[HN Gopher] PG&E will bury 10k miles of power lines so they don'...
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PG&E will bury 10k miles of power lines so they don't spark
wildfires
Author : boulos
Score : 310 points
Date : 2021-07-22 04:44 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| goler wrote:
| Are the associated costs passed to ratepayers at cost or is there
| some allowance for a positive investment return for PG&E
| shareholders?
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| In theory rate hikes have to go through California regulators
| but, at the same time, the company is allowed a certain rate of
| return.
|
| In practice I have no clue how it works out though.
| tomrod wrote:
| Typically in markets like CA and TX you will have a rate case
| go to the public utility commission. I'm more familiar with
| Texas' approach (it was a data source for my dissertation);
| the idea is to let the companies charge enough to cover
| reasonable costs.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| Shouldn't "won't be sued for negligence" cover the investment,
| given that they know their equipment is a fire hazard?
| jlmorton wrote:
| No, it won't, because PG&E doesn't have the money to do this,
| and the company is already majority-owned by the PG&E Fire
| Victim Trust after emerging from bankruptcy.
|
| There are no rich shareholders to foist the costs on. No
| investors are going to pay tens of billions of dollars, more
| profit than PG&E generated over several decades, to pay for
| 10% of the electric wires to be buried. If there were any
| investors on the hook for this, they would simply declare
| bankruptcy and walk away.
|
| The only option here is that the costs are paid by
| ratepayers, or taxpayers. There is no other option available.
| black_puppydog wrote:
| I see, thanks for explaining. That would have made for a
| nice addition to the article. :)
|
| IMHO an infrastructure of this size & importance might just
| as well be state owned, but I guess rate hikes will also
| do. As long as there is some mechanism to help (yes,
| probably with tax money) those who might not be able to
| afford them...
| IgorPartola wrote:
| A federal grant might work too. Wildfires on this scale
| affect more than just Californians.
| amotinga wrote:
| in that case why have owners at all? it should basically be
| nationalized then. otherwise taxpayer paying the cost
| without really reaping profits (if there are/will be any)
| stickfigure wrote:
| Because government-run electric utilities are a mixed bag
| too. "Public" utility monopolies like PG&E are an attempt
| to get some of the benefits of a market system from what
| is fundamentally a government service. The utility can
| raise money from investors, who expect a modest but
| stable return. In theory, the profit motive gives the
| utility an incentive to keep costs in check.
|
| It's far from perfect, but actually-public utilities are
| responsible for a lot of disasters too. It's not obvious
| that nationalizing PG&E would be good for anyone.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Except they have regulated profit margins - it's cost-
| plus. So they have an incentive to make everything as
| expensive as possible to maximize their take. And the
| CPUC rubber stamps everything the utilities ask for.
|
| CA has some of the most expensive electricity in the
| nation. So it doesn't seem like the idea worked out.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| California winds up being in the middle for avg money
| residents spend on household energy, but mostly because
| they don't use AC or heat very much.
| https://wallethub.com/edu/energy-costs-by-state/4833
| zbrozek wrote:
| Sure, but I said most expensive electricity, not highest
| monthly bills.
| stickfigure wrote:
| You'll have to verify this yourself, but my understanding
| is that there is no clear winner on the public choice
| issue of public vs private electrical. There are well-run
| and poorly-run examples on both sides.
|
| In PG&E's defense, it's not literally cost-plus, and the
| CPUC doesn't always rubber stamp everything. Imagining
| the government alternative, what would really be
| different? There will still be a big bureaucratic
| organization full of imperfect humans with muddy
| incentives and limited resources. Would PG&E be better if
| the board of directors was appointed by politicians
| instead of elected by shareholders? I doubt it.
| refurb wrote:
| I can't find it now but a while back someone posted the meeting
| minutes from the CA PUC review of PG&E's budget. It had stuff
| like "request to replace chain link fence for $175k - denied"
| and it was a 1,000+ page document.
|
| PG&E has to get approval for their spend from the PUC and for
| any rate hikes.
| boringg wrote:
| I assume the liability costs far outweigh costs to
| upgrade/operational costs. Likely will ratebase a bunch of this
| work as well. That and they might just get kicked of business by
| the CPUC if they didn't manage their risk profiles more
| effectively.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| We are beginning to see the real costs of Global warming, the
| exact thing activists were bull horning about and the same thing
| corporations were denying.
| mikewarot wrote:
| Mostly we're seeing the costs of not managing forest in a
| sustainable manner. But, yes, climate change is making that
| stupidity worse.
| shusaku wrote:
| The costs of not managing forests well, the costs of building
| cities so close to the ocean, the cost of growing food in
| what is now a desert, the cost of having population centers
| in areas which reach 50 degrees in the summer, global warming
| is going to "uncover" quite a lot of costs.
| loopz wrote:
| Not to mention warming and acidication of the oceans:
|
| https://www.quora.com/When-will-the-world-s-oceans-lose-
| thei...
|
| https://www.noaa.gov/education/resource-collections/ocean-
| co...
|
| https://knowledge.insead.edu/blog/insead-blog/the-ocean-
| cann...
| nickysielicki wrote:
| https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf
|
| https://www.fs.fed.us/psw/publications/mckelvey/mckelvey3.pd...
|
| Look at figure 41.2 in the second pdf.
|
| Wildfires are not historically worse than they have ever been.
| You're falling victim to recency bias. You can _absolutely_
| credibly claim that wildfires are not more or less common than
| they have been historically, it 's all in the noise. The
| activists have not been proven right, and the corporations have
| not been proven wrong.
|
| edit: note that I'm not denying the existence of climate change
| nor denying that it may eventually have an effect on forest
| fires. I'm merely claiming that the data does not support what
| you're saying.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| Even a cursory reading of both the documents that _you_
| present shows the following points.
|
| 1. While the number of fires have reduced, the total area
| consumed by fires is still rising. 2. The average area fired
| up is increasing at an alarming rate (Fig. 41.3, still upto
| 2000 only.) Refer the first document. Fig. I, the trend in
| forest fire area affected is increasing, from about 2 million
| acres in 1990 to about 10 million acres in 2020.
|
| Also, fig 41.2 is data from 1908 to 1988.
|
| Edit : Please see the 10 million acre figure in the first
| PDF. Think of the enormous costs related to containing the
| fire. The data is not in isolation. Fire-fighting techniques
| and costs have to be taken into account.
|
| https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2015-Fire-
| Budget...
|
| This document from US govt explains how much they are
| spending fighting forest fires. Budget for wildfire
| management rose from 15% in 1995 to about 52% in 2015, with
| more increase projected upto 2025.
|
| Also, the cost of wildfires is enormous.
|
| https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Publications-and-
| medi...
| boulos wrote:
| I'm going to assume good faith, but Figure 41.2 only has data
| through 1992 (the paper is from 1995). 30-ish years of
| hotter, drier seasons might change that picture.
|
| In fact, Figure 1 in your first pdf says just that: the
| "count" of fires is similar to that in 1991, but the area
| burned has more than tripled.
|
| _That_ is what people are talking about: the past few years
| have had mega fires and "complex fires".
| wonnage wrote:
| On top of the other responses, I don't think the two sources
| use comparable data to begin with. The first source says that
| there were ~2m acres burned in both of 1991 and 1992, whereas
| the latter peaks at 100 k/ha, which converts to about 240k
| acres, nowhere near 2m.
| kumarvvr wrote:
| The second document is only related to forest service. Does
| not include other types of lands.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents._ "
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| account4mypc wrote:
| Off topic, but how do underground power lines stay cool? I always
| thought long distance powerlines got really hot.
| elric wrote:
| Above ground "High Temperature, Low Sag" cables can reach
| 200degC. Underground cables can still go up to 90degC, which is
| still flamin' hot. They're usually buried at least 1 meter
| deep, which gives the heat a decent chance to dissipate. But in
| those areas with high chances of fires, I'd be wary all the
| same :-/.
|
| Of course, the above mostly applies to high voltage & high
| current situations, think 150kV, 300MVA monster connections. I
| doubt PG&E manages 10k miles of high voltage power lines. If
| we're talking residential interconnections, there won't be any
| issues burying those.
| niffydroid wrote:
| I would have thought they'd need to put sections of cooling in,
| if not maybe they have some form of oil or other liquid to help
| dissipate the heat? I thought one of the many reasons why the
| UK still does overhead between chunks of the grid is for
| cooling and easier maintenance.
| giantg2 wrote:
| So what burial equipment or service providers do we buy calls on?
| morpheos137 wrote:
| I don't understand why it is not just cheaper to clear the above
| ground rights of way. There are multiple reasons why transmission
| lines are not typically underground. The 240 from the pole to the
| house sure. The 240k from the plant to your local substation not
| so much.
|
| Subterrainian cables are more expensive and less energy efficient
| than aerials. High capacitive losses, higher maintenance and
| installation costs, more expensive shielding and jacketing
| materials needed.
| thedougd wrote:
| Take the opportunity to burry empty conduit with it and lease it
| to telcos.
| agilob wrote:
| I don't know technicalities, but we have this in Wales. There
| are tunnels on top of which we have railways. The tunnels have
| power cables and fiberoptic cables. Sometimes they flood in
| west-mid Wales, last I know and remember was 2012 and we
| (Aberystwyth, Machynlleth) route internet traffic to North
| Wales or Ireland instead to Birmingham.
| thedougd wrote:
| In my region, they mostly run this new, flexible plastic
| conduit with horizontal borers or a piercing tool. They'll
| dig holes several feet deep and dozens of feet apart. In one
| hole they start this tool and it digs its way horizontally to
| the next hole. From what I've seen, the conduit effortlessly
| follows. I'm sure geology makes a difference.
