Chris White Tech Reporter
October 23, 2019 6:29 PM ET
ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten suggested California’s rolling blackouts contain one silver lining: It highlights for people the gravity that awaits them if climate change is not addressed.
California’s largest public utility’s decision to shutter large sections of the energy grid forces citizens to notice what things will be like if climate change is not addressed, Lustgarten noted in a New York Times Magazine editorial Tuesday. He did remember to emphasize the blackouts are bad for a lot of people.
“But a mandatory blackout does have one radically positive effect,” he wrote. “By suddenly withdrawing electrical power — the invisible lifeblood of our unsustainable economic order — PG&E has made the apocalyptic future of the climate crisis immediate and visceral for some of the nation’s most comfortable people.”
Lustgarten added: “It is easy to ignore climate change in the bosom of the developed world. But you can’t fail to notice when the lights go out.” (RELATED: What Do Rolling Blackouts And Sky-High Gas Prices Mean For Gov Newsom’s Job As Governor?)
“The blackouts have laid bare the uncomfortable fact that the infrastructure we’ve built and maintained over the course of many decades isn’t matched to the threats we face in our rapidly unfolding climate emergency,” he noted.
Lustgarten’s comments came after California’s public utility Pacific Gas & Electric began a days-long power shutoff on Oct.9 to curb the risk of wildfires in the northern part of the state. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the former mayor of San Francisco, is dealing with several problems as he struggles with PG&E’s move.
Power went out for 513,000 northern California homes and businesses Wednesday morning, USA Today reported, and roughly 234,000 customers were expected to lose power later Wednesday night. Parts of Northern California struggled to deal with massive wildfires in 2018, which torched large tracks of land and killed several people.
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No, what it does show is that after 20 + years of Climate Action, you can see your future.
The electricity provision that citizens of the old soviet “republics” got. a few hours a day, a couple of days a week.
Maybe.
I’m putting 50 grand on Generac stock today!
Your late. Up 50% since Jan.
A day late and a dollard short!
What percentage of the market now has generators?
i.e., the market can keep rising so long as demand is high.
Yes, that’s the company, Generac. They started advertising in Australia last year IIRC. I would not be surprised if they are marketing elsewhere like the UK.
Great generators- and “economical” (cheap). Bought mine (after the 2008 ice storm (Maine) when we lost power for about a week. Used it just last week for a 14 hour power loss. Started on second pull after being inactive for nearly a year. As with all small engines I use mid grade gas with stabilizers for storage and ethanol. I run my well pump, fridge and freezer with no issues along with some computer equipment (gotta have wifi and charging stations for all the other stuff). With a wood stove and gas range, absolutely no issues. I did run completely separate wiring for emergency power, so I am completely separate from the grid.
got one here too. being on central maine power means always keeping a generator in good shape and….possibly having a spare….
I would. It’s CEO was pushing the warming hoax on FNC Business a few weeks ago: https://www.foxbusiness.com/energy/backup-generator-ceo-climate-change-california-pge-outages-stock
What would make him more money than destroying the grid with lots of fake energy ‘cuz climate!’?
Right. Rolling blackouts is what everyone will see if so-called climate change is addressed.
That is certainly what will happen if we stop using fossil fuels and go “carbon neutral”.
The current situation though is nothing to do with “global warming” and all to do with bad forestry management policy and PG&E not maintaining their infrastructure.
Instead of squandering resources on hypothetical fake problems in a hundred years time they mus be spent on addressing REAL problems today and building resilience.
yup bet that idiot doent LIVE in California either.
Aus wil be having the same as our coal n gas gen cant keep up supply and the wind n pv fails us this summer again.
Rolling blackouts (called ‘load shedding’ in South Africa) are what you see when you give control of your electricity monopoly to ‘comrades’ who don’t know the first thing about preventative maintenance! See a SA article about just ONE power station’s troubles…
https://www.ee.co.za/article/medupi-magic-fails-eskom-and-south-africa-the-stuff-of-nightmares.html
“The blackouts have laid bare the uncomfortable fact that the infrastructure we’ve built and maintained over the course of many decades isn’t matched to the threats we face in our rapidly unfolding climate emergency,”
The issue as I see it is that the infrastructure HAS NOT BEEN MAINTAINED over the course of many decades and that is source of the rolling blackouts.
Yesterday it was bridge repair and neglect being blamed on climate change.
The emergency is due to decades of slothful neglect calling for a reckoning.
IMHO the root cause is we have made the world too easy to live in and it does not culled the idiots faster than they can breed.
Boy that’s a fun last sentence: “…the root cause is we have made the world too easy to live in and it does not cull the idiots faster than they can breed.”
