PGE considering cutting off power in Northern California later this week due to fire hazard (Los Angeles: campgrounds, shop)

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by evening sun

Their excuse is that is costs a million dollars per mile. They could afford it, if they stopped giving such huge bonus to useless CEO & other directors.

Update: the average cost is estimated at $3 million per mile. And no, eliminating bonuses to directors wouldn’t cover it, unfortunately.

The answer isn’t underground lines. The answer is developing individual, on-site power supplies such as solar and hydrogen generators, so that there isn't power transmission over long distances.

This company may have solved one of the hardest problems in clean energy
The “hydrogen economy” may be a thing after all.

It is an odd twist of chemistry that there is fuel embedded in the most common substance on earth: water.

Hydrogen — the H of H2O fame — turns out to be something of an all-purpose element, a Swiss Army knife for energy. It can be produced without greenhouse gases. It is highly flammable, so it can be used as a combustion fuel. It can be fed into a fuel cell to produce electricity directly, without combustion, through an electrochemical process.

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-envir...hytech-storage

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by LJS1993

Obviously not.......I know it's tough to admit.

lol

[JGC97]

Here's a question for those of you who are knowledgeable about electricity. I started wondering about this whole shutting off then turning back situation PG&E is doing. I asked myself what that surge of electricity would do to a transformer that is already pretty old. I googled the question and came across this article in Popular Mechanics. It explained pretty well what happens when a transformer, specifically an older one, is hit with a surge of power. From the article I read the following ...

Electrical transformers transfer energy between circuits, switching energy from one voltage to another. But when flooded with too much electricity, the sudden surge can cause a transformer explosion. As transformers detect an energy spike, they're programmed to turn off, but it can take up to 60 milliseconds for the shutdown. However fast those milliseconds may seem, they still may be too slow to stop the electrical overload.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/sci...a5337/4345791/

Now I'm questioning if PG&E is doing more harm than good, especially since they are still in the process of checking lines, inspecting transformers and updating old equipment.

Am I being silly and overthinking it or is there some merit to the idea? I'd be interested in knowing what our resident electrical experts on CD think.

[mgforshort]

I'm reading the Sacramento Bee and they claim the stock price of PG&E dropped from
$ 20 in July to $ 5.00 this week as stockholders are dumping their assets. This could be a potential solution for the State of California, using their huge surplus and taking over the company. I do feel sorry for their investors though.

[opossum1]

While many don't have sympathy for PG&E, it's hard to have sympathy for the entire state considering the path that had been taken. It's easy to vilify PG&E, but it's just looking for a scapegoat.
For example, Paradise Camp Fire - it's ridiculous to dump all blame on PG&E in this case - the natural conditions around and in town had been prime for major wildfire for years before the event (home insurers knew that and had left the town, pretty much). Zero, nada, none defensive measures had been taken by the town, while no adequate evacuation routes or notification system had been put in place (some greedy hands had issued all these building permits that should have never been issued, especially since evac routes had been so limited). It could have been anything to start that fire...
homeless' camp fire left behind, dry lighting strike, a piece of glass bottle acting as a lens, negligent homeowner, a sparkle from a wheel after flat tire, dropped cigarette...
Stop blaming PG&E for all the trouble in mismanaged state with explosive overpopulation.
People feel entitled to build or buy expensive homes in extremely high hazard zones and think the state owes them insurance, PG&E owes them cheap electric, Mother Nature owes them fire suppression, etc, etc. PG&E should just pull the plug and call it a day.

[mgforshort]

Originally Posted by opossum1

While many don't have sympathy for PG&E, it's hard to have sympathy for the entire state considering the path that had been taken. It's easy to vilify PG&E, but it's just looking for a scapegoat.
For example, Paradise Camp Fire - it's ridiculous to dump all blame on PG&E in this case - the natural conditions around and in town had been prime for major wildfire for years before the event (home insurers knew that and had left the town, pretty much). Zero, nada, none defensive measures had been taken by the town, while no adequate evacuation routes or notification system had been put in place (some greedy hands had issued all these building permits that should have never been issued, especially since evac routes had been so limited). It could have been anything to start that fire...
homeless' camp fire left behind, dry lighting strike, a piece of glass bottle acting as a lens, negligent homeowner, a sparkle from a wheel after flat tire, dropped cigarette...
Stop blaming PG&E for all the trouble in mismanaged state with explosive overpopulation.
People feel entitled to build or buy expensive homes in extremely high hazard zones and think the state owes them insurance, PG&E owes them cheap electric, Mother Nature owes them fire suppression, etc, etc. PG&E should just pull the plug and call it a day.

