Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

Post by gwright » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:09 AM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #168

meroes wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a technician for xfinity in the bay area and NIMBYism a huge part too I would say. Huge portions of Mill Valley especially on and around Mt Tam had such bad poles and vegetation. Only the last 3 fire years did anything. But literally nothing gets approved besides exact replacement. Nothing gets put underground, or rerouted because (as I understand it) mostly NIMBY groups. And I believe ATT ultimately owns most o…

I can't imagine what makes someone object to moving cables underground.

Post by rconti » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:25 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #89

rconti wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdote is the opposite. I lived in Santa Clara from 2002-2010, San Carlos 2010-2011, Belmont 2011-2014, Redwood City 2014-present. Never had AC on the Peninsula. We have heatwaves every year. This summer has been remarkably mild, low 70s most of July and August until now. We got our heatwave. A bit more humid than normal thanks to tropical storm remnants, 70f dewpoint and 95f on Sunday, 65f dewpoint and spiked t…

That's contrary to my experience. I lived in south bay and the peninsula 2004-2010 and needed a/c every summer, for multiple weeks each year. For two of those years I didn't have a/c and had a lot of sleep loss those summers when daytime temperatures would break 90F, and occasionally 100F. Even when we'd "only" get mid-80F temperatures, I'd still want to run the a/c during the day if I was home. Feeling sticky while…

Post by chiph » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:30 AM UTC

dtwatljfk wrote: post #19

nimbius wrote: post #3

as someone who apprenticed as a lineman briefly, this isnt at all unexpected. Just because you have generating capacity, does not always mean you have capacity in the duty cycle for your transmission infrastructure. Many substations are older, and were never designed to handle high duty and load during climate-change driven weather events. These substations suffer from underreporting as they often dont have remote mo…

> but because NIMBY groups frequently oppose building or augmenting existing substations. Wild claims related to electromagnetism basically kill the project at every level. Can you elaborate? A substation is about to start construction just across the (narrow) street from my child's elementary school.

Post by mdorazio » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:38 AM UTC

rossdavidh wrote: post #234

So, not saying this is the main driver here, but just wondering: with a lot of people working from home, rather than an office building, it becomes relevant which is more efficient to cool. I have to think that it is more efficient to cool a single, larger building than many smaller ones? Again, not saying it's the primary reason, just mentioning that it could be a contributing factor.

Post by chiph » Tue, Aug 18, 2020, 1:41 AM UTC

Baeocystin wrote: post #105

lisper wrote: post #47

Every year you hear about horrible heat waves and fires in California but I'm here to tell you from my first-hand experience that This Time It's Different. I've lived on the SF peninsula for 10 years. We bought a brand new spec house. It was built without air conditioning. The developer said we wouldn't need it. We installed it anyway because we came from LA and a house in California without A/C did not fit into our…

I live in Gilroy, and we've had 3 days of 105+ weather. When the house I live in was built, they put in a 3-ton unit, which was complete fine for the first 20 years my family lived here. I replaced it a few years ago with a 4-ton unit, and added extra blown-in insulation. It has barely kept up with the heatwave. Next is dual-pane windows, I guess. There are a lot of folks with less who are straight-out suffering. The…