Blackouts Transparency

George Rebane

[This is the addended transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 9 September 2020.]

Two weeks ago in this commentary I discussed California’s blight of 3^rd-world country blackouts, and argued that the Power Shortage Blackouts were unnecessary and caused by incompetence at the highest levels of California’s state government.  The other kind of blackouts we are being trained to accept are the so-called Public Safety Power Shutoffs.  These blackouts, we are told, are necessary to prevent wildfires like the one that burned down the town of Paradise.  The real reason for such tragedies is that the power transmission lines which cross our forested mountains have not been properly maintained for decades.

Power companies like PG&E have prematurely focused on the administrative and political machinations involved with the mandated conversion to green power.  All this hullabaloo has been going as they have let their existing power lines deteriorate and become invaded by dangerously flammable foliage, waiting for a spark from a faulty connection or insulator to trigger the next disaster.  In short, our power utility mavens have ignored their existing infrastructure required for reliable power generation and delivery, in favor of new, more expensive, and insufficient means of providing electricity for California’s homes and businesses.

My native country of Estonia has a perfect piece of folk wisdom to avoid such problems small and large.  However, since its original salty translation may not be suitable for polite audiences, I will save it for the addendum to this commentary.  Setting that aside, we need to discuss another problem baked into today’s administration of Public Safety Power Shutoffs.  Our electrical grid is operated by the California Independent Systems Operator or CAISO, the organization that determines the amount of electricity available to the utilities and allocates it across the state.  The problem is that the current two-tiered system with CAISO on top has no effective oversight to prevent launching gratuitous power blackouts.

Today blackouts are scheduled by unelected and unsupervised technocrats, immune to public feedback or impact on our overall welfare.  The operating principle of these bureaucrats is simply another version of ‘CYA all the way’, which is always prevalent in self-preserving government bureaucracies.  The result is that it costs them nothing to turn off power more widely and for longer periods than is prudent.  These people will not suffer from excessive blackouts, but they may be liable professionally and institutionally if, God forbid, there is a wildfire later determined to have started by overgrown or overblown foliage due to the power utility’s poor and ignored maintenance of their distribution system.

Since there is collateral danger to life and limb from widespread power blackouts, it would make sense that oversight of these policies should be equivalent to the level of oversight that we have in place for other areas of public safety and welfare - everything from the adoption of new medicines, production and distribution of the food we eat, the safety of our transportation systems, and the design and manufacture of the various equipments we use and operate.  In short, with power shutoffs, a comprehensive view of public safety involves more than just wildfire prevention.

An approach to better management of blackouts would involve making the entire process transparent.  Today, we know nothing of the actual wildfire threat levels and the process used to determine where, when, and for how long power needs to be shut off.  The public is treated more or less like one huge potted plant, with regard to its overall concerns, when word comes down that power blackouts will be implemented over some indeterminate regions and time periods.  We are just told to suck it up and bear the pain, because it’s for our own good.

I think many of us would feel much more comfortable if the criteria for all mandated power blackouts would be made a matter of public record, and that there would be an independent group of appropriately qualified members of the public to oversee and report how these criteria are applied.  For openers, our legislature could pass a law to alleviate the bureaucrats’ ‘CYA all the way’ method of doing business, and then look into what is required for an effective oversight effort to reduce the number and duration of power blackouts in California.

My name is Rebane, and I also expand on this and related themes on Rebane’s Ruminations where the addended transcript of this commentary is posted with relevant links, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However, my views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.

[Addendum]  There are around 250 trees that PG&E has identified as hazardous to their powerlines in Nevada City.  The utility wants to cut them down or pare them back in order to alleviate the fire danger and harm to transmission lines.  However, the local leftwing eco-nazis are opposed, they want to ‘protect the trees and the city’s natural beauty’.  Tonight the city council will decide whether Nevada City is prepared to assume the liability for subsequent damage and destruction should they deny permission for the removal of the trees. (more here)

And here again comes into play the overarching ‘government is guilty until proven innocent’ principle.  An example of how the slow, stifling hand of government operates is seen in how long it took for butt stupid foliage maintenance policies to be removed.  Congressman LaMalfa reports that “under previous law, it could take months for utilities to receive Forest Service or BLM approval to remove hazardous trees from transmission lines rights-of-way, even if trees are already in contact with electric transmission lines.”

