Overhead power distribution lines are better for the environment than their underground counterparts.

That’s the general conclusion reached by a group of environmental science and management graduate students at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Southern California Edison.

The project and its conclusions are important because SCE is predicted to expand fast. The company estimates its system-wide load will increase more than 2 percent a year between now and 2017 and that it will have to build at least 564 new power distribution circuits.

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