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California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

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Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#191

Post by chaostheory »

strangeloops85 wrote: post #179

Worth noting: This does not affect many of the major municipal utilities, including SMUD in Sacramento, LADWP in LA, and Silicon Valley Power in Santa Clara because many have their own generating capacity and are also in alternate distribution arrangements. The investor-owned utilities don't have much direct generating capacity anymore and rely on CAISO, and well, that has its limits. Also pretty sure that customers…

I’m guessing it shields local government from lawsuits. You’re right though, better alternatives to an investor owned utility would be a co-op or non-profit.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#192

Post by nashalo_nighly »

nradov wrote: post #144
heavyset_go wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Healthcare costs are up, but you don’t have to worry about dying from a scraped knee. As an American, you just need to worry about dying from incredibly common and treatable diseases like cancer, heart disease or diabetes due to lack of treatment. If you show up to an emergency room without insurance or ability to pay and expect chemo or a supply of insulin or blood pressure medication, you're out of luck. My grand…

The US is at or near the top for cancer 5 year survival rates. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/cancer-su...

Which is mostly due to lead time bias and overdoagnosis.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#194

Post by 37474783rur »

cipher_system wrote: post #10

I wish the massive financial bailout money could be used to build and improve infrastructure. There doesn't seem to be a lack of money but it never seem to do anything useful.

Speaking as a socal Californian, infrastructure isn't the problem it's that most of the state hates confronting reality. We'd rather raise minimum wage arbitrarily than admit we have a CoL problem, we invest in bike lane expansions while leaving buses to fight cars for space in most parts of our cities because "omg bikes are so eco friendly and Europe does it", and for some reason we hate high density housing even though rent is on the rise everywhere. We were supposed to have expanded our energy infrastructure already to make more use of natural gas which might have alleviated the need for rolling blackouts but instead we of course chased green energy projects that let people in the politically connected affluent regions pat themselves in the back.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#195

Post by iaw »

rasz wrote: post #193

Richest state of the richest country (by GDP) on the planet folks!

Infrastructure is 50+ year investment and everywhere in the country has been slacking in development. Given the growth of the bay area and the increase in hot weather due to global climate change the system gets exacerbated because it's going out of spec.

The fact that it has been as robust (in delivery, not hazard) as it has for the last 20 years is a testament to its strength.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#196

Post by onecommentman »

EarthIsHome wrote: post #166
throw0101a wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> […] could be used to build and improve infrastructure. But what about Infrastructure Week? * https://www.npr.org/2018/05/15/611389675/why-its-infrastruct... * https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/23/politics/donald-trump-infrast... * https://theweek.com/articles/839005/all-infrastructure-weeks... /s > There doesn't seem to be a lack of money but it never seem to do anything useful. Well, at the federal level, there are two…

> at the federal level, there are two chambers of Congress and the Executive. Changing anything for the benefit of the masses through electoral politics may never happen again or will be too slow. The last time two times the US had aligned executive and legislative branches were the first two years of the Obama and Trump regimes. So much changes between elections that there's no way we can fix it through electoral po…

There was an episode of Monty Python I remember. The premise was that in the late 1960s Hitler and his cronies, under assumed identities, were staying at an English boarding house in Minehead, Somerset planning "to get the band back together" via some local election. The TV audience could see through the ruse, but the other residents of the hotel were oblivious. The scene I remember was Mr Hilter ranting from a balcony to a few scattered locals. The bunting was red, don’t remember was the insignia was. As a local yokel was staring up blankly at Mr Hilter’s Germanic rant about the sovereignty of Taunton, Hilter’s crony, Ron Vibbentrop, sidled up to the yokel and, as an aside, told the yokel "He’s right, do you know that?"

Don’t know why, but that just popped into my head...

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#197

Post by scarface74 »

nemo44x wrote: post #189
scarface74 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes California different than Texas? I don’t have a dog in the fight, I live on the east coast.

I think California in general has an identity crisis right now - a victim of its own success. It is probably the most unequal place in America in terms of wealth and income. But yet it is almost in denial about that. It is a huge polluter but refuses to really take action outside of token policies. Nuclear reactors might be a bit too much risk considering the seismic activity - but thorium reactors could be safely de…

So why are you opposed to progressive (number wise not politically) income tax but then seem not to be opposed to raising property tax?

Again, I’m as far away from California as geographically possible and still live in the US. I don’t have a dog in this fight.

In other words, why focus o property tax property instead of income tax?

Also, how is property tax not a “wealth tax”?

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#198

Post by scarface74 »

nemo44x wrote: post #186
CWuestefeld wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Texas generates more power than it needs And despite whatever stereotypes you might have about Texas, it produces more power from renewable sources (beside hydro) than any other state in America, by a pretty fair margin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_electri...

Texas seems to get hate for some reason but everyone I know that lives there (and many have moved from California) love it. I’ve been many times and I haven’t found much to dislike other than I prefer the structure of East Coast cities and towns, which is a personal preference. Texas is affordable, welcoming, and plays to its strengths. It seems like the land of opportunity today and it makes sense it is growing so f…

If Texas is anything like GA, people fly into Atlanta and say it’s not that bad but never experienced life outside of the metro area.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#199

Post by thatfrenchguy »

nemo44x wrote: post #94
refurb wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is quality of life? Sounds pretty subjective. One person may rank weather at the top, so Northern Europe sucks. Another may rank parental leave at the top, so the US sucks. Probably the most objective way is to measure how people vote with their feet.

I think it’s an interesting point. The USA always gets compared to Europe, especially Western Europe with this so called “Quality of Life” statistic. However there are far more Western Europeans moving to the USA than the other way. I don’t know, my siblings and I do better than our parents who put time in to raise us. We didn’t have much except each other. We weren’t without but we never had a vacation or went out t…

> However there are far more Western Europeans moving to the USA than the other way

Yeah, you have a “engineer” bias: people move to the US when they make top 10% income because it’s the only way your life is better than in a Western European country. You don’t see Europeans making median wage in the US because that would be quite stupid.

My parents combined make maybe 15-20% of my income in the US, they still go on more vacation than me, don’t have to worry about figuring out how healthcare work (yup gotta make sure you don’t go to a out of network hospital by accident otherwise hello 300000$ debt), and sent their kids to university for almost free.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#200

Post by rayiner »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #187
rayiner wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, great precedent of big government intervention in the economy: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/526655831 > The Public Works Administration program and housing was primarily designed to provide housing to white middle-class/lower-middle class families. The progressive aspect of it was that some projects were built for African-Americans as well. But it was explicitly segregated. And in many cases, it segregated n…

That was nearly 90 years ago. Redlining was made illegal under federal law - i.e. by the government - in the 70s, not least because the private sector had absolutely no interest in doing anything to stop it.

> That was nearly 90 years ago.

Did government bureaucrats micro-managing the economy stop being racist in that time?

> Redlining was made illegal under federal law - i.e. by the government - in the 70s, not least because the private sector had absolutely no interest in doing anything to stop it.

Redlining was invented by the government! The term refers to markings on FHA maps. The FHA massively distorted the mortgage market by insuring mortgages, but refusing to insure mortgages in Black neighborhoods. That made such mortgages vastly riskier for private sector lenders.

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