I try to stay away from this thread because as a system operator most of yall's conversation is over my head but I did decide to catch up on the last page.
All I can add is about burying transmission lines is you have to deal with Ferranti rise which is a lot worse on buried cables, which is why I've been told we don't do it much. Not much of a big deal on distribution lines but nobody wants the added equipment on the transmission system.
And about line losses - I can tell you live, real time, right now I'm looking at a 32 mile long 345kV line one end is sending 426 mW and the other end is receiving 420 mW. But my 93 mile section of 345 line is actually a couple mW higher on the receiving end but it isn't carrying much load so it's just a big capacitor right now. And I dunno what a substation in the middle would do about line losses? Line loss is line loss and having a bus in the middle wouldn't do fuck all? Maybe they mean it's mitigated from another line coming in? But the loss is still there, just part of doing business, it's accounted for but not considered a big deal.