Hidden Danger

The inhabitants of Sintra appear to have won a significant victory. The unsightly overhead high-tension electric cables will now be buried as they cross the council.

Unfortunately, this will likely turn out to be a poisoned victory. Studies done in larger countries, with more money to spend on medical research, show clear correlation between proximity to high-tension overhead wires and childhood leucemia and other diseases. Of course the pylons are unsightly, but at least in plain view and a reasonable distance from the ground.

The strength of electric fields depends on proximity to the cable that carries the current. So burying the cable two or three metres below the surface of roads, passing homes, schools and other public buildings hardly seems to be an intelligent alternative, at least from a public health standpoint. Of course, by the time the health problems come to light, none of the Directors of REN nor the politicians that achieved this victory will be in office, so who cares...

Telecontagem

EDP is going to give us all new electricity meters that communicate their readings to a central computer, thus eliminating the need for costly and unreliable human readings!

Actually, they are going to sell us the meters, which we will pay for over the next twenty years.

It's a good job there is competition in the Portuguese electricity sector, otherwise this cavalier behaviour may lead us to deduce the the company is abusing its monopoly position!