|
| Here's a marketing video for one of these piercing tools:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=26&v=Hs3C2LMzSPg
| dd36 wrote:
| Good idea. Maybe even get The Boring Company to make usable
| tunnels.
| repiret wrote:
| I was under the impression that the higher dielectric
| permittivity of soil made it impractical to bury AC transmission
| lines. Are they switching to DC while they're at it? Is there
| some other solution? Are the problems caused by high permittivity
| overblown?
| AriedK wrote:
| https://research.tudelft.nl/en/publications/technical-perfor...
| Good read if you're interested in the technicalities. They do
| bury high voltage (380kV) AC lines, sometimes even construct a
| tunnel for them, but I doubt they'll do that in this case.
| unishark wrote:
| Very possible, unless there's some other trick nowadays. AC
| does not go far underground or under water, but high voltage DC
| can be used for much longer distances.
| morpheos137 wrote:
| The cables can be thick jacketed with a dialectrict and
| heavily shielded with copper tape or braid or similar
| material and the jacket and shielding limits the leakage but
| makes the cable much more expensive to manufacture and
| install.
| sunstone wrote:
| I was wondering the same thing. HVDC is 'an under the radar'
| technology that is set to rework a lot of the grid world wide.
| With projects underway to send power from Australia to
| Singapore or Iceland to the UK it's likely to turn up in many
| places, even California.
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| This will at least relieve PG&E from responsibility of causing
| wild fires.
|
| BUT it won't stop wild fires if forest maintenance continues to
| remain unfunded by the California state government!
|
| Putting lines underground definitely will also increase
| maintenance costs - that's why overhead lines get used in the
| first place. So electricity rates will remain higher as well.
| rexreed wrote:
| "Great they are doing this" but passing the cost on to their
| customers, who will foot the bill for it. So maybe you should
| thank the PG&E customers who will end up paying for it.
| indymike wrote:
| > "Great they are doing this" but passing the cost on to their
| customers, who will foot the bill for it
|
| It's probably worth it to the customers, too. So much so that
| PG&E's survival is in question if they don't start taking fire
| safety super-seriously.
| lupire wrote:
| Most PG&E customers don't live in fire zones, though.
| njarboe wrote:
| I would say most of them do. Look at a satellite map of the
| Bay Area. Most cities are built right up against forested
| areas that I would call fire zones. The Santa Rosa fire and
| the Oakland hills fire were quite large and burned
| thousands of homes in urban areas, but started in forested
| areas nearby. Saying people should stop building in the
| forest and stay in cities will prevent the problems when
| the forests burn forget that most of the cities in
| California are next to forests that burn (Bay Area, Los
| Angeles, etc.). I guess we could clear cut those.
| 8note wrote:
| Or charge the PG&E customers for the various forest fires their
| electrical consumption has caused
| baby wrote:
| I'm not sure I get your point.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27918330.
| pradn wrote:
| The customers use the electricity they generate. Who else would
| pay for it?
| titzer wrote:
| Meanwhile, in Germany, they've been burying powerlines for over a
| century so the entire country doesn't look like ass.
| icpmoles wrote:
| For the high voltage lines Germany is pretty much still at less
| than 10%.
|
| https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Statistics-of-AC-Under...
| rmason wrote:
| I have what I think is a legitimate question. Wouldn't it be an
| order of magnitude cheaper just to clear all the trees 120 feet
| either side of the power line? Plant the cleared land to alfalfa
| and solicit bids from farmers to harvest it every year.
| Animats wrote:
| This is for what utilities call "medium voltage" distribution
| (1KV to 35KV), not high tension towers. These are the cables
| you see around your neighborhood, upstream of the pole
| transformer. They're usually not insulated other than by
| airspace. Clearcutting around those would wipe out the trees in
| most residential areas.
|
| The big high tension towers go through clear-cut rights of way.
|
| The big headache is not burying cable. If there's nothing else
| in the ground, that's not too hard. It's working around water
| lines, sewer lines, gas lines, driveways, phone, data, cable
| TV...
| dfsegoat wrote:
| What you describe is essentially the program they had in place
| already. Maybe not 120 feet, but certainly some distance. They
| hire contract helicopters year round to survey lines, and task
| crews to clear brush. I live in Sonoma County, CA [1,2,3] - so
| we see the effort.
|
| I think you might also be underestimating the scale of the
| power infrastructure in CA. The hydro etc. power generators in
| the north of the state are located in extremely remote areas.
|
| My brother was a consulting engineer for PG&E in Northern CA,
| on a lot of their Hydropower infrastructure - most of the
| generation sites were only accessible by humans with helicopter
| flights, or 2-3 hr drives on poorly maintained roads. The
| transmission lines are not really accessible except by
| helicopter survey.
|
| 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNU_Lightning_Complex_fires
|
| 2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Fire
|
| 3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubbs_Fire
| SOMA_BOFH wrote:
| it may be hard work but it's necessary.
| smt88 wrote:
| That would destroy thousands of miles of wildlife habitat, and
| it would certainly cover some private property too.
|
| Plus you'd have to do it regularly, not once.
| carpdiem wrote:
| Not really. Trees are actually somewhat hard to burn, so most
| wildfires start by catching dry underbrush on fire instead. So
| in this case, that would just be the alfalfa.
|
| Key to remember is that power lines can spark when they're
| damaged by winds (which can lead to the lines themselves being
| close enough to the ground for the spark to traverse to the
| underbrush).
| lazide wrote:
| Probably not. A lot of this land is in remote areas with no
| irrigation, steep, rocky, or otherwise difficult to manage.
|
| No one is interested in farming alfalfa on 25% slopes with
| rocks 6" under any topsoil and massive trees to clear before it
| would even be usable.
| zombie357 wrote:
| As someone who can see the Dixie fire column daily, had family
| evac'd by the Bear fire last year (basically burned 100K+ acre
| area just SW of the Dixie), and lives 10 minutes from Paradise
| (the town mentioned in the article), most of the PGE right-of-
| ways do look like freeways now through the forest, little to no
| under story growth. I believe they're limited to how far out
| they can go due to easements.
|
| To add, basically the last 4 years has been the burnout of a
| huge swath of forest in this area between the Camp fire, Bear
| fire, and now the Dixie fire, not to mention the many "small"
| fires that were caught/didn't get established. The majority of
| land between highway 32 to the La Porte/Quincy highway has
| burned. Don't have a good estimate since I'm on my phone, but
| 100s of square miles of mostly back country forest. Both the
| Camp and Bear fires made 10-15 mile runs in one day, and
| Dixie's put up massive pyrocumulonimbus pretty much every day
| this week.
|
| Edit to add: it's also been incredibly dry, most of June-July
| has been upper 90s-low 100s, with a few 110+ periods. Humidity
| has also been extremely low, in the afternoons 8-12%. Even
| overnight it only recovers up to 40-45%. Higher elevations are
| cooler, but not so much that it mitigates, so the forest is
| pretty tinderbox right now. Once it's lit it's hard to put out.
| tjr225 wrote:
| ...and? Why did you create an account 27 minutes ago to post
| this? Sincerely curious.
| nightfly wrote:
| There are several (many?) posters on here who create a new
| throwaway account every time they say anything
| garmaine wrote:
| Or maybe just one.
| coding123 wrote:
| Did you have a first post too?
| nostrademons wrote:
| S/he has useful and relevant information to add to the
| discussion. Why not?
| shmageggy wrote:
| The only relevant part out of the whole multi paragraph
| thing was this one sentence
|
| > _most of the PGE right-of-ways do look like freeways
| now through the forest, little to no under story growth._
|
| I read the whole thing waiting for a point but there
| wasn't one. Just a waste of time. We already know the
| fires are bad, and that isn't relevant to the thread
| anyways.
| dntrkv wrote:
| Plumas Forest is one of my favorite parts of CA to explore,
| so these fires have been difficult to watch. My favorite
| place to camp is this remote spot on the Feather River,
| luckily it hasn't been touched by the fires yet, but it's
| only a matter of time now I guess. Do you own property out
| there? If so, what kinds of things have you done to your
| property to prepare for the now seemingly inevitable?
| hestefisk wrote:
| We did this in Denmark many, many years ago. It is also
| significantly cheaper to maintain as you no longer need to manage
| vegetation around the powerlines, perform pole / cross-arm
| inspection etc. In some countries the main hesitation to
| underground cabling for transmission lines has been up front cost
| as well as unions (=less maintenance, less work).
| gaoshan wrote:
| The upfront cost is why we don't generally do this in the US.
| If we looked at it from a 50 year perspective we'd (probably)
| do it in a heartbeat but we aren't very good at that sort of
| planning ahead.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Yes and no. It's a power company that owns the right-of-way
| where there lines are located. They will still keep that land
| cleared of any vegetation they don't want. I'm honestly
| surprised they don't just use RoundUp over the entire area of
| their right-of-way.
| Upitor wrote:
| Did what exactly? Most the transmission grid at least is
| overhead lines in Denmark. In fact, it is said that putting
| more than 15% of transmissions lines underground would be
| irresponsible due to physical limitations of AC lines, which
| corrupts the transmission system.
| urthor wrote:
| Imagine it was significantly cheaper if you measured it over a
| 3+ year time-span.
|
| Not over a 1-2 year time-span.
|
| The unwillingness of corporations to minimize OpEx by taking on
| significant one-time CapEx, in order to pretty the books, lives
| on in so many domains.
