Shut offs begin: PG&E Imposes Mass Blackouts

'Unacceptable' power cuts blasted as California fire risk spreads south
https://phys.org/news/2019-10-unacceptab...south.html

EXCERPT: . . . PG&E defended the shutoffs, telling a press conference that inspections Thursday had found multiple cases of damage that could have caused wildfires had the lines been live. "We faced the choice here between hardship on everyone or safety—and we chose safety," said CEO Bill Johnson. "And I do apologize for the hardship this has caused. I think we made the right call."

With high-risk "red flag" winds spreading to the Los Angeles area further south, around 13,000 customers of Southern California Edison had their electricity cut Thursday. "A number of fires... are burning and there have been structures that have been lost," said Mark Ghilarducci, emergency services director at the governor's office.

Fire-fighting planes and helicopters were called in to tackle two fires east of Los Angeles which spread to a combined 900 acres (360 hectares), and were described by officials as "zero percent contained." The local fire department said multiple structures were destroyed and "numerous medical emergencies" occurred at one of the fires.

In the far south of the state, San Diego Gas & Electric warned 30,000 customers living in high-risk areas they could potentially lose their power if conditions worsen. Urban Los Angeles itself was not expected to be at-risk, although police Wednesday night said they would clear some vulnerable homeless camps. Several other small fires were reported further north but quickly tackled by firefighters.

PG&E on Thursday had completed inspections on some power lines in its blackout regions, and had restored electricity to more than 228,000 customers by late afternoon. But others may have to wait several days for inspections before normal service can be restored.

Last November, PG&E's faulty power lines were determined to have sparked the deadliest wildfire in the state's modern history, which killed 86 and destroyed the town of Paradise. Outdated facilities including vulnerable wooden poles and failure to deforest land surrounding high-voltage transmission lines were blamed for the inferno, causing PG&E to go bankrupt in January. The company agreed to pay an $11 billion settlement over the devastating wildfires in northern California. "Those were decisions that were made by Pacific Gas and Electric—they chose not to modernize their grid," said Newsom. "Over the course of many, many years, it led to their own demise, it led to bankruptcy."

The cost of 48 hours of power cuts could reach $2.6 billion, Michael Wara, an expert in energy and climate policy at Stanford University, told CNN. (MORE)

Here in Northern California, electricity is being restored. Much of it was back yesterday. So contrary to fears, the outage didn't last for weeks or months, and doesn't seem to have created a great deal of problems, apart from inconvenience. The strong hot winds predicted never materialized where I live and conditions were calm. A bit of a meteorological false-alarm in my opinion, at least in this area.

Now it sounds like the worst fire danger has shifted to SoCal.

I suspect that if this shut-off policy continues, the inaccuracy of weather forecasts may be highlighted. Longer-term (days-out) predictions of fire conditions may never be realized (see above) while dangerous conditions may occur suddenly with the electric company scrambling to shut off power in response with little or no warning to customers. It's likely to be spotty and unpredictable, in both time and space.

Weather forecasting and meteorology in general is kind of unpredictable by its nature, stochastic with a lot of randomness built in. (More in some geographical areas than others.) Yet the public and government demands accurate weather forecasts. (Often in the least predictable areas.) Which leads to weather forecasters offering a product that they can't really deliver. (Interesting issues in the philosophy and sociology of science there.)

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(Oct 11, 2019 07:42 PM)C C Wrote: Last November, PG&E's faulty power lines were determined to have sparked the deadliest wildfire in the state's modern history, which killed 86 and destroyed the town of Paradise. Outdated facilities including vulnerable wooden poles and failure to deforest land surrounding high-voltage transmission lines were blamed for the inferno, causing PG&E to go bankrupt in January. The company agreed to pay an $11 billion settlement over the devastating wildfires in northern California. "Those were decisions that were made by Pacific Gas and Electric—they chose not to modernize their grid," said Newsom. "Over the course of many, many years, it led to their own demise, it led to bankruptcy."

What Newsom doesn't say is that during the time when the company could have been spending its fixed (government controlled) revenues on upgrading the system, the legislature was forcing them into a number of hugely costly "green energy" boondoggles. They were required to have a certain percentage of their power coming from "renewables" which cost far more than the gas or nuclear sources that the state wanted to shut down.

(Oct 12, 2019 03:22 PM)Yazata Wrote: Here in Northern California, electricity is being restored. Much of it was back yesterday. So contrary to fears, the outage didn't last for weeks or months, and doesn't seem to have created a great deal of problems, apart from inconvenience. The strong hot winds predicted never materialized where I live and conditions were calm. A bit of a meteorological false-alarm in my opinion, at least in this area. 

Now it sounds like the worst fire danger has shifted to SoCal.

I suspect that if this shut-off policy continues, the inaccuracy of weather forecasts may be highlighted. Longer-term (days-out) predictions of fire conditions may never be realized (see above) while dangerous conditions may occur suddenly with the electric company scrambling to shut off power in response with little or no warning to customers. It's likely to be spotty and unpredictable, in both time and space.

Weather forecasting and meteorology in general is kind of unpredictable by its nature, stochastic with a lot of randomness built in. (More in some geographical areas than others.) Yet the public and government demands accurate weather forecasts. (Often in the least predictable areas.) Which leads to weather forecasters offering a product that they can't really deliver. (Interesting issues in the philosophy and sociology of science there.)

Yeah, I would have never thought about it that way. Maybe because I've been sitting in the dark for a couple of days. Chaos theory and meteorological predictions, too. My windmill is really sensitive. It didn’t even move and it was pretty cold.

