California Wildfires

[klahanie]

Thoughts and prayers to our cousins in California affected by the wildfires.

I'm guilty of not having been paying too much attention to what's been happening until recently even tho we do get coverage of US news. But wow ! this is an incredible situation.

Trying times for so many people. Stay safe folks and Bless those helping in the service of others.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Thanks for your thoughts.
I live about 100 miles south of the fires but we do get a lot of the smoke.
Here on the Monterey Bay area we have been lucky so far about fires and blackouts.
The Napa/Sonoma area has been hit for several years now with bad fires.
It just doesn't end.
Frank

 

[klahanie]

The Napa/Sonoma area has been hit for several years now with bad fires.
It just doesn't end.

That's just it - or part of it. Seem to me there's often some disastrous natural event reported from CA, slides, fires etc. that a person outside can get inured to the news if they're not directly involved.

But now there are these power and communications black outs affecting how many people ? and the scale and distribution of the fires ? and, as you say, the continuity ? It's like what is going on.

I've been holding onto this notion, hoping really, prob like others my age and older that I might just get thru the rest of my days quietly - I've see enough change thank you. But this stuff is sobering.

Fortunately California has a lot going for it and a ton of resources, including it's people. If any country can meet change, CA should be it.

Praying things get better for you guys soon ...

 

[craig333]

I can understand not keeping up. Here in Sac we've had no power outages and little smoke this year. Its a tough issue. Some people say "just bury the wires" without a clue at what that would entail. Others say "controlled burns are the answer" without realizing just how difficult those are to do. I'd like to see housing in critical areas curtailed but politically I know that won't ever happen. All I can really say is if you live in fire prone areas you better have defensible space.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Klahanie thank you for your great thoughts.
Also Craig great views.
There really isn't one or two silver bullets.
Just be as prepared as possible especially if you live in a fire prone area.
We had a nice cabin in Dorrington but sold it after 30 years in 2014.
One of the reasons was the fire issue.and the maintenance of the space.
Only miss the area but we can camp along the 4 corridor.
Stay safe.
Frank

 

[craig333]

Just finished watching the netflix documentary Fire in Paradise Watch Fire in Paradise | Netflix Official Site.
Most of the footage I've seen already but this time with interviews with survivors, cops, firefighters etc.
Not an easy watch.

 

[ntsqd]

After the scary days of watching the Thomas Fire march past us ~1/2 mile to the North, the Easy Fire was only an irritant. Maria Fire is too close for comfort, came home early when they moved the mandatory evac boundary closer to us.

Nothing like getting home to assess the danger and seeing this out the back door:

Fortunately it looks like it's run out of fuel and now the wind has shifted and is blowing it back on itself.

 

[knoxswift]

SoCal resident...I live in the mountains and the last 5 years there hasn't been a year without fires. A small 2% of them are power related. The majority of fires here used to be dry lightning but that trend has changed to illegal campfires. A 65 square mile fire 2 years ago made it to within 1 mile of my town burned 100yr+ old forest and was the result of a illegal campfire...
There's a simple solution for the small % that are electrical but PSE&G refuse to do because it's money well spent...
My local electric company has been converting all lines with insulated lines but we still have our power turned off because our local company is fed from pseg....
It's a crazy mess going on here but I don't think the actual story is making it to the news....

 

[ntsqd]

I suspect that if you were to research the start of all of the power company's 'deferred maintenance' programs that you would find that starting time to coincide with the de-regulation. There were good reasons for power companies being gov't regulated monopolies. True, we pay less for power now, but look at what it has cost us.

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Yup. Dereg forced SCE to sell off most of its generating assets bought up by companies like Reliant Energy...one of several companies accused of manipulating the Cal energy crisis early this century. I agree, some industries need to be regulated due to public necessity and safety. I’m always suspicious of utility companies that worry about their stock price. I have more questions than answers, though.

 

[PaulT]

Has anyone informed the CPUC that they don’t regulate energy companies in California. They certainly claim that it is their job to do so.
[SIZE=12pt]https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/energy/[/SIZE]

Seriously, to what deregulation do you refer? As a non California resident, it appears that electrical energy is a regulated industry in California.

Uninformed in Oregon,
Paul

 

[ntsqd]

Deregulation was nationwide. I recall it happening under Reagan, I *think*. That doesn't mean that the utilities are un-regulated, just that they are significantly less regulated than they used to be. It also means that consumers can buy power from other vendors besides their local utility. I'm unclear on how exactly that works, but it was the promise of "de-regulation." And that is the root of the problem, with competition came cost-cutting measures to try to be competitive. That a utility has stock that is traded on Wall St. is a further sign that there is a problem. That whole street never seems to look beyond the next 1/4's returns, and they push HARD for short term results regardless of the long term costs or damage done to the business as a result.

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Couldn’t agree more! When you're more concerned about your investors rather than your customers there’s bound to be a problem and disconnect. Whatever happened to balance? Gordon Gecko is alive and well. ‍

 

[ski3pin]

Seriously, to what deregulation do you refer? As a non California resident, it appears that electrical energy is a regulated industry in California.

Uninformed in Oregon,
Paul

Paul, when Californians talk of deregulation, they are most likely remembering what happened in the early 2000's. The legislature passed a partial deregulation bill that was signed by Governor Pete Wilson in 1996. Lawmakers believed competition would lower costs. Instead, energy marketers such as Enron manipulated the market for short term massive monetary gain. Rate payer's prices were set but during peak energy use, utilities were forced to buy power at astronomical prices. Blackouts occurred. The crisis led to the bankruptcy of Pacific Gas & Electric and cost around $40-50 billion.

As wikipedia article can be found here -

California Energy Crisis


The current crisis is so multifaceted, I believe it fruitless to look for an easy smoking gun cause.

 

[PaulT]

I recall an attempt to control the energy monopolies that were vertically integrated. That is, some energy companies were essentially monopolies due to the fact that they produced the energy, transported it and delivered it to the end user. Natural gas and electricity are especially predisposed to this because there is only one gas pipeline or electrical power line from a distribution point to an individual house or business.
The delivery system is a "natural monopoly" because it is too expensive to have multiple power lines or gas pipelines going down the street to each user. With a vertically integrated energy provider, there is no incentive to compete on price because ithe customer s locked into whoever owns that last mile of the delivery system.
Deregulating the energy system by requiring the owner of the last mile to either divest themselves of the energy production or allowing other producers access to the bulk delivery system, allows a customer to buy their power from a cheaper producer, or "green producer', or a producer that is more "socially responsible" in the eyes of the end user.
This should have no impact on the responsibility for the other parts to meet safety and environmental mandates. A regulated monopoly is guaranteed a profit based on their justified costs of business at the expense of their loss of freedom to set prices to their benefit. If they need to remove brush and trees in the path of their power lines, that is an allowable expense that they can recover in the price of electricity.
Burying the power lines would also be an allowable expense to recover. There may, however, be other government mandates to not cut trees or remove brush for environmental or aesthetic reasons. Blaming the power company is easy but it will likely take court cases to resolve the responsibility issue. Remember that one can't sue the government without standing or, perhaps, its permission to be sued.

You are right. This is not a simple problem to resolve and there are many entities eager to point fingers away from themselves.

Paul