PG&E turning off power to protect against fire has created a new disaster

https://slate.com/business/2019/10/california-power-outage-pge-fires-new-kind-of-disaster.html

by DoreenMichele • 7 years ago

157 327 7 years ago

slate.com

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

Direct link to article:

https://slate.com/business/2019/10/california-power-outage-p...

dang• 7 years ago

Ok, we've changed to that from https://twitter.com/aprilaser/status/1188870991390232582. Thanks!

maximente• 7 years ago

cali has added 10 million people since 1990 but 30% of PG&E's infrastructure is over a century old.

also in the 1990s, deregulation allowed the valuable parts of various electricity companies to be sold off in a classic private equity vulture move, leaving the utilities basically holding the bag on largely crufty shells. the governor said it all:

Wilson admitted publicly that defects in the deregulation system would need fixing by "the next governor".

it's hard to imagine this ending well. i would advocate for regulatory enforcement via state attorney general election as the most direct /potential/ route for changing things. obviously jailing executives would be more effective, but despite way more deaths than boeing, that seems unlikely.

danans2• 7 years ago

the governor said it all:
Wilson admitted publicly that defects in the deregulation...

For anyone who may be less familiar with 90s CA politics, this refers to then governor Pete Wilson (R) who was responsible for the utility deregulation which then became an albatross around his successors' necks.

ars3• 7 years ago

Lots of states have deregulated. but other states have not had the experience of California.

What makes California different that deregulation failed so badly?

masonic2• 7 years ago

  Pete Wilson (R) who was responsible for the utility deregulation

In fact, Democrat Steve Peace was the self-proclaimed "Father of Deregulation".

For 22 years now, every committee in both houses was chaired by a Democrat.

Deregulation passed both houses with veto-proof majorities. Wilson had zero say in the matter -- CA doesn't have a "pocket veto" mechanism.

njarboe• 7 years ago

PG&E is already a highly regulated company. So much so that one could say that it is really state controlled [1].

"Among its stated goals for energy regulation are to establish service standards and safety rules, authorize utility rate changes, oversee markets to inhibit anti-competitive activity, prosecute unlawful utility marketing and billing activities, govern business relationships between utilities and their affiliates, resolve complaints by customers against utilities, implement energy efficiency and conservation programs and programs for the low-income and disabled, oversee the merger and restructure of utility corporations, and enforce the California Environmental Quality Act for utility construction."

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Public_Utilities_Co...

BubRoss• 7 years ago

The 'new kind of disaster' is just what you would expect from no electricity - dialysis, medicine in general, poor people having their remaining food spoil, etc. Saved you a click.

newguy12344• 7 years ago

Another issue I saw on the news was that firefighters couldn't fight a fire because the water pressure was too low. Turns out the water utility lost power and didn't have any backup power. They couldn't pump water from the wells.

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

Most regions have some sort of above-grade water tanks. Not the water towers you'll find in the plains states, but tanks built upslope of served areas. Though these are filled by powered pumps, they'll supply enormous amounts of water even after power is cut.

In San Francisco there are numerous reservoirs, virtually all decked over. Four of the highest are located near Twin Peaks, the highest point in the city:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sutro+Reservoir,+San+Franc...

faissaloo2• 7 years ago

Appreciated

jnwatson• 7 years ago

I happen to be vacationing in Northern CA this week. We drove up the coast on Hwy 1 then 101 from Oakland to Crescent City. After we left Oakland, we saw no public power for 250 miles. Just a handful of places were open with generators.

There was 1 open gas station for all of Hwy 1. We waited in line an hour.

The economic impact of this event is mind boggling.

zaroth2• 7 years ago

They should hold PG&E liable for that! </s>

linusnext3• 7 years ago

Given that we lost cell coverage as well as power. Really regretting the Tesla after 3 days without power.

newguy12344• 7 years ago

Agree. I think Tesla car is a bad idea, especially if you don't have solar panels on your roof or a generator.

ghaff7• 7 years ago

In all fairness, multi-day power outages are a really rare event in a lot of places. And many households that own an EV also own an ICE vehicle. Also if power is out, you're not going to be able to fuel up either in the affected area.

But, yes, with extended power outages the general shift towards cell phones, EVs, etc. can make the consequences of not having electricity worse. Presumably at some point there will be more single-home panels and batteries that allow for extended disconnection from the grid but we're mostly not there today.

johndubchak• 7 years ago

I think this point needs to be highlighted here:

No power = no cell coverage

Landlines are a thing of the past and for the most part that means that people lack the ability to call for help beyond your basic 911 service.

So we’ve effectively tied two pieces of critical infrastructure together and made one dependent upon the other.

That needs to be addressed and resolved.

mschuster912• 7 years ago

So we’ve effectively tied two pieces of critical infrastructure together and made one dependent upon the other.

Worse: POTS and ISDN landlines are getting shut down left and right (at least in Germany, probably also in the US) as there are simply no linecard manufacturers remaining. Everything is switched to CPE-terminated VoIP crap (ever tried sending a fax with a fax machine linked on a consumer VoIP circuit?). So even if you HAVE a landline, its usability for 911 depends on the DSLAM having backup power (which many only have for 24-48h).

rrss2• 7 years ago

It is pretty common for cell towers to have backup power. Not all of them do, but many.

PeterisP• 7 years ago

"No power = no cell coverage" is not an unavoidable state of nature. Cell towers can and should have autonomous generators, that's a thing popular even in places that are both less wealthy and less prone to power outages than California.

linusnext3• 7 years ago

Working on a Mesh network for Vallejo to extend to the successful Oakland one.

mikekchar• 7 years ago

A little late now, but can you get a device to run your house power off the car battery? At least in Japan you can buy one for the Leaf for about $5K. In the power failures following the big typhoon I have heard reports of it coming in quite handy. Of course, you don't drive the car unless it's to a place where you know you can recharge it, but 60 KWh of power will keep your basic fridge/lights/cooking facilities up for quite a long time if you are careful.

pjc50• 7 years ago

I think his argument is that the car is now unusable and he can't recharge it at home and most of the public stations are down.

mensetmanusman2• 7 years ago

Is your food spoiling? Can’t imagine being without power for 3 days (midwestern).

linusnext3• 7 years ago

Yes. Fun day for the thrash collectors.

dillonmckay5• 7 years ago

I have thought about this frequently.

Would it make sense to have 2 small inverter generators you could link together to charge the Tesla?

