Underground Power Lines

Good question.  When the electrical grid was being established 140 years ago, there was much discussion on this subject.  Though there were clear advantages to burying all this, the real issue at the time was information systems; they thought, and I believe correctly, that they didn’t have the capacity to find them once they became invisible to the eye, that paper maps would inevitably get lost or destroyed.

Now, of course, there is enough computing power in your phone to keep track of every molecule of the entire planet’s grid.  The issue at this point is cost.

Some countries are biting the bullet and shelling out the bucks, or, more accurately, euros.  France has been laying power lines underground for decades, since the 80s and 90s. Today 95% of its low- and medium-voltage lines are underground, and now they’re looking at doing the same for high tension lines.