Cali Power Outage

[AKDoug]

OK, I'll bite, why are they not feasible? I have them on my property.

My lines are buried as well, from the power poles to my house. First one failed at 25 years, resulting in them replacing the line at no cost to me, but about $5000 worth of landscaping damage that I had to pay for. My local power company says to not expect more than 30 years from a buried line. Conversely, the power supply to my other house is above ground and was put in 45 years ago.

Anyhow, this spells it out far better than I can. https://www.power-grid.com/2013/02/0...mparison/#gref

[26 Inf]

How do you “leave nature alone” and have all of the conveniences of modern society?

That's the problem - folks build homes and developments where they set themselves up for these things.

In our local we have an area we call the sandhills, yucca plants (yep in, Kansas) native grass, etc. Prairie Dunes Golf Course (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairi...s_Country_Club) is located in this area. So, of course, all the doctors, lawyers and bankers build houses out there, and every fracking year we have fires, that threaten houses.

How hard is it to understand that if you live in an area like that you need to keep several hundred feet around your house somewhat manicured?

Big excuse? We want to see the animals, or, we want it natural.

Jeez.

[Jsp10477]

A $10 meter fee is a joke and makes no actual contribution towards system maintenance.. I’d bet the $10 is to cover the wireless connection required for the smart meter.

[pinzgauer]

Have them go to Australia and explain all this at Alice Springs. Fire 100%, always damages a forest. It is a natural produce of the USFS's plan to keep firefighters in a paycheck, that is it.

Tell your biologist relatives I live in a Sequoia forest.

Snip


We have had no fires here in at least 200 years. Yet according to the biologists of the USFS and the US Park Service, this is impossible. Sequoia trees, according to them, need chemical soil to germinate and fire to open the cones. None of these biologists have ever studied Indian hunting methods and when cross examined by me concerning their "theories", they just fall apart.

Snip

Forests do not happen by themselves. They are a product of a series of vegetative communities starting with the last fire. Ferns, small shrubs, grass, higher shrubs, first trees, second tier trees, and finally climax vegetation all appear over many years. Climax vegetation in a forest is damp. It is hard to burn. In California in October most soil is like digging in cement. But go down one foot at my house the soil is damp.

Snip

Tell your biologists the soil, vegetation and climate (yes climate) are all on a feedback loop. You can change rainfall by changing the vegetation but to change vegetation you have to change the soil.
Snip
This seems to be the goal of forest management because most of them have never even seen a climax forest. All they have is pictures of forests 150 years old or so and compare them to modern forests. They say those depleted forests are the goal. But his is totally wrong. Those forests are still recovering from 15,000 years of Indian burning. It takes more time than the white man has been in North America for a forest to recover.

I hope it is clear that your biologists only have part of the picture.

Ahh, sorry, did not realize you had a magic Gaiia forest. Yeah, those play by different rules...

The flaw in your theory is that fires started by lightning burn about the same number of acres as manmade fire of all type. Over 8000 lightning caused fires per year in just the US.

We also know that in areas of low human interaction, you still see about the same number of fires.

It's pretty clearly gated by conditions (weather and fuel). IE: fires will happen with or without man. We know this from the fossil record. Forest fires have existed as long as plants have. And if man interferes with it, there is adverse impact.

Nevermind the issues with unnaturally protected forests and species diversity... Muir woods is a silent temple for a reason.

I'm sorry the bad abo's burnt your Oz homeland, by the way. Funny how similar/same human migrations did not impact Tazmania and NZ the same way.

[flenna]

Sort of like building a home on a barrier island and then acting surprised when a hurricane washes it away.

[Dr. Bullseye]

Ahh, sorry, did not realize you had a magic Gaiia forest. Yeah, those play by different rules...

The flaw in your theory is that fires started by lightning burn about the same number of acres as manmade fire of all type. Over 8000 lightning caused fires per year in just the US.

We also know that in areas of low human interaction, you still see about the same number of fires.

