你不好奇嗎?爲什麼日本上空有如此多的高壓電線(多圖)
TOKYO —Something many visitors to Japan notice is the abundance of overhead powerlines. Whether you're in the suburbs, city center, or even rural communities,it's rare to look up at the sky or towards the horizon without the view being criss crossed by thick, black cables.
東京——來日本旅遊的遊客可能會注意到日本天空中有大量的高壓電線。不管是在郊區，還是在市中心，甚至在農村地區，當你擡頭看天空或者遙望遠處時總會看到這些厚黑的電線。
So why does Japan have so many above-ground power grids when so many other countries have gone subterranean? The easy answer is cost, but there're also somepurported advantages to stringing cables up on poles, and the country hasn'tquite reached a consensus on which is the better option.
在其他國家都把電線藏到地底的情況下，爲什麼日本的地表上面會有這麼多的電網呢？簡單的答案就是成本，但據說把電線綁在電線杆上還有其他的好處，而且日本還沒達成共識到底那種方式更好。Starting with the budgetary side of things, subterranean systems are a lot more expensive. With the added expenses of digging the ditches and properly installing thelines and conduits, the cost can balloon to ten times that of a comparablysized network of above-ground poles.
先從預算角度來說，將電網埋藏在地下成本更高。首先要挖溝，然後將電線和導線埋在裏面，所以其成本甚至可以是地表電網成本的十倍。
Still, some contend that, economic advantages aside, this isn't the place to cutcorners. Since the mid-1980s, the Japanese government has been enacting initiatives to replace existing poles with underground lines. Not only do suchmoves please those who're tired of power lines marring the scenery, there areeven safety and durability benefits, as below-ground power grids are less exposed to the elements, making them resilient against wind and snow that candamage above-ground equipment.
然而有些人認爲如果不考慮成本，埋在地底下其實更好。自80年代中期以來，日本政府採取措施用地下線路替代地表的電線杆。這樣做不僅滿足了某些人的審美需求（美麗的風景不再被這些電線所破壞），還有安全和耐用上的優勢，因爲地底線纜更少的暴露在惡劣天氣中，所以風雪不會對其造成影響。
A further safety benefit has been observed during Earthquakes, according to the NPONon-Pole Community. The organization says that during the Hanshin Earthquakethat struck Kobe in 1995, neighborhoods with above-ground power lines were muchmore extensively damaged. Non-Pole Community's Secretary Toshikazu Inoue alsoreferred to toppled poles blocking roads and preventing emergency vehicles fromswiftly reaching victims in the disaster's aftermath.
根據非營利性組織“不要電線杆社區”的看法，另外一個安全方面的好處是在發生地震時顯露出來的。該組織稱在1995年襲擊神戶的阪神大地震中，那些擁有地表電線的社區被破壞的程度更甚。這些倒地的電線杆阻礙了道路，並阻止了緊急車輛在地震後對災民進行救援。
Still,the majority of Japan's power grid remains above ground. One argument against subterranean systems has been put forward by the Tokyo Electric Power Company,or TEPCO. While the company itself has publicized the superior aesthetics anddurability against wind and snow mentioned above, it also acknowledges certainadvantages to the more common above-ground system. “In the events of floodingor landslides, it's harder to isolate damaged areas of a subterranean system,”the company points out. “That can increase the amount of time necessary torestore power to damaged areas.”
然而，如今日本大部分的電網還是位於地面上空。日本東京電力公司也反對在地底建電網。該公司也承認說地底線纜不會對風景造成破會，也有利於抵禦風雪，但是又稱更加普遍的地上電網所具有的某些優勢。“在發生洪水或者泥石流時，很難區分地底電纜系統的哪些部分遭到破壞，”該公司稱。“這增加了搶救電力所需要的時間。”
TEPCO also mentions other, simpler roles performed by power poles, such as providing housing for street lights and posting space for maps or address markers, whichcan be extremely helpful in navigating towns in Japan, where only a minusculefraction of streets have names.
該公司還指出了電線杆所扮演的其他簡單的角色，比如可以用來佈置街燈，爲地圖和地址標記提供定位空間，這對於日本的村鎮導航來說非常有幫助，因爲在這些小地方只有一小部分街道有名字。