How long and how much gas would that take?

mikestew4• 7 years ago

I'm spitballin' here, but a couple of the standard Hondas (EU2000s?) will give you, say, 3000W. The onboard charger on our Leaf is 3300W (first-gen). It takes seven hours from empty to full. I'll leave the extrapolation to a Tesla as an exercise for the reader. Oh, wait a minute, I don't recall that a Honda will have a 240V plug into which you'll plug the Level 2 charger. So you're stuck with Level 1, and then you might as well just shut down that second generator.

So, it would take however long it takes to charge a Tesla using a 120V outlet. Unless I'm wrong about the 240V plug part.

newnewpdro2• 7 years ago

Time to go all-in on Powerwalls and Solar, buying just the EV is a half-measure.

oh_hello• 7 years ago

There are products and concepts to allow using your EV battery as a power source for your home. Imagine treating your Tesla as a Powerwall during an outage. This would really turn the EV into an asset in such situations. Obviously you wouldn't be able to actually drive your car while using it this way.

ars3• 7 years ago

Here is an example: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-wildfire/as-wi...

A branch broke and landed on a power line, sparking a fire.

I'm curious what PG&E could do different, it sounds like the tree wasn't even very close to the power line, but wind pushed it.

Turning off power like this during wind-storms might be the permanent new normal.

r00fus• 7 years ago

Underground the power distribution like in France.

It’s expensive but probably less costly in the long run.

m4632• 7 years ago

France does everything right (but it also does everything wrong.)

ars3• 7 years ago

Wouldn't that cost something like $1 trillion to do for the entire state?

Math: 155147 miles * $750/foot

And an article https://www.desertsun.com/story/news/environment/2019/10/11/... confirming it's pretty much out of reach. $15,000 per household estimate (and 1,000 years!!).

bluGill6• 7 years ago

Underground power distribution doesn't last as long as above ground. So not only is it more expensive to install, you have to reinstall it more often, plus spend more money on repairs more often. Repairs take longer as well because you have to dig up the lines to do it.

rrss2• 7 years ago

The vast majority of power lines in France are overhead.

RTE overhead lines: 100000 km

RTE underground lines: 5400 km

https://www.rte-france.com/fr/document/statistiques-reseaux-...

If you are intending to distinguish between distribution and transmission, the lines in question in California are transmission lines, not distribution lines.

Roark66• 7 years ago

Not needed really. We have last mile underground, but major distribution lines are over air. However all plants higher than few inches are cut down under the lines the width of the cut depending on how high the cables are. I can imagine it wouldn't work that well in the mountains. Here it is just a matter of regularily mowing the whole thing (few times per year).

weyland1083• 7 years ago

How about planned deforestation in areas of risk?

newguy12344• 7 years ago

The problem is people often build homes far deep into these forests so actually deforesting the area would actually result in a massive amount of trees being cut down. Look at paradise, CA as an example.

ChrisCinelli• 7 years ago

PG&E chose not to put lines under ground because they will likely break in case of an earthquake.

marcyb5st• 7 years ago

That sounds like and excuse. I'm Italian and back at home we also have heartquakes and wildfires problems. And yet a lot of our distribution lines are underground (apart from the high and ultra high voltage ones).

yardstick• 7 years ago

Assuming that’s the case, can anything be done to GVR above ground cables to make them less prone to arching / creating fires?

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

Earthquake-induced ground movements tend to be in limited areas immediately adjacent to faults, unless the effects are cause by induced land movements (e.g., landslides) elsewhere.

An above-ground fault-crossing, with slace sufficient for maximum predicted ground movements (generally on the order of 5m or less) should generally address that.

code_duck2• 7 years ago

Don't above ground lines break in the event of an earthquake?

thrower1232• 7 years ago

It's pretty simple, you have to maintain the right-of-ways along your transmission lines. This is really basic stuff, it's astounding that it could be this mismanaged.

kordlessagain• 7 years ago

During the first wave of outages for winds up North, PG&E shut off Moraga's power. We had very little winds aloft, but a few hours into the outage, some idiot started a fire with a vape (that's the story) which caused a mini evacuation from our neighborhood at 3AM....IN THE DARK.

Today, while Orinda and Lafayette had no power, we did. Extremely windy today!

The reason our outages are backwards appears to be due to the fact we're a tiny branch off a main line that runs well North of here. They can't turn us down unless they turn all those people down as well.

By my guess our chances of fire are pretty were pretty much a guarantee from this whole thing.

Thanks PG&E.

FooHentai• 7 years ago

Right, but it'd be a fire that PG&E aren't responsible for starting. This is the outcome of threatening to enforce responsibility on PG&E for fires caused by their lines.

Not to say this is the way it had to go, the alternative I see a lot of people proposing is that some level of additional investment in lines maintenance/clearing would have allowed PG&E to safely continue supplying power through the dry season. What I don't see there though is any consideration as to whether that made financial sense for the company.

Given that anything other than a naive view of the world tells us that a private corporation's focus will be it's liabilities and bottom line, it's hard to see (admittedly from the huge distance at which I stand) what other way this could have gone.

cddotdotslash• 7 years ago

It's absolutely crazy reading about these events happening in a first world country in the richest state in that country. Something has gone seriously wrong when we're seeing near-daily stories about power outages in the tech capital of the world. Combined with all the other issues plaguing CA right now, I can't see why companies still base themselves there. Eventually the "all the tech people are there" argument won't be strong enough and competing markets like NYC, Seattle, and Austin will win out.

SllX4• 7 years ago

Not to dispute your later statement, but power outages aren’t a new thing in California.

This State of affairs in particular is because PG&E has been held liable for fires caused by their equipment, to which they flipped off the courts and filed for bankruptcy. Should they be held liable? I don’t know, but effectively an entire town was wiped off the map and we experienced a couple weeks of continuous smog as far south as Santa Cruz from what I heard, San Francisco was just filled with smoke and pollution and face masks became part of the uniform around here along with Apple Watches, AirPods and messenger bags or backpacks.

Long term, power generation will become more decentralized anyway, because if there’s one thing we have in abundance it is sunshine. Most houses even with solar panels could not disconnect themselves from the grid and not lose their power, but this will likely incentivize people to look into being able to run their homes off-the-grid for at least a few days at a time.

As for tech companies? For any datacenter, or company running enough equipment to qualify as more or less a datacenter, power outages are a risk factor that you plan for and you try to mitigate. Doesn’t matter where in the world you are or what the capriciousness of the local electrical utility is like, even if you’re running your own source of power.

snagglegaggle• 7 years ago

The rub with this is PG&E was avoiding maintenance to pay out dividends. The situation was entirely preventable. Frankly it's scary how everyone is apologizing for the utility company's management.

falcolas3• 7 years ago

We need to be careful and not think of Solar as a silver bullet for this. Very few (likely less than 1%) of home solar installations can handle the load of the home for a full 24 hour cycle. To do so, they would need lots of batteries, expensive inverters and robust controlling equipment.

