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This electrical transmission tower has a problem

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Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#41

Post by burlesona »

This is interesting but not really surprising. Most folks don't realize, because we don't stop and think about it, but the US has unbelievable amounts of infrastructure in this sort of condition.

When things can last 40-100 years with little to no maintenance before catastrophic failure, there is _extraordinary_ incentive to defer maintenance until catastrophic failure occurs.

For every mayor / governor / utility director etc. who experiences the eventual failure, there are dozens of predecessors who benefitted from deferring preventative action. Every previous leader who punted on maintenance and saved money or increased profits and reaped immediate tangible rewards. The company stock went up. Or the town paid it's firefighters pensions, which turned out to be more expensive than planned.

"We ought to do more maintenance, but waiting another year or two will be okay," says everyone. "Next year, when we're not in such a bind, we'll catch up."

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#43

Post by mrbabbage »

throwaway189262 wrote: post #28

Interesting. I'm kinda sympathetic to PG&E on this though. These big lines don't have much under them, inspection is by helicopter, and the lines cannot be shut down. I would not be surprised if "fix it when it breaks" is a nationwide phenomenon for high tension lines. What makes it bad is how fire-prone California is. I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. And in PG&E's def…

There is no defense for PG&E for the Camp Fire. This is an organization that is notorious for under-maintaining its assets. Its state of repair is so shoddy that it regularly turns off power for many days at a time ("public safety power shutoffs") to huge swathes of its service area. No other comparable utility does this - not San Diego Gas and Electric, not the Victoria Electricity Cooperative (Australian utility), no one, because they have entered the 21st century and don't need to resort to crude hacks like shutting off all power to prevent fires.

The proof is in the thread. Barely 10 years ago, PG&E pleaded guilty to another felony, when its under-maintained gas pipeline in San Bruno exploded, killed 8 people, and leveled a neighborhood. That utility has a cultural problem going to the very top that prioritizes profit over safety, and I sincerely hope it emerges from bankruptcy reformed.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#44

Post by zanny »

causality0 wrote: post #21

"Paying money to violate the law" is a fundamentally broken method of law enforcement. Do away with them. Justice should not be a line item in a spreadsheet. Maybe it's only twenty minutes in the county jail but every single infraction should fall personally on the individual who made the decision. Start hauling board members into court in orange jumpsuits and see how quickly these "unavoidable" fuckups stop happenin…

At the same time retribution should not be the goal of justice, it should be rehabilitation. I'm totally against incarcerating anyone not posing imminent threat to life for a multitude of reasons but my most selfish is that locking people up is incredibly expensive and I'd rather not spend my tax dollar on it if its not actually protecting me from anything.

US corporate charter exists to exonerate decision makers from personal liability for crimes committed by the company. That absolution of responsibility is in my opinion the primary motivator for having incorporation at all - its a shield explicitly designed to protect you from culpability.

At that a fair judgment would then be something along the lines of - all acting leadership of PG&E or any other corporation using their immunity to be negligent and cause harm must disbar their ownership or face incarceration for being a threat to life. Because they are when they behave like this, at scales that the most deranged mass murderer could only hope to approach.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#45

Post by mjevans »

throwaway189262 wrote: post #28

Interesting. I'm kinda sympathetic to PG&E on this though. These big lines don't have much under them, inspection is by helicopter, and the lines cannot be shut down. I would not be surprised if "fix it when it breaks" is a nationwide phenomenon for high tension lines. What makes it bad is how fire-prone California is. I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. And in PG&E's def…

There is plenty of blame to spread around.

Regulations should require sufficient redundancy for scheduled outages on individual lines for regularly scheduled service during non-critical times.

Communities should not be allowed to form, and should be actively wound down if they are within dangerous areas with seasonal problems. Fires, Floods, Extreme doubts, unsustainable water table use, etc. This should _begin_ at a federal level with a re-location act, and should involve planning and support at every stage of government to proceed in an orderly way for society.

Edit: Also, of course, the company is still at fault, I forgot to point that out while going over other aspects of the systemic failure of society (people and organizations of people) as a whole.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#46

Post by zaroth »

throwaway189262 wrote: post #28

Interesting. I'm kinda sympathetic to PG&E on this though. These big lines don't have much under them, inspection is by helicopter, and the lines cannot be shut down. I would not be surprised if "fix it when it breaks" is a nationwide phenomenon for high tension lines. What makes it bad is how fire-prone California is. I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. And in PG&E's def…

The big change is not that somehow PG&E is going to inspect every hook on every tower. It’s not like they can just climb the tower and check it out, as you say they inspect with helicopters and cameras. Probably many of these towers don’t have a clear means to even access them with heavy equipment.

Instead, the approach is they will simply shut off the power during these high risk days.

Interesting that they actually warned that they could shut off power in the days leading up to the fire, but never actually did. To me, those are the meetings to zero in on when it comes time to lay the blame. I wonder, what was the calculus to cutting power (which itself can have health & safety impacts to the populace) and how much of it was political?

PG&E has 100,000 miles of transmission lines, so perhaps about a million of these towers. To put that in perspective, historically they spend billions of dollars a year on maintenance and upgrade on the order of 100-200 miles of transmission lines per year.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#47

Post by cco »

throwaway189262 wrote: post #28

Interesting. I'm kinda sympathetic to PG&E on this though. These big lines don't have much under them, inspection is by helicopter, and the lines cannot be shut down. I would not be surprised if "fix it when it breaks" is a nationwide phenomenon for high tension lines. What makes it bad is how fire-prone California is. I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. And in PG&E's def…

It feels like a great use case for a drone, you could get closer, the video can be taken by non-inspectors and then reviewed later/stored.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#48

Post by colejohnson66 »

causality0 wrote: post #21

"Paying money to violate the law" is a fundamentally broken method of law enforcement. Do away with them. Justice should not be a line item in a spreadsheet. Maybe it's only twenty minutes in the county jail but every single infraction should fall personally on the individual who made the decision. Start hauling board members into court in orange jumpsuits and see how quickly these "unavoidable" fuckups stop happenin…

How do we decide who is “personally responsible”? Wells Fargo’s tellers were the ones personally responsible for the fraud, but that was due to unreasonable targets set by management.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#49

Post by teraflop »

dakial1 wrote: post #42

Couldn't drones + AI do the inspection work more effectively?

It's far from obvious to me that an AI would be able to inspect a complex system like this for (potentially unanticipated) failures more effectively than a knowledgeable, experienced human.

And aside from the proximate cause of the fire, the thread highlights a deeper and more insidious issue, namely the diffusion of management responsibility for decisions and their consequences. It seems to me that delegating inspections to an algorithm would make that problem much worse, not better.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#50

Post by mjevans »

umvi wrote: post #22
_jal wrote: post #2

PG&E is a public menace.

I would wager a lot of power companies run their equipment to failure. Anecdata, but Pepco in Maryland burned me once. When we first moved into our house motor loads (vacuum, disposal, etc.) caused all the lights in the house to dim. We called an electrician and he said the problem was the transformer in the green box outside our house and to call Pepco to fix it. We did and Pepco dragged their feet forever. Weeks la…

Unfortunately, you'll probably have to talk to a lawyer and maybe go to court to get damages...
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