His findings are startling. Not only is it possible, he said, but it's practically the only way new lines are constructed overseas.

France has more than 600 miles of similar lines already in operation, May said.

Allegheny Power and Dominion Virginia have proposed a $1 billion, 550-kilovolt electric transmission line to run from western Frederick County to a substation in Loudoun County near Washington Dulles International Airport.

The line is needed to bring affordable electric power from the Midwest across the Appalachians into the power-hungry Northeast, including Northern Virginia, the utilities have said. Without additional power supplies, the region could see rolling blackouts as early as 2011, the utilities warn.

But the project has sparked howls of protest from residents, environmentalists, preservationists and politicians from Winchester to Washington. Thousands of acres of conserved lands and historic sites could be disrupted by the line, according to opponents.

Burying the lines underground would make everyone happy, but the project could be too expensive. A direct-current, underground alternative would add $1.7 billion to the project's cost, according to Dominion.

That's where May's trip to Europe comes in.

Technologies already in use in places like Denmark and France could make burying the lines a much cheaper option, he said.

The premise is simple.

Lines that would normally be strung from tower to tower are instead buried in a sand trench 3 feet deep. Unlike their overhead counterparts, the conductor is wrapped by several inches of waterproof plastic, which is itself surrounded by flexible rubber and other protections.

Nylon mesh is placed at various points in the sand to serve as a warning to anyone foolhardy enough to ignore surface markers like the ones placed for gas pipelines. Contractors fill the trench with sand and cover the entire affair with soil and sow grass.

In the U.S., high-voltage lines are often encased in as much as 3 feet of concrete for safety reasons.

Engineering overkill like that adds unnecessary costs, said May, an electrical engineer. May produced a photo of horses grazing on top of a buried 400-kilovolt line in Denmark.

"Look. One head, four legs and everything," he joked.

Utility officials in the delegation were impressed, May said.

The process is far more expensive than running lines overhead, but only until the impact on surrounding lands is taken into effect.

A 12-mile, 230-kilovolt project in Loudoun County was originally estimated to cost about $16 million to run the lines overhead, compared to $38 million to $42 million for going underground.

But when the lost property value and other factors were considered, the cost of going overhead was nearly as high as the cost of going underground, he said.

Utility companies also get the benefit of not being pummeled by residents and politicians opposed to overhead power lines.

May said he'll present his findings to a legislative panel that would draft new rules for how utilities in the Old Dominion build lines — including running them underground where practical.

"The main thing is to get the utilities in the mindset that this is something that they want to do," he said.

The State Corporation Commission will hold hearings on the power line locally next month.

* Contact Garren Shipley at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Thu, Jul 26, 2007