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| Another important factor is that highly regulated local
| monopolies like power companies may have certain restrictions
| like only being able to charge a certain % over cost. Well,
| you'd much rather have 5% of a large number than a small
| number, so you're incentivized to do the more expensive long
| term thing.
| lazide wrote:
| It definitely explains a lot of what PG&E has done
| sometimes - maximum inefficiency and cost in some areas,
| incredibly (long term destructive) cheap in others.
| QuercusMax wrote:
| Health insurance has been doing this too.
| bcrl wrote:
| Minimizing OpEx is one of the main drivers of telcos to
| switch to fibre. Companies like Bell Canada are telling their
| shareholders that network maintenance costs will drop as
| copper is decommissioned and services are migrated to fibre.
| hattmall wrote:
| If they were managing the vegetation the wildfires wouldn't
| really be an issue though. It's California though so know doubt
| a friend of some PGE board member just started a company that
| buries power lines at an exorbitant cost.
| bastardoperator wrote:
| They've been doing this in California for the last 40+ years.
| PG&E is just a prime example of why de-regulation doesn't work.
| LADWP which is a publicly owned utility ran the Scattergood-
| Olympic Transmission Line (11 miles) under the city nearly 5
| years ago and LADWP actually generates revenue for the city of
| Los Angeles. Honestly, PG&E needs to die in bankruptcy court.
| eastbayjake wrote:
| I thought it was significantly more expensive to bury high-
| voltage transmission lines because the current corrodes the
| insulation needed to bury the lines, so you have to dig up and
| replace every 20-30 years. I was actually quite surprised to
| learn that above-ground transmission lines in the US are
| _uninsulated_ for this reason.
| nate_meurer wrote:
| No, the insulation in a solid dielectric transmission lines
| is cross-linked polyethylene, or paper in fluid-cooled lines.
| Lines are designed to operate well within the thermal
| capabilities of the insulation, and there is no such thing as
| routine replacement of undamaged underground lines.
|
| Above-ground transmission lines are uninsulated because they
| don't need to be, and the extra weight of the insulation
| would require more expensive towers.
| bluGill wrote:
| 20 years ago my local power company did the math and discovered
| underground was more expensive to maintain. Underground you
| don't need to maintain vegetation, but the lines break more
| often, and are a lot more expensive to replace.
|
| This obviously depends on local conditions. Where I lived then
| there was plenty of water so starting a large fire was not
| possible. The plenty of water also meant the ground wasn't
| stable. Of course they did need to maintain vegetation, but
| that is a known cost.
| cpascal wrote:
| I'm interested what would cause underground cables to break
| more often. Is it people not "calling before you dig" and
| accidentally severing them or is it something else?
| cube00 wrote:
| Rodents enjoy chewing on them and the chemicals they use to
| discourage them only last so long.
| brianwawok wrote:
| Code is for me to bury little tiny cables in my backyard
| 24" down. These giant mega cables have to be at least 36"
| down, right? Are rodents going 36" deep and eating into
| cables really a thing?
| dylan604 wrote:
| at 15,000 volts or whatever, that rodent will only do
| that once
| lazide wrote:
| Ground moves, especially in California. Sometimes it's
| subsidence, sometimes landslides, sometimes it's seismic
| related, sometimes it's frost heave or the like. Properly
| studied and buried (with proper backfill) usually is
| protected, but big enough changes will cause problems.
|
| Throw in backhoes, erosion, etc. along with it being more
| expensive to fix when it does break, and overall it isn't
| always guaranteed buried will be cheaper maintenance wise.
| bluGill wrote:
| The slightest crack will allow ground water in shorting out
| the wires. Cracks are somewhat common after a few years
| because the ground moves via the yearly freeze-thaw cycles
| we have up north.
| [deleted]
| jefurii wrote:
| Good thing we don't really have any more ground water in
| California. /s
| nate_meurer wrote:
| It would be pretty ridiculous if a little water could
| short out a buried transmission line. Do you really think
| generations of engineers haven't figured out how to
| protect buried lines from ground water?
|
| I don't know what PG&E will use in this case, but all
| buried power and transmission lines lines are robust
| against water infiltration. Solid-dielectric cables are
| rated for direct burial, and cooled lines are encased in
| steel conduit. Both types are sometimes further protected
| in concrete.
| bluGill wrote:
| Engineers encase the cables in rubber or plastic, which
| degrades over time. Or steel pipes which rust over time.
| there are things we can do about this, but they just add
| time. When you only have a little bit of cable odds are
| it lasts, when you have thousands of km odds are there
| will be constant problems.
| orzig wrote:
| This is very valuable information if true, can you provide
| some sort of references?
| abduhl wrote:
| It's pretty common sense. Underground breaks cost more to
| fix because you have to dig the line up both to find the
| problem and fix it. Above ground problems are visible while
| underground problems are invisible.
|
| Not to mention that above ground lines have slack between
| poles while underground lines are pulled relatively taut.
| Any shifting in the ground is going to result in a break
| underground before a break above ground. Above ground lines
| are also better founded because the poles are sitting on
| foundations or driven deep so their ability to resist
| ground motion is a bit better while electric lines move
| with the ground around them pretty much in sync. This is
| particularly important in seismically active areas like CA
| but underground infrastructure actually typically performs
| better in actual seismic events.
| mattferderer wrote:
| Another 2 cents. Drones are very popular for being able
| to quickly look at above ground lines. You can easily &
| quickly determine if parts are in need of repair or soon
| will be. I don't know if a similar thing exists in
| underground without building some type of complex tunnel
| system.
| lostcolony wrote:
| "Common sense" does not always equate to facts or
| relevance.
|
| While, yes, the cost to dig up a line is likely to be
| higher than the cost to repair a hanging line, that's
| just one cost and consideration. Economic loss due to
| wildfire as well as rolling brownouts to try and avoid
| wildfire are both costs you'd need to consider. You also
| have the cost to maintain vegetation around powerlines,
| vs basically no pre-emptive maintenance on buried lines
| (and little to no weathering).
|
| And you, of course, have differing likelihoods of the
| line breaking in any case, which means the per-fix cost
| is only part of that picture. Lots of potential reasons,
| but I'd be curious to see a full study on those reasons
| for both above ground and below ground, their potential
| solutions, and their potential costs, but without that
| you have a very fuzzy picture.
| abduhl wrote:
| Why would you have to consider all these costs you're
| talking about when it's been made clear that these power
| companies will not be allowed to fail and will be bailed
| out by the government (but never taken over because
| they're a convenient whipping boy)?
| bastardoperator wrote:
| When you're getting hit with class action lawsuits and
| killing people left and right, I don't think the math
| adds up. If the electrical lines were underground PG&E
| stock wouldn't have dropped from 70 dollars a share to 9
| which reminds me
|
| "lo barato siempre es mas caro"
|
| The cheap is always more expensive.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| You don't have to dig up the entire line to find a break.
| This is a common misconception. Signal reflection can be
| used to determine the distance to a break.
|
| see: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-
| domain_reflectometer
| bluGill wrote:
| You still have to dig it up to fix it.
| xtat wrote:
| PG&E is a criminal enterprise- no love until they restructure
| from the top down.
| ttul wrote:
| It's almost as if there needs to be some form of tax on carbon
| emissions to help pay for mitigation of the effects of climate
| change.
| breck wrote:
| Love it! My vision of the future has all power lines buried.
| Mostly thinking in the cities but fire prevention is a plus as
| well.
|
| If anyone has any leads on startups or innovators in the
| tunneling space please share or each out!
| grecy wrote:
| When talking visions of the future, aim higher - get rid of the
| power lines altogether.
|
| Every building should have it's entire footprint as solar
| panels, and enough batteries to last the night. Imagine all the
| money saved on power lines and maintenance of them. Especially
| in sunny California this is a no-brainier.
| gizmondo wrote:
| That saves no money at all, because you still need it for the
| cloudy day or week.
| zbrozek wrote:
| Or use a generator when that happens. At my place that
| would be a week or two per year.
| epistasis wrote:
| Even cloudy days produce power. Charging the car at a grid
| connected point instead of at home would probably shift
| enough usage to last a week.
| jlmorton wrote:
| I mean, obviously everyone desires to have the power lines
| buried, the issue is that it costs something like $250 billion
| dollars to do it in California alone.
| randmeerkat wrote:
| https://www.boringcompany.com/
| leecb wrote:
| > My vision of the future has all power lines buried.
|
| Singapore already has already achieved this. It's actually
| quite pleasant to not have any overhead lines.
|
| They are currently replacing the main electricity distribution
| cables that run under roads, and replacing them with a system
| that runs in tunnels 60m underground. This depth is necessary
| to avoid other systems like the subway(MRT) that run at
| shallower depths.
| https://www.todayonline.com/singapore/deepest-tunnels-spore-...
| baxinho0312 wrote:
| Works for distribution networks for households in the cities,
| but but for high voltage transmission lines.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Many urban areas in the USA have buried power lines. I moved
| last year from Bellevue WA to Ballard in Seattle WA, one of
| the first things I noticed in my new home are all the power
| lines around us (they are mostly buried in Bellevue and much
| of the east side). Fairly sure the Bay Area is roughly the
| same (Palo Alto must right?), but I don't have any anecdotes
| to go on.
| breck wrote:
| Fascinating. Thanks for the link! I remember from a visit to
| Singapore a decade ago the fantastic subway and all the
| underground malls, but had no idea how advanced their tunnels
| were. Thanks!
