Massive power shut down in California triggers conspiracy theories

Anyanka Bunny Slayer

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Black Thorn
Frankly, when I first heard about the "planned outages" I was suspicious as hell. We've had wildfires and high winds for decades. And suddenly, NOW the power will be shut off? Allegedly to stop fires before they start? I call bullshit.




Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), the largest energy supplier in California, has cut off power to portions of 22 counties in the northern half of the state. Outages are expected to last for up to seven days, potentially longer, as high winds buffet that portion of the state, heightening the risk of wildfires due to downed power lines.
“The power will be turned off to communities in stages, depending on local timing of the severe wind conditions, beginning with counties in the northern part of the state,” PG&E said in a statement.
Thus far, approximately 630,000 residents of the area have been affected by the outages. The number may rise to over a million if weather conditions warrant. Numerous schools and colleges, including the University of California–Berkley have been shut down due to power outages and the fire threat.
California Governor Gavin Newsom put the blame for the outages squarely at the feet of PG&E. “I’m outraged because it didn’t have to happen,” Newsom told reporters in San Diego on Wednesday. “[PG&E is] in bankruptcy due to their terrible management going back decades. They’ve created these conditions, it was unnecessary.”

While PG&E may indeed be guilty of not upgrading its power grid in a timely manner, Newsom completely dodges any responsibility that might lie with local, county, state, and federal regulations regarding forest management and zoning regulations.
The National Weather Service (NWS) has issued red flag fire warnings for a large portion of the state, north of the Bay Area. The Diablo winds, which occur annually in the region, coupled with dry vegetation and low humidity create perfect conditions for potentially deadly fires. “This is a recipe for explosive fire growth, if a fire starts,” NWS tweeted. “Have your go bag ready.”
Wind gusts over 60 mph are possible in mountain passes and canyons, while the coastal and valley areas could see winds up to 45 mph.
“California’s Mediterranean climate makes it unique, as our warmest months coincide with our driest,” said Jan Null, a climate scientist from San Jose State University.
California’s dry season typically runs from May until October, a time when most of the state only receives approximately 10 percent of its annual rainfall. Right now is when the state’s vegetation is at its driest, making autumn peak fire season. “By the end of summer and into early fall, the state’s vegetation has dried out,” Null said.
After last year’s disastrous Camp Fire in Northern California, it seems reasonable that PG&E take this drastic action in order to reduce fire risks in the area. After all, the energy company is still on the hook for billions of dollars, owing to its role in the 2018 fires.
But some are suggesting that the power outages might not be fully explained by the forecasted high winds.
On July 4 and 5, earthquakes measuring 6.4 and 7.1 hit the U.S. Navy’s secret China Lake weapons facilitynear Ridgecrest, which is in Kern County, 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The region has suffered thousands of aftershocks since the two main quakes in July.
Some are suggesting that the China Lake facility is the victim of a “seismic attack,” in which unknown forces used some sort of “tectonic weaponry” in an attempt to take out the weapons facility.
And to whet conspiracy theorists appetites even more, this tweet points out that the epicenter of the July quakes weren’t just near the naval base, it indeed was the epicenter. Are the PG&E power outages some sort of response or preparedness drill for unknown weapons, which can create earthquakes?
With rolling power outages expected to hit Southern California in the days to come, some believe that the power outages are merely a precursor of some greater disaster yet to come. Or they might be some sort of “beta test” of disaster preparedness for an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack on the U.S. power grid. In theory, a nuclear missile exploded at high altitude could cause the failure of electrical systems, which would cause millions to lose power instantaneously.
Maybe, but the simplest explanation is usually the best one. PG&E has suffered billions of dollars’ worth of lawsuits in the last few years owing to its rickety power grid in the state. Until it is able to upgrade those above-ground power lines that hang perilously over the dry vegetation, which the state and federal government refuse to clear, the prudent thing to do is to shut down power to remove at least one possible ignition source for those terrible wildfires.
 
Skanky Vamp
Skanky Vamp
LOL right. I'm sure that's the cause of it. Eyeroll.
Conspiracy lol. It seems pretty damn clear the power companies a) can't provide power to everyone they serve at high use times and 2) they (and CA in general) haven't kept up with fire safety maintenance.
 
Something many countries did was to put power lines in the ground. If that had been done over there in forested country; what travesty ~ the firebreaks would get wider. Plus the forestry department wouldn't need to make fire breaks during a fire with dynamite though hopefully the fire department have stopped doing that, in the same way they have started to use 4/6/ and 8WD trucks, and not rear wheel drive only trucks.

Maybe it is the conspiracy theorists who said the moon landing was false, they wanted something to do.
 