From what I’ve read here on HN, a self-sufficient solar setup is expensive enough that it will cost more than being on the grid, even when amortized over the lifespan of the setup.

dragonwriter11• 7 years ago

Not to dispute your later statement, but power outages aren’t a new thing in California.

Massive public safety outages due to failure to safely maintain power infrastructure are, in fact, a new thing that started only after two years of massive fire liability close on the heels of a criminal conviction for a major gas explosion bankrupted the utility in question.

netsharc• 7 years ago

Something has gone seriously wrong when we're seeing near-daily stories about power outages in the tech capital of the world.

Welcome to the climate crisis.

eganist• 7 years ago

PG&E is a bit more nuanced and short-term, though the climate crisis might be contributing with the longevity of droughts and fires.

The issues around PG&E were largely self-reinforcing (I'm either oversimplifying and/or just plain wrong, but this is my understanding from someone who's probably not authorized to speak on the matter):

* PG&E devised fairly minimal maintenance schedules because money.

* Regulators approved said minimal maintenance schedules because it minimized disruption to residents.

* Residents largely perpetuated this by sponsoring politicians and policies that enabled the lack of upkeep.

with the inevitable conclusion being egregious levels of maintenance debt enabling or even causing disasters on massive scales.

Where climate change probably contributed to this entire circle is the "on massive scales" part.

---

Disclosure: This is not my field. I'm parroting something I don't quite fully understand. Someone with more direct experience or exposure to the matter can probably clarify or correct me where needed, to include possibly all of this comment.

brobdingnagians• 7 years ago

Some sources seem to indicate that part of the problem is that they took on large numbers of renewable energy contracts which are not really cost effective (and those companies are subsidized using taxpayer money). If the subsidies to the "green energy" companies was instead used for maintenance and infrastructure, that would probably help as well.

[1] [https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/11/pge-wins-court-case-a...]

mensetmanusman2• 7 years ago

and the land management crisis

faissaloo2• 7 years ago

The feedback loops are in motion.

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

In many parts of the world, power is unreliable due to a lack of resources -- fuel, capital, labour, distribution, maintenance. Power cuts occur, either scheduled or unscheduled, due to an inability to meet demand.

The case in California is different. The fundamental resources are present: there is fuel (or, in many cases, hydroelectric, geothermal, nuclear, wind, or solar power) for generation. Distribution systems exist. There is no shortage of local labour. Systems aren't going offline due to direct failures of maintenance.

Rather: the outages are prompted by a consequence risk. Given the extreme fire danger throughout the state, the least source of ignition creates a fire hazard, and electrical transmission and distribution equipment is a high risk for such ignition.

Previous major wildfires have been sparked by: mower blades, rims of flat tires sparking on pavement, catalytic converters parked over dry grass, sparks from a hammer. And electrical equipment.

There's a case to be made that PG&E have neglected maintenance activies not related directly to continued operation of their plant, but to risk mitigation, and I'm not going to argue one way or the other.

But the fundamental problem California's electric utilities face is not that of most of the world, where means are insufficient, but that consequence is too great to ignore. I'm coming to see this generally as a late-stage dynamic in many technological areas, one in which the unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated, often not) simply rise to a level of major significance. You might think of these generally as hygiene factors (the phrase I've been using).

Past examples would include:

- Basic personal and public hygiene factors for maintaining public health in cities.

- Pollution control laws affecting solid, liquid, and gas emissions of activities and plants.

- Environmental contamination as with lead, asbestos, pesticides, tobacco, sulfur dioxide ("acid rain"), and CO2.

- Individual psychological and widespread sociological negative impacts of information overload, media saturation and manipulation, and computer systems overexposure.

- Running extensive high-capacity electrical distribution systems through increasingly fire-prone landscapes.

Or put another way: this is increasingly our future.

PeterStuer• 7 years ago

You could argue that the lack of resources also plays in California, not because of a fundamental shortfall, but due to all the resources being sucked out of the system by extreme capitalism.

throw0101a2• 7 years ago

Previous major wildfires have been sparked by: mower blades, rims of flat tires sparking on pavement, catalytic converters parked over dry grass, sparks from a hammer. And electrical equipment.

A citation:

* https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-29/how-do-w...

Another one:

Fear of insects. A rancher tried to plug a wasp’s nest in the ground by jamming a stake into the ground. That unleashed a spark that began burning waist-high grass. He tried to smother the flames by tossing a trampoline on it, but that just worsened the flames. It caused the start of the largest of two fires that merged to become California’s largest wildfire on record, the Mendocino Complex fire, which burned more than 450,000 acres in four Northern California counties — Colusa, Lake, Mendocino and Glenn.

The above was Mendocino:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mendocino_Complex_Fire

jerf4• 7 years ago

"Previous major wildfires have been sparked by: mower blades, rims of flat tires sparking on pavement, catalytic converters parked over dry grass, sparks from a hammer. And electrical equipment."

Honestly, at that point, you have a fire, it's just not burning yet. The idea that we can prevent fires from happening by preventing all sources of ignition in hundreds and hundreds of square miles is completely absurd. Even though Man is responsible for a lot of ignition, he's not responsible for all of them. Even if you completely removed civilization, it's still going to be a fire.

I don't have a solution, or any good news here. Best thing I can think of at this point is spending a shit ton of money and creating some very large fire breaks around cities and then burning on purpose, but California probably can't do that either. By the time the eminent domain lawsuits and counterlawsuits happened, the environmental review happens ("we plan on killing lots of things, and then we're going to set the rest of the stuff we didn't kill on fire" isn't exactly going to sail through the review process), and everyone gets their beaks wetted, it'll just end up being a giant waste of money that gets ended with the fires occur anyhow. And the fire breaks would have to be huge; we're probably measuring the necessary widths with miles fairly reasonably. (Possibly <1 mile, but certainly multiple tenths of a mile.) And the liability. Nobody sane would take that job.

hnuser77• 7 years ago

My understanding was that the main reason power has to be turned off because there could be 1) vegetation contact with the power lines in windy conditions 2) power lines blowing away in the wind. California has been windy since before the invention of electricity, so what's changed? They can't build power lines to handle some wind that happens every other year since the beginning of human settlement? If they are failing to trim and remove dying trees around power lines, that is a direct maintenance failure. Besides PG&E, at the forestry management level, not clearing brush or doing controlled burns is direct maintenance failure.

djokkataja• 7 years ago

I'm coming to see this generally as a late-stage dynamic in many technological areas, one in which the unintended consequences (sometimes unanticipated, often not) simply rise to a level of major significance. You might think of these generally as hygiene factors (the phrase I've been using).

