Power Line Work

[Johnskiismore]

Looking at some of the ski lift porn on another thread reminded me of people who work on high tension wires.

Would you do this?

High Tension Work

 

[Johnskiismore]

On the subjuect of electricity:

Shocking

 

[bvibert]

Those dudes who work on those high tension lines are nuts.

 

[TheBEast]

On the subjuect of electricity:

Shocking

Holy smokes!!

 

[wa-loaf]

Nothing like mixing helicopters and power lines!

 

[RootDKJ]

Ok, so here's some utility work for ya. Have fun putting this back together

 

[AMAC2233]

The whole concept of electricity/distribution is amazing when you actually think about it. I never used to notice things like utility poles, high tension wires, substations, power plants, etc. until a pole went down on my street. I looked a few thigns up and it's just insane...makes you think twice when you flip that switch.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

One of the guys at the local bar cuts down trees for a living..some dangerous shit with all the powerlines and stuff.

 

[RootDKJ]

I'm always looking up in the air. The sheer amount of infrastructure out there amazes me.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

I'm always looking up in the air. The sheer amount of infrastructure out there amazes me.

I'm always looking at the ground and I find money alot..including a 10 dollar bill in a puddle recently..

 

[RootDKJ]

Nice. In Flordia, over the summer I found a $20 in the bottom for the pool.

 

[GrilledSteezeSandwich]

Nice. In Flordia, over the summer I found a $20 in the bottom for the pool.

sweet..not to one up you but when I lived in Montana I found a $50 in a bar..I was really broke at the time so it really helped things out..for the next week or so I was living large..eating the steezy frozen pizza as opposed to Totinos party pizza and drinking Sierra Nevada instead on PBR..

 

[RootDKJ]

Sounds like good times.

 

[drjeff]

The stuff they do for line maintenance is nuts! I've got some of the seriously high voltage transmission lines that are part of the national power grid that run about 3/4ths of a mile behind the back of my property and a fairly regularly I'll see them doing helicopter inspections, and once a few years ago I was able to watch via binocculars them actually doing line maintence via chopper. Very cool, but absolutely nuts too!!

 

[ctenidae]

The whole concept of electricity/distribution is amazing when you actually think about it. I never used to notice things like utility poles, high tension wires, substations, power plants, etc. until a pole went down on my street. I looked a few thigns up and it's just insane...makes you think twice when you flip that switch.

The truly amazing thing is it's all 20-30 years old, too, and mostly in dire need of replacing/upgrading. You start looking at teh way the power system in this country is set up, and it's amazing we don't have daily blackouts.

 

[AMAC2233]

The truly amazing thing is it's all 20-30 years old, too, and mostly in dire need of replacing/upgrading. You start looking at teh way the power system in this country is set up, and it's amazing we don't have daily blackouts.

I agree. I live in a densly populated area, so blackouts aren't common since a high demand is expected a lot of the time, but I hear and read about more rural places that get more frequent blackouts on a regular basis. There was an article today in the Globe talking about how switching over to solar/wind would put even more stress on the grid, causing a lot more blackouts. Also, the entire system would pretty much need to be re-done, and finding places to put high tension lines is pretty tough these days...especially in comparison with 20-30 years ago and considering the preservaion of land in today's society. It's all kind of depressing because the current energy solution won't work forever. Too bad there isn't a way to store mass amounts of electricity cheap and easily...all of our problems would be solved...

 

[ctenidae]

I agree. I live in a densly populated area, so blackouts aren't common since a high demand is expected a lot of the time, but I hear and read about more rural places that get more frequent blackouts on a regular basis. There was an article today in the Globe talking about how switching over to solar/wind would put even more stress on the grid, causing a lot more blackouts. Also, the entire system would pretty much need to be re-done, and finding places to put high tension lines is pretty tough these days...especially in comparison with 20-30 years ago and considering the preservaion of land in today's society. It's all kind of depressing because the current energy solution won't work forever. Too bad there isn't a way to store mass amounts of electricity cheap and easily...all of our problems would be solved...

Really big batteries.
Personally, I think the next generation grid won't be a grid ata ll- instead, it'll be networked distributed (local) generation. Office buildings with solar panels embedded in the glass, homes with panels and turbines, that sort of thing. Local fuel production is also possible. Just not with petroleum.

As for new power lines, yup- huge problem. One great idea I saw is to electrify all teh train right of ways. You could even run it as catenary lines, and run the trains off them. And put windmills in South Dakota, where there's lots of wind, but no people, and wire it to the coasts. The crazy thing with the current grid is that there is no way to get electricity from LA to NYC- even not accounting for line losses and such, there is no physical connection between teh two. Seperate grids (actually, I think you'd cross 4).

 

[RootDKJ]

I think we should change everything over to highly reliable DC power

 

[AMAC2233]

Really big batteries.
Personally, I think the next generation grid won't be a grid ata ll- instead, it'll be networked distributed (local) generation. Office buildings with solar panels embedded in the glass, homes with panels and turbines, that sort of thing. Local fuel production is also possible. Just not with petroleum.

Yeah. fuel cells, combined heat/ power...those sort of things need to be more seriously considered, in the short term especially

 

[MichaelJ]

I backpacked to a hut (not AMC) one time, and spent the evening listening to two groups of guys swap stories: a couple of linemen, and a couple of tree cutters. They had some impressive stories, including the one about dropping a limb across two phases of a high-voltage line. Apparently you can tell back at the substation by the way the spikes happen when the limb explodes into a billion pieces.