Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

Wed Feb 17 09:38:07 UTC 2021

And by the way, your 41% figure is misleading because it is an average over a continent where Western Europe has twice the standard of living as the East. Rich side of the tracks, poor side of the tracks.

In Germany about 80% of power cables are buried. Nearly 87% of low voltage cables are buried and the German grid virtually never goes down despite all that flaky and unpredictable wind and solar power.

Yes, population density is very high in Germany, but the reason power cables are above ground in Eastern Eastern is low GDP.

And those high percentages buried in Western Europe are remarkable when you consider Europe is not subject to severe storms like the States.

There are no severe storms comparable to the Atlantic disturbances or even this cold spell.

As I said, it is "time to make America great again".  Capital investment, not big cars. 😉

________________________________
From: Peter Beckman <beckman at angryox.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2021 6:27 AM
To: Rod Beck <rod.beck at unitedcablecompany.com>
Cc: Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>; Mikael Abrahamsson <swmike at swm.pp.se>; nanog at nanog.org <nanog at nanog.org>
Subject: Re: Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts

On Tue, 16 Feb 2021, Rod Beck wrote:

> Are the power lines buried like in Europe where I live?
>
> I really think using poles is crazy and global warming guarantees enough
> atmospheric turbulence to make it untenable. Florida is moving to bury
> power lines.

     Only 41% of European lines are underground [1]. Population density is
     higher in the UK, 280 per sq km, versus the US, 34 per sq km [2].

     Netherlands: 423 per sq km
     Belgium: 376 per sq km
     Germany: 233 per sq km
     Switzerland: 208 per sq km
     Italy: 200 per sq km

     When population density is low, the cost to install buried lines does
     not make financial sense, even considering the outages.

     In major cities, lines are buried in the US.

     Granted, there are several US States that individually are similar to
     Europe:

     New Jersey: 467 per sq km
     Massachussetts: 331 per sq km
     New York: 161 per sq km (despite having NYC, largest city in the US)
     California: 95 per sq km (despite having LA, 2nd largest city in the US)
     Texas: 39 per sq km

     Buried lines makes sense where it makes sense. Comparing Europe to the
     US is way too broad, and I don't know where you live.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-03-05/why-europe-pays-less-than-u-s-to-put-power-lines-underground
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density

> ________________________________
> From: NANOG <nanog-bounces+rod.beck=unitedcablecompany.com at nanog.org> on behalf of Mikael Abrahamsson via NANOG <nanog at nanog.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, February 16, 2021 9:06 AM
> To: Sean Donelan <sean at donelan.com>
> Cc: nanog at nanog.org <nanog at nanog.org>
> Subject: RE: Texas internet connectivity declining due to blackouts
>
> On Mon, 15 Feb 2021, Sean Donelan wrote:
>
>> Strange the massive shortages and failures are only in one state.
>>
>> The extreme cold weather extends northwards across many states, which aren't
>> reporting rolling blackouts.
>
> https://www.texastribune.org/2011/02/08/texplainer-why-does-texas-have-its-own-power-grid/
>
> Going at it alone can be beneficial sometimes, sometimes it's not.
>
> --
> Mikael Abrahamsson    email: swmike at swm.pp.se
>

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Peter Beckman                                                  Internet Guy
beckman at angryox.com                                 http://www.angryox.com/
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