The “Water Cooler” is a feature on Claycord.com where we ask you a question or provide a topic, and you talk about it.
The “Water Cooler” will be up Monday-Friday in the noon hour.
QUESTION: Do you agree with PG&E’s plan to shut off power to certain communities during a heightened wildfire risk, or do you believe there is a better option available?
Talk about it….
37 comments
NO! It is not. There are elderly folks that are not able to handle the heat, young, as well as animals that can not handle the heat. What gives any company the right to deny a person what they get paid to deliver? It is not our fault they choose not to upgrade the infrastructure or deal with the issues already there.
Spot on.
PG&E and BART need monumental-scale audits.
People living in rural fire-prone areas, where fire insurance is often difficult/impossible to obtain, need to have a generator and/or solar power with a back-up battery system.
Otherwise it’s like living on a lake and not owning a boat!
PG&E apparently thinks so.
How much was your bill this month?
State public utilities, because they are often monopolies, are run by state public utility commissions.
Anyone else see a problem with our PUC managing PG&E?
For a for profit corporation – yes.
Before everyone chimes in: No, people do not want all of the Forests (or Mt Diablo) dug up in order to bury wires.
What forest is that?
They don’t dig the forests up. They dig a trench along the same line as the power poles are run and bury them in conduit pipes. Once they are underground, the surrounding areas go back to the natural disposition. Without the ugly power poles and heavy lines. It is an infrastructure that should have been upgraded years ago. They have the money for it.
At Overwhelmed, sounds good in theory but the reality is the “pig” device that they use is not without issues.
I’ve seen them have issues with running 50 feet, and you think 5,000 miles is going to be all good?!?!
Not saying that the equipment is without issues. That is all part of the upgrade to their infrastructure. Trench diggers don’t have to be the huge size they are using in order to trench effectively. Comcast, Telephone, Water all work well and are under ground. PGE is a monopoly and they can do what they want. This is why people are dying at their hands and fires started in places that have not had fires before. It has nothing to do with the wind or rain or heat. It has to do with old infrastructure that they don’t want to update because it will take money from their investors pockets. MONEY is what it is all about.
Under current circumstances; et al, yes it is.
The best option is better connections and no trees that will cause a problem. Better inspection.
I believe in 2005 or so, PG&E looked into installing a device similar to a kill switch in forested areas but refuses to, this device runs in-line on towers, and detects an active line and if for any reason the line is cut or breaks it relays the info immediately down the line and the system shuts off, it is immediate, and it notifies PG&E of a line interruption, but PG&E decided it was not a good idea. So to answer the question, hell no.
LMAO! It’s hilarious to read the Public’s comments on things they have zero clue about. Everyone in California spends their lives whining and crying about cutting down trees, ruining birds nests, blah blah blah. But then a little Wind happens and starts a few fires and all of a sudden PG&E is responsible for it all. So PG&E suffers massive stock blows and has their entire reputation wiped off the map while Line workers were being yelled at, cussed out and spit on by some members of the public. In response, the PUC decides that the Utilities must de-energize lines to prevent fires during certain hazardous conditions. Now, look at the Public….freaking out yet again. I’d give anything to move out of this state so I didn’t have to be around all you liberals anymore
So…people blame PG&E for fires when they aren’t allowed, or not given enough funding, to trim vegetation along their utility R/W. What other response could you possibly expect? Utility transmission facilities need to be upgraded throughout the nation…but ratepayers/regulators don’t want to pay for it.
This is what happens when a utility (and our forests) comes under the control of Socialists or Democrats (which are pretty much the same thing these days).
Much of the forested burns have happened on NATIONAL Forest lands. I didn’t know the current president was either a socialist or Democrat, but oh well. David Bernhardt the current Secretary of the Interior was an oil and gas lobbyist before he took over for the corrupt Ryan Zinke. Feel better about the forest management now?
Given that the new CEO is set to take home more than double what the last CEO made
Given that PG&E reported net income of $564 million for the third quarter of 2018 – which up from $550 million the prior year…
It is a joke to tell the hardworking PG&E customers that PG&E does not have the money to trim vegetation.
This is what happens when you let a corporate style entity rip off the Hardworking Americans who pay their bills on time and expect these companies to be run with a modicum of care for those customers and their propery.
