This electrical transmission tower has a problem • Hacker News Board

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#331

Post by briffle » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

resonantjacket5 wrote: post #217

tshaddox wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With proper engineering and maintenance, PG&E could probably reduce the frequency of fires significantly, but there's always going to be a non-zero risk of fire, both from power lines and other sources, and it seems basically inevitable that one of them would have started another fire at some point. I don’t understand. You’re conceding that if PG&E were a competent and responsible company they could significantly r…

No the root of the problem is that there's too much forest that hasn't burned. Blaming PG&E is missing the actual problem. For instance the Beirut explosion was the fault from the welders causing the explosion. Yes, but the larger and more important issue is why are there so many explosives in the first place? California's mismanagement with it's forest is the same issue. These forests should be periodically burned t…

That is part of it, the other part is the homes of paradise did not take 'best practices' into account for their homes. (or town, that one narrow road out seems like a deadly bottleneck) There were many news articles at the time talking about how homeowners couldn't prune back the woods far enough from their house, couldn't use less flammable materials in their home construction, etc.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#332

Post by chipsa » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:16 PM UTC

Dylan16807 wrote: post #171

legulere wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000 fires would actually be probably better than 10 because they help keep flammable material at bay and reduce the size of the fires.

Only if they occur often enough. PG&E isn't setting fires often enough to do that, so the downsides of every random fire they set strongly outweigh the upsides. If we need more fires, we should use carefully planned ones.

PG&E isn't in the business of setting fires, and shouldn't be. It's CalFire's job to manage forest fires, including setting controlled burns.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#333

Post by dragonwriter » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

DuskStar wrote: post #330

dragonwriter wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> driving too fast is an active choice, while lack of maintenance is an accident. Its quite possible for the former to be accidental and the latter deliberate, such as when you both deliberately reduce inspections and deliberately by policy eliminate the training for inspectors. And when you create a program with a name that indicates it is being used to follow up on safety problems to deceive regulators and just use…

Sure, but I'd put money on the majority of people speeding doing so intentionally, and while determining whether lack of maintenance was an accident isn't trivial (and depends on the definition of 'intentional') even in the PG&E case here they did not specifically and knowingly leave a broken part on the line.

> even in the PG&E case here they did not specifically and knowingly leave a broken part on the line.

They specifically and knowingly failed to maintain the lines, eliminating training for the people who were supposed to inspect the lines, and took active steps to conceal those facts; the lack of maintenance was a deliberate choice, and, also, they specifically and knowingly left many broken parts on the line for extended periods of time, which was extensively documented in the investigative document produced from the investigation that led to their manslaughter charges.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#334

Post by gpapilion » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

andi999 wrote: post #174

legulere wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1000 fires would actually be probably better than 10 because they help keep flammable material at bay and reduce the size of the fires.

Is there data from California about lightning as a fire cause? I read in Canada about 50% of all forest fires are started by lightning.

Coastal California lightning is rarer as is thunderstorms. Eastern California they are more common, but no where near Midwest levels.

The storm that can through last month started several of these fires with dry lightning or very little rain accompanying the lightning.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#335

Post by prennert » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:18 PM UTC

This case of breaking metal on an open hook reminds me very much of a warning on a climbing carabiner: make sure it is clipped fully and the gate is shut, otherwise the nose might break off.

I am sure someone checked the math etc, but an open hook with decreasing diameter towards the tip seems an odd design choice for a metal-on-metal arrangement that is being pulled hard by winds.

That is not to say that any system keeps on going forever without proper maintenance...

And this makes think if this could be designed so that inspection is easy and a replacement could be scheduled before the breaking point is reached. Maybe something like the marks in car tire treads that show how much wear is acceptable before needing to replace the tire without needing any equipment.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#336

Post by zaroth » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #300

zaroth wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they staff and run a metallurgical lab in house to which linemen can send samples for analysis, and then management simply throws away the reports?

Of I personally, knowingly caused this much damage throug negligence, i'd be in jail forever.

To be fair, first you would have build out a several hundred billion dollar state wide electrical grid, while allowing it to degrade in various ways over approximately a century.

I’m not sure a single person at any one time has ever knowingly caused this much damage through negligence. I mean ever in human history. Failures this large due to negligence tend to be systemic. But it would be a very interesting to hear an example.

