"I'm not sure what they were thinking when laying a cable that requires experts to be flown in from the east coast to repair. The simplest mechanisms are the ones that are the most easily repaired."
In this case, the simplest mechanism would probably have been to build above-ground high tension power lines on massive steel towers. This is the most common mode of high voltage electrical transmission, and the cables are easy to access and repair. However, this cable was probably built when the area was already densely populated, and property owners would not have accepted having such an eyesore going through their back yards. So they had to bury it underground, which required heroic engineering to insure that it would only have to be maintained very rarely (designed for an MTBF of 60 years).
There are analogous problems in computer hardware. For example, if you want a computer to control a cardiac pacemaker, you can't just buy a generic server and throw a gigabyte-sized Linux distribution on it. It has to fit in a tiny space, run for years on a small battery and be 100% reliable. Very different from creating a web application, but the extra complexity and expense are necessary due to the problem that's being solved.
"easy to access and repair" in this context might involve ckimbing out of a helicopter onto live half million volt lines in a space age chainmail suit:
"In this case, the simplest mechanism would probably have been to build above-ground high tension power lines on massive steel towers. This is the most common mode of high voltage electrical transmission, and the cables are easy to access and repair. "
astonishing that they don't do this. Their first attempt failed; the second likely will also. And both at tremendous expense when a tried-and-true methodology exists.
In this case, the simplest mechanism would probably have been to build above-ground high tension power lines on massive steel towers. This is the most common mode of high voltage electrical transmission, and the cables are easy to access and repair. However, this cable was probably built when the area was already densely populated, and property owners would not have accepted having such an eyesore going through their back yards. So they had to bury it underground, which required heroic engineering to insure that it would only have to be maintained very rarely (designed for an MTBF of 60 years).
There are analogous problems in computer hardware. For example, if you want a computer to control a cardiac pacemaker, you can't just buy a generic server and throw a gigabyte-sized Linux distribution on it. It has to fit in a tiny space, run for years on a small battery and be 100% reliable. Very different from creating a web application, but the extra complexity and expense are necessary due to the problem that's being solved.