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California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

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Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#211

Post by extradesgo »

baddox wrote: post #184
flukus wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is most unemployed people don't have the specialized skill set to contribute to these projects and those that do aren't unemployed. The unskilled labor these projects require has mostly been automated over the last 100 years by robotic tools like excavators. Basically every problem we used to be able to throw manpower at now has similar automation and the same sorts of projects would now be done by far fewer…

So where are all the automatic bridge-building machines? Isn’t our bridge infrastructure famously poor?

Right. The automation nuts are wildly disconnected with reality.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#212

Post by morelisp »

tripletao wrote: post #173
morelisp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size (not always duration) of outage in your second link would be considered routine in many American cities. To take SF as an example: - 2020, well, here you go - 2018/2019 should also need no overview, CA is probably the worst power situation in OECD countries in the 21st century - 2017, 88k without power https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/21/power-outage-sh... - 2016, 23k https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c…

> Berlin got a blackout once in a decade like most American cities get multiple times a year. The Berlin power outage linked above was over thirty hours, and the SF outages you linked were a few hours. To bury that in "(not always duration)" seems misleading to me. That said, the 2019 power cuts were indeed approaching third-world duration and frequency, to the point that homeowners who could afford it applied the us…

> We also seem to be mixing load shedding... with accidental outages.

Not 'we'; I'm well-aware of the difference but the person I was responding to gave examples of accidental outages.

The US has considerably more of both than Europe, especially Germany (SAIDI measured in hours vs. 15-20 minutes), regardless of what investment-focused metrics the World Bank is giving.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#213

Post by morelisp »

dmode wrote: post #155
morelisp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The size (not always duration) of outage in your second link would be considered routine in many American cities. To take SF as an example: - 2020, well, here you go - 2018/2019 should also need no overview, CA is probably the worst power situation in OECD countries in the 21st century - 2017, 88k without power https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2017/04/21/power-outage-sh... - 2016, 23k https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.c…

I don’t know what you are comparing. A power outage due to an accident, affecting a limited population is very different than blackouts. Such emergency outages happen every day

> I don’t know what you are comparing

I'm comparing what the parent asked to compare, even though it's not load shedding.

> Such emergency outages happen every day

In America. Not Germany. Like, yes, literally some level of outage occurs daily, but it's an order of magnitude difference.

US: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=37652

Germany: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/EN/Areas/Energy/Companies/S...

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#214

Post by dredmorbius »

Steltek wrote: post #93
dredmorbius wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with other impacts of shutdown and quarantine, shifts in demand and consumption patterns can mean that infrastructure isn't able to supply electricity to where it's specifically needed. It's been pointed out that electricity is not storable --- it's less an energy store as with fuel and far more energy distribution as with a transmission or driveshaft, but with far more connections. Not only must the Grid make pow…

Residential solar once posed the opposite problem: generating power during the day in suburbs where it wasn't being consumed nor could it be transported to areas of high demand. If our current problem is higher daytime residential demand, maybe power companies can stop fighting residential solar initiatives now?

The "duck curve".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck_curve

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#215

Post by donw »

dragonwriter wrote: post #153
donw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOP has no power in California, though, and that’s been true for over a decade.

> The GOP has no power in California, though, and that’s been true for over a decade. The GOP could still block tax increases (including any tax rearrangement that included an increase in some aspect), because of the supermajority requirement, until the Senate class elected in 2018, which was significantly less than a decade ago.

Unless I'm reading this[1] wrong, the California State Assembly has been a Democrat supermajority since 2011, and the Senate has been since 2013.

Moreover, Democrats have only been one or two votes short of a supermajority in both houses since 1999.

So, I still think my statement is fair, that the GOP has no effective power in California, and that has been the case for two decades.

Where do I have it wrong?

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

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#216

Post by dragonwriter »

donw wrote: post #215
dragonwriter wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The GOP has no power in California, though, and that’s been true for over a decade. The GOP could still block tax increases (including any tax rearrangement that included an increase in some aspect), because of the supermajority requirement, until the Senate class elected in 2018, which was significantly less than a decade ago.

