[Pontiac]

PG&E in northern CA is conducting black outs during high wind because that way their electrical lines won’t cause wild fires.

Nothing but idiots running the government in CA.

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Yes, but it is not just California.

“Deregulation” of electricity was a fad in government in the 1990s. Thing is that it was not really true deregulation. It was deregulation of generation but not distribution.

Without going into a lot of detail it led to pricing of electricity so low that what was common maintenance of transmission lines right of ways became a thing that was neglected as a cost saving measure.

The picture above is how a transmission line right of way should be maintained. But that has become the exception. With the forest growth kept down away from the lines, line sag caused by higher demand during heat waves can be tolerated and wind does not propose a danger of fires.

But lower electricity prices enforced by government means that such maintenance can not be afforded when you are talking about transmission lines that stretch through hundreds of miles of wooded mountainsides.

[marajade]

Why did CA gov’t let them do it? Just to keep rates low? They are still responsible.

[woodbutcher1963]

It is not just in California. Here in NH the state/towns had to force Eversource to clear the lines going down all the roads throughout towns. What they had decided to do until just a couple years ago is let the trees grow and only go out and cut them down or trim them until AFTER they caused a power outage. This got so bad a few years ago when ice storms caused people to lose power for weeks in some cases.

Eventually, everyone like me that lives around here invested in a generator. I have a Honda 7500 Watt gasoline powered. My daughters house has a whole house propane powered generator. It turns itself on within 2 minutes if it senses a power loss. New single family subdivisions are now built with back up generators as part of your standard package.

Keep in mind that NH is now about 80% forested. The main softwood tree species is Eastern White Pine. They grow like weeds around here. They look very similar to the trees in the right foreground of your posted picture. They tend to be shallow rooted and top heavy. They tend to blow over and or break in high winds. They also break often when we great that wet heavy snow early in the fall/winter or early spring.

[Robert A Cook PE]

Der-regulation of the electric generators and (separately) of the electric distribution was also how ENRON twisted its rate charges and secondary markets into billions of “apparent” profit - which pulled up its overall stock.

Happened during the Bush I - Clinton years years, while Bush II was governor of TX. Interesting coincidence, right? ENRON failed outright under the early Bush II years, when he refused to bail them out from Washington from their scheme.

For the whole utility scheme however, deregulation encouraged short-term generation policies - “Run them until they break!” - over long-term maintain-generate-maintain-generate-maintain economic planning.

All that separate from this hysteria of climate change and ITS central planning for failure.

But! Enron (under Clinton) DID begin the carbon trading schemes that promised 30 trillions per year in perpetual money laundering markets!

[Robert A Cook PE]

In GA-AL-SC-FL, in fact in all parts of the “real world” outside of CA, that’s how power line right-of-way are STILL maintained!