Mine came back on yesterday. They contracted out. There were companies from all over. Wilson Construction Company from Oregon, got us up and running. I didn't have water due to my pump. I woke up to my house alarm going off and my kitchen sink overflowing. I must have turned it on and forgot about it. 

Yazata Wrote:What Newsom doesn't say is that during the time when the company could have been spending its fixed (government controlled) revenues on upgrading the system, the legislature was forcing them into a number of hugely costly "green energy" boondoggles. They were required to have a certain percentage of their power coming from "renewables" which cost far more than the gas or nuclear sources that the state wanted to shut down.

We saw that same type of thing here when everyone was trying to rebuild. The insurance money didn't cover the cost and some were unable to afford it.

(Oct 12, 2019 03:22 PM)Yazata Wrote: . . . Weather forecasting and meteorology in general is kind of unpredictable by its nature, stochastic with a lot of randomness built in. (More in some geographical areas than others.) Yet the public and government demands accurate weather forecasts. (Often in the least predictable areas.) Which leads to weather forecasters offering a product that they can't really deliver. (Interesting issues in the philosophy and sociology of science there.)

Freeman Dyson: In the modern world, science and society often interact in a perverse way. We live in a technological society, and technology causes political problems. The politicians and the public expect science to provide answers to the problems. Scientific experts are paid and encouraged to provide answers. The public does not have much use for a scientist who says, “Sorry, but we don’t know”. The public prefers to listen to scientists who give confident answers to questions and make confident predictions of what will happen as a result of human activities. So it happens that the experts who talk publicly about politically contentious questions tend to speak more clearly than they think. They make confident predictions about the future, and end up believing their own predictions. Their predictions become dogmas which they do not question. The public is led to believe that the fashionable scientific dogmas are true, and it may sometimes happen that they are wrong. --Heretical thoughts about science and society

Quote:What Newsom doesn't say is that during the time when the company could have been spending its fixed (government controlled) revenues on upgrading the system, the legislature was forcing them into a number of hugely costly "green energy" boondoggles. They were required to have a certain percentage of their power coming from "renewables" which cost far more than the gas or nuclear sources that the state wanted to shut down.

Not unlike how the government feigns to be oblivious to the "intolerable" black-out and inspection precautions being an inevitable consequence of blaming/convicting, suing, and driving them into bankruptcy. (An organization is at least going to be driven to go through the motions of safety responsibility after being run through the ringer like that). Which would seem to financially further cripple the capacity to perform wide-scale clean-up.

It can't be said that state administrations are wholly oblivious to a world of causes-and-effects, because they are responsive to certain bogeymen. But it's their choice of what to address and what to ignore, and who the bad-guys, good-guys, and the victims are. From a utopia-promising "tick" micromanagement perspective and set of biases, its "bad guys" are wholly responsible for all woes (including what its own decisions and policies bring about). It keeps penalizing and parasitizing its various demonized cash-cow hosts until they either potentially die from blood loss or ingeniously adapt to tick bureaucracy.

(Oct 12, 2019 03:22 PM)Yazata Wrote: What Newsom doesn't say is that during the time when the company could have been spending its fixed (government controlled) revenues on upgrading the system, the legislature was forcing them into a number of hugely costly "green energy" boondoggles. They were required to have a certain percentage of their power coming from "renewables" which cost far more than the gas or nuclear sources that the state wanted to shut down.

Yeah, "renewables" like mandating all new homes have solar, but not also mandating battery power storage...making it pretty useless in any power outage.

(Oct 12, 2019 10:54 PM)Syne Wrote:

(Oct 12, 2019 03:22 PM)Yazata Wrote: What Newsom doesn't say is that during the time when the company could have been spending its fixed (government controlled) revenues on upgrading the system, the legislature was forcing them into a number of hugely costly "green energy" boondoggles. They were required to have a certain percentage of their power coming from "renewables" which cost far more than the gas or nuclear sources that the state wanted to shut down.

Yeah, "renewables" like mandating all new homes have solar, but not also mandating battery power storage...making it pretty useless in any power outage.

Several companies offer inverters that provide emergency power without batteries while the sun is out.  So during the day you recharge EV's, cellphones, laptops etc.  And if you want power during the night, buy a $99 UPS from Best Buy.

(Oct 13, 2019 03:02 AM)billvon Wrote:

(Oct 12, 2019 10:54 PM)Syne Wrote: Yeah, "renewables" like mandating all new homes have solar, but not also mandating battery power storage...making it pretty useless in any power outage.

Several companies offer inverters that provide emergency power without batteries while the sun is out.  So during the day you recharge EV's, cellphones, laptops etc.  And if you want power during the night, buy a $99 UPS from Best Buy.

You seem to have completely missed the point that they're not mandating anything that helps without a functioning power grid.

(Oct 13, 2019 05:12 AM)Syne Wrote: You seem to have completely missed the point that they're not mandating anything that helps without a functioning power grid.  

If you want to campaign for mandatory backups, knock yourself out.  I prefer the choice.

(Oct 13, 2019 06:14 PM)billvon Wrote:

(Oct 13, 2019 05:12 AM)Syne Wrote: You seem to have completely missed the point that they're not mandating anything that helps without a functioning power grid.  

If you want to campaign for mandatory backups, knock yourself out.  I prefer the choice.

But that choice doesn't include the solar panels themselves, huh? Half-assed measures it is then.

(Oct 13, 2019 07:33 PM)Syne Wrote: But that choice doesn't include the solar panels themselves, huh? Half-assed measures it is then.

Nope.  No "measures" at all.  None of the solar mandates were intended to provide backup power.  

But keep trying to conflate them; it's fun to watch.