Unless I'm reading this[1] wrong, the California State Assembly has been a Democrat supermajority since 2011, and the Senate has been since 2013. Moreover, Democrats have only been one or two votes short of a supermajority in both houses since 1999. So, I still think my statement is fair, that the GOP has no effective power in California, and that has been the case for two decades. Where do I have it wrong? [1] https…

> Unless I'm reading this[1] wrong, the California State Assembly has been a Democrat supermajority since 2011, and the Senate has been since 2013.

The relevant threshold is 27 (2/3 of 40 is 26.6...) seats in the Senate, 54 (2/3 of 80 is 53.3...) in the Assembly.

So in 2011 neither house has a supermajority (and, prior to a State Constitutional Amendment in 2010, a supermajority was required to pass a budget with or without tax changes), in 2013 Dems had supermajorities in both Houses which they lost for the 2015 session in both Houses, regained in 2017 by the 2016 election in both Houses, lost in the Senate by a recall in mid 2018, and regained by the 2018 elections for the 2019 session.

> Moreover, Democrats have only been one or two votes short of a supermajority in both houses since 1999.

No, up to 2 in the Senate and 6 on the Assembly short; and up until 2010 that meant Republicans, while, they couldn't pass anything on their own obviously, had a veto on the annual budget which thhey regularly held hostage to extract other concessions.

> So, I still think my statement is fair, that the GOP has no effective power in California, and that has been the case for two decades.

It's not; they've had a veto on tax policy changes that aren't pure cuts intermittently, on at least one house (which is all it takes) over the last decade, and a veto over the budget consistently for the prior decade.

Oh, and as well as a legislative veto on the budget they also held the Governor's office for much of that prior decade (the full years of 2004-2010), which gave them more power (especially because, unlike the President in the federal system, the Governor has a line item veto on the California budget.)

So, no, they haven't been without power in California for two decades (or even the original claim of one, but its much more ridiculous to now claim two.)

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#217

Post by dragonwriter »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #157
mperham wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California can't print more money, the Fed can.

The GOP has no power over the Fed, either.

> The GOP has no power over the Fed, either.

The Fed Board are Presidential appointees and currently the board has four GOP members and one Democrat. The GOP controls the Fed.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#218

Post by dragonwriter »

mperham wrote: post #141
donw wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GOP has no power in California, though, and that’s been true for over a decade.

California can't print more money, the Fed can.

More to the point, California (both Constitutionally, and practically because of the market effect of being the issuer of the debt-denominating currency) borrow as freely and cheaply as the federal government.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#219

Post by dredmorbius »

eigenvector wrote: post #102
dredmorbius wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As with other impacts of shutdown and quarantine, shifts in demand and consumption patterns can mean that infrastructure isn't able to supply electricity to where it's specifically needed. It's been pointed out that electricity is not storable --- it's less an energy store as with fuel and far more energy distribution as with a transmission or driveshaft, but with far more connections. Not only must the Grid make pow…

Your comment is completely correct in general, but I'll add that based on the information released by CAISO for this incident, it appears to have been caused by insufficient generation capacity to meet demand at the state level, not constraints on specific transmission or distribution circuits. CAISO declared insufficient operating reserve (the generation capacity that is available to quickly ramp up or down to match…

Thanks for that.

To be clear,I was pointing out a general property, not intending to attribute the recent/current blackouts to this cause.

Re: California issues first rolling blackouts since 2001

#220

Post by throw0101a »

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…

> The last time two times the US had aligned executive and legislative branches were the first two years of the Obama and Trump regimes.

And Obama managed to pass healthcare reform (ACA, "Obamacare", national Romneycare).

If Binden gets in, and the Democrats can control Congress (the Senate is if-y), then I would hope they do something about climate change (carbon pricing?) as it is an existential threat.

There's also the need about dealing from all the COVID fallout, but that a lot there could be done via the competent running of the government. Infrastructure needs spending and that would entail Congress, so that may be a #3 priority.

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