Free Republic

... The wildfire crisis is ultimately the product of a state politics controlled by interest groups whose agenda has drifted out of any cognizable relationship with the daily well-being of the state’s average citizen. Because California accounts for less than 1% of global emissions, nothing it does will make a difference to climate, but its ratepayers shell out billions for wind and solar that might be better spent on fireproofing. A generation of ill-judged environmental activism has all but ended forest management in favor of letting dead trees and underbrush build up because it’s more “natural.” At the same time,...

California is staying true to its reputation as the land of innovation — it is making blackouts, heretofore the signature of impoverished and war-torn lands, a routine feature of 21st-century American life. More than 2 million people are going without power in Northern and Central California, in the latest and biggest of the intentional blackouts that are, astonishingly, California’s best answer to the risk of runaway wildfires. Power — and all the goods it makes possible — is synonymous with modern civilization. It shouldn’t be a negotiable for anyone living in a well-functioning society, or even in California, which, despite...

After again shutting power to hundreds of thousands this week, California’s utility PG&E disclosed Thursday that it had discovered a broken jumper cable by the ignition site of a wildfire blazing across Sonoma County. The company has warned of more blackouts this weekend and perhaps for the next decade as it refurbishes its aging grid. Gov. Gavin Newsom is trying to deflect political blame. “It’s about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change. It’s about corporate greed meeting climate change. It’s about decades of mismanagement,” Mr. Newsom declared. But Democrats for years have treated PG&E as their de facto political subsidiary. The...

... [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...

... California residents have come face-to-face with an uncomfortable new reality: Large swaths of the state—by itself the fifth-largest economy in the world, and home to the globe’s most technologically advanced companies—may be subject to the sort of abrupt blackouts normally associated with underdeveloped countries. The state’s three big investor-owned utilities now have regulatory permission to cut off power to parts of their service territories during strong winds to reduce the risk of their electric lines causing wildfires, after at least 21 blazes linked to utility equipment killed more than 100 people and burned tens of thousands of homes in...

Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is getting incinerated by California politicians for shutting off power to two million residents amid heavy, dry winds. The publicly traded San Francisco-based utility has been found responsible for two dozen or so wildfires since 2016, some caused by power lines sagging from steel towers more than a century old. The purpose of the blackouts was to avoid more damage from an aging grid that has not been adequately maintained. In January PG&E filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy to restructure tens of billions of dollars in liabilities, including for wildfire. Democrats, including Gov. Gavin Newsom,...

SAN FRANCISCO—Californians are facing a potential second round of pre-emptive power outages, with the state’s largest utility working to prevent its equipment from sparking wildfires as hot, gusty winds are forecast later this week. PG&E Corp. said Monday it might cut electricity to parts of 16 counties in the Sierra Foothills and north of San Francisco. About 200,000 households and businesses were notified that they might lose power starting late Wednesday, the bankrupt utility said. At a press conference, PG&E Chief Executive Bill Johnson said shutting off power to hundreds of thousands of customers again might be necessary, given how...