This is my quote of the year so far. Made me laugh in a black gallows type way. :>)
And don’t forget, that California wants everyone in electric cars. What better way to control the populace than everyone in electric cars and then blackouts when the government wants it.
CA is run like a soviet republic, hardly surprising it’s going the same way.
The “blame” lies squarely on the Liberal “Progressive’s” mandates and crippling laws that have Hogtied energy companies in ‘La La Land unless they conform to a “Green Utopia” agenda of fantasy ! IMHO
It’s so cool. They are going to cause blackouts now to shock people regarding the bad conditions that they hope to create later on, as AGW does not exist, but their policies are guaranteed to create. It’s like being spanked with a belt for doing nothing because your psychopath parent is sure you something wrong in the future and they will see to it.
If PG&E could clear cut around their lines and equipment the problem would most likely go away.
With a 100′ wide gravel road underneath high voltage lines in PG&E owned right-of-way, that one small percentage of risk would be mostly mitigated. Smaller distribution lines adjacent to roadways in urban or suburban areas would be a bigger challenge. PG&E does not own the land underneath the lines, and prior regulation has limited their ability to even trim adjacent to them. Clear cutting a fire lane wide enough so no tree could fall on the lines would be impossible. Weed control throughout the year would be necessary along the entire length of their transmission and distribution lines.
they are all in public right of ways and yes they could cut the trees back there if the crazies would let them …
Yes than can and they already do it. The local power company has already been thru my neighborhood to trim the trees/brush back from underneath their power lines. It happens at least every two years. So if they can trim the trees/brush back in residential areas then why can’t they trim them back in rural areas? Do the crazies only care about the rural trees/brush and not the urban ones?
Trimming tress is a make work kick the can down the road solution. Clear cut immediately adjacent land along the right of way. If they don’t it will burn.
Utility companies outside of LALA Land have no difficulty in keeping limbs clear from all scales of utility lines.
well theres a shitload of people needing work…try work for the dole like Aus did
So how are the fires started?
What is PG&E doing/not doing that caused the past fires and how do rolling blackouts help?
First step in finding a solution is correctly identifying the problem.
Fires are natural to California. The crazies prevent the proper forest management that would prevent tinder from building up, and the woods have been allowed to spread where they were kept back before.
Everything is bloody climate change 😐 I’m sick and tired of it. It rains, snows, sunny day, Oh no climate change. Bridges will fall, all the ice will melt, unless we stop all use of fossil fuels, its all true because the u.n. told us so 😐 Why are the scientific community who know the true about weather systems not making more noise? If xr can shut down london, why can’t we shut down main roads so we can force the truth on to the main media stage?
Oh, Sunny, the media wouldn’t report it anyway. Here in Canada, the press has reported exactly zilch on the Dutch farmers blocking main roads in their country. We get every movement of SGT, and all the XR protests in the UK, but the Dutch farmers are deemed “not newsworthy”. If it doesn’t fit the approved narrative, the media will not report on it. That scares me a lot more than any supposed 1.5 degree of heat ever will.
Quoting “Sunny” as a climate alarmist would:
“Bridges will fall, all the ice will melt, unless we stop all use of fossil fuels, its all true because the u.n. told us so.”
Bobby Hebb once wrote a great song named “Sunny” in the 1960s — if you have never heard it I’d say it was among the top 100 songs of all time:
Richard Greene
Good song, its used in a advert and is very catchy lol
It’s catchy and uplifting. Hard to find that these days with so much pessimism floating around.
https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/?model=gfs®ion=eu&pkg=asnow24&runtime=2019102412&fh=18 it’s your lucky night sunny look at all that global warming white stuff across the UK and Europe run the projection,shame even the UK weather channels dont show this,radar shows UK Scotland snow showers all night.
Sunny–
Are they doing it for money, ideology, or both, or more? Also tiring in otherwise optimistic scientific papers. In “Assessing the recovery of an Antarctic predator from historical exploitation” conclusion “Protection led to a strong recovery [western South Atlantic humpback whales] and the current population is estimated to be at 93% (95% PI = 73–100%) of its pre-exploitation size.” However, “Recent studies have proposed that krill abundance is decreasing and krill distribution is shifting due to climate-driven processes.” It’s a model, but has some real numbers. Save the krill, hunt the whales? Open access.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.190368
He also fails to mention the mandatory black outs are not because of a failing generation but a failing of the transmission lines due to lack of maintenance and upgrades ,a fear of live transmission lines falling and or touching trees and scrub during high wind weather.he justifies his remarks by the way of climate change is he admitting power will be cut if no progress is made on climate change? Exactly what progress does he want? If he gets progress does this mean the power will stay on? This amounts to nothing more than a opportunistic threat
On the back of the lie of global warming (until the IPCC change there mandate that’s exactly what it is) WHAT Was the power situation last year in one of the coldest prolonged winters in the USA ,is he also ignoring real climate change eg a GSM ,lustgarten is scaremongering in exactly the same way as XR do.
