A construction worker was engulfed in flames after his jackhammer pierced a live high-voltage underground electricity cable in Ukraine. Ten of thousands of volts raced through the man’s body and even burnt his colleague who was standing next to him when the accident occurred. The men had been laying a […]
In late June, a freakish and powerful “derecho” storm in the Washington, D.C., area knocked out a bunch of power lines and left more than a million homes without electricity for several days (weeks, in some cases). Soon enough, local officials began calling on the local utility, Pepco, to bury […]
The cry goes up every time Tallahassee experiences a big storm, with trees falling on electric lines and knocking out the power for many residents: “Why doesn’t Tallahassee put its electric lines underground?” Sure enough, the cry went up after the June 30 windstorm. Hundreds of trees fell on power […]
Few people disagree with the proposition that the sinking of electricity cables below ground makes a street or an area more attractive, but implementing such an improvement on a national scale is a formidable challenge. It is one which seems unlikely to be addressed in the foreseeable future. Less than […]
Another project bringing power from the North to New York City will be cutting through Albany County as early as next year — this time, underground. The Champlain Hudson Power Express project, proposed by Transmission Developers Inc., has been in the works since 2008, and plans to transfer power generated […]
Demand management is growing more complicated for power utilities. Rising global and regional electricity consumption is speeding the need for investment in expanded or upgraded networks. Many utilities, additionally, need to connect renewable energy sources, which can be distant from power demand centers. They also need to pay heed to […]
On February 12, 2002, at the construction site for the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a backhoe operator struck and severed a buried 240-volt temporary power cable with his backhoe bucket. This tripped a circuit breaker and the operator was not injured. The contractor reported […]
