This electrical transmission tower has a problem

Post by bhawks » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:18 AM UTC

20after4 wrote: post #149

bhawks wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pred…

Where I live in rural Missouri, we have "rural electric cooperatives." They are customer-owned utilities set up in the 1930s. From my experience and that of everyone I've talked to in the region, the coops are incredibly reliable, take safety and maintenance very seriously, and provide service at very reasonable rates. It seems clear to me that for-profit business is the wrong model for an infrastructure monopoly lik…

Post by 20after4 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:22 AM UTC

benjaminjackman wrote: post #20

jrockway wrote: post #15

I guess my takeaway from this is if you're a government building some sort of asset you're going to transfer to the private sector, overengineer it. Nobody is ever going to do maintenance, so your thing essentially has to last forever. Imagine that they made the hooks so they only lasted for 10 years -- we'd have 10 times as many billion-dollar fires. But some engineer in 1918 said "you know, let's make it a little b…

Paradoxically though if it failed every 1 year then pretty soon maintenance would have to be performed every few months or days or else there would be so many failures it would be really hard to ignore.

Post by harha » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:26 AM UTC

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…

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:35 AM UTC

brianpan wrote: post #88

Dylan16807 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 maintenance was the last thing to fail. There are always other causes and improvements. From how the maintenance is performed and verified, to how the system works and is designed, to the process and culture of the organization. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys

Post by imtringued » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 7:41 AM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #93

tonyhb wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you could be responsible and say 'hey, we have no documentation for this power line and it's 90 years old. Our knowledge of materials science say this should have worn out. Let's be proactive and replace things'. You don't need to physically inspect every item to be safe, here. You rely on precaution, standard shelf life, and operational procedures. If that's difficult, so be it. That's the price people pay for c…

The average age of a PG&E tower is 68 years old.