• Ooops@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    As I have never actually seen a local power line (and the high voltage ones obviously don’t use wood), can I get some feedback which countries actually use overland lines using wood for their local grid?

    (Also @WarmSoda…)

    • WarmSoda
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      1 year ago

      America. It’s an enormously huge country with a lot of infrastructure built in waves as people moved west across it. Huge amounts of small towns and cities everywhere that built thier grids using poles and just haven’t upgraded since because of the cost of replacing all of it and burying two centuries of cable.

      There’s also large areas where burying electric cables just isn’t feasible for various reasons. It’s not a simple change.

    • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Why can’t wood be “obviously” used for high voltage?

      Canada uses wood for all types of transmission and utility lines. Even high voltage, the limitation is clearance, if you think they are a fire risk or something…. I don’t know what to say about that.

      • Ooops@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Okay, then: it obviously isn’t used usually for high voltage lines. And no, I actually checked before if that is just what I’m used to. But googling high voltage lines I get the same kind of metal designs from five different continents…

        So you might be able to do it, but then you are seemingly a small minority.

        PS: here 's Alberta, Canada.

        • schmidtster@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Wood is a material which is limited in use in high-voltage transmission. Because of the limited height of available trees, the maximum height of wooden pylons is limited to approximately 30 m (98 ft). Wood is rarely used for lattice framework. Instead, they are used to build multi-pole structures, such as H-frame and K-frame structures. The voltages they carry are also limited, such as in other regions, where wood structures only carry voltages up to approximately 30 kV.

          In countries such as Canada or the United States, wooden towers carry voltages up to 345 kV; these can be less costly than steel structures and take advantage of the surge voltage insulating properties of wood.[10] As of 2012, 345 kV lines on wood towers are still in use in the US and some are still being constructed on this technology.[16][17] Wood can also be used for temporary structures while constructing a permanent replacement.

          From Wikipedia. Yeah wood is used and it actually has insulation properties.

          You never answered my question about why it “obviously” can’t be done. You’re googling is terrible apparently, use wood and high voltage, lots of results.