One line of arguments I found intriguing is that the lines should be buried instead of on towers, …

> If the lines were buried, there'd be less maintenance caused by weather events, less transmission losses, and overall more efficient and resilient operation. You may find this video by Practical Engineering to be interesting: “Repairing Underground Power Cables Is Nearly Impossible” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-wQnWUhX5Y

> If the lines were buried, there'd be less maintenance caused by weather events, less transmission losses, and overall more efficient and resilient operation. It's a tradeoff. When there is an issue with underground lines, it's much more expensive to locate and diagnose the fault and repair it; in both dollars and time. In that area of the country, the ground freezes in winter, and digging becomes very difficult, which would make repairs that much more delayed and expensive. Also, depending on requirements, it may be possible to augment capacity ny adding a second transmission line to the existing towers at a later time; that would be much less expensive than setting up the first line; but for undergrounding, such a project would most likely be as expensive as the first time, if not more. Similar with replacing the line at the end of its service life (although if the line and the towers…