It's pretty clearly gated by conditions (weather and fuel). IE: fires will happen with or without man. We know this from the fossil record. Forest fires have existed as long as plants have. And if man interferes with it, there is adverse impact.

Nevermind the issues with unnaturally protected forests and species diversity... Muir woods is a silent temple for a reason.

I'm sorry the bad abo's burnt your Oz homeland, by the way. Funny how similar/same human migrations did not impact Tazmania and NZ the same way.

1. Lightning hit my big tree and has hit every big tree (Sequoia). Sometimes the tree is killed and looks like a forest fire did it a hundred years later but that is not true. Lightning never caused anything other than a less-than-an-acre fire here. It is just too damp for lightning to produce large scale fires. It is probably the same in most climax forests. The USFS does not even put them out here.
2. No, lightning does not start fires anywhere near as large or as frequent as do power companies. It is not even 5% in California. The USFS searches for data supporting their "fire" position with lightning. They cite studies done in the Pacific Northwest. This is not applicable to California. The Pacific Northwest hardly ever has lightning. Lightning is correlated positively with temperature and the earth's temperature can actually be measured counting lightning strikes. They do this using the Schumann Resonance which I can discuss if you are interested.
3. I live over the ridge from a wilderness area (I am surrounded by a National Monument where I am). They have "lightning fires" every Sept. and Oct. The USFS always calls them lightning fires in spite of the fact they are actually caused by hunters. We all laugh at this designation.
4. You are right. When man interferes with nature the outcome is never good.
5. I am an American. But as you see, I know forests, even foreign ones sometimes. NZ is a great example of pristine forests left alone. But Tasmania is a much better example. Did you know the Aboriginal inhabitants of Tasmania lost the ability to make fire? They had no fire when the European arrived. This climate is as cold as Southern England. The first whites found them huddled behind hedges in the winter in a miserable condition. They did not last long after contact. The last was named "King Billy" and was a minor celeb. in Tasmania. The forests of Tasmania are perhaps the best preserved in the world BECAUSE the natives could not burn them down.

[Dr. Bullseye]

My lines are buried as well, from the power poles to my house. First one failed at 25 years, resulting in them replacing the line at no cost to me, but about $5000 worth of landscaping damage that I had to pay for. My local power company says to not expect more than 30 years from a buried line. Conversely, the power supply to my other house is above ground and was put in 45 years ago.

Anyhow, this spells it out far better than I can. https://www.power-grid.com/2013/02/0...mparison/#gref

That is interesting. I never heard of an electric line buried underground causing a fire. It is great they last 30 years. Our above ground lines do not get anything like that lifespan. In California the utility companies decided about 15 years ago not to service rural electric lines. Each year pine pollen covers everything. This pollen gets into the tiny spaces of the transformer connections. With the first rain this short circuits out causing an electric explosion. I have witnessed two of these. An exploding transformer in a forest causes a forest fire.

Of course this does not even count falling trees. They routinely cause fires too, in fact that is the issue with this power outage. They will not trim a pathway through the forest for these lines or can not legally. Please don't tell me this happens with your underground lines or I will have to concede the discussion.

[chuckman]

Interesting op piece:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/...lan-all-along/

[chuckman]

Interesting op piece:

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/10/...lan-all-along/

[Belmont31R]

San Francisco wants to buy the PG&E assets in the city. So after decades of stupid forest management laws and regulations which prevented a utility from adequately protecting long distance lines, which led to fires, gov'ts want to split PG&E up so they can own their own utilities.

PG&E is not a good company so there's blame with them, too, but the writing has been on the wall with the socialists in that state. They will use the power of the state to destroy a company so they can take over. Also keep in mind the state regulator mandated plans to mitigate fire risk, and those plans had to be approved by the state. Its not a coincidence that Edison also started cutting power. Its not PG&E flapping in the breeze all on their own. The state creates a lot of the problem, and then they turn around and blame the utility companies. Not the first time the left has used this tactic to take over portions of the economy. That was the core function of ObamaCare.