LaMalfa has been an active champion for solving northern California’s agricultural, wildlife, and environmental problems.  “When my legislation was signed into law in 2018, it gave the USFS and utilities the ability to streamline the process of removal of dead or dying trees in danger of falling on a power line. I’m very pleased to see the Forest Service taking the next step by implementing this bipartisan language with their newly proposed rule. It’s just common sense to manage vegetation near electrical infrastructure. It is instrumental in helping to avoid wildfires in rural areas resulting from power line contact and the resulting blackouts to urban and rural electricity city users. The government should already be taking these kinds of steps in the first place, but previous law restricted responsible vegetation management practices, and the health and safety of our forests and rural regions suffer as a result – as we’ve seen in recent weeks with public safety power shutoffs impacting thousands of residents in Northern California. My legislation helps to correct that. I thank Forest Service Chief Vicki Christiansen for taking this important action to improve fire safety in our rural areas and energy reliability for rural and urban Americans.” (more here)

Finally, an old Estonian proverb that has served us well for some considerable time is ‘Don’t shit in the old well until the new one’s dug.’  Back before WW2 on farms it was the practical custom when a well ran dry or had to be abandoned for some reason, that the old well would become the new latrine with an outhouse constructed over it.  (I suspect the same was done here in America.)  Most of Estonia is flat with a shallow water table, so digging a new well was no big deal, you were almost certain to strike water within three or four meters, but not always.  So it was prudent not to repurpose the old well a bit too soon while the new well was still being excavated.  I was about eight when my dad was able to provide me with that life-enduring lesson.

PS.  It is now 215pm on Wednesday, and our power has been out since 10pm Monday night.  Helicopters have been flying around here earlier, apparently checking power lines in built-up areas.  Tree contractors have been trimming trees near power lines in built-up areas for over a year now.  In built-up areas any foliage induced fire would be quickly extinguished because people live there and would report it instantly.  So I'm still waiting for someone to explain why the current policy of built-up area public safety blackouts is continued.

Comments

[Gary Smith]

Political Safety Power Shutoffs are continuing because the corrupt Sacramento machine wants more money out of PG&E. They gave over $4 mil last year to the majority of our state legislators. Gov Newsom hauled in $200k and both party machines hauled in about $1 mil. What did they get for their money? Release from bankruptcy again, ratepayers contributing to a new bailout fund, and partial liability protection. What PG&E really wanted was total liability protection from any screw up. So now both sides are in a standoff. Our corrupt Sacramento crowd is pretty smart. Why would you want to give PG&E everything all at once when you can keep getting milk from the cow? We rate payers have a part to play in this sick game. We need to complain loud and large about PG&E to our Sacramento legislators. Then they can give in to PG&E and play the victim, what else could do but give in to PG&E? The politicians get their CYA and more campaign cash and we get the shaft again.

[Show-Me Kid]

So, Mr. Smith, how much did Brian Dahle and Megan Dahle each received from PG&E for their election runs?

[Gary Smith]

Show-me-kid, that is more research than I would want to do. You would need to go into the states campaign disclosure website and add it all up. A simple google search would give you an idea. There are several articles on Brian Dahle and PG&E, mostly when he was running against Kevin Kiley. The dollar amount quoted in those might be suspect.

[Bill Tozer]

HOW GREEN ENERGY WRECKED CALIFORNIA

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2020/09/how-green-energy-wrecked-california.php

[scenes]

I was thinking about power outages this morning. My knowledge of things electric is fairly limited, but was wondering...

. Nearly all the really loud generators in the towns are of the permanently installed standby variety. What happens when everyone is told to shut off their $10k-$15k investment every night for noise mitigation?
. What happens when every home in an area has a natgas generator. Is there enough capacity in the system to run them all?
. Thousands of generators being fiddled with has to result in higher fire danger than energized lines. True or false?
. Generator setups don't seem to deal well with the variable usage in a home. Larger portable units require a boatload of gas, small inverter units (plenty for night time in most cases) can't be easily hooked directly to a house because they are 110v (and two ganged together are still 110v). Turning everything off at night is a bummer plus I'm not real big on freezers being down for 10 hours.
. You need some real power for whole house A/C (3500 watts / ton?).
. Solar panels with no serious batteries don't do you much good.
. Batteries aren't there yet anyway.
. My guess is that a lot of these standby units will go tango uniform in 8 years when they are really needed. Wait a month for the repair guy.

Of course, in the meantime, the following people are trying to burn down the area.
. Folks who won't let PG&E cut down holy trees.
. Your neighbor who won't clear their yard.
. Homeless people with 'warming fires'.
. Some serious general clearing that needs doing.
. PG&E
. Arsonists, Antifa and otherwise, in the Year of the Crazy People