Posted on 11/03/2019 11:47:44 AM PST by Skywise
According to the official, widely reported story, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) shut down substantial portions of its electric transmission system in northern California as a precautionary measure.
Citing high wind speeds they described as “historic,” the utility claims that if they didn’t turn off the grid, wind-caused damage to their infrastructure could start more wildfires in the area.
Perhaps that’s true. Perhaps. This tale presumes that the folks who designed and maintain PG&E’s transmission system are unaware of or ignored the need to design it to withstand severe weather events, and that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) allowed the utility to do so.
Ignorance and incompetence happens, to be sure, but there’s much about this story that doesn’t smell right—and it’s disappointing that most journalists and elected officials are apparently accepting it without question.
Take, for example, this statement from a Fox News story about the Kincade Fires: “A PG&E meteorologist said it’s ‘likely that many trees will fall, branches will break,’ which could damage utility infrastructure and start a fire.”
Did you ever notice how utilities cut wide swaths of trees away when transmission lines pass through forests? There’s a reason for that: When trees fall and branches break the grid can still function.
So, if badly designed and poorly maintained infrastructure is not the reason PG&E cut power to millions of Californians, what might have prompted them to do so? Could it be that PG&E’s heavy reliance on renewable energy means they don’t have the power to send when an “historic” weather event occurs?
(Excerpt) Read more at theepochtimes.com ...
it was aliens- Cali power company is covering it up by claiming it was done for safety reasons- but it was aliens- either that or big foot carelessly threw a cigarette away one day-
I like a good conspiracy theory but this one has no facts. Just supposition.
I see where the author wants to go but needs actual facts to go along with his theory.
My brother has a theory that the California fires are suppose to ‘burn out’ the owners so Newson and Co, can but the land cheap and build their ridiculous high speed rail.
Great theory but he has no facts supporting his conspiracy.
His theory meshes well with this Electricity cutoff scenario.
Land owners(mostly rural and conservative) are “starved” off their land so the evil,socialist government can satisfy their rabid, leftist base at the expense of driving away the conservative opposition out of their state.
Sounds right but falls short of hard evidence.
“...but because it knew it wouldn’t have power to deliver once high winds shut down all those wind turbines.”
Rube Goldberg could’ve designed a better system of energy production than those goofy windmills!
Rush had a caller on the other day who lives in a new community and all of the electrical lines are buried; which is getting to be the New-New thing.
And they STILL cut off electricity to that community!
This seem like a bit of a “well, duhh” article to me. California has been widely criticized for a long time for not allowing clearing out of the deadwood and brush from their forests. Trump just tweeted about it (again) today.
The article raises some interesting questions on the integration and reliance on of wind power when winds can be too little or too great. Perhaps not enough questions were asked about the fundamental reason”S” for the power shut offs. Yes the answer was high winds, but why was high wind an issue.
TO MAKE YOU SUFFER because the Left hates everyone
I’m just going to get
Mad all over Again after
They killed power Twice
In the last two weeks!
I’m here in SoCal,
I don’t have PG&E.
Spit
“The New Cruelty”
.
Steve Martin.
Mean big corporation of course. Liberals excuse anyway.
More Evidence,
To much wind speed
Wind mills Drop out.
Aside from this, it could be a trial run/experiment to see how the population deals with the grid being down. For future malfeasance.....
Back in the mid-to-late 90’s and/or early 2000’s, Gov Brown refused to pay out of state companies for electric services already provided. Dominion Resources (D) was a company that had to take a write down at the end of year of $1.25 and $1.00 two years in a row. Folks in California will then remember the problem with companies in Texas and Virginia as well as elsewhere refusing to renew contracts to provide electricity. Gov Brown then laughably tried to sue those very companies he bilked on charges of public rights.
UN agenda 21/2030 should be considered in the California fires.
Well this is anecdotal, but fits. I have a power line that slightly crosses my front lawn. Every year SCE comes out and assesses/trims my tree away from the line. I am sitting here with the notice they hung on my door a couple weeks ago telling me they would be trimming my tree within the next 60 days.
So is PG&E really not clearing their lines?
Just practice runs for when California becomes a socialist utopia like Venezuela. They want citizens to get used to being serfs.
Well, that’s one way to get rich people to install solar panels.
Renewable is 43.8% of CA generation, but CA imports 68 million kWh per day.
They got fined for not turning off the power, so they turned off the power.
WTF are they supposed to do?
Leave it on and turn it off at the same time?
Unintended consequences....
Nobody in the high levels of state government in California would listen to the known experts in the field of electric power generation and distribution, but proceeded on their own agenda of how power SHOULD be generated and distributed.
It was stipulated long ago that while power COULD be obtained from wind and solar sources, there were few if any economies of scale that would work reliably and under all conditions. At best, either of these two energy sources, renewable or not, would work only as a supplier to a niche, in isolated locations where it was not economical to run long power lines, and where the utilization of batteries for power storage made some kind of economic sense.
California used to be one of the main suppliers of hydroelectric power generation, until some problem was invented, that this was “upsetting” the environment, and therefore the capacity had to be destroyed, so all the power dams were dynamited.
And of course, nuclear-fueled power generation plants were excoriated, because of a totally superstitious belief that ALL atomic power plants would undergo the “China Syndrome”, with huge and unmanageable radiation releases that would doom all life forms in its path of dispersion.
Just about all the woes of California may be laid at the feet of environmentalists and anti-capitalists. But that description is redundant.
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