EuroWire November 2014

Transatlantic cable

The dismantling commenced: “Two men climbed adjacent poles, chopped the wire simultaneously from each end to avoid dropping a live wire into the street, then cut down the poles.” (As an aside, the legendary Blizzard of 1888 was also a major impetus for the creation of the New York City subway, one of the world’s oldest public transit systems.) Poles by the many thousands As for the outer boroughs – New York City beyond Manhattan – information supplied by FYI indicates a staggering number of telephone poles, some of them with impressive workloads: † A spokesman for Verizon, John J Bonomo, told Mr Pollak that the company places its bre and copper wires on its own poles, but also uses poles owned by Con Edison and, in isolated cases, poles owned by municipalities or other parties. Shared infrastructure space is the norm almost everywhere, he said. “And you’ll nd many di erent ‘tenants’ on poles besides just telecommunications and power companies,” Mr Bonomo said. “You’ll nd cable TV companies, wireless antennas, municipal lines, streetlights, tra c lights, etc. It’s a busy place up on poles.” † Poles owned by Verizon number: 103,119 in Queens, 69,391 in Brooklyn, 27,317 on Staten Island, and 25,224 in the Bronx. (There are also seven Verizon telephone poles in Manhattan. According to Mr Cunningham, those in private backyards – or those holding only terminal boxes and without wires strung above public thoroughfares – do not appear to violate the ordinance prohibiting overhead wires.) † For Con Edison the numbers are: Queens, 39,309; Staten Island, 28,734; Brooklyn, 20,339; the Bronx, 17,197; and Manhattan, none † While some poles are made of concrete, a majority are still Southern pine † Finally, Mr Cunningham, the historian of New York electrical power, said that it was common practice as late as the 1920s to run low-voltage phone wires along the back walls of buildings

power generation – and is on track to reach 52GW in the near future. Such a rate of penetration permits at least a tentative judgment of the e ects of incorporating renewable energy into a traditional supply system. As reviewed by Barbara Vergetis Lundin in FierceEnergy , the SEIA report acknowledged that the costs of Germany’s renewable support programmes, including solar PV [photovoltaics], have been substantial – and higher than projected. But the researchers concluded that the German initiative is justi ed by its bene ts. (“Germany’s Solar Story,” 31 st July) As expected, the advance into solar and other renewable energy has contributed importantly to a reduction in atmospheric pollution. But according to Rhone Resch, the president and CEO of SEIA, there is also signi cant evidence that increased power production from the new energy sources “is a major contributor to falling wholesale market prices in Germany.” A valuable lesson for USA solar energy interests from the German experience is that a system of FITs [feed-in-tari s] can be highly e ective in promoting the growth of solar PV. But, the SEIA report cautions: “FITs for new installations should be adjusted regularly and perhaps automatically. . . so as to avoid undue increases of electricity rates for retail customers.” A blot on the American landscape both rural and urban, overhead wiring strung pole-to-pole shows no sign of disappearing The United States is famously the developed nation most willing to tolerate the dis gurement of its public spaces and places with overhead wiring strung between utility poles. A crude solution defensible on economic grounds, if no other, telephone poles that can startle European visitors go virtually unnoticed by Americans in rural areas who accept them as the price of connection. Aesthetics apart, built-up areas have presented a particular challenge since the rst days of electricity-supported communication. Densely populated US cities struggled to string or lay, protect, maintain and repair their wiring with minimal disruption to property and daily life. Probably the busiest commercial terrain anywhere, New York City with its ve boroughs provides an instructive example of an urban e ort. This past summer Michael Pollak, whose column FYI elds questions from readers of the New York Times , traced the practice of burying utility wires in Manhattan to Thomas A Edison himself, whose rst station for electric-power generation and distribution was on Pearl Street in the borough. Mr Edison’s strong recommendation was prompted by the blizzard of 1888 which downed countless wires strung on top-heavy wooden poles, many of them with four or more crossbeams, and paralysed the city’s communications. Joseph J Cunningham, a historian of New York electrical power, cited another motivator for the ordinance prohibiting overhead wires. He told FYI that in the 1880s the early arc-lighting system for the streets operated at 2,000 volts and caused some hideous public fatalities. Mr Cunningham said: “Imagine those cables falling into snowdrifts.” A directive for immediate removal of the overhead wires met with resistance from some utility companies, whereupon the angry mayor dispatched axe-wielding crews whom he deputised, according to Mr Cunningham.

Technology

Recycling old batteries into solar cells could divert a dangerous waste stream while producing low-cost photovoltaics

As reported by Martin LaMonica in IEEE Spectrum , the magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology “have concocted what could become the ultimate in green energy.” After 18 months of testing, in August they announced a successful e ort to make solar panels out of hazardous waste. (“MIT Researchers Turn Used Car Batteries into Solar Cells,” 19 th August) The MIT team said its method of making perovskite solar cells using the lead from recycled car batteries is a simple, low-temperature, benign technique that produces experimental

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November 2014