One problem that the company faces is that they are only allowed to trim up to 12 feet from their lines. After that they need the property owners permission to trim or remove trees. I dare you to go door to door in California, and try to get people to give up their trees.
Shutting off power will not solve much.
Fires are jumping through residential neighborhoods because of how houses are built. We have vents into the crawlspaces and vents into the eaves and/or attic areas. These vents are essential to preventing moisture from building up. They are continuously sucking air in and then ejecting it via vents located on the roof or gables. When there is a fire in the area the vents suck flying embers and dump them onto parts of the house that are very dry and tend to have loose kindling material. When a fire starts within a house and gets fully involved it sends up a huge shower of sparks that get sucked in by the vents of neighboring houses.
One solution is to use larger vents but made of very fine screens to prevent embers from getting through. The problem is that the average person does not maintain their homes. A very fine screen will get clogged up with dust which leads to moisture building up which leads to dry rot, termites, etc.
An electric utility’s power grid has three main components.
1) Transmission lines. These are the ones on large metal towers and transfer power long distances between the sources of electricity to substations and between substations.
2) Distribution lines. These are the wires at the very top of the poles in our local neighborhoods. They transfer power from substations to transformers mounted near the tops of the poles.
3) Service drops. Each transformer serves from one to maybe eight buildings. The service drops go from the transformer to each house or building in the immediate area.
PG&E intends to shut off power at the substation level or possibly further down at within the distribution network. They will not be shutting down any transmission lines as they are a critical part of the load balancing and transfer grid.
The fire that destroyed Paradise caused by a failure on a transmission line.
The fire that burned into Santa Rosa was started by by the failure of a private power pole on someone’s property. Had the neighborhood where the fire started been shut off and then power restored only when the wind had died down then it’s possible the fire would not have spread as widely or rapidly as it did. There still likely would have been a fire once the distribution network was re-energized. The fire started late at night and it’s likely the property owners would not have noticed one of their poles had been blown down onto an unoccupied house.
The fire that burned about 2000 homes in Redding was started by blown tire on a trailer. The people towing the trailer did not notice until it was too late. Sparks from the rim riding on the asphalt blew into dry grass.
The Mendocino complex fire burned 459,123 acres but fortunately was in very rural area. It was started by a guy hammering a metal stake into the ground and drove it into a wasp nest. Sparks from the hammering started a small fire. The guy could have easily put the fire out but was also dealing with a cloud of angry wasps.
The Oakland hills fire was triggered by a small grass fire that the fire department worked on but apparently missed a hot spot. That spot flared up and started the Oakland hills fire.
The point is – most fires are started by a series of unfortunate incidents. I believe we are better off making it so that it’s unlikely for a fire to spread from building to building in a suburban to urban area and in semi rural areas to keep dry brush away from buildings.
Just bought a Honda generator, I see what coming down the pike.
PG&E should use the money we have already paid them in increases to fix/maintain their lines, not shut them off. They were supposed to come down my street and trim the trees that were growing into and on their lines. Nothing has changed. The wires are still going through the trees.
Enough! We pay for infrastructure. PG&E sets the price. I’ve never heard the PUC deny them. I don’t live in or near a forest. Why would you shut my power off? So that I can light a few candles and potentially burn the building down? I’m charged for “delivery”. Will that be prorated when PG&E is not delivering? Non of this makes sense to me. PG&E do your job! Upgrade your systems before you give out bonuses. It’s called reinvesting!
I’ve lived all over the country and have never heard of a utility threatening to turn off power because of bad weather, either PG&E is a joke or this is some kind of punitive measure they are taking against customers who think they are really terrible at their jobs. Bury the power lines in wind prone areas like we’ve been paying you to do for years, crooks.
What did you think was going to be the result after all the lawsuits filed against PGE for the wildfires.
You want to go after them financially then they will make sure no more fires can be blamed on them. That means killing the power in storms and heatwaves. The vast majority of people will suffer because of the ones that want to sue PGE gor billions.
We take for granted the fact that we have lights at the flip of a switch and we refuse to recognize the fact that having that luxury comes with Inherent dangers.
Amen! Didn’t anybody else see this coming?
