[catskillclimber]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

About 10 years ago, our local power monopoly here on the east coast suffered two massive outages in a week due to winter snow/ice bringing down trees. The state regulators forced them to come up with an ongoing maintenance plan for removing trees near power lines, which costs them millions of dollars per year and requires the use of three different tree-trimming contractors to field the manpower. Long story short, we have had tropical storms, snow, ice, and even a tornado or two since then, and the power grid has been restored to 100% in less than 24 hours thanks to the trees not falling on the wires and causing week-long outages. It cost lots of money, but it can be done. California threw away a two-year head start to avoid this predictable outcome.

If the folks in Sacramento spent more time focusing on the power problem and less time on high-speed rail boondoggles, sanctuary cities, and vehicle emissions standards, the power wouldn't need to be turned off.....

I'm just up the road from you in Sullivan County were few outages are restored in less than 24 hrs. It was only 3 years ago when we had our last extended outage, 6 days. Central Hudson also has a trimming program, about every 5 years or so.

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by catskillclimber

I'm just up the road from you in Sullivan County were few outages are restored in less than 24 hrs. It was only 3 years ago when we had our last extended outage, 6 days. Central Hudson also has a trimming program, about every 5 years or so.

Delays out here are more due to the fact that if there's a downed line and they power back on, everything is so dry *poof* - wildfire. Now, if they'd done a better maintaining the trees and lines, less chance of that happening in the first place..

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by catskillclimber

Central Hudson also has a trimming program, about every 5 years or so.

My post was about Central Hudson. The state mandated they develop and implement that program back in 2010-ish after two territory-wide outages due to falling trees/limbs from ice and snow.

Orange & Rockland (ironically a ConEd company) lost a transmission line right-of-way maintainer due to a stray voltage electrocution down on Mount Peter in Warwick a few months ago. Even they are making an effort to maintain their transmission paths, but the companies in California can't?????

[catskillclimber]

Underground distribution is the answer for the west and the northeast but the economics don't work for that upgrade. The electric infrastructure was built out with abundant and cheap wooden poles. We've never had any real long term planning in the US to address these type of issues with existing infrastructure, whether it is electric, water, sewer, etc.

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by Delta0311

So progressive. Remeber the shit stain that was once the beautiful state of California is the plan that liberals have for the rest of America.

Progressive? PG&E is an investor owned utility. Not state owned. Sounds a lot like the "private industry can do it better" model the Right touts as the answer to all our woes. Not saying the state of CA taking charge of PG&E would be better but I'm not seeing how PG&E's failings are a "liberal" issue. Let's call it what it is: A poorly run company.

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by DETRoadster

Progressive? PG&E is an investor owned utility. Not state owned. Sounds a lot like the "private industry can do it better" model the Right touts as the answer to all our woes. Not saying the state of CA taking charge of PG&E would be better but I'm not seeing how PG&E's failings are a "liberal" issue. Let's call it what it is: A poorly run company.

Poorly run PUBLIC UTILITY

FTFY

[DETRoadster]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

Poorly run PUBLIC UTILITY

FTFY

Are they? Why am I reading that they are investor owned, publicly traded, and the state of CA is considering taking them over? Happy to stand corrected if I'm mistaken. You do live there after all.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/psmag.c...nership-of-pge

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by DETRoadster

Are they? Why am I reading that they are investor owned and the state of CA is considering taking them over? Happy to stand corrected if I'm mistaken. You do live there after all so I trust your comment.

Not 100% but I'm SCE customer. I think you can buy but still under PUC control

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

Poorly run Private UTILITY that’s essentially a regional monopoly with poorly run PUBLIC oversight

FTFY

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by catskillclimber

Underground distribution is the answer for the west and the northeast but the economics don't work for that upgrade. The electric infrastructure was built out with abundant and cheap wooden poles. We've never had any real long term planning in the US to address these type of issues with existing infrastructure, whether it is electric, water, sewer, etc.

At least 3x the cost of above ground, and very difficult to find and fix breaks (which do happen). More expensive and difficult in areas with rock (mountains, for example, like NoCal, Appalachia, much of New England). Utilities do 30-40 year long-term planning and are driven to lowest cost solutions by regulators.

[2000cs]

PG&E is a public utility, investor owned, regulated by the state of California and subject to all of its and the federal government’s laws and regulations. Basic model is investors put up capital in expectation of a return. PUC sets rates in order to provide a reasonable (not excessive) return. Company manages expenses to maximize that return. PUC enforces requirements like maintenance of plant, poles, lines and right-of-way and provides cost recovery.

