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This electrical transmission tower has a problem

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Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#61

Post by rsync »

andi999 wrote: post #30
WantonQuantum wrote: post #3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance "Normalization of deviance is a term used by the American sociologist Diane Vaughan to describe the process in which deviance from the right as in the correct or proper behavior becomes normalized in a corporate culture. Vaughan defines this as a process where a clearly unsafe practice comes to be considered normal if it does not immediately cause a catastrophe:…

I think this normalisation also applies to the other factors of this disaster. I dont think it is enough to focus on the immediate cause of the fire (it could have started through other causes, if the tower werent faulty), but how can people build so close to a forest which is mantained in a way which allows for such big fires?

This is a very good point.

I love to malign PG&E, an organization that I despise, but these forests are loaded guns waiting to go off. If we had zero PG&E towers, they would still catch fire and explosively burn, given the levels of built up fuel.

My source for this is very current and immediate: my volunteer fire department in Marin County just did a post-op debrief, last night, on the (relatively small, 5000 acre) Point Reyes National Seashore fire (the "Woodward" fire) and the photos and descriptions we were shown were very clearly indicative of dense, overgrown, heavy fuel loads.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#62

Post by pavlov »

burlesona wrote: post #41

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 dir…

> “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.“

With respect, it’s obvious to anyone coming to USA from elsewhere in the world.

Observing America is a strange mix of “wow, these people were so early, they really invented most of this stuff” and “wow, they really haven’t updated it since”.

(The American banking system evokes the same bewilderment. Every system seems to run on a 1958 IBM mainframe where someone feeds my transactions on punch cards.)

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#63

Post by nanodeath »

43920 wrote: post #60

This is definitely a failure on PG&E's part, but I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to assign them blame for this fire. The environment they're operating in is somewhat ridiculous - the forest is so dry and overgrown that pretty much any flame source will start a fire large enough to burn a huge area; this specific tower failure is basically just the thing that revealed a much larger issue. With proper engine…

Hm...it's unclear whether you read the stream. They had reason to believe that the C-hook would fail after 97-100 years, yet weren't even checking the C-hooks on towers that were 100 years old. That seems willfully negligent.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#64

Post by williadc »

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…

> I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly.

Along similar lines of thinking, humans should not be living in areas that flood regularly, or that have earthquakes regularly, or that have hurricanes regularly, or that have tornadoes regularly, or that have insufficient water, or that have excessive heat or cold regularly, or that have high rates of animal-transmitted disease.

This doesn't leave many places for people to live.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#65

Post by tuna-piano »

nanodeath wrote: post #63
43920 wrote: post #60

This is definitely a failure on PG&E's part, but I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to assign them blame for this fire. The environment they're operating in is somewhat ridiculous - the forest is so dry and overgrown that pretty much any flame source will start a fire large enough to burn a huge area; this specific tower failure is basically just the thing that revealed a much larger issue. With proper engine…

Hm...it's unclear whether you read the stream. They had reason to believe that the C-hook would fail after 97-100 years, yet weren't even checking the C-hooks on towers that were 100 years old. That seems willfully negligent.

I think the point is that PG&E negligently caused sparks. But many things can negligently cause sparks, including dozens of human and natural causes. Even among power operators, sparks seem to not be too rare (for example, the tree that fell on the line).

So while PG&E can be blamed for that specific fire that doesn't really address the root cause of "why can some sparks in one place cause such huge destruction and can we do anything about that?"

I'm just not so sure that if you accidentally knock over one domino and a cascading whole room full of dominoes falls that you should take the blame for the cascading effects. Maybe whoever setup the dominoes behind the first one shares the blame as well...

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#66

Post by aazaa »

> i like this used car analogy. basically, they bought a used car and ran it without oil changes until the engine seized.

This brings the Growth Ponzi Scheme to mind:

> What we have found is that the underlying financing mechanisms of the suburban era — our post-World War II pattern of development — operates like a classic Ponzi scheme, with ever-increasing rates of growth necessary to sustain long-term liabilities.

https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

PG&E maintains how many linear miles of power lines? How many towers like this one? Built how long ago?

