16 April 2013
Burying Power Lines
The arguments of Theodore J. Kury in the April 15, 2012 WSJ defending the refusal by electric power companies to bury transmission lines fail to acknowledge two of the ways investment in making transmission lines less vulnerable to storm-related damage can be paid for.
1. When retail customers have no power
a. They don’t burn heating oil and buy less of it from suppliers
b. They don’t see ads while watching TV or surfing the Internet on their computers and buy less from advertisers
c. They don’t buy perishables and other power-dependent products from their local merchants, who may not be able to open for business at all.
These and other secondary beneficiaries of more reliable electric power delivery would logically object to helping subsidize the expense of power line burial by paying a surcharge on their customers’ utility rates.
2. Besides, system-wide power line burial is a straw man. Criteria can be established that limited required burying of power lines to those routes where the cost per mile cleared a reasonable maximum ceiling. A power grid that combined above and below ground transmission methods could partially be financed by raising utility rates only to those customers who benefited from more reliable service owing to the delivery of their electric power through weather-resilient underground lines. The residents’ added expense of electricity would be recovered in the increased value of their real estate.
The arguments of Theodore J. Kury in the April 15, 2012 WSJ defending the refusal by electric power companies to bury transmission lines fail to acknowledge two of the ways investment in making transmission lines less vulnerable to storm-related damage can be paid for.
1. When retail customers have no power
a. They don’t burn heating oil and buy less of it from suppliers
b. They don’t see ads while watching TV or surfing the Internet on their computers and buy less from advertisers
c. They don’t buy perishables and other power-dependent products from their local merchants, who may not be able to open for business at all.
These and other secondary beneficiaries of more reliable electric power delivery would logically object to helping subsidize the expense of power line burial by paying a surcharge on their customers’ utility rates.
2. Besides, system-wide power line burial is a straw man. Criteria can be established that limited required burying of power lines to those routes where the cost per mile cleared a reasonable maximum ceiling. A power grid that combined above and below ground transmission methods could partially be financed by raising utility rates only to those customers who benefited from more reliable service owing to the delivery of their electric power through weather-resilient underground lines. The residents’ added expense of electricity would be recovered in the increased value of their real estate.
Comments:
Post a Comment
