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Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

nytimes.com

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Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#281

Post by eitally »

IfOnlyYouKnew wrote: post #273
zxcvbn4038 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing gets put underground That is too bad, I grew up in an desert locale that had all its power lines buried and I only experienced one power outage in fifteen years. Then I moved out to a coastal area where burying the lines wasn’t really feasible and pretty much every time it rained someone would hydroplane into a utility poll and knock out the power for a couple hours, and it rained at least once a week. If t…

How does climate interfere with burying power lines? Germany's bad weather is only slightly less of a stereotype than the lack of humour and , and all residential power lines are underground. Even the long-distance lines are moving underground lately.

I think more than climate it tends to be 1) what does the current construction look like and is it feasible to move lines underground, 2) what is the soil like, and is it stable enough to bury cables, and 3) are current property owners willing to accommodate the disturbance to trench and replace the old cables.

I grew up in an old (for the US), hilly east coast city and nothing was underground. Because it wasn't very dense and didn't have gridded neighborhoods, it would have been quite expensive to run utilities underground. I subsequently moved to a newer part of a different city and all the new construction had underground utilities. It still doesn't prevent outages at the substation or high voltage transfer line layers.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#282

Post by icedistilled »

rconti wrote: post #249
icedistilled wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SCE is trying to shift people to time of use rates. The problem is the time of use rates are terrible, and will be more expensive to anyone who normally stays within tier one rates of the old plan. I'd end up paying about 30% more for power under any of their time of use rate plans even assuming I only use power in off peak times, despite owning a plug in hybrid. If you stay within their tier one rates on the old pla…

As someone without A/C, switching to TOU saved quite a bit of money (relatively speaking; my bills were not very large to begin with).

Interesting. I also don't have AC nor do I ever exceed tier 1 pricing. I thought time of use would be much more beneficial for someone who gets into tier 2 pricing if they can shift their use away from peak hours, making all their power at the cheapest rate. Right now my tier 1 cost is $0.21/kwh, the TOU plans are $0.25/kwh off peak, $0.5/kwh peak, but there is a $0.08/kwh credit for within tier 1 usage. Mathed out it's still more expensive.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#284

Post by bgorman »

rbanffy wrote: post #165
paloaltokid wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god...Marin NIMBYism is really crazy when it comes to that stuff. And there's a lot of conspiracy theory / 5G type stuff that goes on as well. Strange to think that many of the folks who live there are in charge of a lot of the companies on HN (or are senior execs there).

It's clear not enough is being invested in schools, in particular the science curriculum.

Enough is being invested, it is just being spent extremely poorly. No country gets less per dollar on education than the US. A good start would be supporting school choice so the public school's monopoly and cost structure can be challenged.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#285

Post by zbrozek »

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.

Around here? Price tag. That's all.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#286

Post by ping_pong »

rconti wrote: post #74
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…

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…

I agree with you. I've lived in the Bay Area over 20 years now. Heat waves are nothing special, it happens every year. OP is completely overexaggerating. Overall, from Peninsula to SF, you can survive most days without AC, except for about one week a year where it sucks. This year sucks worse because everyone is stuck at home, instead of an air conditioned office, if you're lucky to work. It used to be the case that you would just stay at work late until it cooled off but that didn't happen this year.

Yes, it got hot on Friday and Saturday but those were the first two very hot days all year. This year has been overall pretty average, if not a bit cooler than average years.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#287

Post by davisr »

forgotmysn wrote: post #242
davisr wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, from me it wasn't a strong compulsion. However, for many reasons (especially about privacy) we ought not to implement 5G. And this wasn't an article about some conspiracy--it was from an expert who is advising we tread cautiously about what we do not know, and that is very good advice. I don't think anyone can confirm or deny that 5G carries health risks. But, we do have evidence there are health risks with oth…

1. it was strong enough for you to post 2. please try to explain the security issues that 5G presents that aren't present in 4G, 3G, etc. 3. a lack of information is not an excuse to promote doubt and misinformation. part of the reason we haven't been able to measure the long-term effects of cellular radiation is that it takes time to run those studies. please stop promoting lies and undermining trust in the systems…

Hi, in response to #2, 5G allows for very fine resolution in location tracking. There are also concerns about the manufacturers of that equipment. I'll direct you to this link for more: https://www.brookings.edu/research/why-5g-requires-new-appro...

In response to #3, I have not posted any lies, and anything that disagrees with your narrative is not automatically FUD. There are serious doubts of 5G on many fronts by many experts, and these doubts should be discussed. However, as I've noticed here, there is a tendency by the group to form an echo chamber. Anything that's not in-group is not allowed, as we see here, where an expert has a serious concern about untested technologies. I wish we were able to have an honest conversation about this.

    > It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
Let's reverse roles: can you explain some concerns you might have about 5G? How about at the very basic of levels: why do we need poly-gigabit speeds for cell phones, and how could implementing it negatively impact people?

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#288

Post by war1025 »

war1025 wrote: post #193
myrandomcomment wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The temperature on the AC at my house is set at 80F. At 80F with the air flow from fans and a dressing light, there is no reason most people cannot be comfortable. I think that people cranking the AC down to 72F like they do are selfish and do not understand the impact that everyday actions have on the world as a whole.

I don't run my AC. It regularly gets up to 85-88F. With air flow from fans and dressing light, there's no reason most people cannot be comfortable. I think that people who run their AC like they do are selfish and do not understand the impact that their everyday actions have on the world. (I really don't run my AC. I do think people are overly dependent on it. The number of people I know who have their home cooler in…

Too late to edit or delete this post, but looking back on it a couple hours later, it was unkind and I shouldn't have written it.

That's all.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#289

Post by Baeocystin »

chiph wrote: post #239
Baeocystin wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Wait - you don't even have dual-pane glass? That's like leaving a door ajar all day. You can fake a second pane by putting plastic film over the window frame and taping it securely around the edges so there's no leakage, capturing the air between it and the glass. This will act as an insulating layer. Air leakage = heat transfer. But you're better off replacing the windows with dual-pane units that have low-e coating…

Yup. Currently have the plastic film deployed on about half my windows. It's obviously not true double-pane, but it makes a real difference. Well worth the $. For folks who don't know, once you've applied the plastic film, you shrink it with a hairdryer until it is smooth. If you take your time, it doesn't look bad at all, and is optically clear.

Re: Rolling blackouts in California have power experts stumped

#290

Post by JanisL »

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #270
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…

Why would even a NIMBY not be in favor of burying power lines? Power lines & poles don't exactly add to property values, and you'd think that underground you would get less electromagnetic 5G corona cancer rays implanting microchip vaccines too. But I guess trying to apply logic here isn't going to work...

Some NIMBYs I've met just don't want any change at all if there's any amount of immediate inconvenience they would face as a direct result regardless of how small. In these worst NIMBY cases there's often no particularly compelling arguments for why because it's all just flimsy justifications to avoiding dealing with any change. Logical argument about costs and benefits tend to go nowhere with these people. Sometimes framing things in terms of reducing future hassles and change can get things moving.
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