disastrous to cut power. Those old power lines in Northern Cali need fixing. I hope it doesn’t hurt Gov Newsom.

But the fires that have followed without the electricity being on sort of proves their point. It was Cya move but it worked.
What still needs to be dealt with is why weren’t the limbs cut and what are a public utilitie’s responsibilities

in which the power company is responsible for trimming over power lines. I think in fire prone areas metal roofs should be a requirement, but that’s another discussion.

a completely different situation than what happened with Enron.

Just thinking long term. Republicans seize every opportunity.

that time the generators (like Enron) were gaming the system by taking electric power plants out of service and with us running right at the limit, the lack of generating capacity meant that not everyone could get the electricity we needed. Plus there was a huge build out of server farms in Silicon Valley to address the first "web explosion" so the people like Enron wanted a huge rate increase to keep their plants online... and Davis said no (at first). Then we were hit with rolling blackouts and everyone became upset and Davis eventually made a deal for a higher electric rate and that got the Governator elected in a recall election.

This time PG&E failed to understand about climate change... Climate change here is making the dry summers even drier that in decades past... which makes the weeds and grass dry out much more than they used to. Combined that with high winds (especially dry Santa Ana winds) and any branches touching a transmission line cause sparks to fall to the ground and ignite the dry grass and weeds. That is causing many of the late summer early fall wild fires that have devastated many areas of the state.

PGE is supposed to keep the trees trimmed back to prevent even high winds from making them touch the high power lines... but there are some 26,000 miles of overhead lines just in Northern CA... and they claim they don't have the money to do the needed tree trimming. They now owe billions in damages due to the fires they "caused" by neglect and filed bankruptcy. The blackouts are not "rolling" but due to them not wanting to be liable for more wild fires. so they de power any high tension grid lines that might have issues with trees... and won't power things back on until the lines are inspected after the wind event is over... and that takes days possibly.

Even with proper tree trimming, lines can still snap in winds of 50+ MPH, so there really isn't any solution that involves centralized power generation with a grid distribution... other than a) doing what they are doing - turning the power off or b) putting all of the lines in underground conduit (very expensive and difficult given the terrain that must be transited.

The only other solution is to go to micro grids or location based energy generation and storage... but nobody has even planned that out yet.

Welcome to the new world of climate change...

Mrs. Potato and I are native Californians. That’s why I care. Just not there, now. Underground lines would do it, but hugely expensive. Cost, benefit?

is earthquakes. Also repair. maintenance and upgrading the buried lines would be more difficult and expensive. Also the terrain where the lines are and the makeup of the soil below. Pretty much anywhere in my county (Lake County) you can't dig a ditch ten feet long without running into a rock anywhere between the size of a basketball to a couch or larger.

I deleted a posting below because I was talking about underground lines and I realize it’s just too many obstacles. Thanks.

build small neighborhood generators or... go completely solar / wind with storage.

However, one must realize that every electron that enters your house and "does work" (powers a light, a laptop, a TV, heats the water, whatever) just left the generator a fraction of a second before that. Which means that with only a few customers (100s) per micro generator, the micro generator will either waste a bunch of energy by always being at peak demand even when there isn't peak demand or will have to ramp up and down very quickly... both of which is inefficient at small scale.

Rooftop solar on every house with Tesla-like wall battery storage might do the trick... along with micro grid generators to "top off" off the battery and meet possible peak summertime AC use.

Get rid of the grid...

Suppose CA floated a bond measure to create a loan guarantee program for, say, $30B. $30B is about enough to do 1 million homes at a time with 3 KW of solar plus a few dozen KWhrs of storage plus installation. Private banks actually make the low interest loans payable over, say, 15 years. We start with those communities near fire danger (rural, wooded). The home owner (or renter) will pay back the loan plus some interest over 15 years at around $175/month. For the peak summer time months they might pay as much as $100/month more to the local micro grid generator utility to cover summertime costs. No electric line would extend more than very few miles. No complicated grid. Micro grid generator is likely off for much of the year as it isn't needed.

For 10 years we do this program with a new $30B loan guarantee each year... 25 years after the program started, all of the loans plus interest are paid back... 10 years after it started CA becomes almost ("almost&quot 100% clean electric generation. And the homeowners pay a much more constant value for their energy, and likely a rate lower than the current .09 to .12 dollars per KWhr. Outages are almost unheard of and only effect a few hundred customers when they happen. We are wind immune.

Plus think of all the construction people this would employ for 10 years... a real sustained boom to our economy... infrastructure spending to modernize electric generation. Break up PG&E completely. And the state can never be held hostage by the utility. Convert the homes from natural gas to electric heat, cooking, and hot water and you get rid of another disaster from PG&E (San Bruno)... and eliminate another green house gas emission source.

Just an idea.

It's just a matter of how and when we get there.

They were more expensive then and PG&E does not want to give up one cent. Electricity off means even fo solar. I’d have to separate from PG&E and get a lot of batteries. Lithium ain’t cheap.

I think the fires were so tragic that we don't mind going without power for a day or two to avoid that loss of life and property.