You mean like externalities? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality

Or put another way: this is increasingly our future.

This seems like a situation that might not be best served by a startup... So yes, this is probably what California's future looks like.

choppaface4• 7 years ago

To be fair, while some parts of the peninsula saw outages, essentially all of SF City (and County) has had uninterrupted power. Moreover, in the Los Angeles area, neither power outages nor fires have touched the most affluent areas of West LA / Orange County / Santa Monica (besides the brief Getty fire, which triggered a couple of celebrity tweets).

The governor, Gavin Newsom, does have principal residence at his wife's family's house in the North Bay, which lost power, but since becoming governor he's there less frequently.

So the issue is that the power outages and fires really haven't affected the wealthy or tech elite. There's a lot of California outside of those circles.

mieseratte• 7 years ago

So the issue is that the power outages and fires really haven't affected the wealthy or tech elite.

Between that and the favel... homeless camps, California is really looking foreign. Perhaps they can secede and join the BRICS club. /s

FerretFred• 7 years ago

So the issue is that the power outages and fires really haven't affected the wealthy or tech elite

And this is always the problem! As soon as someone rich/techie gets burnt there'll be a social media outburst and something will happen. While it's just happening to the "little people" and money's still coming into the company coffers it's no big deal.

myrandomcomment2• 7 years ago

You have no idea of NorCal geography do you? Los Gatos and Woodside both were without power. I qualify in your definition of wealthy tech elite and I did not have power from Saturday until Tuesday. This goes the same for a number of friends.

Dumblydorr• 7 years ago

Its absolutely crazy that climate change is hitting California with devastating wildfires? It's only going to get worse, on top of the hurricanes in the SE, the flooding in the Midwest, polar vortex in North... makes me feel lucky to be in New England.

bluGill6• 7 years ago

This isn't climate change. The forests in California regularly go up in flames when there is a drought which is semi-regular. The trees are also high oil - the type that when they burn burn very hot. This has been happening for hundreds of years.

jpindar• 7 years ago

I live on the New England coast, and we're getting increased flooding too. That's only right on the coast though.

m3kw92• 7 years ago

In programming this is called not handling an exceptional scenario. Also could be called neglect.

mikelyons• 7 years ago

Moving half of California into Seattle really doesn't sound like "winning out" to me ...

RachelF• 7 years ago

I'm not from the USA, is my understanding of this correct?

The power utility is liable for fires caused if a branch blows into its power lines during high winds. So the power utility has chosen to turn off the power in high winds?

rootsudo• 7 years ago

The other thing is not maintaining the lines or area surrounding them because of the NIMBY idealism of most Californians and/or graft.

thrower1232• 7 years ago

Right. This is hugely a result of mismanagement and failure to invest properly, combined with disastrous forestry policy.

nefitty• 7 years ago

That is a cynical conclusion, but the incentives are aligned for that it to be logical. The article framed the motive as to try "avoiding disaster". It seems like the most rational decision for PG&E to take considering the circumstances.

newguy12344• 7 years ago

Correct. If a fire is started and the ignition of that fire is shown to be linked to a utility's assets (power lines, gas line etc.) then all the damage caused by the fire could become a lawsuit liability for the fire.

Symmetry5• 7 years ago

And, importantly, in California utilities culpable for fires whether they acted negligently or not.

https://www.counties.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/i...

kuschku2• 7 years ago

The intended consequence would have been for the company to cut vegetation around its lines so this can't happen, but apparently turning off power is more profitable.

onetimemanytime3• 7 years ago

It's also possible that is not feasible to do all that maintenance work and still keep the rates at what they are now. Until now, PG&E made believe like they were maintaining and state officials made believe that Californians were paying a market rate for power. Apparently they have to maintain an area roughly twice the size of Portugal https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-information/prof... in all kinds of terrain.

So now CA state will probably take over and do something with liabilities.

sokoloff2• 7 years ago

No one (or extremely few) wants a world where no trees could ever fall on a power line.

If a car crashes into a power pole and sparks an inevitable fire, is the driver liable? If the normal operation of a mower triggers an inevitable fire, is the operator liable?

Shivetya• 7 years ago

they only have nearly twenty thousand miles of high tension power lines to look out after, how hard can that be /s?

then throw in a hundred thousand miles of everything else.

problems look simple until scale is understood. the real truth here is PG&E is effectively a state run corporation, they are so heavily regulated and managed by the state that the only "corporate" part of them is the investors who buy into these state regulated utilities in hopes of safe returns.

so in effect, the real guilty party here is the state government but the illusion must be kept in place that they are instead the fixers.

TheHypnotist6• 7 years ago

That's not how they make money.

colechristensen2• 7 years ago

There's a missing piece where the utility has been pretty negligent about doing things to prevent fires and that at least some previous fires started by the utility could have been prevented.

So they're turning off power in high winds.

dawnerd• 7 years ago

Don't see many people talking about the additional environmental impact this is causing from people running generators nonstop.

PG&E should be buying everyone in their area solar panels and battery backups. That'd help alleviate a lot of the problems - and probably be cheaper in the long run.

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

Most grid-tied home solar installations cannot function without the grid. Depending on manufacturer and/or utility, you may simply not have the option to install free-standing solar capacity.

That means generators are the only sustaining power option.

For those medically-dependent on electricity, this has been a massive factor, with deaths reported as a consequence. Economic hardship and other impacts are also very real.

Given the balance between this and the risk of tens of thousands made homeless through repeats of events such as last year's Camp Fire in Paradise, preemptive power cuts still seem defensible. But impacts really must be addressed.

onetimemanytime3• 7 years ago

>PG&E should be buying everyone in their area solar panels and battery backups. That'd help alleviate a lot of the problems - and probably be cheaper in the long run.

How about e Tesla too? Just to be sure...

acadien• 7 years ago

Time to start burying the powerlines fellow Californians.

dgfdsgdsgv2• 7 years ago

Do you have any idea how expensive that is?

sagichmal• 7 years ago

Probably a lot less expensive than multiple major fires per year + rolling multi-day blackouts for millions of households.

j79• 7 years ago

It also includes families and individuals who live paycheck to paycheck and can barely afford the groceries currently in their fridge, which will likely spoil.

In addition to the financial burden for these families, there's also the potential health impacts of eating spoiled food. Personally, I was hesitant to waste food that my wife had just purchased a few days prior. My stomach disagreed with that decision, and I spent most of my Sunday sitting in the bathroom with no power or cell service.

We're now dealing with the question of WHEN to replenish our food. I've also considered purchasing a generator for just powering the fridge. But, this is all new and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

dillonmckay5• 7 years ago

I have experience in hurricanes and other natural disasters.