I’m not a fan but you blame PG&E if they do supply power and blame them if they don’t. As a customer who keeps having to cover the costs when they get blamed coming and going, it’s getting old.
California has always had wildfires, always. And power lines have always gone down in wind storms, always.
If we must now assign blame, don’t get mad when those getting blamed try to avoid getting blamed again. That life.
I think that if Tesla was allowed to actually do the remarkable things he was doing without interference and with govt backing, we wouldn’t need PG&E, because we would have wireless electricity world wide. Too bad so much technology and science is suppressed. Just imagine the possibilities.
And to answer the question, absolutely in no way should PG&E shut off power to so many people in the peak of our hottest season. Imagine the folks who rely on their power for medical equipment who would be without the means of their life saving/sustaining devices. How many people would have to throw away spoilt food? Food that may already be hard to come by due to the poor state of California at the moment. And how would they purchase more if the local markets can’t ring up a transaction because they have no power? How will folks buy gasoline if the stations can’t power their equipment and registers? How many people will need to be hospitalized from heat exhaustion or heat stroke? Even a thing as simple as being able to charge electronic devices, which could very well be the only means of communication for some, could prove detrimental. They would have no way to contact rescue if needed.
Additionally, trees are not the only means of fuel for wild fires. They are usually started in dry brush and grass (my grandfather was a battalion chief for Contra Costa County). Cutting trees isn’t going to solve this issue. We need our trees to help this insane climate we have on the earth these days.
I don’t know how this can be corrected, honestly, but it’s PG&E’s responsibility to figure it out and to stop using the easy way out. Their customers should not have to pay for their lack of ingenuity, engineering or planning. And why on earth are they raising rates only to provide worse service? Where is that money going if not to improvements?
The power outages are to prevent wildfires from coming out and burning everything. People don’t want to admit that the weather is getting dangerous, but it is and it has to handled in ways that often require interrupting your scheduled program.
and of course many here bad mouth PG&E for doing this, but San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison do the same… It has become a necessary move…………. Heck, even little SMUD up in Sacramento does too.
I see some people are saying they will buy a generator. If too many people do that we will be in really big trouble. Take it from me, I lived for a few years in a country with daily power outages. Nigeria. There was no accurate count of how many private generators were in the country but it was in the millions. Some problems with this: improperly installed units can make it dangerous for the electric company to repair their systems, millions of gas engines cause huge pollution issues, transport of fuel and domestic storage causes numerous fires and accidents, improperly installed generators can be very noisy day and night. Consider that if the electric company cannot safely work on their infrastructure how likely it is that repairs get made at all? It’s not a good idea for everyone to “buy a Honda generator”. That would be a bigger disaster that we have now.
I vow to keep my Beer cold.
How about putting the power lines underground?
Building things underground is almost always way more expensive.
As it stands, PG&E is doing nothing more than following the laws and the regulations as they stand while also trying to stay a profitable company.
PG&E shuts down the power when they need to because the courts and the regulations stood up in defense of the people that had their lives ruined by these wildfires.
How’s that Automatically being opted onto MCE workin’ for everyone?
I’ll be stopping by your house tomorrow to pick up your car for the weekend, be sure the tank is full.
Must be nice to get the benefits of using another person’s property without having to pay for the maintenance.
Don’t bother coming by my place, I opted out as soon as I heard about this stupid plan. God bless the rest of you.
What was PG&E supposed to do? Not defending them and don’t like them. But before proof was confirmed PG & E was found more likely than not to be to blame because I’ve of their line man reported it.
A lot more than PG & E is going to have to change to stop fires from breaking it in California during fire season.
I don’t like my power being turned off, but as a customer who is getting tired of covering lawsuits( which some of were what we used to call Acts of God, like when a power line goes down during a windstorm) I say turn it off if its the cheapest way to stop the bleeding.
All the expensive fixes suggested here would be great, but don’t ever forget, PG & E doesn’t pay for crap, we do.
Utility companies should not be “for profit” companies.
Because that worked so well in the Soviet Union.
Well what do ya’ know…. Nevada too…
https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2019/06/14/nv-energy-could-cut-power-tahoe-truckee-area-during-times-high-fire-danger-reduce-risk/1461420001/
tis becoming the Industry Standard.
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