| lorenzhs wrote:
| This is not some magical high-tech vision that only exists in
| Singapore. It's been this way for many decades in built-up
| areas of most of Western Europe -- mostly it's just overland
| high-voltage lines that are above ground. My grandfather used
| to tell the story of how his American visitors were always
| curious where the power in his house came from (this was
| probably in the 60s or 70s) and amazed when he showed them
| the connection in the basement. It amused him to no end.
|
| 82% of Germany's power lines are buried:
| https://www.iwr.de/ticker/lange-leitungen-82-prozent-der-
| str... (in German). This figure includes everything from low-
| voltage lines to houses to high-voltage distribution lines.
| baxinho0312 wrote:
| Burying high voltage power lines presents several technical
| challenges on its own - the type and thickness of the
| insulation had to be able to withstand the dielectric stress
| which is normally solved by using enough distance between the
| wires themselves and the ground for the typical high voltage
| power line. Another problem is increased capacitive load due to
| the higher capacitance of the lines which causes
| problems/completely makes the switchgear to not be able to
| perform switching/breaking operations. Capacitive load then
| needs to be compensated to improve the networks power factor,
| cos phi. This is typically done by introducing expensive
| equipment to the network configuration like shunt reactors or
| static synchronous compensators. It is also typically more
| expensive to have and maintain a underground cable than an
| overhead power line
| thaumaturgy wrote:
| Two more issues are water tables (although those have been
| falling rapidly across much of California over the last few
| years) and seismic activity -- not just the big quake sort,
| but also the usual few cm a year of movement in opposite
| directions sort.
|
| I suspect that this is going to be an engineering project on
| the scale of the mythical California high-speed rail, and
| with the same life cycle. PG&E especially has a track record
| of misusing funds for upgrades and maintenance.
| maCDzP wrote:
| If you are interested in this space you can just search for
| "trenchless electrical conduit". A company that makes a lot of
| equipment is https://www.herrenknecht.com/en/
| ManBlanket wrote:
| Are we just going to ignore the fact wildfires are a natural
| occurrence and the entire reason we're experiencing catastrophic
| wildfires now is from decades of obsessively preventing every
| fire? Not saying we should go around creating fire hazards but
| compared to efforts to mitigate fuel overload by thinning and
| controlled burns, burying some power lines is a drop in a bucket
| barely worth mentioning. Utility corporations don't do things out
| of the kindness of their hearts. Guarantee PG&E are doing this
| for some kind of maintenance, tax, social, or litigious
| incentive. It certainly has more to do with the bottom line and
| their PR department is trying to spin it as some altruistic BS.
| Why are we jerking them off over this when if California's
| forests were properly managed a small risk of fire wouldn't be a
| concern, and in many cases may be a boon to the ecosystem?
|
| Piss take, I know, but nature is pressing her reset button and
| it's our fault. Let's not act like PG&E has anything to do with
| it.
| qw3rty01 wrote:
| It probably has more to do with things like this: (analysis of
| Camp Fire)
| https://twitter.com/TubeTimeUS/status/1306359385656946688
| xyzzy21 wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| This is good for PG&E because it can't be blamed for wild
| fires. The wild fires will still continue to happen only now it
| will be the set remaining causes:
|
| (lightning, car exhaust systems, campers' fires, arsonists,
| ...)
|
| It's NOT primarily or even remotely Global Warming however.
| California has a fundamentally dry climate the intrinsically
| assures wild fires will occur. Expanding in wild fire prone
| areas is a direct result of real estate booms and costs, which
| are primarily high for artificial human reasons such as
| NIMBYism, greed, real estate as investment, etc.
| nomel wrote:
| Fire is such an ancient and normal part of California that
| redwoods have evolved to be fireproof, with many local trees
| and plants having seeds that _require_ fire for germination.
| [1]
|
| [1] https://www.nationalforests.org/our-forests/your-
| national-fo...
| the_dune_13 wrote:
| > It's NOT primarily or even remotely Global Warming however.
|
| That's for sure an opinion I would love to have more
| information on.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| Native Americans did controlled burns to prevent
| catastrophic wildfires and encourage new plant growth.
| Fires in California have been an issue well before man made
| pollution became a thing.
| danans wrote:
| > It's NOT primarily or even remotely Global Warming however.
| California has a fundamentally dry climate the intrinsically
| assures wild fires will occur.
|
| Global warming is an amplifier for wildfire risk, not a
| cause. The increasing length of the dry season under the
| influence of global warming has made these sorts of fires
| that much more likely.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27918330. Please don't
| reply to specific comments with generic posts that aren't
| really replies--it dilutes and distracts from whatever the
| parent comment was about. Just make a top level comment
| instead.
| Google234 wrote:
| The $30 billion in unemployment benefits that California lost to
| fraud to could have completely solved this crisis...
| ardit33 wrote:
| And build more than 1/3 or the high speed rail!
| adanto6840 wrote:
| Is this true (the railway cost)? Which rail specifically,
| what destinations/points does it service -- any link/source?
| Not doubting you by any means, just interested in more
| information.
|
| Edit: Ty -- interesting.
| ardit33 wrote:
| The whole thing is estimated to be around $80-90B (probably
| more, given the current inflation).
|
| With the money already allocated, plus if they had managed
| not to waste 25B out of that 30B (and the fraud was only
| 5b), they would have had enough money to get at least half
| of it done....
|
| Get a major piece of infrastructure done, and help with
| global warming/emissions goals.
|
| But, no. Not in Cali. And that's why nothing gets build.
| Sheer, Government waste at work... The state is being led
| by trust-fund babies, that found everything ready, and
| never had to work for it, and they are just squandering all
| that fortune.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > The whole thing is estimated to be around $80-90B
| (probably more, given the current inflation).
|
| > With the money already allocated, plus if they had
| managed not to waste 25B out of that 30B (and the fraud
| was only 5b), they would have had enough money to get at
| least half of it done....
|
| Don't projects like this almost always significantly
| overrun projected costs?
| [deleted]
| renewiltord wrote:
| Oh, they certainly will, and this one will be the mother
| of them all. Original projections of $33 billion, now up
| to $100 billion. Tutor Perini (Dianne-Feinstein-related
| company) will have a field day.
|
| You can be a genius investor like Nancy Pelosi or you can
| be a genius construction company owner like Ms.
| Feinstein's husband. Either way, California rewards hard
| work and skill.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Are concrete pours managed by the mob out there? Curious
| that the elevated concrete aqueduct is the only thing
| they're making progress on.
| reissbaker wrote:
| The California HSR:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
| WalterBright wrote:
| In the Pacific NW, I'd settle for a train that managed to
| average 60mph.
|
| The PNW used to be well served with trains. Now - the
| government has destroyed most of the right-of-way. What's
| left is still being destroyed at a rate of maybe 2 miles for
| every new mile of track laid.
|
| They decided the Battery tunnel wasn't good enough anymore.
| So they dug a new tunnel. What to do with the excavated
| rubble - why stuff it in the old Battery tunnel, rendering it
| unusable.
|
| The government likes to buy tunnel boring machines. What do
| they do when finishing a tunnel? Why, the sell the zillion
| dollar machine for scrap! After all, what spends money faster
| than buying a new boring machine for the next tunnel!
| kayfox wrote:
| Tunnel boring machines are somewhat consumable, the cutting
| head and outside of the machine erodes over time and they
| have a service lifetime of the few years they spend boring
| the tunnel.
|
| Bertha spent a lot of time working and had to be
| spectacularly dug up to deal with excessive wear on the
| mechanisms, so by time it emerged in SLU it was at the end
| of its service lifetime.
|
| Sound Transit has been rebuilding and reusing their
| machines.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Sound Transit has been rebuilding and reusing their
| machines.
|
| I don't have a reference, but I read in the Seattle Times
| that after they finished a tunnel, they cut up the
| machine for scrap after boring one tunnel. The reporter
| never asked why.
| toast0 wrote:
| > They decided the Battery tunnel wasn't good enough
| anymore. So they dug a new tunnel. What to do with the
| excavated rubble - why stuff it in the old Battery tunnel,
| rendering it unusable.
|
| What did you want done with that tunnel? I think it had
| earthquake issues separately from the viaduct, and without
| the viaduct, I'm not sure how useful the tunnel would be
| anyway. Stuffing it with the rubble reduces the cost of
| rubble disposal and fills the tunnel without the cost of
| fill dirt or whatever. The new tunnel is definitely nicer
| than the old one, but I don't drive around seattle enough
| to know if it has the same utility.
|
| > The government likes to buy tunnel boring machines. What
| do they do when finishing a tunnel? Why, the sell the
| zillion dollar machine for scrap! After all, what spends
| money faster than buying a new boring machine for the next
| tunnel!
|
| I'm not sure how reusable these machines are; they kind of
| all come in different sizes and have customized needs, and
| they're hard to store. Can't just leave them halfway
| through the tunnel for years....
|
| But yeah, Seattle loves tunnels almost as much as Kitsap
| traffic engineering departments love traffic circles, but
| Seattle has a bigger budget.
| mjevans wrote:
| I live in a suburb of Seattle and drive.
|
| Anything tolled has a utility value to me of zero.
|
| I already pay state gas taxes, vehicle licensing fees,
| etc. If I visit Seattle I really don't want to spend
| extra money to cross the lake, or drive under the city.
| In fact, that parking costs money and there aren't good
| IO interfaces (parking garages) at the edges linked to
| the mass transit core within only encourages me to avoid
| the mess and expense.
|
| Since I also don't live IN that particular area I don't
| really get to vote on the issue other than with my
| unwillingness to pay the fee and thus not use what was
| once a not-taxed route through the area; before they tore
| it down and replaced it.
|
| There are many, many systemic issues though, and like the
| PG&E fires, and wild fires generally, this is but one
| more symptom of a lack for looking at the big picture and
| planning accordingly. Bigger than any corporation and
| most voters speaking up a time or two a year can hope to
| view. If only politics weren't about popularity, but
| about civic responsibility.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Road tolls are the best way to allocate a road's
| bandwidth, in my opinion. Every road should be tolled,
| dynamically (which already happens on highways near
| Seattle).
|
| I do not see any other solution to preventing gridlock in
| the face of insatiable demand, if that is the goal. A
| growing population will chew threw however many lanes get
| added to a road.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The claim was that the old Battery tunnel had earthquake
| issues. I don't believe it would have been more expensive
| to put a liner in than bore a new tunnel with a liner.
| What use to put it to? More capacity! Could have run
| light rail through it. Made it a bike tunnel. Make it a
| pedestrian mall.
|
| The big cost of boring tunnels is the boring machine. At
| minimum, they could have simply kept right on boring.
| Doubtless Seattle could use a lot more tunnels for mass
| transit. Seattle has a terrible right-of-way problem,
| mainly because they wrecked all the rail right-of-way.
|
| I don't see the issue with just storing it at the end of
| the tunnel. It wouldn't be long before it was clear
| another tunnel would be needed.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This is factually true.
