Posted on 10/13/2019 6:59:58 AM PDT by janetjanet998
AN FRANCISCO — It was a problem that California had come to dread. Weather models were signaling extreme winds and dry conditions from one end of the state to the other. The risk of wildfires was high.
Pacific Gas & Electric, the giant utility whose power lines and transformers have been blamed for a series of disastrous wildfires in recent years, was determined to prevent another one. Just before last weekend, the company informed state officials that it might shut off power to a large area of Northern California, potentially leaving millions of people in the dark — something no United States utility had done in recent memory. It made that news public on Monday.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
How long ago was that?
My dad died in 93 and he had an oxygen concentrator for his regular home oxygen supply. He had a little cart for a small bottle for travel or backup. Now I see people with little packs they take with them, not sure if they are portable concentrators or what.
The concentrators are reliant on power, the bottles are not as you said but don’t last long. My dad had a room full of the little bottles of oxygen because just to go to town here is what most people call a road trip.
I agree with you that if prepared ahead of time oxygen doesn’t require electricity. Most people have concentrators now though and they do require constant electricity.
Nonsense. I saw the notice for humboldt on Monday.
You are gambling if you are relying on public power.
You are gambling if you are relying on public power.
So Cal Edison has net metering for solar. The meter runs backwards when producing more than you use. If you produce more than you use during a billing cycle, you will get a credit on your account.
Any remaining credit is settled up at the end of the year. My understanding is that payout on a credit is limited to a certain amount. Beyond that limit, you are compensated at a greatly reduced rate. So the incentive is to match your expected usage and not become a producer for profit.
As to energy storage, while I don't know the rules in detail, whatever they are they don't preclude storage solutions. In fact, So Cal Edison has a special tariff for electric cars and storage systems at greatly reduced rates.
Reading disabled activist tweets #PSPS and folks were very upset. No resources for the disabled or medically challeneged, if that is such a term. In the city of Berekely for example, the city told the disabled they were left to their own resources and if it was a problem...go to the emergecny room.
Two issues here, one being is that disabled are many times on the lower rungs financially...and two, emergency rooms are not equipped to handle such an influx.
I happen to know that in Berkeley there is a Neighborhood Radio Watch group. I sugested to one of the activists to partner with them. It will take neighbors helping neighbors in a situation like this...one can not rely upon government.
I wrote the activist that a plan needs to be developed and its fine to ask PG and E for funding for specific equipment to carry out the plan...
I don’t know if the activist wants to rail against government to do something or will actually begin to create a self help plan...
I understand the issue here and it really isn’t a pretty one. A local government has only so many resources for transportation, etc and each of the disabled has particular needs. We will see what happens...
San Fran NWS:
IN WAKE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED FRONTAL SYSTEM, BREEZY NORTHERLY WINDS ARE LIKELY TO DEVELOP LATE IN THE UPCOMING WEEK.
LA NWS:
STRONGER NORTHERLY FLOW MOVES INTO THE AREA FOR THE WEEKEND. HGTS RISE BACK UP TO 582 DM. MODERATE OFFSHORE NORTHERLY FLOW DEVELOPS AS WELL. THERE WILL LIKELY BE DECENT I-5 CORRIDOR AND SUNDOWNER WINDS.
Thank you!
Am passing this along.
I am not sure there is an increase in the number of fires. The intensity of fires now is crazy- infernos all through the Southwest.
Years ago logging, livestock grazing, firewood gathering, Christmas tree cutting all kept the forest pretty well maintained and healthy. The enviros wanted all that to end, so where it is even allowed at all it is very regulated and limited. The trees are growing too close together which encourages disease and insect infestation. So unhealthy trees and thick underbrush along with tall dry grass makes fuel for the fires that is unreal. Instead of getting a normal type forest fire the result is an inferno. Sometimes burning so hot the trees will never grow back. In a healthy forest many trees will not even burn up in a fire, they get singed and survive.
Our agencies that are supposed to manage our public lands are not allowed to; enviro groups sue and find like minded judges so now the enviro groups are in charge of managing our public lands. They do that as badly as they do everything else.
I agree with you, it is not climate change. The change is socialist policies disguised as saving endangered specie and preserving the natural. The endangered specie obviously does not do well in the inferno fires but that is ignored.
As far as their ideas on letting nature take over, that worked well when no one fought the fires so they were a regular occurrence and the brush and trees never got out of control enough over a large area to have inferno fires. There were regular fires, most trees and critters survived.
It is really foolish now, mismanaging the land and then allowing development to be right there. A recipe for disaster.
It is worse in California because in many areas the state has passed laws and put regulations in effect that control even how much brush clearing and tree thinning can legally be done on privately owned land.
To bad his wife and the daughter and other family members who were woken by the wife's screaming didn't practice some pre blackout (which everyone was warned of) preparations with his back up oxygen. Kinda having trouble working up sympathy over this one.
The most important thing for PG&E execs was how much bonus money they would get every year. It was based on how much money they saved. You save money by not doing maintenance.
Now add in the politicians who block new power plants, close down others, put in windmills that blight the landscape, block brush and tree clearance, raise electric rates to pay for the gov’t pensions, reduce road lanes because they want the peons walking or taking a bus or riding a bike which cause deaths in a forest fire.
Will the politicians or PG&E change? The answer is no.
They will blame us for living near a tree and will raise electric rates again. Some 22 cents a kw now in areas and rising.
“Don’t see any problem. Doesn’t every CA’ian homeowner have solar panels on the roof, and monster batteries in the basement, with backup windmill in the backyard?
If it’s windy enough to shut the power, the windmills will supply everything.
And, if everything goes caput, at least they can drive their coal-powered electric cars to a shelter...”
No on the solar cells. The solar cells were mandatory, but the extra $$$ battery banks were not. Most people just went with the solar cells to be compliant, thinking they’d at least have power in the daytime if the grid went down.
But...the mandatory solar cell installations are geared towards providing grid power, not to power the individual homes. So, when the grid goes down, the solar cells also go down.
“Residents were left asking why so many people had to lose power and whether rolling blackouts would become routine as climate change makes wildfires more frequent and intense.”
however, apparently ONLY California is affected like this from “climate change”; the other 56 states seem to be just fine ....
That is not accurate although I have seen it posted in other places. What kind of situation is it where a million or more people are told: we may shut off your power, we may not, it may happen at night, it might not, we don’t know how long hours or days it will be off.
If people accept this without demanding accountability they are fools.
This is another phase in the Government taking away peoples, rights, freedoms, choices & security in the name of FAKE climate change. Such a disgrace all promulgated as a plan to grab money, power and control. Fake models, fudge factors, cherry picked data, outright lies. This is the scandal of the century.
Exactly. It’s easy to blame the utility companies but they were not allowed to operate their business in a way that makes sense. All those pie in the sky mandates are a overhead cost with little or no benefit. If a technology is not fiscally sound and needs subsidies it should be abandoned or left to those who want to pay it’s freight not placed on the backs of people by Government.
“While some experts think utilities ought to have better ways to prevent wildfires”
Seems that forestry management isn’t the states problem anymore.
Urban versus rural, you mean?
Think about that a minute...
In Cahleefohnia, yes.
I worked in the power industry for three decades. Utilities stopped promoting engineers to the top executive ranks and started putting “woke” lawyers in CEO positions. Utilities never were ones to fight mandates as long as the investment t could go into the rate base. They usually accepted some small amount of kookiness because they had bigger fish to fry like getting an over-budget, late nuke plant completed and operating. But it got far worse in the 90s when those new execs embraced wholeheartedly all the kooky ideas.
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