I purchased a decent size inverter (from Harbor Freight), and used that to power a full-size refrigerator.

It is hooked up to the car, and running the car will charge the battery.

ppf4• 7 years ago

California, leading the world in climate change activism, as its residents rush out to buy cheap generators and idle their cars to get power. Yay!

throw0101a2• 7 years ago

But, this is all new and any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This video shows the three main ways to legally / safely connect a generator:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKwBBesUKA8

Method 1 is the simplest and involves running an extension cord to the appliance(s) you want powered; or a power bar if you want multiple.

Method 3 is the most expensive, and it involves buying a very big generator to power the whole house, making sure there is a mechanism that prevents power back-feeding into the grid.

Method 2 is probably what you may want to look into. You purchase a small/medium generator as well as an electrical sub-panel. You then re-wire any appliances to the sub-panel. When the power goes out, you change the sub-panel's incoming feed from the main panel to the generator, which will then power your pre-selected appliances.

A potato-quality video illustrating Method 2:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkbBt8hv8mQ

mikestew4• 7 years ago

Method 1 is the simplest and involves running an extension cord to the appliance(s) you want powered; or a power bar if you want multiple.

Should one take this route, and you want to run some high-wattage stuff like a refrigerator, microwave, or space heater, remember to use the thickest cord you can find if it runs any length. Harbor Freight will sell you 50' of 12 gauge extension cord for cheap. Use that thin little thing you use to plug the shop light into, and it'll get warm fast.

mprovost2• 7 years ago

For one off situations you can also buy dry ice and put it in the fridge. We used to do this during hurricanes.

hadlock2• 7 years ago

Regular ice works too, just take out your crisper drawers, put them on the top shelf and then empty the bagged ice into the drawers. If you can find it (good luck), block ice works best.

z92• 7 years ago

The question is : How many fires are there in CA yearly? It's like 2000 to 4000 different fires that start at different places in the same season.

And how many of those were started because of PG&E? 2? 3?

But PG&E has to pay for every fire they cause, because they can. And now they don't want to.

The consequence.

scottrogers86• 7 years ago

Read the article...

"The company was found responsible for 17 of the 21 major fires that blazed across California in 2017 alone. It was responsible for the deadliest fire in California history last year, the Camp Fire, where 86 people were found dead and more than 50,000 were displaced."

tapland• 7 years ago

I don't really understand this. You are making claims about causes and effects without having (ever?) read about california fires and why they are started?

Isn't that the bare minimum expected to even have an opinion, let alone engage in a discussion about it?

orf• 7 years ago

Not anymore, unfortunately.

noodlesUK• 7 years ago

Surely at this point the state has emergency powers to nationalise PG&E and seize control altogether. Why hasn’t that happened yet?

onetimemanytime3• 7 years ago

....and do what? Pay the bills for all the damage and keep starting new fires? No easy answer, taxes will have to be raised by a lot

mschuster912• 7 years ago

No easy answer, taxes will have to be raised by a lot

The alternative to raising taxes is to cut bullshit government spending and tax breaks for mega corporations, or enforcing taxes against the rich.

delfinom6• 7 years ago

The proper thing is the state gives towns emergency powers to start building fire breaks state wide as they should have been all these years. Any town refusing to build fire breaks because "mah property values" or "eyesore" should have their town charter dissolved.

colechristensen2• 7 years ago

PG&E needs to be found liable and the bankruptcy judge needs to wipe out shareholders and break up the infrastructure assets and give them to local municipalities and the state.

Shareholders need to face consequences sometimes, because they, the owners, are ultimately responsible, not rate-payers.

TheHypnotist6• 7 years ago

That sounds like a disastrous solution.

Symmetry5• 7 years ago

How would that help? Both the state and utilities are strictly liable for fires they cause in California and I don't see the state as being any more willing to assume that liability go bankrupt than PG&E is. It's already the state that decides how much gets spent on maintenance and the relevant regulatory agency hasn't been willing to let PG&E raise its rates. I guess if its nationalized they could raise taxes instead of raising electricity rates but that sounds equally politically infeasible.

rayiner10• 7 years ago

The level of political demagoguery surrounding this is really shocking. Gavin Newsom is blaming “dog eat dog capitalism” and “corporate greed” for the wildfires: https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/New...

Of course, PG&E is the kind of regulated entity people like Newsom wish all corporations were. Private investors put up the capital to build and maintain the electric grid. The government, through the California Public Utility Commission, tells them what to spend it on: https://www.pge.com/en_US/about-pge/company-information/regu.... The CPUC reviews PG&E’s proposed expenditures and approves the resulting electric rates. The CPUC then allows PG&E to set rates high enough to recover a 10% profit on that expenditure.[1]

Under that regime, PG&E’s incentive is to spend more money gold plating the electric grid. The more it spends, the more profit it makes. The reason PG&E didn’t spend more money on wild fire safety is because the CPUC is run by political appointees and they have strong incentives to keep electric rates low in the short term. (This is a common problem with rate regulated utilities. They underinvest in infrastructure because voters demand low rates for electric, water, etc.)

Now of course, California doesn’t have the money to build its own electric grid. So Newsom is calling on Buffett to bail out PG&E. I.e. let different private investors take in the risk and expense of the CPUC’s years of short sighted behavior.

And, of course, this is the kind of thing that only happens in America, and maybe some third world countries. Not because Europe doesn’t have investor owned utilities. They are common. Some of the largest grid operators in Germany are private companies. Rather, it seems to be the result of the unique political dysfunction in the US. American politicians and their voters live in a fantasy land where they can literally say the grass is blue and the sky is green because that fits into their narratives about the world.

[1] That’s about what it works out to. It’s a more complicated rate return calculation: https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUCWebsite/Content/Ab....

taurath• 7 years ago

All this to say, it’s the governments fault for allowing PG&E to have the incentives it does. And I’d agree with you to an extent, but the solution being privatizing it and deregulating the power system is... maybe not the best. Corporations almost always have the same incentive structure as what you’re saying the CPUC has, short term profits over long term. The only difference is that rates would be higher along with PG&Es profits, since nobody would go in and build a second power grid and they’d have a de facto monopoly.

rayiner10• 7 years ago

I’m not suggesting we deregulate the transmission grid. My point is that PG&E is heavily regulated, and the government should take responsibility for the consequences of its regulatory choices. For decades, PG&E submitted detailed rate cases to the CPUC saying; “here is what we plan to invest in, here is how much it will cost, and here is what rates will have to be to pay for it.” Given that PG&E would make more money by investing in safety upgrades, the only reason they wouldn’t have done it is because the CPUC pressured them to forgo such investments to keep rates low. (That’s a common concern for rate regulated monopolies: they have an incentive to “gold plate” the network because they make more money the more they spend.)

