Something that I would personally like to see is all electrical transmission and distribution under ground. Here in Alaska there are various nice neighborhoods that have underground power, but there are many neighborhoods and great vistas along the roadsides spoiled by unsightly power lines. One of the many reasons Washington DC is a beautiful city is the lack of overhead power lines. We Alaskans successfully outlawed billboards only to mess up the scenery with power lines. Transmission loss for overhead transmission lines is only about 7 percent on average nationwide. Unfortunately this loss more than triples for long line AC transmission underground because of losses via capacitive coupling to the required insulation. This capacitive loss disappears when DC is used though.
However, since speculation has been called for, underground transmission might be an application for high frequency or microwave power distribution? Perhaps even transmission by high intensity light would work, but then power conversion would be a major problem. The advantages of underground transmission are many. Aesthetics, reduced risk of accidental electrocutions and small plane crashes (a real problem in Alaska), elimination of LF near-field cancer and genetic malformation scares, reduced maintenance overhead for lightning, wind, tree growth, and icing problems. There are still right-away maintenance problems and possibly increased capital cost problems though. Perhaps line loss problems go away if a well tuned transmission line is used, especially a coaxial line or micrwave waveguide? It certainly is true that transmission loss in modern glass is fairly low, perhaps AC or microwave transmission by waveguide can work? As with DC, the problem then is at either end of the transmission line. Perhaps these considerations will go way with room temperature superconductors, but you can just bet electric companies will initially want to string them between existing poles and towers. Regards, Horace Heffner
