Posted on 10/12/2019 4:05:16 AM PDT by karpov
...
[PG&E] told its bankruptcy judge that eliminating trees and vegetation from around its power lines would cost up to $150 billion and require 650,000 employees. PG&E’s customers already pay twice the national average for electricity. An alternative plan would be to radically decentralize its system so power cutoffs could be more “surgical.” This would also be expensive and, in PG&E’s sprawling territory, would still mean widespread blackouts.
More equitable solutions are easy to envision, if only they were politically acceptable. Utilities could be relieved of their blanket fire liability, transferring the risk to homeowners and insurance markets. Utilities could be allowed to charge higher rates for customers in fire-prone districts. They could be allowed to refuse to extend their networks into such areas.
But the least rational outcome is also the most likely. Households will continue to be sheltered from the financial consequences of building in wildfire areas. The costs will be opaquely divided between ratepayers and the state’s taxpayers, amid much rhetoric about the evils of climate change and corporate greed. Here’s the kicker: The imposed blackouts then will be able to stop even though the fire risk remains unchanged.
In fact, missing is any data showing that today’s blackouts meaningfully or cost effectively reduce the public’s risks.
After all, 90% of fires, according to the California Public Utilities Commission, are caused by something other than power lines. Power outages can only impede fighting these fires or alerting neighbors to their existence. Thousands of dubiously competent homeowners will be firing up gas-powered generators in tinder-dry areas at the moment of maximum risk. How is this helping? When the lights go dark, the candles come out—a major source of house fires. Then there are the thousands of citizens dependent on home medical devices that stop working
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
They are flaring gas in the Bakken shale. You can see the same thing down in Texas just south of San antonio. That’s why pipelines need to be built.
***Until I could run down a generator days later,***
In our area, the weathermen forecast a big snow and ice storm. Everyone cleaned out the local hardware stores of all their gas generators.
The storm was mild with no outages, so those who bought generators tried to take them back to the stores and get their money back.
The stores had to put up signs...NO RETURNS ON GENERATORS UNLESS THE GENERATOR IS PROVED FAULTY!
There is a reason fires now are so massively destructive, they need to work on changing that.
“Here is the $64 question: Are the average Kali SJWs learning anything?”
No. They are incapable of connecting the dots, of how their past voting habits has led to this. There was a thread in Next Door here yesterday that demonstrated that.
They were all piling on PG&E, oblivious of the fact that PG&E is just a puppet of CPUC, CalEPA and the politicians of Sacramento.
Natural gas flares in the Baaken Shale oil play. They now are capturing it.
All they need to do is make it legal for Americans to harvest fuel and timber from powerline rights of way and the problem with disappear yesterday.
How about this:
Say you own a few acres..... I DO
Say you have a property that is on a corner.... I DO
Say the locals have been cutting across your property for years—before your house was built....THEY HAVE BEEN
Say one of these trespassers complains that “the ground is too uneven & I hurt myself during my trespass” and then tries to sue me....... Inevitably will happen...
My ONLY solution is to fence the entire PERIMETER (I DID) and put up No Trespass signs...I DID.
Made it clear there would be NO MORE TRESPASSING on MY property. Stay on the road.
P G & E is doing it’s best to survive against the ENVIROS who have caused this fuel buildup for the past 40 years.
I must also survive on MY property.
Not sure I understand your point, but utility companies have easements over everyone’s property.
Pay your mortgage off, then you don’t have to buy insurance.””
Pretty poor financial advice at any time of your life, IMO.
I am in my 3rd home, and have parlayed first house in 1966, 2nd in 1989 into a sale of 2nd house that enabled me to buy this property free & clear.
It represents the bulk of my asset list.
WHY would I EVER think it is prudent to NOT HAVE IT INSURED????
As a life long bookkeeper/accounting person I have to ask you to rethink that position.
Trees grow, power lines don’t.
The problem is either too many trees or we need taller poles to hang the wires off of or bury them underground.. which is not gonna happen in a seismically active state of this size.
There are any number of ways to approach this latest self-induced clash with nature. The problem is who profits most dragging this out another decade or two.
The party in power is the one that created this and other messes this state lives in up to its eyeballs in daily. We know who the media supports so change there is unlikely until whole large communities burn. like that hasn’t happened here before.
This state was sent down this path by legal, energy and political forces. Now the “consumer” is stuck with whatever gambit Stinkymento comes up with.
Trees grow, power lines don’t.
The problem is either too many trees or we need taller poles to hang the wires off of or bury them underground.. which is not gonna happen in a seismically active state of this size.
There are any number of ways to approach this latest self-induced clash with nature. The problem is who profits most dragging this out another decade or two.
The party in power is the one that created this and other messes this state lives in up to its eyeballs in daily. We know who the media supports so change there is unlikely until whole large communities burn. like that hasn’t happened here before.
This state was sent down this path by legal, energy and political forces. Now the “consumer” is stuck with whatever gambit Stinkymento comes up with.
Check out southern NJ. Only dark spot on east coast.
Someone please reassure me that those folks at the CPUC,CalEPA and the dumbshi*ts in the Commie parts of Sacramento, do NOT want to see PG&E fail -and do NOT want the state to ‘save’ us all s/, and take over a public utility??
Ne'er heard that one.
That explains it
Yeah. There are a LOT more things to destroy!
Baseball lineup??
Most consumer generators can be converted to run on propane — not that big of a deal. Can be converted back to gasoline as well.
“The costs will be opaquely divided between ratepayers and the state’s taxpayers”
Good idea, seriously.
All about backups.
If something is going to fail it will probably be something you only have one of.
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