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Massive California power outages may begin early Wednesday

klpca

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But going solar will keep your lights on and your food in the fridge/freezer from spoiling.
You need solar and a storage battery (not cheap).
 

klpca

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I don't understand California. It seems like they get hit with everything, Earthquakes, Mud Slides, Forest Fires, High Taxes, Large Number of Homeless, High Cost of Housing. Despite all this there have to be reasons why California is the most populated state in the country by far. Educate me...

George
5th largest economy in the world. Jobs. Cutting edge technology. Plus for some of us, this is home where we were born and raised, and where our families live. It's not perfect, but then no place is. But I will say, our weather is pretty nice. Right now it's 80 degrees, with crystal blue skies (Southern Ca).
 

klpca

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Why do these threads turn into a critique of CA when you don't live here, and apparently some haven't even visited? I don't understand why people care so much about something that doesn't affect you and I wish that I understood the reason. Honestly. Anyway if this doesn't seem like a place where you would like to live, please don't because it really is kind of crowded in the urban areas. :D
 
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klpca

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Going solar does nothing to alleviate the problem of transmission lines touching in high winds and causing sparks/fires. What new tech is available? Do you expect them to bury miles of cable over rural hills and mountains? New developments in CA are all underground utilities but power still has to travel from the power plant to get there, solar only feeds excess back into the grid.

I’m not trying to be an apologist for power companies but it seems a case of damned if they do or dont. Expecting politicians to legislate a fix is a fools errand.


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Btw for the past 5 years or so, SDGE has been replacing wood towers with metal ones in our back country. There are things that the power companies can and should do to prevent fires. I also believe that they have installed equipment that measures wind and humidity to help prevent unnecessary shut downs.
 

10spro

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I live in Napa, power went out Tuesday night, just coming back now on Thursday afternoon. Yes I lost some items in the refrigerator, but compared to the 2017 wildfire that destroyed so much, it's an inconvenience that we have to live with for now. Most resorts, restaurants and wineries were prepared and few were closed, got to keep tourism going, however, unfortunately, many locals who live here could not go to work and will not be paid for those days.
 

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5th largest economy in the world. Jobs. Cutting edge technology. Plus for some of us, this is home where we were born and raised, and where our families live. It's not perfect, but then no place is. But I will say, our weather is pretty nice. Right now it's 80 degrees, with crystal blue skies (Southern Ca).

Speaking of 5th largest economy, check out Rotten on Netflix, the avocado episode was fascinating.


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rhonda

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I also believe that they have installed equipment that measures wind and humidity to help prevent unnecessary shut downs.
SDG&E's websites are now my favorite weather pages for local conditions. Truly micro-climate level metering!

Overview: https://sdgeweather.com
List of stations with current conditions: https://weather.sdgeweather.com
Click on any station for more info and forecast for that specific location. Fun and informative!
 

presley

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Without going into my life history, I'll say sorry, I hate SDG&E which is my power company. So, pretty much anything they do, pisses me off. I know people affected by this and how long it takes small businesses to recover from having to miss a couple days of business. It takes months.

Even though all of this sucks, everyone directly affected that I have spoken to, prefers this to having another major fire. At the end of the day, we are truly blessed to live in a place like this with our weather, conveniences, access to clean water/healthcare, beautiful scenery, the list goes on and on for things that we can be grateful for when living here. No matter what happens to me in California, I know that I am still considerably better off than 90% of the world's population and I'd rather think about that than how I have been inconvenienced in my very nice life.
 

rhonda

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@presley, the websites I mentioned are, likely, the only thing I've ever liked from SDG&E. I'm often quite frustrated and angry with them. I was convinced, last year during a 5-day outage in (unexpected) calm weather, that I was gonna get off their service as quickly as possible. I'm still hunting for the right mix of solar+battery+management app. Not quite there yet ...

Edited to add: Why can they not tell me via text or voice mail of an expected outage? Instead, they use text and voice mail to tell me to watch my snail mail. Ugh. They know their plan ... just tell me via the text message rather than referring me to paper mail that will likely reach me in days following the outage. Grrr.
 