You don't have much compassion for Paradise residents / Camp fire victims, and nothing wrong with that.

My take, as a current resident of Paradise, CA 95969, and a former resident of Fullerton, CA 92833 is this:


If a fire of this magnitude ever breaks out in San Diego, Orange County or Los Angeles, the number of the dead easily could be in the tens of thousands, or much, much higher.
The evacuation created a gridlock in Paradise on the 8th of November, 2018. Traffic was bumper to bumper, and not moving. I was in the middle of it, following my wife in her red Hyundai Kona.

When we lived in Southern California, that kind of gridlock was considered normal, a daily occurrence during rush hour. An evacuation prompted by fire or earthquake would turn that into a major catastrophe.

[opossum1]

Originally Posted by settled00

seems like this will be the "new norm" under Gavin, ...at least until the school bond issues go through next November. By then the "PGE problem" will have annoyed so many people that he will have no problem justifying transferring those funds toward climate change initiatives to fix it. While we wait for that to happen, I find myself checking outside more often these days whenever I smell wood burning to make sure fire is not too close. I also am still working on clearing out my deep freeze to prevent having wasted food. Now I know how rural 3rd-world people feel.

That wood smoke is probably your neighbors cooking their fresh kill since their electric stove no longer has power and the freezer is useless... Welcome to normal life. I've spent wonderful 3 months without electricity this summer, can't beat that
Too much consumption, too much entitlement and too much unnecessary light in the US....full of light blobs on the night satellite map unlike much of the world.

[Ultrarunner]

Originally Posted by mgforshort

When we hear their advice (PG&E) to prepare, it always ends with: buy a generator.

We have a big one, but it is so loud that I can't spend more than a minute in the garden shed where it stands or in the garage.
Inside the house, 30 feet from it, is bearable. In the bedroom, the farthest point, we can't hear it.
mgforshort planned it well.

A neighbor has a dual fuel portable, and she told me it cost $ 25 worth of propane for only 8 hours. Not everyone can afford to spend $ 25-50 bucks on electric alone, per day. They live 200 feet from us and we can hear it whenever they start it up.

By the way, during an outage the schools close and the Kids are falling behind in their studies. The Kids ? Can you imagine they are hurting the Kids now ? The Children !

Then I think of people in apartments and condos, how in hell can they run an expensive machine, louder than any Harley motorcycle in a second floor apartment with a 5x10 balcony overlooking the street?

How in hell did the richest state in the richest country came to that? I know you don't care on your boat Dear Tulemutt, but maybe you could explain it to the rest of us. Please !

For most a Honda 2000 will cover essentials and bare bones a Honda 1000 measures 24 hours in a gallon or two and ultra quiet... Something that can run on a condo patio...

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by opossum1

While many don't have sympathy for PG&E, it's hard to have sympathy for the entire state considering the path that had been taken. It's easy to vilify PG&E, but it's just looking for a scapegoat.
For example, Paradise Camp Fire - it's ridiculous to dump all blame on PG&E in this case - the natural conditions around and in town had been prime for major wildfire for years before the event (home insurers knew that and had left the town, pretty much). Zero, nada, none defensive measures had been taken by the town, while no adequate evacuation routes or notification system had been put in place (some greedy hands had issued all these building permits that should have never been issued, especially since evac routes had been so limited). It could have been anything to start that fire...
homeless' camp fire left behind, dry lighting strike, a piece of glass bottle acting as a lens, negligent homeowner, a sparkle from a wheel after flat tire, dropped cigarette...
Stop blaming PG&E for all the trouble in mismanaged state with explosive overpopulation.
People feel entitled to build or buy expensive homes in extremely high hazard zones and think the state owes them insurance, PG&E owes them cheap electric, Mother Nature owes them fire suppression, etc, etc. PG&E should just pull the plug and call it a day.

You’re right about the responsibility of residents and local governments to mitigate for conditions. They should.

But you are ignoring the most obvious truth: The fact is, while any number of causes could have wrought the same destruction, it was only PG&E’s equipment at fault ... period. The dangerous environmental conditions you describe were / are prevalent across much of the state - yet the whole state was not ablaze from natural causes, while Paradise burned by PG&E failure.

[Tulemutt]

Originally Posted by Ultrarunner

For most a Honda 2000 will cover essentials and bare bones a Honda 1000 measures 24 hours in a gallon or two and ultra quiet... Something that can run on a condo patio...

Yeah. But you’re talking borderline minimalism here. Which requires simplistic, common sense living. Who does that in this day and age? - other than a handful of odd knuckleheads who live alternative lifestyles (such as on little sailboats). Honda 2000’s kick butt ... great value!