This electrical transmission tower has a problem • Hacker News Board

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#121

Post by m12k » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:42 AM UTC

tuna-piano wrote: post #65

nanodeath wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

"why can some sparks in one place cause such huge destruction and can we do anything about that?"

Forest fires happen naturally all the time, but we've gotten so good at putting them out quickly, that at some point a huge buildup of dry underbrush will have amassed in a huge area, until a fire happens that is so big that we have no way to stop it. We're basically accumulating these huge powderkegs instead of letting the gunpowder burn one handful at a time.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#122

Post by ironmagma » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:45 AM UTC

_jal wrote: post #2

PG&E is a public menace.

Despite all the effort that went into investigating the cause of this fire, remember that someone started an even bigger fire this year by doing a gender reveal party. So it really is irrelevant how careful everyone is; something will set everything ablaze eventually.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#123

Post by watersb » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:48 AM UTC

Normalization of deviance.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#124

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:52 AM UTC

kempbellt wrote: post #90

akira2501 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>Of course they can. A failure is an unplanned shutdown A pedantically accurate retort, but ignores the real point. Shutting down these lines for "inspection" is not feasible. These lines are the backbone of a grid that millions of people and services rely on 24/7/365, and there is zero redundancy. They are responsible for delivering power to hospitals, traffic lights, schools, airports, grocery stores, homes, busine…

[deleted]

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#125

Post by zbrozek » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:55 AM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #57

I've got a bit of a problem with articles like this one. I'll try and illustrate it with an analogy: Imagine some asshole puts an incendiary in an orphanage, and rigs it to go off when a nearby speed trap detects someone going more than 10mph over. Eventually, someone does, and the orphanage catches fire. Further, the group responsible for constructing and maintaining the orphanage hasn't looked at the place for 50 y…

You're right that it does draw attention to other systemic problems that we need to address. Forest management in a changing climate needs to change and we're definitely socially negligent there.

But let's not apologize for PG&E. Read the whole Butte DA report. It's extremely damning without needing to resort to hyperbole or sensationalism. PG&E has willfully ignored problems and chosen to "run to failure" effectively their entire system, ignoring outcomes of those failures.

And on top of that, they're absolutely milking the ratepayer.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#126

Post by Tumblewood » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

himinlomax wrote: post #116

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…

Imagine an alleged arsonist going to court, and his defense was "not guilty your honor, I didn't put all that fuel in one place, I just flicked a tiny lighter!"

This is a poor analogy. Besides the distinction that arson is intentional rather than negligent, arsonists burn things that would not have burned otherwise. While PG&E's negligence sparked the fire, the brush in the area would have burned at some point in the near future regardless of their actions. The Twitter thread mentions the fire that started in the area around the same time because a tree fell, or some other inciting event could have happened. While PG&E should be held accountable for failing to uphold legal standards of inspection, the Camp Fire or a similar one was likely even without negligence, so to compare PG&E to arsonists is misleading.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#127

Post by bhawks » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

Johnny555 wrote: post #109

bhawks wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Climate change shouldn't be used as a get out of jail card free card for catastrophic events like this. PGE has a very long track record of neglectful behaviours. From leaking chromium into drinking water in socal, san mateo gas main explosion, and the electrical fires in northern California. There is something very wrong with how PGE approaches it's infrastructure and public safety. It would happen regardless of cli…

Assigning them unlimited liability for catastrophic wildfires leads to the unintended consequence of making it risky for them to run power at all during high fire danger conditions, so they turn off power in these areas.

They've been willfully negligent and reckless to the infrastructure they own to service their customers.

In this case we're not even talking about tree trimming, we have a 100 year old tower. It's obvious it will fail soon, there should be an internal maintenance program to replace/update it. There are no such programs, PGE operates in a way that there would never be such a program. PGE should be held liable for predictable out comes of its behaviours. (see all it's other catastrophic failures across the state)

A normal company would not exist after one PGE level negligent catastrophe. PGE is still around because it holds the state hostage to our energy infrastructure. This is not acceptable.

The key recurring theme is negligence. That's the reason PGE faces such high liabilities for the disasters it causes. This is not an act of God.

I believe it's totally possible to operate a for profit utility that's safe and reliable. PGE can't do that, now how can california untangle this mess.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#128

Post by generatorguy » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:56 AM UTC

Wind, ice, squirrels, birds, snakes and trees are going to cause power lines to fail and create sparks so while perfectly maintained power lines will fail less often failures will still occur. If the world is a tinderbox from now on there is a choice to be made between energized overhead power lines and no risk of fire.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#129

Post by NamTaf » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:58 AM UTC

tonymet wrote: post #58

this is a multi source problem. pgp failure is one facet. lack of land maintenance is the other . if the land were maintained the fire would have happened and been less catastrophic

Few failures in the real world tend to be a single-source problem. Hence the swiss-cheese model [1].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_cheese_model

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#130

Post by rayiner » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 5:59 AM UTC

zzapplezz wrote: post #97

xyzzyz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:/…

> If California doesn't like PG&E making ... profit.. it should set lower profit target, and allow PG&E spend more money on maintenance Who makes decisions at the CPUC? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is circular logic.

Political appointees who have enormous incentives to keep electricity prices as low as possible.