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| Don't even start looking into the public sector pension fund
| bailouts...
| rexreed wrote:
| This is true, although PG&E is still a private company, so I
| don't think the government can take over the job of being the
| utility in this case.
| grumblenum wrote:
| The most insightful comment is also the most downvoted. What
| did HN mean by this?
| wombatpm wrote:
| When you look at their track record with buried gas lines, I'm
| not sure this will be the safety fix they think it will be
| wonnage wrote:
| power lines don't explode like gas lines
| lazide wrote:
| They can if the right conditions are met - see 'arc flash'
| disillusioned wrote:
| That is still, you know, categorically not exploding like a
| gas line, which, you know, in recent memory blew an entire
| neighborhood of 38 homes off the map. Hitting a buried line
| with a backhoe is unpleasant enough, sure, but you're not
| destroying dozens of buildings in one go.
| supperburg wrote:
| Exactly. Gas can leak and build up for hours or days,
| slowly accumulating enough chemical energy to create a
| massive explosion. At least hypothetically. And there are
| huge explosions on record as you point out.
|
| An electric line is not even in the same category. Any
| comparison is silly and ignorant.
| thedougd wrote:
| Some coastal communities and islands in North Carolina took this
| route. In addition to beautification, they're more resilient to
| storms and hurricanes.
|
| https://www.starnewsonline.com/article/NC/20071122/News/6051...
| Trias11 wrote:
| That's why i left CA.
|
| Hard pressed to find more fraudulent state.
| elygre wrote:
| Where is the fraud in this context?
| Trias11 wrote:
| Where tax money goes? Hair gel?
|
| It's one of the highest taxed state in US with raising crime,
| poverty, filth, dying cluture, political hipocrisy and
| accelerating exodus to lower taxed states.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I mean, some of that is true, some is false - the question
| remains though, what does that have to do with the burying
| of electric lines to prevent fires?
| caymanjim wrote:
| What does any of that have to do with PG&E?
| notafraudster wrote:
| Hypocrisy is spelled with a "y", not an "i", as the second
| letter.
| totetsu wrote:
| Hipocrisy is spelled with a "y", not an "i", as the
| second letter.
| Trias11 wrote:
| You passed the test.
|
| Ata boy.
| abeppu wrote:
| How do other places with dry forested areas deal with this? Are
| there similar regions from which California should be learning?
|
| Also, if we get a major earthquake, are they going to have to dig
| all the lines up again?
|
| Also, can we just note how crazy it is that this company blew up
| a neighborhood, burned down a town, was convicted in these
| separate incidents, and is still allowed to have a monopoly on
| power for a broad region? Why are corporate convicts apparently
| treated so well, but natural persons who are convicted are
| treated so poorly?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Don't forget the company also poisoned an entire town.[0]
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley,_California
| stickfigure wrote:
| Those places burn too.
|
| You want electricity, right? PG&E is one way to get it. You
| could replace the people in charge, you could replace the
| owners, you could even nationalize the whole thing and you
| still have the same problem: Vast amounts of incredibly
| expensive, aging infrastructure, drying climate, and homes
| built into the wildland boundary interface.
|
| There's no magic trick that will solve this problem. The money
| for electrical upgrades will have to come from taxpayers and/or
| ratepayers; there isn't anyone else. And it will only reduce
| the probabilities of big fires. The huge Carr fire in Redding
| was started by sparks from a towed trailer. The LNU complex
| last year was lightning (plus one guy trying to cover up a
| murder with arson). It's not all electrical... probably not
| even a majority.
| MiguelX413 wrote:
| Just take the money from the profits lol
| vkou wrote:
| There won't be any profits if they actually go ahead and
| fix it. You'd have to claw it back from prior shareholders
| who benefited from that unethical behaviour.
| moistly wrote:
| BC is currently burning to the ground. Again. I don't think our
| hydro grid has failed due to forest fires, or at least not
| commonly. Nor is it responsible for starting them. Our
| territory must surely be as rugged as California's. So maybe
| look North?
| triggercut wrote:
| Perth's metropolitan region in Western Australia has the
| largest percentage of underground power in the world. Granted,
| a large portion is in suburban areas and I suspect entirely in
| the distribution network not the transmission network. It's
| climate is very similar to much of California.
|
| Power infrastructure on this magnitude requires an
| extraordinary amount of capital investment to set up. Who takes
| on their debt? The operating expenses for asset management and
| maintenance of a mature network are eyewatering when compared
| to their underground counterparts as there is a lot more
| numerous and frequent replacement activity for parts. Pole
| infrastructure may have a life span of 10-15 years but some
| parts will be replaced out every 3-5. Before you know it you
| pay for every pole 4 times over it's life. Now multiply that by
| several hundred thousand poles in a large network and then you
| start to get the picture. I'm not trying to be an apologist but
| I'm surprised from what I hear of American infrastructure that
| it's not a far more regular occurrence.
| raggles wrote:
| Your numbers are way out, poles usually last between 25 and
| 70 years generally depending on what they are made from.
| Hardware (pins, insulators, crossarms) last at least 15 years
| usually, often much longer. There is certainly nothing that
| needs replacing every 3-5 years.
| Denvercoder9 wrote:
| > Perth's metropolitan region in Western Australia has the
| largest percentage of underground power in the world.
|
| I highly doubt that. Their government claims about 55% of
| houses has underground power. There's parts of Europe where
| they're easily up to 90%+. For example in the Netherlands
| only (part of) the high-voltage transmission network is
| above-ground, all house connections are underground.
| chongli wrote:
| I have a question I haven't seen anyone address so far: how much
| can we expect this to reduce the frequency of wildfires?
| Intuitively, to me, the effect would seem to be negligible. All
| of the conditions for wildfires will remain in place. It'll
| simply be something else that lights the spark. If it's not power
| lines it'll be lightning.
|
| So then to follow up: what is the point? To deflect blame from
| PGE? And who pays for it?
| sathackr wrote:
| Because it's cheaper than paying $13.5B when it was your
| equipment that started it. This is nothing more than liability
| mitigation. And once complete, even if you don't maintain them,
| buried cabled generally can't start fires.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2019/12/06/pge-reaches...
| jlmorton wrote:
| I think you've hit the nail on the head. It's not entirely
| insignificant, but it certainly is not the driver of wildfires.
| If we perfectly buried all the power lines, we'd have fewer
| fires, but we'd still have most of the fires we already have.
|
| The primary problem remains fire suppression practices, forest
| management, and changing climate. This seems like a very
| expensive way to eliminate a quarter of our wildfires.
| completelylegit wrote:
| As someone who lives 15 miles from Paradise, CA - A "very
| expensive solution" makes it sound like there are inexpensive
| solutions that would be just as effective. If there were,
| wouldn't PGE have implemented them?
|
| Maybe its just "the solution".
| habibur wrote:
| PGE is more concerned about the billion dollar law suites.
| This solution makes economic sense to them.
|
| But doesn't help the fire. As long the dry woods are piling
| up, which it eventually will, something else will trigger
| the fire. And amount of fire won't be even reduce by 25%.
|
| But the court won't be able to blame PGE then, that's the
| whole point.
| brazzy wrote:
| This, exactly. A PGE power line probably sparked the
| deadly Paradise fire, and I've repeadly see people
| blaming them for the deaths with metaphorical pitch forks
| in hand, completely ignoring the far more complex reasons
| for people being unable to get away from that fire
| safely.
| bbarnett wrote:
| In Quebec, Hydro Quebec trims trees and shrubbery from
| wires every summer.
|
| This is much, much cheaper than burying them, and they hire
| students going into forest, and related fields to assist
| with the work (heavily supervised).
|
| It is not even remotely hard to believe that Quebec has
| far, far more rural power lines than California.
|
| What's the difference? State run organizations like Hydro
| Quebec, are IMO not apt to create short term profits, by
| sacrificing long term cost saving measures. There is no CEO
| of Hydro Quebec getting a massive boost to income via stock
| profits, or awards due to profit targets met.
|
| The goal is instead, make delivery the safest and most cost
| effective over the long term.
|
| By burying wires, I suspect it achieves two things.
