Just what is the matter with these people. The LA Times has a front page article quoting various ‘experts’ reference power outages due to the storms that have hit California in the past few weeks. Seems these sages are wanting us to have more ‘green’ sources of energy, and to have the power suppliers develop more ‘holistic’ solutions to power distribution.
First of all, I’m guessing that solar power doesn’t work too well in storms, and I don’t know how well wind power stands up to them either. But I guess one can sit in their secure offices at the local think tank or university and come up with all kinds of solutions while P G and E is out there up to its fanny in water getting the power back on.
Did it ever occur to any of these folks that s**t happens and when we get storms hitting us, the power goes out. I’m sure it happens in Michigan, or Ohio, or Florida or virtually anywhere where Mother Nature flexes her muscles.
As a friend says “I know nothing” but it seems to me that the focus should be on repair, and then on upgrades. I’m certain that the very people that are complaining that the power is off, are the same ones that picketed against thinning forests around power lines and the installation of new grids that might disrupt the snail darter or spotted owl.
The costs of upgrading the grid so that storms wouldn’t affect it, according to this article, would cost hundreds of trillions (with a “T”) of dollars.
We don’t live in a perfect world. Perhaps we should plan for outages. Generators, woodpiles, and candles can usually see us over a few days of outages. The power was out in many areas of California for one day, in some areas three days, and in extreme cases, a week.
Granted living without electricity is no fun, but surely we can survive short periods without it. Have we become a nation of wimps? On the other hand, maybe we should get used to periodic outages. If the grid is marginal now. What’s it going to be like when everyone is charging their EV in addition to everything else?
If each of us planned for outages, it might take some of the pressure off. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in favor of power outages and we should do all we can to prevent them, however I don’t think we can be 100% successful.
Just Sayin…
JVH
PS: Our greatest problem in our part of LA so far is squirrels. Seems the little critters like to sharpen their teeth on the ‘neutral’ of the three wires that bring power to our house. DWP came out last week and replaced the line from the pole to the house. Took about an hour. I have heard it rumored that the squirrels are in the electrical worker’s union.
