In general, why aren't utilities underground to avoid loss of power?

Assuming faster to do power line installation than excavate that much. Also probably $

Money plus ease of maintenance. If all the lines were buried, the utilities aren’t going to operate at a loss, so the rates would probably triple to cover the costs.

As for maintenance, any time you have a line issue, you have to get locates from all other utilities, then dig up the issue and repair it. That is if you can pinpoint it underground. Plus, I’m not sure you really want a large transmission line buried, if it’s even possible.

When technology to do so came along they were all already ran overhead.

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Heat

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What does this mean?

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People on here say heat, but it has nothing to do with that. 90% of utilities in Austin are underground and it’s a hell of a lot hotter there than it is here. I’ve lived in both areas. It’s all about doing things the easy cheap way in LA

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That’s not what people mean when they say heat.

They’re talking about the temperature of the wire when you’re using insulated wire in oil-filled conduit rather than bare wire in air. Because the insulated wire gets way hotter, it has to be larger (which drives up the cost even more than simply putting an equivalent wire size in conduit).

It’s just a way of explaining one reason why it costs so much more to run power underground. There are plenty of other reasons.

You see more underground power in newer developments because A) it’s much easier to install as part of a new construction project, B) power lines are unsightly, so there is some value for developers to hide them, and C) it’s the actual developers footing the bill rather than the general public.

ETA: Most people don’t seem to grasp just how expensive it is to replace overhead lines with underground power. People will say “but they would save money in repairs.” The thing is.. repairing overhead lines is actually really cheap. It’s just that there are so many repairs that have to be done after a major hurricane.

But that’s nowhere near the cost of literally rebuilding the entire grid, much less rebuilding the entire grid underground in existing, developed areas. Moving power underground is, quite literally, orders of magnitude more expensive than replacing all of the existing above ground infrastructure in a given area.

because instead of spending money on our infrastructure here we spend trillions and trillions in bullshite wars or entitlements..etc,

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ou can bore the conduits and not have to excavate but boring is expensive. Issue is wire pull distance. Need a manhole every 300’ give or take based on wire. Also buried wire needs jacketing whereas pole mounted can be bare if high enough.

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You would need to put a splice box/ manhole at EVERY property. That's how it is done in subdivisions, every lot has access, or a transformer is dedicated to a group of lots.

When the main lines a re underground and along the highway with 1000' of unused land and someone decides to develop the middle property, you can't just tap onto the service cable like overhead lines.

If the service is a 13.8kv or 19.2 kv system, you don't just tap into it. Stress cones and modular splices are required and are a pain to deal with since the magnetic properties of voltage that high are constantly degrading the semicon areas of the cones.

New Orleans are too much water in the ground...with everything money

It's money. Underground lines are expensive AF. high kV lines are several million a mile. Lower kV distribution are still almost a million a mile.

They just can't get the money for it. Defaults would go through the roof.