| Ensuring a CEO, or department head won't cost save for a
| bonus, and not trim wires, and to maybe do a one time write
| down.
|
| To highlight this?
|
| I accidentally had a tree fall the wrong way (I has ropes
| too, one slipped) during a cut. Hydro Quebec came and cut
| the tree from the wires, restored power, for free.
|
| In Ontario, where power is private now? I would have paid
| thousands.
|
| Why the difference? The loss of life, because someone tries
| to save money and deal with it themselves, isn't worth it.
| Especially when state paid health care, and disability
| exists.
|
| I'm 100% a capitalist. Yet some things make sense, run as a
| non profit, where costs are counter to societal safety and
| goals.
| gruez wrote:
| >What's the difference? State run organizations like
| Hydro Quebec, are IMO not apt to create short term
| profits, by sacrificing long term cost saving measures.
| There is no CEO of Hydro Quebec getting a massive boost
| to income via stock profits, or awards due to profit
| targets met.
|
| Not really. While it's true that a state run
| organizations might not cut costs to meet profits, that's
| just replaced with cutting to meet budget requirements.
| eg. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-
| subway-...
| theluketaylor wrote:
| This is where Canada's concept of a crown corporation
| works quite well.
|
| It is established with a specific mandate by a province
| or the federal government, but run at a pretty long arm's
| length while still being accountable to the legislature.
| Some crown corps, like Hydro Quebec, produce their own
| revenue, so they have some market incentives to perform
| and are not subject to the whims of the annual government
| budget.
| jlmorton wrote:
| It's worth pointing out the US already does this. For
| instance, the Tennessee Valley Authority is a Federally-
| owned utility, and the sixth largest in the country.
|
| There are lots of other examples like this outside of
| utilities. The US Postal Service, Amtrak, the Export-
| Import Bank, and many others.
| gruez wrote:
| >It is established with a specific mandate by a province
| or the federal government, but run at a pretty long arm's
| length while still being accountable to the legislature.
|
| Doesn't that describe PG&E? It's run at "long arm's
| length" from the government because it's a private
| company, but it's also accountable to the CPUC.
|
| > Some crown corps, like Hydro Quebec, produce their own
| revenue, so they have some market incentives to perform
|
| What are these "market incentives to perform", and how
| does it not lead us back to square one with "these
| companies will cut costs to boost profits"?
| refurb wrote:
| PG&E might have private investors but it doesn't do
| anything with the Public Utility Commissions oversight.
|
| And they trim trees in CA too, but unlike QC which is
| typically green in the summer, CA is typically full of
| dry vegetation and a spark in the grass is still going to
| start a massive fire.
| xyzzyz wrote:
| If only conditions matter, but triggers do not, why don't all
| forests catch fire all at the same time when it gets dry
| enough? Think about it: average forest in California will
| probably get dry enough to support forest fire at least every
| few years. Why then it takes decades or centuries until the
| fire actually visits them?
| chongli wrote:
| Triggers are necessary for fires, obviously, but getting rid
| of the triggers does not solve the problem. There's another
| wrinkle to the whole matter: when a forest survives the dry
| season without burning down it doesn't reset. The following
| year there will be even more dead wood and other dry material
| in the area. This means next year's potential fire will be
| even worse than the last.
| citrin_ru wrote:
| There is a limit on how much dry wood a forest can
| accumulate. At some point old dead wood will rot and become
| soil. Though in dry climate rotting is slow.
| mongol wrote:
| That is interesting. I thought rain reset the conditions.
| thirtyseven wrote:
| Rain can make it worse by adding more growth that then
| dries out and becomes fuel.
| carabiner wrote:
| One step at a time. Forest management is a huge issue.
| Wildland firefighters are zealous, almost paramilitary
| organizations that try to vanquish every fire like enemy
| invaders. In reality, fires are part of the lifecycle of
| forests that clear brush and make the forest healthier and
| more resilient in the future.
| GavinMcG wrote:
| At least nowadays wildland firefighters spend plenty of
| time conducting prescribed burns, too. They're not
| chuckleheads - they're perfectly well-aware by now that
| past practices contributed to the problem.
| bluGill wrote:
| But they are hired by and paid by politicians who know
| smokey the bear and don't care at all about the modern
| science of forests. Not to mention courts regularly block
| their attempts to control the forest (ironically often by
| lawsuits brought on by environmental organizations) As
| such they often are not allowed to do the right thing for
| the forest even though they know what to do.
| FooHentai wrote:
| >In reality, fires are part of the lifecycle of forests
|
| Let's be absolutely clear that this is only true for a
| limited number of forests. The evidence for this is the
| existence of very old trees.
|
| Unfortunately many forests will become increasingly
| susceptible to fire as dry seasons are extending in many
| areas due to climate change.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| > The evidence for this is the existence of very old
| trees.
|
| Lots of tree species are able to survive a forest fire
| once they reach a certain size. There absolutely are very
| old trees in areas that burn frequently.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| "Very old trees" generally means fire-resistant old
| trees, and frequent but mild fires regularly affecting
| the less-flame-resistant undergrowth.
| Someone wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_triangle: _"a fire needs
| to ignite: heat, fuel, and an oxidizing agent (usually
| oxygen)"_
|
| There also always is plenty of oxygen. In dry summers,
| there's also plenty of fuel. What's lacking is sufficient
| heat. The ignition temperature of wood is difficult to
| assess, but wood can start burning at 125degC [?] 256degF
| (https://www.warrenforensics.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2016/06/P...)
|
| It doesn't get that hot without help, e.g. from a campfire, a
| magnifying glass, or sparks from electricity.
| BenjiWiebe wrote:
| Or lightning. Lightning can and does happen without rain,
| too.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| There's no point, you're right. On the other hand, there is no
| money shortage. I wish the government ordered PG&E to make
| poles ready for fiber instead.
| abricot wrote:
| Makes more sense to put down fiber with the power cables. Why
| would you want to it on poles?
| an_opabinia wrote:
| Because digging entrenches incumbents.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| I think there's a big fire underway right now that PG&E thinks
| was probably set by two of their electrical fuses. Burying fire
| in dirt stops fire, so removing the power equipment from direct
| exposure to oxygen and tinder by burying it in dirt is a really
| effective way to stop electrical sparks from leveling up into
| wildfires.
|
| You might send a manhole cover into near earth orbit now and
| then when an underground transformer explodes. As the famous
| saying most definitely does not go: One small leap for manhole
| cover, one giant leap for not celebrating your fifth
| anniversary of burning down ratepayer homes and national parks.
|
| (As you might suspect, they've been making tidy profits every
| year for decades while choosing not to invest in burying power
| lines. The only reason there's been such rapid change and a
| proper incident reaction in IT terms for an actual megacorp, is
| that they're in bankruptcy court and the judge can compel them
| to act competently and rapidly, and shame them and penalize
| them for failing for the fourth year in a row to do so. Non-US
| folks, our power utilities are a mix of for-profit and not-for-
| profit, and ethical behavior that costs money is less common in
| for-profit ones. Co-ops are usually a good idea, but megacorps
| not so much.)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| PG&E doesn't really make that much money from serving those
| more rural communities and houses where those fires are
| likely to occur. They subsidize those higher cost to serve
| areas with all the money they make in the big urban areas
| that aren't at risk at all. Burying lines will just cause
| urban areas to subsidize urban areas even more, when there
| really should be some consequence for deciding to build your
| house in or abutting a dry forest with the need to have power
| brought in through that forest.
| mlyle wrote:
| In many cases these are transmission lines between urban
| areas that cross rural areas.
|
| Or in the case of the Camp Fire, we're talking about a
| transmission line constructed in the 1920's to carry
| hydroelectric power from the Sierra Nevada to other areas--
| primarily Contra Costa County.
| floatingatoll wrote:
| I absolutely agree that the incentives to build homes in/by
| forests need to be rethought, or at least handled better at
| the building code / enforcement level.
| roenxi wrote:
| I'm no accountant, but if you go bankrupt as a result of an
| activity then the activity likely doesn't count as
| profitable. Cash flow positive, yes. Profitable, no.
|
| Profitability and bankruptcy sit in a mild opposition to each
| other.
| michaelt wrote:
| _> if you go bankrupt as a result of an activity then the
| activity likely doesn 't count as profitable_
|
| Unprofitable for the shareholders, maybe.
|
| The CEO still gets to take home $6M+ [1] which sounds
| plenty profitable to me.
|
| [1] https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/08/pge-execs-pay-
| raises-...
| kelnos wrote:
| PG&E is usually profitable; the cause of their bankruptcy
| is all the damages and fines levied as punishment for their
| part in starting wildfires.
| MereInterest wrote:
| Damages and fines levied are part of the "costs" side of
| a balance sheet. If those costs outweigh the revenue,
| then the business is unprofitable. I think I can see the
| point you're trying to make, with a distinction between
| the usual running mode, and abnormal circumstances
| imposed from an external source. I disagree with that
| point, as no company exists in a vacuum. The laws and
| regulations of their environment may impose costs, and
| those are part of the cost of doing business.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| what you armchair accountant aces don't know is, years
| ago top PG&E management found a way to take out a lot of
| capital and capital gains from PG&E, even though PG&E is
| tightly regulated. New top-level holding companies were
| formed. They were using this top-level capital structure
| to purchase other financially performing assets, like
| power plants in other parts of the US. This was uncovered
| during the ENRON blackout response.
