The amount of carbon released into the air by these fires dwarfs the amount saved by renewables
Our power came back on around 3:00 p.m. on Friday. PGE sent text notification around 9:30 p.m. to let us know ‘your power is back on’.
Two problems with this lag time…
If not for pure coincidence, we would have stayed away from the house (in a non affected area) and left the the generator running for another night.
if not for NextDoor and the updates of neighbors, we’d have kept the generator running for an additional 6.5 hours while sitting at home.
Have they turned off as many homes this second red flag wind event?
@TatinG - good question- I was trying to look at their map on my phone last night but it was hard to read.
Not nearly as many homes for the Wed/Thursday shutoff, but expect at least as many if not more on Sat. planned shutdown.
Note that during the 10pm news last night, they reported a fire had just started up (started in a building and went to brush). By the time I got up this AM to read the news, it was already 10,000 acres and lots of evacuations.
So maybe they weren’t wrong… Although having the power off means no water for many farm areas.
So why don’t/didn’t they take care of brushes before the weather events?
The Kincade fire has burned over 10,000 acres and damaged or destroyed only 12 homes. Does that give you a feel for how big the areas are? It’s remote up there. There are tens of millions of acres that are hot and dry right now in California. People can’t be prancing through the woods raking every acre.
And with the hot, dry devil winds, any spark can turn into a conflagration.
That’s an excuse. They don’t need to clear everything. Just along the power lines or transformers that tend to spark. True, wind will blow sparks. But if we manage what we can I predict it will reduce fire greatly. Sparks don’t live long. Every time discussion of this type comes up people bring up how it can’t work in every case and it’s useless trying. Don’t you think if it works 80% of the time, we may be content?
Here we go again. Smoke will be visible in the immediate Bay Area by tomorrow and the AQI will be above 100. Hopefully you all have your N95 masks.
From a recent WSJ article on PG&E. It’s fun when the legislature helps run your business.
In business the common understanding is that you get what you measure. PG&E measures what the legislature cares about.
True. And the legislature isn’t putting safety as a first priority.
And there is something, somewhere, in fine print about taxpayers footing a portion of the costs. (Edit: I see now the quote above includes the rate hike.)
Some days, I think most of CC lives in CA and understands these risks. Igloo, it takes only a second for a spark to ignite something. Remember sparks flying across freeways, last big fire, faster than anyone could manage anything.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-10/pg-e-california-power-outages-grid-climate-change Oct 10, 2019
"The utility recently told a federal judge it had completed only about 31% of the ambitious tree-trimming work it planned for 2019. The company said it had finished 760 miles out of the 2,455 miles of power lines that have vegetation around them. To finish the job, PG&E said it would need significantly more than the 4,500 workers it has dedicated to the work.
And that’s only for stopgap measures. In a court filing, PG&E said a clear-cutting of all trees and plants around its power lines would cost somewhere between $75 billion and $150 billion and require hiring 650,000 workers."
Even accounting for some strategic exaggerationg, it’s one massive task. And not easily accessible.
People love to say that. Most of the sparks flying across freeways we see in the news are from the amber, not the initial spark on the power line. To fly across freeways, the sparks have to get very hot which can’t happen if there’s minimal fuel to start out.
Again, they are being heavy handed. You start out where it is most likely to have sparks, around the transformers. How many transformers are there? How many feet should be cleared around each transformers? Someone tell them to clear the brushes and they clear the brushes all along the power line. I doubt there are sparks in the middle of the power line.
Hoping everyone in Northern and Southern California are ok. There has been discussion elsewhere about people affected by the evacuations getting extensions on applications.
My step sister and her husband who live in Auburn (east of Sacramento in the Sierra foothills) have been without power for a few days now. A childhood friend of H’s lives in Colfax which is just east of Auburn and they’ve been without power for a while as well. Luckily, both have generators! My stepsister said her local supermarket was giving away all perishable foods…
Who pays for the fire fighters? Does PG&E foot some of the bill or is it all on taxpayers? If it is all on taxpayers, there’s little incentive, financially that is, for PG&E to invest in fire safe power lines. Neglect the maintenance and save money and let someone else take care of the problem when fire breaks out?
While perhaps true, PG&E’s maintenance budget is controlled/approved by the state PUC, so the politicos set the safety rules. (PUC Commissioners are appointed by the Gov.)
Californians should be outraged and all responsible should be out of jobs.
UCLA has cancelled classes today.
Stanford students received a smoke advisory email last night. Hope it will not be a repeat of last year.