I love conspiracies but their reasons for the power shut off are plausible in this case. The world will probably have to get used to power shut downs with the population explosion, the grids all over the world have not been prepared. Especially in places that will be running more electric heating and cooling for their new houses.

Its not so bad, its sort of nice to have a power free day. Unless it is stupidly hot. We regularly have scheduled outages for 8 - 12 hours. The Pub gets packed lol. The last unscheduled power outage went for 48 hours. That was sort of eerie. The world could have been ending and none of us out here would have known. There were too many trees down and flash flooding for anyone to try and drive out safely. The shop stayed running on a generator.

Faulty powerlines have started numerous fires here and they only seemed to start upgrading once they were found guilty (people died). Underground power seems the way to go - most of the new housing developments are going that way (as well as including solar panels and water tanks). The two closest regional centres to me run entirely off wind power now (started in 2000). Off grid is the only real way you can guarantee your own power supply. Other wise we're at the mercy of its makers.
 
brinkster130
brinkster130
Ours always happen when it's hot.
California Governor Gavin Newsom put the blame for the outages squarely at the feet of PG&E. “I’m outraged because it didn’t have to happen,” Newsom told reporters in San Diego on Wednesday. “[PG&E is] in bankruptcy due to their terrible management going back decades. They’ve created these conditions, it was unnecessary.”
While PG&E may indeed be guilty of not upgrading its power grid in a timely manner, Newsom completely dodges any responsibility that might lie with local, county, state, and federal regulations regarding forest management and zoning regulations.

I can't speak for PG&E's management problems, bot I can say first hand that the country's power generating companies have been over-regulated to the point that it's a miracle that they are operating at the efficiency that they are. Certainly, protecting our environment is important, but the demand for electricity just keeps increasing, while the cost of complying with government regulations, which the power companies are seldom allowed to pass on to their customers, has increased at an even higher rate. It's not uncommon for a power plant to get halfway through one ultra expensive pollution regulation compliance, costing millions of dollars, and have a new regulation passed which will require the previous upgrade to be highly modified, or even torn out altogether in order to comply with the new plan. Add to that, the increasing regulations and taxes on the fossil fuel suppliers, and it's inevitable that problems like this arise, and will likely increase in the future. If this problem had been seriously addressed 50 years ago, we might have been prepared for it today, but it wasn't, and we aren't.

Maybe having their lights put out for a few days will finally convince the public to light a fire under the behinds of the elected officials and private research groups hot enough to get them actually working on a practical solution, while in the meantime working with the energy producers to help, not hinder, them in addressing the immediate problem. But I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

Campaign all you want to about alternate, cleaner, renewable sources of energy, but the truth of the matter is, those sources aren't here today, and aren't likely to be in the near future

It seems pretty damn clear the power companies a) can't provide power to everyone they serve at high use times

What apparently isn't as clear is that if the local governments would work more closely with the power companies to come up with, and enact, more realistic regulations on the production of electricity things could be improved.
 
brinkster130
brinkster130
Yup. They def don't work together in CA. It's a mess.
Clean energy is here, is being used but the tight sods who own power companies won't spend enough money to make enough wind turbines, solar power plants and power storage units, hydro power plants, wave power plants. Political leader prefer to spend taxpayers money on coal fired power plants and that is fact.
Clean power is here and is being used but some people prefer to burn coal, oil, gas etc:.
 
PG&E has been deregulated and no longer under government jurisdiction. Of course they have to obey the same environmental laws as everyone else (unless their lobbyists pay the right bribes, and some fines can be considered a legalized and formalized bribe built right into the system), and people will argue over that. But in the end, prices have gone up, and quality down, since it was deregulated. (IIRC, it had to be saved from bankruptcy more than once as well, or something that left me with no confidence in PG&E, but I'm not going to look that up again. It's a shoddy history with excuses across the board over several years now.)

More likely this is over the Paradise fires, and how PG&E was considered liable:


Hitting their profits is all the motivation they need for blackouts. Of course they'll try to find a way to blame the government and demand even more deregulation, which if they get won't help anymore than the last time. (One just has to look at a non-political history book of what the United States was like before regulation.)

'Course I can criticize the government as well and don't think they'll fix all the problems either because their priorities are ultimately corrupt as well (and there have been a few fires started by the DEA flying their helicopters too low in looking for marijuana crops, only to crash into power lines). Point is the promises of deregulation didn't pan out, and I don't expect more deregulation to pan out either, only putting more money in the pockets of a few for crappier service. It's all about profit, not service to the community. Perhaps if we had a lot more competition then a free market solution might work, but that strikes me as even less likely than tapping all the energy currently going to waste (geothermal, wind, solar, etc).
 
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