|
| I believe that many US companies have made distinct
| fortunes based just on capital asset valuations, along
| with some strategic sales and trades here and there. PG&E
| is in the center of that, being a massive landowner for
| its infrastructure. Second fun-fact, when California
| State regulators requested inventory details for things
| like transmission facilities, the response was "trade
| secret" or "homeland security" or "you will sell this
| info" .. basically deny, delay and deprive. So even the
| agencies tasked to regulate PG&E did not have complete
| asset inventories to refer to..
|
| If anyone has info on the current court-ordered
| restructuring since the criminal negligence conviction,
| don't be shy !
| floatingatoll wrote:
| This is what I was hand waving at (the tendency to Enron-
| ify) but you have way more specifics than I do. Thanks!
| roenxi wrote:
| If they are found to be the cause of the fires, then this
| was probably a predictable outcome. If it is a
| predictable outcome, the accountants would probably do
| something like accrue a liability for causing forest
| fires.
|
| They might have made a mistake about how much they
| accrued in the past, but going forward they wouldn't be
| able to call the decision profitable. It clearly wasn't.
|
| If a business goes bankrupt, at least one of its past
| decisions was an unprofitable one. That is a difficult
| fact to escape from.
| galangalalgol wrote:
| i think the fine was something like 15e9 USD. It is
| interesting to see what happens when financial penalties
| for bad corporate behavior are large relative to profits.
| Bayart wrote:
| >Burying fire in dirt stops fire
|
| Not so fast ! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-seam_fire
| floatingatoll wrote:
| Now I wonder if coal is more electrically conductive than
| dirt as well as thermally susceptible. Could you ionize a
| coal vein? Maybe we can transmit AM radio with it and map
| it with a heavy metal detector!
| Bayart wrote:
| It's carbon so there much be conditions in which it's
| semiconductor or conductor-like. But even if those
| occurred naturally, they'd have to occur consistently
| throughout a seam for it to be carrying radio waves. In
| any case coal dust should have pretty good electric
| capacitance. Combine with flammability...
| giantg2 wrote:
| "To deflect blame from PGE?"
|
| I think that's the major part. It will look good for them from
| an ESG perspective. Also, I think some states, like CA, are
| talking about making the company pay for any fire starting from
| their equipment. So they are probably hedging that risk. If
| they wait, it could take them too long to complete the burial
| and then still be subjected to penalties under new laws in the
| future.
|
| Edit: why downvote? These steps may reduce a small percentage
| of wildfires (10% from electric utilities and PG&E isn't the
| only one). I think the main _reasons_ they are doing it are
| what I stated about. I doubt the company _truly_ cares about
| this unless it reduced the financial risk and helped them in
| the ESG space.
| nemesisj wrote:
| My guess is that fire prevention is only part of the problem.
| Wouldn't burying the lines mean that their infrastructure is
| also not destroyed by wild fires? Things just burn above, and
| everything keeps on working?
| nraynaud wrote:
| Be mindful that it's not exactly the number or size of the fire
| they are optimizing for, but the cost.
|
| And I guess some smaller fires might cost a lot, if they are
| near rich people's estates.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Electrical power causes about 10% of wildfires by number [1],
| but it's responsible for 7 out of the 20 most devastating
| wildfires [2]. Perhaps this is because power-line fires happen
| disproportionally in remote, unattended areas, where they can
| grow large and uncontrollable before firefighters arrive.
|
| It probably won't solve wildfires - there's still plenty of
| fuel, and hotter climates, and strong winds - but it can buy
| some breathing room. I suspect a bigger reason is to maintain
| the integrity of the grid. Buried power lines don't start
| fires, but they also don't get taken down when there is a fire,
| and they won't have a judge order them shut-off when there's a
| risk of high fire danger. Being perceived as an unreliable
| source of electricity is a far bigger threat to a utility than
| burning down a few towns - I know that was the primary reason I
| went solar, and a lot of my peers are also thinking of
| disconnecting from the grid because the grid isn't there when
| you need it.
|
| [1] https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/How-
| California-s...
|
| [2] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/californias-
| catastrophi...
| bluGill wrote:
| You have just convinced me that fires will get worse. Every
| time there is a fire it cleans out all the fuel, so if 10%
| suddenly go away, that means when the next fire happens there
| is more fuel for it.
| neaanopri wrote:
| If there isn't any "critical infrastructure" which can be
| damaged nearby the fire, smaller intentional burns can keep
| fuel accumulation low.
| kayfox wrote:
| Good luck getting permits for a proscribed burn in
| California.
| epistasis wrote:
| Is it that hard? Or maybe it varies by area? I see
| prescribed burns happening all the time where I live in
| California and also frequently get notifications about
| them, so that people don't call in the smoke. And I live
| in an area that is both considered to have the very most
| extreme environmentalists and the most NIMBY of people
| you will find anywhere.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Seems like the fire department would be the one signing
| off on permits and they would probably be the ones
| overseeing that same prescribed burn. If you can get
| permits all over the state to have huge fireworks shows
| during fire season, I don't see why they couldn't do
| prescribed burns.
| lazide wrote:
| Except no one wants to take the risk that the small fire
| becomes a huge one - or the smoke will aggravate
| someone's asthma then next town over and get sued. Yes,
| that is a real reason I was quoted from a CalFire rep as
| to why they had to stop prescribed burns in a major fire
| risk area in the Sierra Foothills.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Still a very problem. In pre 1800 California, Forests
| burned every 3 years and summer was a perpetual haze.
| Historic burn acreage was around that of 2020. The
| intensity of these fires is what is new
| dylan604 wrote:
| Is it the instensity, or the fact that people are now
| trying to live in these prone areas? In pre 1800
| California, this area was just wild lands. In post 2020,
| the humans are like cock roaches crawling in every
| crevice of the lands (just a slight exaggeration).
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| I'm part cockroach on both my mom's and my dad's side,
| and I take slight offense at that statement, and wiggle
| my whiskers in disapproval.
| dogorman wrote:
| > _Except no one wants to take the risk that the small
| fire becomes a huge one_
|
| Generally controlled burns are scheduled during wetter
| seasons for this reason. But the difficulty of getting
| the general public to understand this and go along with
| it is probably hard to understate.
| [deleted]
| nomel wrote:
| You're almost certainly correct, since that's what a state
| oversight committee found in 2018 [1], but this perspective
| was criticized harshly by the media when Trump mentioned
| the same.
|
| [1] https://lhc.ca.gov/report/fire-mountain-rethinking-
| forest-ma...
| eldaisfish wrote:
| If someone views a modern electrical utility in a Western
| country as unreliable then they either have no idea what they
| are talking about or have unreasonable expectations.
|
| See NERC's reliability report for 2020 - even accounting for
| fires, the average transmission capacity loss for the entire
| USA and Canada was mostly under 0.5%. (Page 65)
|
| https://www.nerc.com/pa/RAPA/PA/Performance%20Analysis%20DL/.
| ..
|
| Solar and batteries aren't a substitute for grid transmission
| infrastructure and cannot match the amounts of energy a good
| transmission grid can deliver. The best part of the grid -
| you don't have to worry about balancing or when you need
| energy. You just flip a switch.
|
| Yes, PG&E could have done more and their investment choices
| led to lots of damage and loss but let's not jump the gun and
| term their grid unreliable. They are held to NERC's standards
| which are among the best in the world.
| epistasis wrote:
| > If someone views a modern electrical utility in a Western
| country as unreliable then they either have no idea what
| they are talking about or have unreasonable expectations.
|
| This is making the error of substituting average
| performance for the actual performance of a particular
| grid. The PG&E grid shuts down large amounts of
| transmission during high wind events:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_shuto
| f...
|
| > Solar and batteries aren't a substitute for grid
| transmission infrastructure
|
| This is proving to be very wrong. Transmission is extremely
| expensive, it can be one of the most expensive parts of the
| grid, and, both batteries and distributed solar are being
| used as a substitute for transmission.
|
| The term in the industry is "non-wires alternatives," and
| it was a way for early lithium ion batteries to be used
| profitably on the grid, even before their recent price
| drops. (That and frequency regulation in the PJM market).
| eldaisfish wrote:
| For posterity - NERC's report addresses fires
| specifically and even breaks out individual fires. Yes,
| people losing power in California happened for extended
| periods but many more people did not lose power and PG&E
| was not the only utility implicated there. Besides,
| natural disasters happen yearly and if you read NERC's
| report, you'll see that there are far more outages due to
| storms than wildfires.
|
| My only gripe here is that this by itself, does not
| quality PG&E's grid as "unreliable".
|
| As for non-wires alternatives, I can point to several
| reports, some from NERC, some NREL and others private
| companies that have found - over and over again - that
| the path towards more grid reliability involves better
| transmission and stronger distribution. Batteries and
| solar can delay the investment needed, not substitute
| them altogether.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| I think the poster was making the subtler point that while
| average performance will be good, that might be heavily
| weighted towards those living in urban centres.
|
| If some outlying customers switch to partial or full self
| sufficiency, then a utility "death spiral" can occur as
| they increase prices on the remaining customers in the
| area.
|
| Two responses to this are:
|
| Legally force people to stay connected and pay for the grid
|
| Start building microgrids using distributed solar and
| batteries, which is apparently being done in remote
| Australia.
|
| Either can be a good thing if well managed, or an
| inefficient boondoggle if not.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| right and i get that however, it's not a viable solution
| at all. A big reason why the current transmission network
| is so reliable is because of scale. You cannot recreate
| scale even if you band together with your neighbours to
| build a microgrid and you certainly cannot achieve scale
| on your own.
|
| Outlying customers are difficult to service in regular
| times because there are many failure points and few
| redundancies. The solution to this is not for every farm
| to install solar PV as a substitute to the grid but to
| shore up transmission and distribution infrastructure.
|
| Anyone who's lived in the high arctic will tell you that
| the #1 reason they are clamouring for connections to the
| continental grid is reliability. Solar, wind and even
| diesel generation are just not as reliable or
| sustainable.
| mindslight wrote:
| It's not about pure reliability numbers, but rather
| control. If my only source of electricity is the grid,
| then when the grid goes down, there is literally nothing
| I can do about it but wait and hope while all the things
| I use grid electricity for slowly fall apart. Whereas if
| I have some local generation, I can retain some
| functionality regardless of what the grid operators do.
|
| Solar has the further advantage that it doesn't require
| ongoing fuel, so you're not dependent on that
| infrastructure either. Sizing a battery system to
| accommodate your usual lifestyle while it's dark is a bit
| silly, but a modest amount of storage that can supply say
| an average of 200W will get you quite far (fridge, sump
| pump, lighting, internet uplink, laptop).