So, if an imaginary problem is not addressed there will be blackouts – and locusts no doubt? Begone fools.
PG&E rolling black-out situation was caused by Climate Change policy not Climate Change.
PG&E spent several decades pursuing renewable energy unicorns directed by Democratic Party political powers working for special interests and takng their campaign cash in payback. PG&E ignored infrastructure maintenance as a result of altered priorities for their customers. They were also a victim of Cal’s onerous brush and forest thinning/clearing maintenance, as much a victim of that as the folks of Paradise who lost loved ones and homes and businesses and jobs.
Make no mistake. The threat to everything we cherish and our future is from Climate Change policy, not climate change. Stated more directly, the threat are the Democrats, their brainwashed-deranged supporters, and their special interests supporters, mainly the GreenSlime billionaires.
Maintenance wasn’t so much ignored as it was banned and/or underfunded. PG&E was effectively banned from cutting back brush from the rights of way (which also made maintenance more difficult and expensive). Because of the billions the utility had to devote to “green” energy projects mandated by California’s government, PG&E used money the cash in their maintenance budget for those “green” projects mandates.
It isn’t much different from cutting the operating and equipment budget for you local fire department, then getting upset when your house burns to the ground because the fire department didn’t have a single fire engine in running condition, and even if they had one, they didn’t have any fuel to run it.
This is another example of the Arsonist-FireFighter governance mentality of Liberals.
Their ideology directly affects the policies that then enable to conditions to occur that lead to predictable calamities and crises they then can exploit.
The inevitable crisis (the fire) is then exploited (riding to the rescue) by the Liberals to propose more “well-intentioned” Liberal policies that only address symptoms, not the underlying policy causes.
The home-less explosion crisis occurring in “Deep Blue” cities across the nation is another clear example of the Left’s Arsonist-Firefighter mentality.
Even in Texas, “Deep Blue” Austin is now facing the beginnings of this homeless explosion problem:
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2019/10/02/gov-greg-abbott-austin-fix-homelessness-crisis-nov-1-state-will-step/
Leftys are either evil, if they understand their own behaviour, or stupid. Yep.
It’s going to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. Our economy already lacks in any semblance of a Free Market Society, and is more accurately described as a socialist-mercantile economy. It’s only a matter of time before what is left of our Capitalist economy can no longer support this broken system.
Finally! Someone called the writer to task. This is not a PGE caused problem. The issue lies squarely in Sacramento. This is the fruit of years of leftie prevention of maintenance, and squeezing the utility to deferred maintenance. Add to this a state mandated poor forest policy. Do not let the left pass the buck. This is entirely caused by California government policy. They have POORLY micromanaged their forests, resources, utilities. This is their reward. Unfortunately, the voting public will be fed the standard line of big business doing it to them again.
PG&E was bankrupted by claims from last year for fires allegedly started by their lines. Give them legal liability, they act accordingly.
The blackouts are political. They are caused by the government. Government made the risk too high to keep the power on.
Indeed may of the problems are a result of CC policy, but that’s not a bug – it’s a feature. More problems, more government solutions. Rinse and repeat all the way into Communist nirvana.
“PG&E rolling black-out situation”
Not rolling black-out. Just black-out. Nothing ‘rolling’ about it. They cut the power and left it off.
For some reason Abrahm neglected to reveal what he himself has done/is prepared to do to personally throttle back his own dependence on those vile fossil fuels. Nor did he mention that once intermittent wind and solar renewable sources become a significant fraction of total electric generation, recurrent blackouts can be anticipated with regularity. But no worries, I can put him in touch with someone who has a horse-drawn Amish buggy for sale so he can lead the way to biofueled sustainability in his own neighborhood.
“ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten suggested California’s rolling blackouts contain one silver lining: It highlights for people the gravity that awaits them if climate change is not addressed.”
Maybe in opposite-world, but back in the real world that should read;
A bloke with a grip on reality suggested California’s rolling blackouts contain one silver lining: It highlights for people the gravity that awaits them if gullible warming friendly energy policy is not addressed.
California’s rolling blackouts contain one silver lining: It highlights for people the gravity that awaits them if climate change IS addressed.
