I saw that on the news. Total CYA. I'm all for stopping fires caused by electrical lines, but leaving people without power is very third world. This has been a known problem for decades. There should have been a plan to deal with it. They're basically saying don't expect the central power company to keep your oxygen pump and deep freeze going. Get solar, get a wind turbine, get generators, because you're off the grid whether you like it or not. I have solar. It's not a panacea, but there has to be a better way to keep power lines from sparking than just shutting them off. As I understand it, there are issues with bringing them back online as well.

Much luck to you and your meat!

I agree with plllog, there has to be a better way. I'm all for using solar, wind power, we have a couple of hydro-dams here in our county. Sometimes you need to use every possibility available.

Elery was working for the power company during 2003 during the big power outage here. That was caused by trees too close to the wires, but people didn't want their trees trimmed, they wanted the trees to be kept intact. He worked around the clock for a couple of days, just trying to get the Ludington Pumped Storage Unit back on line to start producing power again.

Good luck, Nancy, to you and to your Costco meat. If you can use the stove top, you could always can it, if you have a pressure canner. Or have a neighborhood party and crank up the grills!

Annie

"--- there has to be a better way. ---"

I can't think of one better way.

Solar generators and wind turbines require power transmission lines just the same. Solar and wind generators require huge storage devices such as batteries, Wind and solar generates DC current, and that needs to be converted to AC current, Wind and solar do not give steady voltage and current and they need to be stepped up and stepped down. They also need to be regulated to be 60 Hz, or your computer and electric clocks will not work.

The suggestion that you can demolish existing power lines and bury them underground is impractical cost-wise.

Time to panic!!! Electric cars will be very common soon, there may be a need to double electric capacity.

dcarch

Yes, that's my point. You have to have your own generating station and backup power even if you're on the grid, no matter how problematic and expensive they are. They used to clean the power lines, here, a couple of times a year and trim out the branches at least annually. I guess it's cheaper to just turn it off and screw with people.

dcarch I was reading about owners of electric cars buying gas powered generators! HMMMMMMM!

The recent devistating fires were deemed caused by PG&E not maintaining their equipment (and also God), so they want to cover their asses!

We were lucky that even though we were right in the middle of the outage maps, we didn't loose power!

PG&E has something like 27,000 miles of lines to inspect in the next couple of days.

I'm not so sure they aren't just jerking us around - in CA. I remember when they "couldn't produce' enough electricity to meet demand and had timed blackouts all over CA. Except..... there is a huge windmill farm on I 5 heading into the San Francisco area and another on Rt 168 heading to the coast. NONE of those huge blades on those hundreds of windmills were moving one inch. So... if we didn't have enough electricity just why didn't PG&E have those windmills going full-blast? I think this is just another PG&E con-job in an attempt to get something they want... make the consumer unhappy and then the State will cave on something PG&E wants.

On the news they said PG&E and SCE. Notice they didn't mention public utilities? Just shareholder owned, previously bankrupt ones?

Nancy Jane, thanks for spelling out was CYA means - I couldn't figure it out on my own.

I don't think I will be part of the power outage either in Los Angeles or Cathedral City, as neither house is in a severe fire danger zone, that I know of. They did cut power to Desert Hot Springs, but that is pretty far north of Palm Springs, and someone in DHS said, what do they expect to burn in DHS - the Desert Hot Springs National Forest?? Of course there is no forest in DHS, and in Coachella Valley there are only random palm trees.

Well, almost everyone is back on. They say they found 23 damaged or broken lines that could have started fires.

It looks like it's So CA's turn now!

In other words, they found undone maintenance that they neglected to look for before an emergency. Not only should they have been repaired ahead of time, fire weather is not a surprise, and they should be carrying out continuous inspections. The great thing about the gas company is that if they goof up something goes boom, so they keep on top of things. :)

dcarch, the power companies keep saying there's not another way, too. Other experts say there are other ways, but they are costly and those power companies sure wouldn't want to hurt the bottom line by actually increasing safety to the consumer, now would they?

Human beings tend to be resourceful and we should be able to power our homes without burning entire states. If the technology isn't there today, we'd better be working on it. If we can build planes, put a man on the moon, replace entire body parts, build magnetic trains that float on air, we should be able to figure out how to run a wire without burning down the world.

Annie

People in electric cars are not saving the planet.

Annie, overhead power lines for long distance transmission can be close to 700,000 volts or higher. At this voltage, wires don't need to touch, a spark can jump over a big (23 cm?) air gap, If buried underground, everything must be 100% leak-proof and ultra insulated. 99.999 % is not acceptable. A tiniest pinhole can create an underground explosion. Also, because the power is alternating current (A/C) it can induce (as in induction cook tops) electric current in metal objects nearby. So metal conduits can be a problem. I can't imagine any way to bury this kind of power in mountain and forest areas for over 60000 miles of wire..

Many other areas near population will be a problem because of people's concern about magnetic field possibly causing cancer. So you will have 10 years to deal with "not in my backyard" law suits. Another 20 years for Environmental Impact Statements. 10 years for engineering? 20 years for construction?

It takes hours to repair failed overhead power lines. It can take more than months to repair underground ultra high voltage transmission facilities.

Not even going to compare costs, it takes a few months to add more power to overhead transmission system. It will take forever for an underground system to add capacity.

---------------------------

I am surprised that the following has not been considered now that forest fire has become a worldwide problem:

1. Satellite IR sensor can easily be an added feature to GPS satellites to pinpoint fire the very second it occurs and allowing aerial fire fighting to take place in minutes.

2. Pre-mapped by GPS, access and escape paths based on contour and field conditions survey in all effected areas to allow safe and quick firefighting.

3. Fully insulated auto-pilot controlled rescue vehicles, with builtin air and medical supplies to get deep inside a fire and stay for at least 10 hours. May be modified surplus army tanks?

4. New building Code for buildings in fire areas.

dcarch

And here it's the pro-turbine folks vs. the anti-turbine folks.

The bottom line is that the wind is nothing more than sunlight coupled with the rotation of the earth.

Over 60 percent of Iowa's power is generated by wind turbines. Of course, much of that goes out of state to big population/use centers ... Chicago, etc.

Looking at 50 or so turbines at night, blinking in unison, is perhaps ... charming?

Over 500 blinking off an on ... is ... indescribable. Our neighboring county has 551 turbines, and out here in the flatlands, you can see them 30 miles away.

Holy Andromeda Strain

Wind farm turbines also create their own weather and eat birds.

There are some home use ones that look sort of like those Dyson bladeless fans. They're supposed to be okay for the birds, but I'm not sure on that.