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Yeah, I think we generally agree. You see some people
| talking about solar and battery storage as if it makes
| (or is intended to make) each home self-sufficient, when
| the reality is that homes with solar and batteries that
| are also connected to the grid is the mainstream future.
|
| Solar installs on e.g. remote mining sites are already
| starting to conplement and then edge out diesel
| generators so there are off grid use cases but if you
| have a grid then the most efficient thing is to use it in
| most cases.
|
| But outlying customers in sunny areas are almost
| certainly going to benefit financially and in terms of
| reliability if the grid encourages them to install PV and
| batteries that talk to and work with the grid. Whether a
| grid owner will actually be incented to do so is a
| different question.
| TheHypnotist wrote:
| What service do you have where your grid connection is that
| unreliable? Is it PG&E? Is it due to their "cautiousness"?
| mrep wrote:
| Not op, but PG&E shut off the power to over 2 million
| people for 3ish days due to high wind fire risk back in
| 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_California_power_s
| hutoffs...
| coding123 wrote:
| In 2020 it was probably a grand total of 20 days, and
| restoration took days.
| nostrademons wrote:
| Yes, it's PG&E. It's a combination of their cautiousness
| and their incompetence. Sometimes the power will just go
| out for reasons unrelated to PSPOs (public safety power
| outages).
| bob1029 wrote:
| > the grid isn't there when you need it.
|
| > What service do you have where your grid connection is
| that unreliable?
|
| I am in Ercot, right next to where the natural gas
| pipelines _begin_ and where regulation _ends_ , and I also
| struggle to keep the time on all of my appliances week-to-
| week. I don't know how the EI grid is doing, but feels like
| reliability has been dropping like a rock west of the
| Mississippi since ~2014 or so.
|
| I used to have a computer plugged directly into the ATX
| power grid that had ~3 years of uptime. What a fantastical
| time that was.
|
| Now, I am currently having a 50kW standby generator
| installed (oversized for multi-day operation). I am also
| investigating multiple fuel sources and smaller auxiliary
| units. Have to think in 2nd order terms these days.
| Everyone else is getting a generator installed too.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| It's like enforcing a policy of not smoking next to the pumps
| at a fueling station.
| SilasX wrote:
| ... in a world where 4channers can anonymously spray sparks
| at gas stations and do it for the lulz, and it costs $1000
| each time you tell someone to stop smoking at the pump.
|
| (That is, the policy is expensive, and there are numerous
| other hard-to-monitor causes of fires.)
| boulos wrote:
| One distinction versus naturally caused fires (like lightning)
| is that power lines are often downed by high winds over dry
| terrain. Lightning, _usually_ , is accompanied by a storm so
| there's at least some rain.
|
| It's not going to stop everything, nor all human-caused fires
| (e.g., the "gender reveal" one last year), but I believe it
| shifts the likelihood more than you expect.
| cascom wrote:
| The point is that it increases profitability of the utility (by
| expanding the rate base), and so the customers are paying for
| it. If they get some good publicity and it marginally decreases
| fire risk those are secondary benefits.
| rexreed wrote:
| The point is to avoid lawsuits not wildfires.
| hnarn wrote:
| There are many long term economical effects of burying
| electric, not only does it reduce exposure to liability (you
| caused a natural disaster), it also reduces maintenance cost,
| failure rates and so on. Both customers and providers prefer
| buried cables, all things being equal. The only issue is that
| they're more expensive to actually place, so maybe them causing
| wildfires has finally pushed companies to put the cables where
| they belong.
| raggles wrote:
| There are lots of good reasons distribution companies don't
| like cables in some situations (especially rural). Connecting
| new customers and network alterations is much more expensive,
| changing to a higher voltage is not possible, upgrading
| capacity requires a whole new cable which is more expensive
| than replacing the conductors, cables only last about 30-50
| years. Finding and fixing a cable fault usually takes much
| longer than overhead (although there are probably less of
| them per mile). Without wild fires, I seriously doubt cables
| are more economic in rural areas.
| T3OU-736 wrote:
| As a corollary - maintenance of buried power lines is more
| expensive due to all the digging which has to be done. Power
| line inspection is also trickier.
|
| I also wonder if the unions representing linemen have a
| strong influence on "bury" vs "overhead" since most of
| lineman's job involves work up a pole rather than a tunnel.
|
| Lastly - burying anything in the ground in areas where the
| ground has been known to move (California is the "Earthquake"
| entry in the Bingo game of "choose which natural disaster"
| that is the continental USA) is liable to be a non-trivial
| endeavour, one which will require ongoing inspections and the
| like.
| zild3d wrote:
| > how much can we expect this to reduce the frequency of
| wildfires?
|
| A point to keep in mind here, PGE is a company. Their primary
| goal is to _not be the cause_ of the wildfire and pay damages.
| If it also reduces the frequency of wildfires, great.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| The biggest effect will be that they won't have to trigger
| blackouts during high winds to prevent downed lines from
| starting forest fires. For those in the affected area, that's a
| big deal.
|
| But if CA wants to reduce these fires, they desperately need to
| catch back up on their controlled burns. A combination of low
| brush fire for decades (not forest fire!) and changing
| environment has built up an extremely dangerous backlog of fuel
| that makes CA specifically and the PNW in general a massive
| fire risk. Short of fixing global warming and moving everyone
| away from the interface between nature and city, the only
| solution is to burn up all that fuel in a controlled way.
| bluGill wrote:
| This doesn't apply to CA, but in general it is a good idea
| for most of the world.
|
| The vegetation there has been on natural cycles for years of
| burning hot every few years. Sure power lines start the file,
| but they will start anyway: large hot fires have always been
| part of the life cycle of that area. This is very different
| from the low brush fires that are a natural part of most
| other forests.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| CA has huge fires partly because they suppressed the low
| brush fires that were more common a century or two ago.
| Because they're now decades behind on the natural burns
| that would normally happen every summer, the state will
| have to work overtime to catch back up to a safe
| equilibrium.
|
| To be fair, climate change and changing habitation patterns
| are also making this much worse.
|
| https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/11/californias
| -...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Fire intensity in California is absolutely related to
| frequency.
|
| Historically, most California forests had low intensity
| burns every few years. Now, these same forests haven't had
| a fire in 100+ years, resulting in extremely intense fires
| that leave behind ashen moonscapes. This is not the
| historic normal fire cycle in CA.
| Proven wrote:
| Who pays? What do you think?
| pengaru wrote:
| > what is the point?
|
| Presumably the point is to bring affected parts of California
| back to the first world by not having to shut off their power
| whenever there's heavy winds expected.
| LinuxBender wrote:
| When they say 10k miles, do they mean 10k miles of land or of
| cable? Asking because my military unit used individual cables to
| exaggerate numbers. i.e. 6 strands at 1 mile would become "6
| miles of cable run". Either way, great they are doing this. I
| hope they prevent some fires and save some lives.
| noahmbarr wrote:
| It's a typical non-disclosed denominator issue.
| whyenot wrote:
| As mentioned in the NPR story, it's about 10% of their
| distribution and transmission lines.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Reminds me of a story a colleague told me, from his early job
| working in tech support call center for a phone company.
|
| He recounts of an issue with a customer complaining about low
| Internet speeds, despite being located close to the
| distribution building for the whole area. Seemingly, everything
| should've been fine. A cable leaves the distribution building,
| goes into the ground, and reappears a short distance later near
| the customer's house. Upon close inspection it was discovered
| that the cable did not take a straight route underground -
| instead of cutting the cable to necessary length, someone just
| buried the entire spool, and the total cable length was close
| to a kilometer or so. The signal, unboosted, barely got through
| to the other end.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Ohmuhgawd, this is so bizzare. That cable is not free, and
| wasting that much of it was surely to get noticed, wouldn't
| it? Questions, so many questions. Was this a contractor
| sticking to the man by wasting all of that cable? Was it
| someone trying to earn points for how much cable they
| "installed" that month? Wouldn't it be more financially
| beneficial to cut the cable as normal, and then sell of the
| spool to a scrapper or other used cable place? Was this a
| team of people that all agreed this would be a bad idea?
|
| So sounds like a movie plot
| th5 wrote:
| My guess is too lazy to cut and re-terminate the cable.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Ordinary cable installation does not dig a hole big
| enough for a spool to fit. They tend to dig trenches just
| wide enough for what they are burying. They would have
| had to have done so much extra work for that.
|
| Just lends itself to the story possibly being an urban
| legend.
| touisteur wrote:
| The things I've seen 'round here in the telecom boxes and
| fiber concentrators... It's a miracle anything works at
| all...
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