The PG&E model works well in the rest of the world. It’s how the electric grid works in the UK, and most of Germany. In France and Spain the electric grid is operated by a for profit corporation, albeit one where the government is a shareholder (majority stake in France, minority stake in Spain). Indeed, many people espouse using the same model for broadband in the US.

That proven model is not working in California because the politics is completely dysfunctional. There is zero accountability.

hcurtiss7• 7 years ago

Man I wish more people understood this. Newsom hanging this on PG&E is so extraordinarily cynical. There's a need for some humility here. If we don't want power blackouts, we're going to need to spend a lot of money to create bigger breaks, put certain lines underground, etc. And that money is probably going to have to come from ratepayers (if you cut off the rate of return to the investors, you will have no more investors). Of course, ratepayers aren't going to like that very much, and the green energy advocates are going to have more difficulty pushing their agenda. No, better to just pray Warren Buffet bails you out. It's like an episode of Family Guy.

Symmetry5• 7 years ago

Even more on the nose, in 2017 PG&E asked to raise its rates to cover liability for wildfires and was refused.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/energy-green/s...

delfinom6• 7 years ago

PG&E is being turned into a witch to hang on the stake. But people are seriously completely missing the real problem. California is a gigantic tinderbox of mismanaged forests, tons of dead and dry material laying around and with climate change, shit is even drier. California is going to catch fire whether the power is on or not. A fucking car trailer started one of the major fires last year. There's at least a decade of completely piss poor forest management responsible without controlled burns and fire breaks to plan for the _naturally destined to occur forest fires_.

ransom1538• 7 years ago

Yes. And! this isn't new. The Japanese during world war ii figured it was their only shot to upset the war. The Japanese figured California was so dry that just igniting a few trees could cause a state wide fire.

https://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/01/20/375...

nostrademons3• 7 years ago

This was also the target of the only submarine-launched air strike:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lookout_Air_Raids

Their premise - or at least their navigation - ended up being incorrect though: they dropped their bombs in Oregon, and the fires were extinguished by rain before they could do serious damage.

bluntfang• 7 years ago

PG&E is being turned into a witch...There's at least a decade of completely piss poor forest management

Uh huh, so why are you looking for a witch in forest management? The forest is managing itself just fine, it just so happens that it doesn't benefit American suburban sprawl.

throwawayhhakdl• 7 years ago

The forest is trying to manage itself but is being prevented by humans. Forests are supposed to burn occasionally. We have prevented this from happening. Now there’s far too much old dry foliage to burn, so when a fire starts, it gets crazy. Smoky the bear is the unintended enemy of the forest.

dragonwriter11• 7 years ago

PG&E is being turned into a witch to hang on the stake.

Are you saying that they didn't neglect preventive maintenance while returning billions to shareholders in dividends?

California is going to catch fire whether the power is on or not.

That California is going to—as it always has—havr fires, including major ones, with or without utility mismanagement is not the issue in dispute. PG&E isn't being blamed for that.

PG&E is being blamed for the degree to which it's failure to maintain it's infrastructure while returning profits to it's investors has contributed to the amount of fire damage. And, yes, climate and other factors which increase overall for risk are a multiplier on that, but if the hadn't been deferrring maintenance for years, that would be a multiplier on zero.

There's at least a decade of completely piss poor forest management responsible

That's hardly the reason for the fires that aren't forest fires.

shortandsweet4• 7 years ago

How do you know it is their responsibility to trim trees? It all depends on the easement legal details. In some cases, they may be, but in others the property owner would be. The lines were fine until the vegetation got in the way!

I don't know anywhere in the world where a utility is responsible for events like these as CA has made PGE to be. Really makes you think. Why the sudden change when fires have been happening since the dawn of time? Why care so much so suddenly?

andrewvc• 7 years ago

The degree of the fire is determined by the forest. California needs to get to the point where people can light a random tree on fire and not have a total catastrophe occur. You can't outlaw fires, they are inevitable and the forests have evolved to burn regularly.

merpnderp2• 7 years ago

What kind of preventive maintenance are you accusing them of neglecting? Because it appears to me they were under immense pressure to stop wildfires without actually cutting down any trees. Cutting down trees is something California went to great lengths to stop doing around 2007 or so, by ending logging and forest brush operations/controlled burns, and are now reaping the rewards.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/california-wildfires/article/Rad...

rayiner10• 7 years ago

Are you saying that they didn't neglect preventive maintenance while returning billions to shareholders in dividends?

While that’s literally true, it falsely implies that the former is related to the latter.

See: https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/uploadedFiles/CPUC_Public_Website/Co... (page 18)

“The CPUC sets rates according to the following formula:

Revenue Requirements = O&M + Taxes + Depreciation + Rate Base * r - OR

Where: O&M = normal business expenses for running a utility company,

Taxes = Federal, state and local taxes,

Depreciation = accumulated depreciation of plants used to produce and deliver the utility’s product,

Rate Base = net value of plant in service plus working capital, r = rate of return on invested capital, and

OR = other operating revenue.”

When you pay $100 on your electric bill, part of that goes to operations and maintenance. If PG&E cuts that line item, it’s profits don’t go up. It’s profits are a separate line item calculated as a percentage of its invested capital. That’s where the dividends come from. Indeed, if PG&E can enhance fire safety through capital investments, such as by replacing worn out equipment, and the CPUC lets them make those investments, then PG&E’s profit would go up.

PG&E can’t pay out more in dividends by shortchanging operations and maintenance.

delfinom6• 7 years ago

Are you saying that they didn't neglect preventive maintenance while returning billions to shareholders in dividends?

I'm not saying they aren't responsible for creating a source of ignition. However, the overwhelming majority of people are focusing on PG&E as if they were running around with gasoline and matches and not also examining California's much wider issue that needs attention sooner than later.

v77• 7 years ago

I'd go even farther: a lot of people should not be living where they are living. If insurers won't cover you you should not be living in an area with {fire, flood, hurrican} risk as you have transferred the cost of your lifestyle choice to the public.

pcwalton4• 7 years ago

This is important. Poor land use policies in California are possibly a bigger contributor to the problem than anything else. They impact our ability to do controlled burns, for example: the biggest obstacle to controlled burns is health effects, which happen because the number of wilderness-urban areas is way too large in this state.

SilasX2• 7 years ago

I agree. Utilities should be billed in a way so that more expensive distribution costs for more remote areas are borne by those who live in such areas; if that makes living out there while connected to the grid infeasible, then people shouldn't do it.