More windmills and solar panels = more brownouts and blackouts !
Yet another clueless reporter !
.
.
“Politicians and environmental campaigners are ignorant of the technicalities
of energy supply, or wish to ignore them.”
” politicians) may have the power to change the laws of the land, but not to change the laws of physics.”
http://elonionbloggle.blogspot.com/2019/10/uk-electrical-engineer-with-39-years.html
There actually is a silver lining. People will become preppers, and preppers will learn how to prep better, so that when our whole civilization falls, the people of California will be ready. And yet another silver lining – the blackouts breed conservatives.
Here’s a novel idea. Why not clear the areas underneath the power lines of underbrush that can catch fire should a power line break?
Brohn
Too expensive even using CA illegal aliens.
But not if they put all the CA homeless people to work.
It’s not too costly, California has the money, the problem is California’s priorities.
I’ve said for decades that it makes zero sense for us to still be stringing wires from poles. It’s time for transmission lines to leave the 19th century, and get with the times. Of course there are areas where burying lines is not an option, and in those areas conduits can be employed.
When I built my home 20 years ago, I paid to have my lines buried. If I can afford it, so can California.
In Finland, government made utilities bury gables. Then they sold the government own utility to foreign investors, to get money flowing in. Now the transmission cost is 3x to what the electricity costs
That was just stupidity.
We have a local city here that went 100% underground utilities. They pay no more than I do.
Underground cables are less prone to damage from wind storms, lightning, traffic accidents and wild fire. Over head wire transmission is a maintenance nightmare.
Power lines are also ugly as sin.
“Make sure you get those power lines in the photo”, said no one ever.
Burying transmission lines near a live California fault might be asking for trouble.
It has been considered, and solutions found. Engineers are not climate experts, they actually know what they are doing.
Gator,
https://www.google.com/search?q=Jamie+Davis+Power+lines+overhead&source=lmns&tbm=vid&bih=518&biw=360&client=ms-android-huawei&prmd=inv&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwi0lp7vusHlAhVUO1AKHaywAQwQ_AUoA3oECAAQBg#ip=1
https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-huawei&hl=en&sxsrf=ACYBGNTOaQrN7Tzu4ulfAar4BNARVbsvdQ:1572351650954&q=Jamie+Davis+Power+lines+overhead&spell=1&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgtvesusHlAhWys4sKHb00B-MQBSgAegQICxAC&biw=360&bih=
https://www.google.com/search?q=Jamie+Davis+Power+lines+overhead&client=ms-android-huawei&hl=en&prmd=inv&sxsrf=ACYBGNRZRa1xM71-37Or3RpAMVabsmgRBw:1572351713944&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj3lvzKusHlAhXOl4sKHYmmC_cQ_AUoAXoECAwQAQ&biw=
https://www.google.com/search?q=Jamie+Davis+Power+lines+overhead&source=lmns&tbm=vid&bih=518&biw=360&client=ms-android-huawei&prmd=inv&hl=en&ved=2ahUKEwi0lp7vusHlAhVUO1AKHaywAQwQ_AUoA3oECAAQBg#ip=1
Yes, wires strung from poles is archaic, dangerous, costly, ugly, and stupid.
CA is close to bankruptcy:
Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition 2018 Edition
If I spent money on a lot of stupid sh!t, I would be bankrupt too. California is the worlds fifth largest economy. They have the money, they just spend it like idiots.
I commend you for thinking of taking out two birds with one stone.
However, when there is an entire flock consuming your seed corn, somewhat more drastic measures are indicated, to eliminate the root of the problem.
Empty out the government offices for the work force.
It is not natural and the old CCC from the days of FDR is not politically correct.
Getting mugged by reality didn’t work for this guy. Maybe for him, reality wears a Groucho Marx mask. Wait, did *his* power go out? Betting not.
No mugging. His ideological zeal does not get confused by reality.
“But a mandatory blackout does have one radically positive effect,” he wrote. “By suddenly withdrawing electrical power — the invisible lifeblood of our unsustainable economic order — PG&E has made the apocalyptic future of the climate crisis immediate and visceral for some of the nation’s most comfortable people.”
But isn’t it really just the opposite?
No power will become MORE the norm when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow if the “climate crisis” idiots get their way. With rolling blackouts there is at least a plan and an announcement. What notice does the wind give?
““But a mandatory blackout does have one radically positive effect,” he wrote.”
I hear California Governor Newsome’s approval ratings are dropping.
I don’t recall Calfornia doing rolling blackouts in the past. I guess they had a handle on things back then.
