Comment by idiotsecant
10 hours ago
Yes, we love them on account of our country having approximately 230 times the surface area and the Netherlands having approximately 13x the population density. We not only have vastly more line to run, but also many, many fewer people per square mile to absorb the costs. Underground line is expensive.
It turns out that the fires caused by above ground power lines are also quite expensive, at least in certain areas.
https://www.firevictimtrust.com/
That explains rural areas but not urban areas. We've got above-ground in rural areas but pretty much all urban stuff is underground. We get maybe one power cut a year, usually for scheduled maintenance work, and no problems with surges and whatnot.