You report that Lincolnshire County Council has joined with those of Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex to ‘stop the pylons’.
Their concern is understandable, but raises a question that doesn’t appear in your report: Have the councils taken advice from qualified electrical engineers? They ought properly to understand the possible consequences of banning the pylons, but there’s no sign that they do. I suggest they form a joint committee charged with taking such advice and formulating alternative proposals, with the consequences of the alternatives clearly spelt out.
The grid’s job is to convey electricity from the points of generation to the localities of users. The total amount of power used in any locality can be very high. If the grid worked at 250 volts, it would have to carry enormous current, with hugely thick and expensive conductors. So instead it is worked at very high voltages – hundreds of thousands of volts – so that the current can be reduced to practical levels and not need that expense. (If you double the voltage, you can halve the current and transfer the same amount of power.) The conductors are carried by high pylons to protect us from the high voltages.
If the grid were to consist of underground cables, you could end up with either dangerously high voltage near to hand, or very, very high currents.
The first would require very expensive protection, such as thick concrete tunnels, and the second would create dangerous magnetic fields, endangering human health and probably interfering with the increasing number of electrical systems we use.
The councils, with the help of qualified engineers, should see to what extent it is reasonable to propose alternatives to the pylons.
And they’d better get on with it: we are already on the verge of experiencing electricity cut-offs.
John Tippler
Spalding