The electric utility in my area can come on my property and trim just about any tree they think needs trimming. They don’t need my permission.
California and PG&E ought to solve two problems at once by building a number of woodchip-fired electrical powerplants and supplying them with the wood that is removed from around the power lines.
Control over the public requires small incremental steps. Five hundred thousand at a time does not disturb the other 30 plus million enough to cause a serious up roar.
“California’s largest utility company begins its second round of preemptive blackouts”
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6097376962001/?playlist_id=5622526903001#sp=show-clips
..D’OH ! In my humble opinion……
What a great suggestion. I’m sure the fossil-fuel distributing companies will realise that they have the same argument available to them – just shut off supplies for a couple of days. Especially to Kalifornia!
What this article is actually highlighting is the reason for the blackouts in the first place – the opportunity for hack propaganda made to order for slithering, exploitive Goebbels-clones like Abrahm Lustgarten
Or it will convince people by inconvenience and tax or utility bills that weather dependent electricity generation is a bad idea compared to reliable natural gas, nuclear and hydro options. The true cost of “renewables” is only apparent when you have to buy batteries to store the electrons instead of using grid reserve as fake storage.
To me it shows where Statism leads.
Always and absolutely.
But the blackouts have nothing to do with climate and everything to do with PG&E’s greed! They are the ones that refused to replace old transmission lines, now those lines are so old and the insulation is in such bad shape that every time the wind blows above a certain speed it causes the lines to spark. Which is why they have been doing the blackout thing during high winds!
Right, much like it was the greedy oil companies that allowed MTBE to dissolve into ground water after the all-knowing ministry of the environment forced them to blend it into gasoline.
The line from the pole to the house is insulated. Primary and higher voltage lines are generally NEVER insulated. They are bare wire. The issue is California restricting the electric utilities ability to trim brush.
Greed! That is getting old. PG&E does not set their maintenance budget, the CPUC does. PG&E would happily replace old power poles and towers if the CPUC would allow them the money. The way it used to work was PG&E would issue bonds for the funding and pay them back over decades. The CPUC hasn’t allowed that for many years and instead forces them to issue bonds to finance renewable power and electric car facilities. PG&E would much rather get back into the business of being a gas and electric utility, not deep pockets for the state legislature.
Remember, PG&E’s power lines did not start but one fire. It was the crap hitting the power lines. In other words, under past laws it was the fault of land owners or whoever caused the fire. However, years ago a judge in California ruled that since cities and counties contracted power and gas line rights-of-way, the
utilities were therefore government agencies and subject to the Inverse Condemnation law. Under this law, whose fault it was that the fire started does not matter, only that fire started as a result of the rights-of-way. PG&E has no legal defense under that law regardless of how a fire started. It does not matter that PG&E has little control over the environment around their power lines. It does not matter that nobody wants to pay to underground power lines.
Presumably by “people” he means Californians.
Now Abrahm, tell us specifically what Californians should be addressing, collectively or individually, that would make any measurable difference in the context of what China and India are doing?
Between 2008 and 2018 the US used roughly 2,250,000,000 tonnes of oil per year. For the same period China started at 2,250,000,000 tonnes and n 2018 it was 3,300,000,000 billion tonnes. In Sweden where Greta childhood was stolen they have been using 53,000,000 million tonnes each year.
Each year the UK consumes about 200,000,000 tonnes of oil while China’s yearly increase averages half that at 100,000,000 tonnes.
And some piggies are more equal than others at publishing dumb things.
One state in US has spent a gazillion dollars trying to change the weather. They have now got the most expensive and unreliable power in the country. And the conclusion is we need to spend gazillions more.
I would think the logical conclusion might be to do something different or nothing . You can’t be worse off.
Who knew that climate change would cause Californians to move out to their RVs to live off propane.
Surely there’s a peer reviewed climate pub that says that out of the some 10 million cheap climate extension pubs out there to date.
Next up… California to tax home generators as a threat to the beloved Gaia.
not a good thing for the guy whose life-sustaining oxygen was cut off and who died within 12 minutes. but I am sure the elites will think he died in a just cause.
If we could magically lower CO2 in the atmosphere to that magical 350 ppm, what exactly would happen to the wildfire season in California? I would suggest absolutely nothing. The
100 years of population growth and urban expansion has moved millions of people into areas that have routinely burned every few years. California was dry, is dry and will be dry. People and their technology (power lines, cars) can start fires in a dry climate. Then the fire departments and various state and federal agencies rush to put out any new ignition, contributing to a massive fuel buildup. Many fires in California this fall started the normal way; car fires, target shooting, arson and oddball stuff like a dumped load of burning trash.