> “The grid is a whole different issue which we’re addressing, have been addressing, and will continue to address,” Patrick said. “The power is down because the lines are down, and the transmission lines are down primarily because trees fell on them.”
Yes, building the infrastructure in the cheapest way possible has consequences.
Underground lines would not be vulnerable to falling trees. But they are a lot more expensive to install, and when they require maintenence for any other reasons.
As European I find it strange how few power and telecom wires seem to be buried in the US. What's up with that? I get that in rural regions digging a ditch isn't worth it, but the Houston area has pretty high population density and still has wires on poles.
A lot of the infrastructure was established when density was much lower, so it was built out in the cheaper way, and now changing it is more expensive than just keeping on keeping on.
That and a lot of Europe got to do some involuntary infrastructure rebuilding in the 1940s that the US didn't.
For comparison, the Houston metro area (which is basically just the original city limits + what used to be its suburbs but have really just all grown together) is the size of the entire country of Belgium.
My understanding is that its largely a byproduct of how many of our major cities developed. When power infrastructure was originally being run, our cities were much less dense than what was already in Europe. They installed power above ground because there wasn't the density to really support funding underground lines, and because above ground lines are easier to add to as the city does become more dense.
I lived on a barrier island in the Gulf of Mexico for a couple years. The island gets hit with storms pretty regularly, two or three major storms in my lifetime if I'm not mistaken. All of the power lines were above ground until maybe 5 years ago for two reasons - the island had a pretty low density for full time residency and buried lines are expensive, and they were worried about issues with burying lines in a sand island that can quite literally move and shift after a major storm. It seems like the latter either isn't a concern today, and its a good thing because those power poles were always causing problems on the island.
Houston doesn’t have high population density. It has a gigantic population over an utterly enormous land area. And that’s why they “can’t” build infrastructure correctly and cost effectively.
If this happened every year they’d be underground. Situations like this aren’t common enough to create the need for a real fix. They’ll just patch it up and move on.
What he means (but can't say directly) is that this isn't like the last couple highly public Texas blackouts. This time the power is available, there is enough generating capacity online and connected, they just can't get it delivered.
Texas famously wanted to be "independent" from the energy market and has steadfastly refused attempts from the federal government to have it join regional grids for the purposes of redundancy and resiliency, saying it can handle its own needs just fine.
Until every power grid failure, when they ask the Feds for relief money (this is notwithstanding that in cases like this, they are not just asking for money for the grid failures but the general aftermath of Beryl, but it is a component).
> “The grid is a whole different issue which we’re addressing, have been addressing, and will continue to address,” Patrick said. “The power is down because the lines are down, and the transmission lines are down primarily because trees fell on them.”