The closest I can think of could be some of the famous bridge design failures, where people died, and people did go to jail, but not forever.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#337

Post by pixl97 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:20 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #260

Zanni wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An even better analogy is Jenga. California's uncontrolled fuel load was going to result in massive fires at some point. Yes, PG&E could have reduced the chance of it being them, which would be great for PG&E, but would make no difference to California.

The fuel load decays over time, so a long enough wait period and the next fire is independent of the last fire. Thus, fewer PG&E fires just means less fires rather than there being some independent amount of fire that’s always going to happen. If anything they need to have more responsibility in such areas not less responsibility. If they can’t detect a tree is at risk or not then either cut down more trees or use un…

This is mostly incorrect, and a really bad take at understanding fires in semi-arid climates.

The fires we are having are a human caused problem, and by human I don't necessarily mean PG&E. Trying to put this blame on one company is going to accomplish pretty much nothing and just lead to more deaths in the future as we piss around looking for the wrong people to blame and avoid solutions.

Also, underground cables still cause fires. I know this from experience.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#338

Post by pixl97 » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:24 PM UTC

jsymolon wrote: post #239

nullc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But many things can negligently cause sparks, including dozens of human and natural causes. My favourite: https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-mendocino-compl... Someone tried to stop an angry yellowjacket nest by driving a concrete stake into the hole in the ground and their hammer thew off sparks and started a 459,123 acre fire-- the largest recorded in state history at the time.

Aside, I use a very large clear glass bowl to kill the nest. Flip it over the hole, leave it for a little over a week and the nest will be dead. It has to be a clear bowl to trick the wasps to think that they can still get out otherwise they will dig a new exit.

Heh, and you might just be the next person to start a massive fire from a lensing effect.

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#339

Post by sitkack » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

dfsegoat wrote: post #314

extropy wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually yes, since they have a huge incentive to Run to Failure. Chaos monkeys would provide a consistent source of failures to make them do their maintenance. Similar to red teams in security.

While I appreciate the merits of chaos engineering, this comment lacks an understanding of the impact of these incidents, particularly in rural areas with a history of forest mismanagement. People die [like my neighbors here in Sonoma, CA] - it's not an EC2 instance that gets replaced. Further, one does not just 'restore' the power grid after an outage: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_outage#Restoring_power_a...

You can do simulations, either run it in forward or reverse. Pick a random town, burn it down, run the flame front backwards and find the paths and lines that caused it. Then look at the probable failure rates of those lines.

Run it forwards, pick and event and allow it to run its course.

When designing simulation runs there are bunch of dimensions to consider

* Fidelity or simulation resolution, spatial and temporal

* Number of runs, it is a linear search, spatial search, random, gradient

* If you are testing specific parameters, like will this bridge hold this static load, multiple simulation runs are done with the inputs varied slightly, input sensitivity analysis. [1]

The simulations don't have to be entirely on the computer, they could also couple with them physical and human components. One could page k/n employees that might be on duty at the random time. Response times in real life could be inferred by response to the actual pages. But people were harmed, no actual failures occurred.

If society approached civilization seriously, we would apply the full power of science AND engineering while we fail horribly at the application of engineering and suffer its excesses.

Given other pro PG&E comments in this thread, and how so many factors were in play and this and that. It all boils down to money and acceptable risk and how to package that up in a way that PG&E gets a slap on the wrist. Well done!

It very well could be that we as a society, decide we are ok with these risks, but that we need mediation. And it could be that we A) turn off at risk lines during likely conditions, as shown in simulation or via direct perception B) Have fire bomber planes in the sky during high likely occurrences.

But money is cheaper. You gotta spend it to make it.

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

Re: This electrical transmission tower has a problem

#340

Post by unexaminedlife » Thu, Sep 17, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #325

biztos wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California's mismanagement with its forest is the same issue. I agree that the forests should be managed differently, but if this being "California's mismanagement" is an actual thing as opposed to political disinformation, I'd love to see a couple links to back it up. Some quick googling suggests that it's mostly a Federal problem, which has very different implications especially right now. Am I wrong?

What do you mean by “political disinformation?” Some news outlets you don’t like published the story? How much “moral clarity” does the outlet need to have before you’ll consider the article?

I don't understand how someone could have been alive, over the last 4 years, inside a real human body with a functioning human brain and not understand the sentiment of the post you're replying to.