This normally works just fine, but CA seems to have a couple of problems. One is they don’t want to clear underbrush in forests (used to do that when I was a youth, back in the last century). Enviros don’t like any management of right-of-way in the forests, but the PUC or courts decide. And the PUC has not been providing adequate funding for this (PG&E position, not sure the PUC agrees).

Also CA politics including PUC drove utilities there to buy renewables in a declining cost environment, so they all have a lot of contract/assets that are high cost compared to today’s costs, thus under-water financially. PUC doesn’t want rates to increase to cover all of this, but company can’t afford it so in bankruptcy seeks to have those contracts modified (repriced) or cancelled, which could cascade the problem to the project owners.

Allowing communities to form smallish utilities undercuts the rate base for the incumbent utility, forcing their fixed costs (lines, line maintenance, etc) to be spread over fewer customers - rate increase. Politics makes the rate increase difficult or impossible.

So CA has squeezed the utilities ever since the ENRON debacle. Utilities no doubt have made some bad decisions/choices, too.

My understanding is SF wants to take over PG&E within the city and make it a muni (this is a great way for city councils to get another source of funds without accountability); I don’t know of a state-wide effort to take over PG&E or SCE.

[SumBMWGuy]

So California utilities are trying to mitigate possible fire risks, and people here take it as a chance to shit all over one of our 50 states. You guys sure are classy.

[2000cs]

Originally Posted by SumBMWGuy

So California utilities are trying to mitigate possible fire risks, and people here take it as a chance to shit all over one of our 50 states. You guys sure are classy.

The blackouts were avoidable if the state had allowed/encouraged good forest management, or at least good right-of-way management. Lots of other states have terrain, trees, dry weather and electric lines, but rarely have wildfires as a result of utility lines - and even then those fires are typically small and easily controlled (because the forest has been properly managed).

CA makes its own choices; I’m fine with that. But there are consequences.

[UncleWede]

Originally Posted by SumBMWGuy

So California utilities are trying to mitigate possible fire risks, and people here take it as a chance to shit all over one of our 50 states. You guys sure are classy.

Please. They want to mitigate the COST of lawsuits for fires, and are taking a potshot at those who blamed them for previous fire damage

I'm sure there are a few good men/women who do care about preventing fires too

[NickyC]

Yikes, 1.5 million now? That's basically doubt what the initial estimates were!

https://apnews.com/014e1056b9ad4ef092ec4a7a1195dfad

[AlpineWhite_SJ]

After all the hype, we never lost power and aside from Mt Umunhum, there wasn't much wind in our area.

I think the estimates are all over the place depending on how they're calculating it. PG&E goes by the number of customers affected, but the media usually estimates each residence has 2-4 people so it looks a lot higher than PG&E's numbers but isn't really accurate.

[UncleWede]

Suddenly the wind is BLOWING here by the beach. Still got power. I went and filled up the tank on the church bus. I stopped at $80 on 87, and the beast is STILL hungry!!!

[Poiseuille]

meh, back-burner issue, Sacramento is much too busy dealing with Really Important Stuff==>

[IllSic_Design]

Luckily for me I've not lost any power so far since I live right outside of a decent size city(Vacaville) in the country and the cutoff is right at the edge of the city. So people in the city don't have power but me right outside city limits in our little town is doing ok.

[Torgus]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

Yup. There could be 800,000 customers with their electricity intentionally turned off because their power monopolies did not perform the required ongoing maintenance on their transmission grid.

About 10 years ago, our local power monopoly here on the east coast suffered two massive outages in a week due to winter snow/ice bringing down trees. The state regulators forced them to come up with an ongoing maintenance plan for removing trees near power lines, which costs them millions of dollars per year and requires the use of three different tree-trimming contractors to field the manpower. Long story short, we have had tropical storms, snow, ice, and even a tornado or two since then, and the power grid has been restored to 100% in less than 24 hours thanks to the trees not falling on the wires and causing week-long outages. It cost lots of money, but it can be done. California threw away a two-year head start to avoid this predictable outcome.

If the folks in Sacramento spent more time focusing on the power problem and less time on high-speed rail boondoggles, sanctuary cities, and vehicle emissions standards, the power wouldn't need to be turned off.....

This 1000X

The ice storm was BAD and tons of people lost power, but we fixed it from happening again by doing something logical.

[UncleWede]

^CALIFORNIA

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by UncleWede

^CALIFORNIA

From the technological hub of the world, plunged back to the 19th century...in one day!

I love how the media is playing on people's fears of the dark by saying that tatantulas are suddenly running all over the place. I'm now pretty convinced that this whole shutdown thing is purely for show.....