#417 - Buried or Overhead: The Pros, Cons, and Costs of Underground Utilities
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#417 - Buried or Overhead: The Pros, Cons, and Costs of Underground Utilities
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Summary
After losing power for nearly a week following a massive snowstorm — complete with exploding trees, a fallen line ripped from a neighbor's weatherhead, and Caltrans traffic control on a state highway — host Dillon digs into one of the most debated topics in utility infrastructure: should power lines go underground? He breaks down the real costs involved (think $3–5 million per mile today), the tradeoffs between above-ground and underground systems, and why neither option is a clear winner. From PG&E's proactive undergrounding efforts in fire-prone California to the buried utility nightmares of cities like New York and San Francisco, Dillon gives a grounded, no-BS engineering perspective on why the answer almost always comes down to one thing: who's going to pay for it — and nobody ever wants to.