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Our house was out of power when we woke up yesterday, the first day after returning home from our French Polynesian trip which was amazing. DH manually opened the garage door and parked my car on the drive way then went to work. Unfortunately I didn’t charge up my phone, portable chargers and laptop (ran out of juice on the airplane), so I went to a nearby Starbucks and hankered down there until 2 pm when power came back. It’s inconvenient but we manage. I’m OK if this indeed helps with minimizing wildfire. Our friends in East Bay were affected by a fast spreading wildfire and had to evacuate yesterday.
 
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JudiZ

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Why do these threads turn into a critique of CA when you don't live here, and apparently some haven't even visited? I don't understand why people care so much about something that doesn't affect you and I wish that I understood the reason. Honestly. Anyway if this doesn't seem like a place where you would like to live, please don't because it really is kind of crowded in the urban areas. :D

klpca, I am probably not as sensitive to it as you are, but I will be completely honest with you, I have been to California many times (always as a visitor of friends or tourist) and I love the place - north to south. I have no idea why people wonder why you live there; I think it's obvious. I don't want to live there, but it is all of the beautiful things you said. I live in NH where it snows, has freezing rain, mud season and black flies. Our family in North Carolina says, "why?" I say because there is more to any one place than weather. I love where I live. I love the people, the culture and the natural beauty of my state. We have a world class city an hour and a half away (Boston) with medical facilities recognized world wide, museums and theatre, restaurants and food markets on an urban scale.

We live in a beautiful and diverse nation and I, for one, embrace the differences. Makes it more fun to travel (no passport needed if you don't want) and allows us to all to live in the places we love (if we can and want to).

Judi
 

CalGalTraveler

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We live in the outskirts of a Bay Area suburb near the hills and the PG&E maps indicated that we had a high probability of blackout. Fortunately, though, our electricity was not disrupted. Most likely because we weren't hit with high winds.

I absolutely love our neighborhood, the weather, our home, and our suburban community. It's 70 degrees and sunny today (same as yesterday and the day before). Our family is in Calif. What we don't like: Traffic, High property taxes, too many and complex government regulations for a small business like ours (glad I will be retiring in a few years). Although we have homeless ppl in our suburb, it's about the same number you would find anywhere else in the nation.

We have considered downsizing to Nevada when we retire to lower taxes, but so far we haven't found a community or consistent weather that compares. I keep pinching myself on how fortunate we are.
 

CalGalTraveler

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This is very inconvenient but would rather have safety than the devastating fires and weeks of "nuclear winter" smoke from last year.

Ironically this may be the ultimate incentive to move people to install battery with solar and dump PG&E altogether.
 

pedro47

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Maybe, California needs to invest in a wind tunnel system.
 

Luanne

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Our dd lives in Silicon Valley. So far they have not been personally impacted, but she was sharing horror stories of areas around them. She said they have been told these power outages could go on for 10 years!
 

Ralph Sir Edward

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Most of California is a fire ecology. Always has been (at least for the last few million years). Like living in a flood plain, the question is not if, but when. . . .
 

SmithOp

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Maybe, California needs to invest in a wind tunnel system.

Wind tunnel? lol you mean like everything east of us sucks so bad it creates an opportunity to drive turbine fans. :)


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https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...off-northern-california-wildifres/2449314001/

"PG&E, however, defends the outages as crucial to the safety of its customers. The company already has filed for bankruptcy after being held liable for tens of billions of dollars in damages resulting from deadly wildfires blamed on downed power lines."

"The utility said authorities have determined more than half of PG&E’s 70,000-square-mile service area in Northern and Central California have a high fire threat, given dry grasses and the high volume of dead and dying trees. The state’s high-risk areas have tripled in size in seven years, the statement said."

"Southern California has not been spared the wildfire conditions, and firefighters have been conducting fierce battles in recent days to protect homes. Southern California Edison said it was monitoring conditions but had no immediate plans to cut power."

As one comment notes.
"... first they raise the price of gasoline so high people buy electric vehicles; then they shut the power off." :rolleyes:
 

pedro47

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The majority of European cities are using some form of wind tunnels to provide electricity to their cities.
 
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