    Buried lines and conduit pipe are preferable in most cases and share similar aesthetic characteristics.

  • Lasherz@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I think clean power lines look nice. I’d definitely prefer them to a butterfly killing roadway or lighted poles that create light pollution and confuse wildlife.

      • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        And have to dig up even more earth using even more big machines? If you did a 50ft power line underground, that’s 50 ft of earth that has to be dug up, not to mention what happens whenever something inevitably goes wrong and you have to dig it all up again. Then you also have to bury transformers, which means you need to cool them.

        There’s many, many good reasons that we use power lines over burying them. Mostly, power lines are so significantly cheaper and easier that it’s not even comparable. I’ve seen the bill when a buried fiber line gets broken. It is crazy expensive.

        • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Obviously you hire groundhogs and keep their sensory whiskers to the grindstone with the threat of mole scabs

        • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          PG&E has been having to cut off power for swaths of customers in California every time we get in a red-flag fire weather situation, because their power lines over the mountains sway and spark and have caused horrendous wildfires. Notably the Camp Fire that completely destroyed the town of Paradise, killing over 85 people and thousands of animals. It’s been pretty expensive for them. Of course, they saved money for decades by skimping on maintenance, but that all went in their executives’ pockets, so they’re having trouble with trying to get up to code and pay their court costs and fines

      • MissJinx@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Different countries have different needs. In the US you have hurricanes so it makes sense to.protect the power lines above ground, but here we just had a flood, do you want us to loose power for months everytime it rains a lot? It makes a lot nore sense to us to have it above ground.