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California Power Companies Race to Upgrade Systems

Mike O'Sullivan

   LOS ANGELES -- The lights are back on through most of California, where
   two million people had their power cut last week in a precautionary
   effort to prevent wildfires. A heightened fire risk has left power
   companies racing to upgrade transmission systems, which sometimes spark
   the blazes.

   The power was deliberately cut through large swathes of Northern
   California, where Pacific Gas & Electric left 700,000 businesses and
   homes temporarily in the dark, some from October 9-12. 24,000 customers
   had their power cut by Southern California Edison, and for most, it was
   back within 24 hours.

   "A large part of the problem is climate change," said Severin
   Borenstein, a professor at the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley and
   faculty director of the school's Energy Institute.

   "Electricity lines have been starting fires for a century, but
   generally those fires were pretty small," he said. "What's changed, and
   we saw in a dramatic and horrible way in Paradise, California last
   year," he said, "is that the same sort of electric line failure can now
   cause a massive conflagration, which is that case killed 85 people."

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