I was going to write a couple of days ago but there was a power outage our neighborhood from 9 am Monday until 3 am this morning. So it was about 42 straight hours where we had no electricity or internet. We also had an outage last Thursday from 5 am to 7 pm. So a quick calculation: we had no electricity for a total 56 hours in the past 142 hours.
The frustrating thing is that the power outage was not directly caused by nature but intentionally by the Southern California Edison. We were told last year that Edison have devised a plan to shut off electricity based on factors such as wind velocity and direction, humidity and so on. The reason being that there has been fires started by wind knocking down powerlines and igniting fires. The thing is, California has always had strong winds periodically. There has been practically no rain this season and so things are very dry. But again, droughts are not unusual in California.
I think what is somewhat different is that there has been more lawsuits against electric companies for start of fires. So I can understand that Edison is trying to prevent fire from down lines as much as possible. But the last few days, the wind conditions were not among the worst I have seen since I moved out here. And the outages are longer than they need to be given the winds had died down well before power was restored.
I think shutting down power whenever the wind blows is not a solution to fires. The main problem is that there are too many power lines above ground. Wind would not affect power lines underground. Edison and the government is reluctant to spend money to put lines under ground. I also believe that the upkeep of existing lines is not up to par. Just turning off electricity cause Edison less.
This is an example of the poor infrastructure of the country generally. I had been thinking about writing about our infrastructure. This last few days has been another wake up call for the many things that need to be fixed but there is a lack of political will to do so. More on this in the future.
I would have replied to this yesterday but my internet was not working properly! You forget how much you depend on technology. I had my DirecTV service suspended because I didn't need it. It is supposed to be activated next week so I've been watching TV via an Amazon Fire Stick. It works OK but sometimes some of the apps don't work as well. So since it gets the TV programs from the internet, I could not watch TV last night. Luckily, the MSU men's game was postponed. That also meant that I had to watch the MSU women's game on my phone!
ReplyDeleteI always thought it would be great to put power lines underground but it seems that it would cost too much money in infrastructure. They recently replaced the power lines in part of where I live and they still installed them above ground. The only difference was that the towers were metal and not the wood ones.
In California, I can't imagine that underground would be viable and safe too since the risk of earthquakes could crack the pipes and bend the wires. If this happens it might be too difficult to repair. Though I am not a civil engineer, so I could be wrong!
-LBOAYM
I see that they put power lines underground in new neighborhoods in the area. But I understand that replacing existing lines underground would be expensive. But if they are trying to prevent from getting sued due to power lines down and causing a fire, they would have to shut down transmission frequently. As I said, there are many days where the wind is as fierce or worse than those on Monday and Tuesday. So keep shutting down the lines is not a good solution, at least from a customer's point of view.
ReplyDeleteI am no engineer either and I can see where earthquake may cause problems underground. But they are putting new lines underground. Above ground is not totally safe from earthquake either. I remember during the first quake I witnessed after moving to California, I saw a power line went down and caught fire. Fortunately there was no wind and it was put out. So it seems that quakes can bring down lines also.
The internet is another one of those infrastructures problems the US has. We don't have as reliable internet as most advanced countries, particularly those in Asia. That will be a topic for another day. Also the postponement of the games as you mentioned is not unexpected. It is also a relatively minor problem in the scheme of things in this pandemic. Don't get me started on the incompetence of the government on this!