I can understand subsidized infra for rural farms as a matter of food security policy[1], maybe. But these home aren't that, they're more "cottage in the mountains" kind of deal.

[1] That is, not endorsing it, but considering it credible enough to file under "reasonable people can disagree".

rhacker2• 7 years ago

I think a lot of people are going to read: "they're not going to be able to build there anymore" but the reality is - the same land will be used, but it will be massively terraformed. It won't change where we're allowed to build, it will change how many changes we need to make before the build can start.

pcwalton4• 7 years ago

They are doing controlled burns. It's just a long process: https://e360.yale.edu/features/fighting-fire-with-fire-calif...

Wildfires are a complex problem—there is no one entity we can point our fingers at to blame—and most of the replies in this thread are failing to acknowledge this. Here is a Twitter thread about the issue that does a good job getting into the complexity of the problem: https://twitter.com/frkearns/status/1188912491620732929

dehrmann6• 7 years ago

I'm not entirely sure what people want them to do. A year ago, people were calling for PG&E to be shut down (then where would you get your power from?), and there was strong pressure to hold them liable. They got the message, and they're doing the one thing thing can do with only a ~year of notice: cutting off power when and where it's risky.

Until more lines are buried, there's more maintenance around them in these areas, or PG&E is released of liability, this is what happens.

jartelt4• 7 years ago

I imagine people would like PG&E to have a functioning website that shows where power is going to be turned off, to have a more predictable warning system so people can have more than a few hours notice of impending blackouts, to have better managed community centers so people can access essential resources during blackouts, etc.

This is relatively basic stuff that a large corporation should be able to figure out with a ~year of notice. Instead there first few blackouts have been very poorly managed despite the fact that PG&E knew this was coming.

dave51042• 7 years ago

Having the state (or even local municipalities) buy them out and turning the utility into a publicly-owned utility is one popular opinion I keep hearing. They might have more money to start burying lines if they didn't need to answer to investors.

bndw• 7 years ago

Regarding forest [mis]management--

If you're interested in learning more about this subject, the 7 episode Wildfire[0] podcast digs into forest habitats and chronicles our historical and present day management of them.

[0] https://www.rei.com/blog/podcasts/wildfire-episode-one-trapp...

rhacker2• 7 years ago

lol, I keep seeing this excuse in every HN thread about this. The fatal flaw is that with all the tinder, the ONLY thing starting the fires IS the transmission lines. So even if we had some wack job going around with a gas can and a match, he's not doing as well as PG&E is doing.

Beyond just that - I think it's kinda crazy with all the technology we have - no one has suggested adding a FLIR and non-FLIR camera to both directions on each transmission tower - and then add some machine learning (to push reports up).

justapassenger• 7 years ago

If you want to have stable system, just don’t have bugs in it, simple! /s

It’s same situation - people focus on PGE, which is current big source of bugs. But fixing those bugs won’t make system stable, as new issues will always show up in such a complex system. You need to have well understood failure domains, and design a system to avoid cascading failures.

gnarlysasquatch2• 7 years ago

I’d love to see studies:

- comparing maintenance and faults to utilities in other areas

- comparing likelihood of ignition and resulting damages given an ignition event

There are lots of factors that combine into these events. Most of the discussion I’ve seen pick on one or two without considering the others. I guess it’s great if generating outrage is the goal, but it seems unlikely that will actually fix much.

jwilk• 7 years ago

Archived copy without GDPR nag screen:

https://web.archive.org/web/20191009215000/https://slate.com...

collsni• 7 years ago

I'm not sure what you expected, holding a company liable. Expect it to reduce its own liability.

Angostura• 7 years ago

The should also be liable for failure to deliver power. In the UK this triggers substantial compensation.

dehrmann6• 7 years ago

Then expect rates to go up 15% in risky areas. You can't have the current rates, 99.99% reliable power, and fire prevention in the near term.

supahfly_remix2• 7 years ago

Could this disaster be turned into an opportunity? Could it spur decentralized approached to energy creation, such as solar with a power wall?

California has so many inventive people and access to capital. Maybe this could be the impetus that would let them and us kick the hydrocarbon habit.

bluGill6• 7 years ago

perhaps, but larger central power systems are in general better. They are cheaper because you can share generation ensuring that if one generator goes out the others can take over.

takanori3• 7 years ago

This was my thought as well. Nothing like a crisis to spur invention. I did the math on a power wall. It’s too expensive to be feasible. Two units with installation cost $20K. That doesn’t include the solar panels required to keep it charged. You can get a gas generator with similar capacity for $5K. Not to mention gas is typically readily available.

supahfly_remix2• 7 years ago

how about coupling your BEV (if you own one) to your house to maybe require a smaller battery? not trying to solve this problem there, but rather to encourage people to view this as an opportunity. i know that if power outages were to become common, i would be willing to spend money to address this problem for me and my family.

hcurtiss7• 7 years ago

Exactly right. I got a Harbor Freight generator, installed a natural gas carburetor and plumbed in a quick release valve on our outside natural gas line. It will run the whole house, including the gas furnace and water heater. I love the idea of battery backup for our solar panels, but it's super expensive, and the payoff is so distant the NPV approaches zero.

Symmetry5• 7 years ago

Tesla has been pushing solar and Powerwalls in California during this so maybe.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-reduces-solar-powerwall-pric...

dehrmann6• 7 years ago

At least for now, power transmission is so efficient and cheap (and already built) that you're better off taking advantage of the utility's economies of scale.

kick the hydrocarbon habit

Then build solar in the desert and offshore wind. The power company can do these cheaper than you on the individual scale. In the past decade, coal use has actually dropped 50% (mostly replaced by natural gas), so there's progress on the hydrocarbon front.

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

Much of California's power infrastructure is ... both centralised and decentralised.

There's a huge reliance on hydroelectric power, one nuclear power plan (Diablo Canyon), as well as a huge amount of imported power from Oregon, Washington, and Vancouver Canada hydro projects. Plus numerous peaking plants (one near Hunter's Point in San Francisco, Moss Landing north of Monterey, off the top of my head), and an increasing amount of wind and solar.

A map of major transmission lines in the state helps show this:

http://www.geni.org/globalenergy/library/national_energy_gri...

With populations as large and concentrated and distributed as they are (roughly half of the state lives in LA-SD, half the rest in SF-OAK-SJ, half the rest in Sacramento-Stockton, and the remainder scattered throughout the state), it's hard to match generation and load. You can't park enough large plants near the big cities, you can't get enough small plants scattered around the countryside. Dams are difficult to relocate, for obvious reasons.

