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Pylons 08:36 - Aug 3 with 895 viewsHerbivore

Always liked them as a feature of the skyline in my younger days. But would a subterranean electricity network be more reliable as pylons do tend to leave the wires exposed during storms and high winds, leading to power cuts?

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Pylons on 09:04 - Aug 3 with 834 viewsLibero

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Pylons on 09:06 - Aug 3 with 822 viewsHerbivore

Pylons on 09:04 - Aug 3 by Libero



Not sure how that'd work as a means for transporting electricity, mate.

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Pylons on 09:07 - Aug 3 with 816 viewsLibero

Pylons on 09:06 - Aug 3 by Herbivore

Not sure how that'd work as a means for transporting electricity, mate.


You're just not piling on hard enough.
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Pylons on 09:15 - Aug 3 with 799 viewsSteve_M

Pylons, like cooling towers and wind turbines, have a certain industrial beauty to them.

I think your question needs to differentiate between transmission - i.e. bulk transfer of energy - and distribution - local networks to houses and businesses.

At transmission level high voltage cables suspended by pylons are the most efficient way of transporting electricity, the cost of putting that much infrastructure underground would be enormous. There is redundancy in most places and any damage is relatively easy to repair. There's a different case to be made for sensitive environmental areas, areas of natural beauty and the like.

At a distribution level, those power cuts you mention are often caused by falling trees, East Anglia is particularly vulnerable here (the storm in November 2000 was definitely not a fun day to be working for the distribution business....). Again though, the cost of putting lots of infrastructure underground is expensive, repairs are also easier than repairing underground cables. In more urban areas, then cables are generally underground and it is normally possible to switch routing if there is a fault fairly quickly.

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Pylons on 09:18 - Aug 3 with 786 viewsOldsmoker

It's very expensive to go underground.
Overhead wires can be maintained easily as access is easy.
Finding and fixing a fault in an underground cable is problematic.
However, we have underground gas pipes and petroleum pipes.
There's a petrol pipe that runs from Humberside to Buncefield near Hemel Hempstead. Buncefield blew up in 2005 so I don't know if that's still used.

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Pylons on 09:20 - Aug 3 with 784 viewsclive_baker

I was thinking the other day actually what an eyesore they are to the landscape. Weird that we don't really notice them day to day innit, I guess we're just used to them. But as I was passing through near my parents village the other day I did actually notice them, and the wires hanging off the houses.

I'm clueless about this stuff but can't we have wireless electricity transfer?

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Pylons on 09:21 - Aug 3 with 778 viewsHerbivore

Pylons on 09:20 - Aug 3 by clive_baker

I was thinking the other day actually what an eyesore they are to the landscape. Weird that we don't really notice them day to day innit, I guess we're just used to them. But as I was passing through near my parents village the other day I did actually notice them, and the wires hanging off the houses.

I'm clueless about this stuff but can't we have wireless electricity transfer?


Wireless electricity and wireless charging frazzles my brain (possibly literally as well as metaphorically).

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