The reason the Growth Ponzi keeps happening is the cities fail to account for ongoing maintenance costs. When those costs come due, the easiest way out is to build more to increase revenue.

Setting aside the question of intent and liability, I wonder if something similar happened to PG&E.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#67

Post by umvi »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #37
umvi wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the thread points out though, maintenance is just one piece of the puzzle. There were multiple points of failure here, not just the hook. That's like blaming the welders for the Lebanon explosion when in reality it was a combination of like 4 different fails over the course of many years.

I have no idea what you're talking about. Unless you count "power lines active during dry conditions" which is unavoidable, the only meaningful failure here is repeated lack of maintenance. The design was fine, and it was installed fine; it lasted a hundred years! Lack of maintenance will kill anything eventually, all by itself.

The power line failure just lit the fuse of the existing powder keg. Had the power line not failed, an equivalent fire could have eventually come from a cigarette butt of a hiker, lightning bolt, etc. The PG&E maintenance/record keeping fails are egregious, but the article also mentions climate change and forest management as things we need to address as well; it's not enough to eliminate one ignition source - we need to also prevent the powder keg from forming (or at least getting so big).

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#68

Post by 43920 »

nanodeath wrote: post #63
43920 wrote: post #60

This is definitely a failure on PG&E's part, but I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to assign them blame for this fire. The environment they're operating in is somewhat ridiculous - the forest is so dry and overgrown that pretty much any flame source will start a fire large enough to burn a huge area; this specific tower failure is basically just the thing that revealed a much larger issue. With proper engine…

Hm...it's unclear whether you read the stream. They had reason to believe that the C-hook would fail after 97-100 years, yet weren't even checking the C-hooks on towers that were 100 years old. That seems willfully negligent.

Right, I should clarify. PG&E absolutely should have known about, and prevented, the specific situation that caused this fire, and the fact they didn't do so is a huge problem. However, the surrounding area is such a high fire risk that a fire almost certainly would have occurred even without this failure (which the thread mentions: https://twitter.com/TubeTimeUS/status/1306377626487894017), and so the specific cause of the fire seems almost irrelevant to me. Even if PG&E did spend billions more on maintenance, and fix their inspection procedures, I don't see how this area would ever be safe, and so focusing on the power company as the source of the issue seems misguided to me.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#69

Post by xyzzyz »

akira2501 wrote: post #39
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…

> and the lines cannot be shut down. Of course they can. A failure is an unplanned shutdown, and I doubt that leads to better outcomes than a planned shutdown. Also this thread demonstrates that PG&E replaced _other_ parts of the same tower. > I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. I'm of the opinion that climate change makes this a moving target, and this is simply one of t…

If California doesn't like PG&E making $550M profit, and would like PG&E spend more on maintenance, it should set lower profit target, and allow PG&E spend more money on maintenance. PG&E operates based on decisions of California Public Utilities Commission, which decides, among other things, how much money PG&E is allowed to make, and how much it is allowed to spend on maintenance. Here's what it looks like: https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M102/K...

PG&E would love to spend more money on maintenance. It doesn't cut into their profits, because their expenses and profits are set by state government commission anyway. Of course, the government commission has some incentive to keep the rate low, to make citizens happy, which makes it limit how much money PG&E can make and spend.

The above is not meant to imply that if PG&E worked like any normal company, they'd maintain their shit better -- I have no idea if they would. However, in the current regime, where CPUC exercises so much control over what PG&E does and how much money it makes and spends, the blame cannot be solely placed on PG&E side.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#70

Post by [deleted] »

nanodeath wrote: post #63
43920 wrote: post #60

This is definitely a failure on PG&E's part, but I'm still not sure how much sense it makes to assign them blame for this fire. The environment they're operating in is somewhat ridiculous - the forest is so dry and overgrown that pretty much any flame source will start a fire large enough to burn a huge area; this specific tower failure is basically just the thing that revealed a much larger issue. With proper engine…

Hm...it's unclear whether you read the stream. They had reason to believe that the C-hook would fail after 97-100 years, yet weren't even checking the C-hooks on towers that were 100 years old. That seems willfully negligent.

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