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‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

nytimes.com

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Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#251

Post by ctdonath »

ip26 wrote: post #81
catalogia wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historically, aren't most earthquake fatalities due to fires? Cutting off electricity and flushing all gas lines with an inert gas seems like a prudent thing to do after a significant earthquake. Particularly in an environment like California, where it is unlikely anybody will freeze to death (keep the drinking water flowing though.)

Everybody thinks they need six nines. I'm really a fan of this bit: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/12/keeping-some-of-the-...

Those accepting less than “six nines” are trading for some other features. I’ll take less uptime but only to eliminate dependency.

We struggled to reach “six nines“ for a reason.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#252

Post by zaroth »

wglb wrote: post #246
zaroth wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I saw the story that someone who was on oxygen died during the outage. People with life essential medical equipment which runs on electrical power absolutely must ensure they have a backup power supply, be ready to activate it, and have a plan should an outage continue beyond their backup capacity. Power goes out, whether it’s a blackout, brownout, planned maintenance, or otherwise. Everyone should have plans fo…

How much should we spend? And for what length of outage? One week of full backup would be quite expensive.

You should have enough to shelter in place for a reasonable outage, plus enough that when that clock runs out, to decide you need to head to the hospital, and enough time to actually get there.

People who aren’t capable of planning this out for themselves should have a social worker doing it for them, and obviously people need to be capable of operating their life essential equipment at home, or they need someone on hand to operate it for them.

I mean - how can “you die if the power goes out” be an acceptable risk to send someone home to? I assume that would be medical malpractice.

In reality, and in this case, a backup was on hand. Something else happened/failed in the intervening moments which contributed to this person’s death.

IMO the story is being weaponized irresponsibly against PG&E because they make a good target which sells a lot of clicks.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#253

Post by ctdonath »

geitir wrote: post #92
heimatau wrote: post #84

What I strongly believe is being overlooked here is not the fact that their 'liability math' has changed but the fact that this is the result of regional utility monopolies. The entire energy sector are allowed to operate in these terrible ways because they have local governments supporting their terrible business models. Price of energy hasn't gone down because there is no actual competition. Without these large gov…

What blackout are you talking about in Atlanta? I'm from Atlanta and the only one that comes to mind is in 2017 the airport lost power due to an underground fire. But that was specifically the wiring of the airport and not due to utility negligence

In Georgia I’ve seen more gasoline outages than electrical outages for over a decade.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#254

Post by Dylan16807 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #93
Dylan16807 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "[...]" skips over the option where they have smaller immediate profits in exchange for securing the future of the company. Is that a bad option for some reason?

A company selling shares to raise capital is an alternative to other methods of raising capital, like taking out a loan. Asking why they don't just make smaller profits is like asking why they don't just pay a lower interest rate on their loans. It presumes that someone exists who is willing to lend them the money at the lower rate of return. Companies have the option of shutting down operations and selling off their…

> A company selling shares to raise capital is an alternative to other methods of raising capital, like taking out a loan.

Not selling shares. Having smaller dividends. That doesn't assume anyone is willing to loan them money.

> If their profits fall below the level that could be achieved by selling off those assets and then investing the money at the market rate of return, it becomes profitable for raiders to come in and buy the company and do that with it, so the company has to stay more profitable than that in order to prevent that from happening.

Ugh. I'm not sure via what mechanism, exactly, but it should not be possible for a monopoly power company to just dissolve and sell off the trucks for a tiny quick profit.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#255

Post by Dylan16807 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #105
Dylan16807 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are clearly signaling to the politicians that they better shield them from further liability or expect more of this behavior. It's not exactly hard to fight back against that. Make fires cost them enormous sums of money, and make outages also cost them enormous sums of money. Give them extremely clear monetary incentives to improve as many lines as possible and make shutdowns as small as possible.

If spending the money on infrastructure without a rate increase bankrupts them, keeping the lights on without spending the money bankrupts them and turning the lights off bankrupts them then the result is always that they go bankrupt. It's not possible to get around "totally reliable, totally safe, inexpensive; pick two" by passing a law mandating all three.

Is there no desire to take the path that bankrupts them the least?

> It's not possible to get around "totally reliable, totally safe, inexpensive; pick two" by passing a law mandating all three.

Oh I'm not asking for that at all. They used to be pretty reliable, pretty safe, kind of expensive. After neglecting lines they got to pretty reliable, not very safe, kind of expensive. With the shutdowns they shift to not very reliable, pretty safe, kind of expensive. They need to go back to where they started.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#256

Post by LoSboccacc »

untog wrote: post #177
zaroth wrote: post #127

Judge William Alsup (remember him?) who is overseeing the PG&E case in San Francisco said about shutoffs; “The prudent thing to do when you’re uncertain is to turn the power off,” he said. “When the public complains that everything in the refrigerator is bad and the ice cream melted, then you could blame the judge. I’m willing to take the heat.” [1] - https://www.kqed.org/news/11737336/judge-pge-paid-out-stock-...

That attitude is all very well until you remember that there are people with medical equipment out there and literally rely on power to live. I’m not saying there are easy fixes but I don’t think flippantly disregarding concern has the right approach either.

blackout happens, while a utility has to inform for planner maintenance unplanned events are _always_ possible and people depending on electricity for their lives need to make sure they're prepared on a very short notice as a circuit breaker can trip anytime.

not discounting the responsibility on the utility in any way, but a faulty kettle would have been as deadly.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#257

Post by LoSboccacc »

wglb wrote: post #246
zaroth wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I saw the story that someone who was on oxygen died during the outage. People with life essential medical equipment which runs on electrical power absolutely must ensure they have a backup power supply, be ready to activate it, and have a plan should an outage continue beyond their backup capacity. Power goes out, whether it’s a blackout, brownout, planned maintenance, or otherwise. Everyone should have plans fo…

How much should we spend? And for what length of outage? One week of full backup would be quite expensive.

enough to reach the nearest hospital, those have their own generators. we're not talking deep north pole installation here.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#258

Post by rayiner »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #117
rayiner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how California’s HSR project recently exploded due to run away costs, calling the concern about the state take over more things “fear mongering” is pretty dense.

CAHSR died the death of a thousand paper cuts (e.g. SF and south bay routing, grade separation, signalling, trump). All of that created an untenable situation. The closest equivalent with municipal power is the gobs of money PG&E has spent trying to kill local and statewide public power legislation.

Routing, grade separation, and signaling are things any train system must deal with. The lesson from CAHSR is that the California government was too incompetent to be able to handle something that many governments around the world handle just fine.

As to Trump—CAHSR had already failed by the time Trump took office. He simply demanded the federal government’s money back.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#259

Post by rayiner »

selectodude wrote: post #181
dragonwriter wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> CAHSR died the death of a thousand paper cuts CAHSR is surprisingly alive and active for something that died.

It exists, and they’re building, but it’s only linking the powerhouse cities of Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield. So I’m sure it’ll be packed 7 days per week.

It’ll remain a hilarious monument to the state government’s incompetence, right in the heart of a region that “voted for the other guy.”

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#260

Post by rayiner »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #210
masonic wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In one comment chain, we have Regan (sic) blamed for "privatizing" CA utilities and Trump blamed for CAHSR.

In one comment chain, we have Regan (sic) blamed for "privatizing" CA utilities and Trump blamed for CAHSR. Whether or not you agree with his actions Trump absolutely tried to kill CAHSR. https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-high-speed-rail-20...

Trump didn’t derail the project as originally envisioned. He tried to kill it after the governor declared that the project that had originally been pitched to the federal government had become infeasable.
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