Localised generation has costs and risks, particularly if fueled. Renewable sources can be built, but have their own reliability issues, many of which are addressed through storage, where that is best served by pumped hydro, so again, you're schlepping large volumes of power over the state rather than having a locally-contained grid.

Incidentally, the Kinkaid fire started at or near a major renewable generating facility, The Geysers power plan near Healdsburg / Geyserville. That's actually among the largest and oldest geothermal generating installations in the world. Sparking transmission equipment in the area, possibly related to the plant, may be in part responsible for the blaze.

As is often the case, a part of the proposed solution may well be part of the problem.

takanori3• 7 years ago

How does routing work in these power lines? Is it similar to a network where you can route around problematic hubs? So if there is a line going through 4 miles of trees, you can just turn that part off... not the whole county?

etimberg• 7 years ago

You can turn off a line if you have capacity elsewhere. The problem is that as the current increases in a line the temperature of the line increases. This causes thermal expansion and if not well managed, a line can sag too low and have to be turned off. This was one of the causes of the 2003 northeast blackout.

The other option is to have local generation that can supply local load but that is still quite hard to do with renewables.

takanori3• 7 years ago

That makes sense. This is a century old problem. Are there no viable technical solutions?

dredmorbius21• 7 years ago

That happened also in the Western US power blackouts of 1996, specifically the August 10 incident.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Western_North_America_bla...

jartelt4• 7 years ago

Some areas only have one transmission line feeding them power, so there is no way to reroute. If that transmission line goes through an area with high fire risk, PG&E will cut the line and then everything fed by that line loses power.

danielfoster• 7 years ago

A major part of the issue here is that although PQ&E is a private company, they're heavily regulated by the state. Price controls plus a political mandate to invest in green industry has left it with few resources for maintaining existing infrastructure.

dragonwriter11• 7 years ago

Price controls plus a political mandate to invest in green industry has left it with few resources for maintaining existing infrastructure.

But, until their long failure to invest in required maintenance started manifesting in massive liabilities for fires in 2017, plenty of money to return $billions to shareholders in dividends; clearly, in your understanding, those funds weren't a fungible resource that could have instead been invested in maintenance.

(An understanding not shared by the federal judge overseeing their criminal probation for their felony conviction in the 2010 San Bruno gas explosion, who—in finding their actions leading to the 2017 and 2018 fires to be a violation of that probation—placed the blame for the fires squarely on PG&E’s decision to, for years, prioritize dividends over required maintenance.)

hcurtiss7• 7 years ago

Those dividends are necessary to raise the private capital necessary to run PG&E. It's not a charity, and it's certainly not a "market." It's a state-sponsored monopoly. The only other ways to fund it are increased energy prices or tax dollars.

fnordfnordfnord2• 7 years ago

If they don't have any money to spend on infrastructure, then what have they been using to pay dividends to investors?

callmeal• 7 years ago

If they don't have any money to spend on infrastructure, then what have they been using to pay dividends to investors?

The money they should have spent on infrastructure?

m3kw92• 7 years ago

Building powerlines that can cause fires if something this easy can cause it shouldn’t be legal. Would you be ok with having your electronic devices set on fire because you dropped it or something easy?

Bostonian• 7 years ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/revolutionary-california-115723... Revolutionary California Wall Street Journal ^ | October 29, 2019 | Holman W. Jenkins

...

The wildfire crisis is ultimately the product of a state politics controlled by interest groups whose agenda has drifted out of any cognizable relationship with the daily well-being of the state’s average citizen.

Because California accounts for less than 1% of global emissions, nothing it does will make a difference to climate, but its ratepayers shell out billions for wind and solar that might be better spent on fireproofing. A generation of ill-judged environmental activism has all but ended forest management in favor of letting dead trees and underbrush build up because it’s more “natural.” At the same time, residents resist any natural or planned fires that would consume this tinder before it gives rise to conflagrations like those now menacing Los Angeles and San Francisco.

An activist state Supreme Court imposed on utilities responsibility for any wildfires started by their equipment regardless of negligence. At the same time, state policy obliges them to extend their networks to support housing developments in areas the state designates as “very high fire risk.”

California’s activist one-party government, with its penchant for pretending to be a national government in relation to the hot-button issues of the left, is where all these roads end. Elites subsidize electric cars for themselves while promoting zoning that forces lower-income workers to commute three hours to a job or live in their cars. PG&E can’t keep trees off its power lines but can supply exact numbers for how many LGBTQ workers it employs.

imglorp• 7 years ago

every mile of power line that’s been shut off needs to be inspected visually, by foot or vehicle or air. [...] The work can’t be done in the dark.

Can a sense current be run through the idle lines, to detect ground faults before going back to full power?

Breefield• 7 years ago

My understanding is that these detection signals can cause fires themselves, as they need to be high enough voltage to traverse the entire length of the line—and as such can spark off said faults and cause fires...

blondie9x2• 7 years ago

Climate change is worsening the droughts that cause fires as well as the winds that spread them. Turning off the electricity is one of the only ways until are the transmission lines are buried. But it might be safe to say every residence and apartment building etc should have a battery back up anyway and renewable energy installed. If this were so grid electricity would be a moot point and technically we would not be dependent on grid electricity.

p1mrx2• 7 years ago

Why would they install a battery backup, when a gasoline/diesel generator is cheaper?

I see grid reliability as the cornerstone of fighting climate change. Who in their right mind would replace their furnace with a heat pump, or buy an electric vehicle, when doing so will likely leave them cold and immobile multiple times per year?

We need a grid with more capacity and better reliability, if decarbonization is ever going to work.

blondie9x2• 7 years ago

Battery backup with solar generator would more than be enough for most homes and residences in California.

generalpass• 7 years ago

What if the reason PG&E is turning off the power is not because they are concerned about their lines starting fires, but that they are being scapegoated by the state of California for damage resulting from poor public policy relating to fire dangers?

The predictions of a future with large amounts of fires go back quite a ways, and there is some evidence to suggest that native Indians took measures to limit the spread of wildfires. Even if it is assumed that PG&E equipment starts a fire, the exceptional damage caused by the fire is the result of the poor management policies.

I've drifted around on my opinions on this whole matter, but currently I find that PG&E is working to steer clear of lawsuits, nothing else.

tzm• 7 years ago

Pre-emptive blackouts have now cost me over $1k.

kbos87• 7 years ago

Yeah, it’s really going to suck as we come to the collective realization that the impact modern life has on the environment is going to encroach on - modern life. PG&E’s actions are the leading edge of what will be a growing trend of inconveniences. Demonizing them is living in denial. We are all culpable.

PG&E turning off power to protect against fire has created a new disaster

Related Stories