EoW November 2013

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November 2013 24
Energy
Overhead vs buried power cables: will a
previously underrated threat from nut-
cheeked saboteurs force the debate in the US?
With more than 97 per cent of its transmission-line miles
installed overhead, the United States leads the developed world
in delivering electric power by this means: unsightly, dangerous,
vulnerable to attack across a range from vandals to hurricanes
and tornadoes. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times,
journalist Jon Mooallem pro led another formidable menace to
the nation’s power grid: a perpetually teething rodent. (“Squirrel
Power!”, 31st August)
The author of Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly
Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals
in America is better known for his wild beast cred. But, when
Mr Mooallem summarises news reports of power outages
caused by squirrels (at least 50 outages in 24 states, over the
three-month period 27th May to August), his shift to an “obsessive
and profound” interest in these assaults on the nation’s power
distribution system becomes understandable. Consider:
† On two days in June, 1,500 customers lost power in Mason
City, Iowa. Other squirrel-initiated outages a ected Roanoke,
Virginia (1,500 customers); Clackamas County, Oregon
(5,000); and Wichita, Kansas (10,000). On a single day a
month later, squirrels caused two separate power outages
around the small town of Evergreen, Montana.
† Squirrels cut power to a regional airport in Virginia, a
Veterans A airs medical centre in Tennessee, a university in
Montana, and a branch of Trader Joe’s, the grocery chain, in
South Carolina. Five days after the Trader Joe’s went dark,
another squirrel cut power to 7,200 customers in Rock Hill,
South Carolina, at the opposite end of the state.
Rock Hill city o cials assured the public that power outages
caused by squirrels were very rare and that the grid was
“still a reliable system”. Nine days later, 3,800 more South
Carolinians lost power after a squirrel blew up a circuit
breaker in the town of Summerville.
† In Portland, Oregon, squirrels got 9,200 customers on 1 st July;
3,140 customers on 23 rd July; and 7,400 customers on 26th
July. (“I sound like a broken record,” a spokesman for the local
utility said, brie ng the press for the third time.) In Kentucky,
more than 10,000 people lost power in two separate
squirrel-related episodes a few days apart. In Austin, Texas,
squirrels have been blamed for 300 power outages a year.
† The town of Lynchburg, Virginia, su ered large-scale squirrel
attacks on two consecutive Thursdays in June. “Downtown
went dark,” wrote Mr Mooallem. “At Lynchburg’s Academy
of Fine Arts, patrons were left to wave their lighted iPhone
screens at the art on the walls, like torch-carrying Victorian
explorers groping through a tomb.”
† A squirrel gnawing on a power line in Tampa, Florida,
cut electricity to 700 customers and delayed statewide
achievement tests at three nearby schools. Squirrels in
Kalamazoo, Michigan, blacked out 2,000 customers in
the city on 9 th June, and 921 suburbanites a week later. On
31st July, just under 13,000 customers in Hendersonville,
Tennessee, were rendered powerless by squirrels.
Power outages traceable to squirrels had been occurring for
some time before they attracted the attention of Mr Mooallem.
In 1987, a squirrel shut down the NASDAQ – the New York-based
national securities exchange and benchmark index for US
technology stocks – for 82 minutes.
Another squirrel shut it down again in 1994, prompting the
president of one brokerage rm to tell the Wall Street Journal,
“This is a terrible pain in the neck.”
Still a typical reaction to power outages caused by squirrels
in 2013, the comment from 1994 suggests an obvious
question: What can be done? To judge from Mr Mooallem’s
energetic research, not very much. Not, that is, so long as the
nation’s electricity continues to travel overhead instead of
underground.
From the OldWorld, a tantalising statistic
for Americans: Germans su er power
outages for only minutes per year
In 2012 the issue of power transmission was addressed by
a correspondent to outsidethebeltway.com, a Washington,
DC-based online journal of politics and foreign a airs analysis.
(“Why Can’t We Just Bury All The Power Lines?”, 2nd July)
“Outages are not inevitable,” wrote David Frum, an area resident.
“The winds may howl. The trees may fall. But in Germany the
lights stay on… The German power grid has outages at an
average rate of 21 minutes per year.”
This impressive achievement was attributed by Mr Frum not to
“any Teutonic engineering magic” but to a very simple decision:
Germany buries almost all of its low- and medium-voltage
power lines. “Americans could do the same,” he observed.
“They have chosen not to.”
Transatlantic Cable
Image: www.bigstockphoto.com Photographer Zsolt Ercsel