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Assigning significant blame to PGE for fires even when their equipment is at fault is stupid. The main factor in every big fire is hot, dry conditions. It doesn
by creato 7y ago
Assigning significant blame to PGE for fires even when their equipment is at fault is stupid. The main factor in every big fire is hot, dry conditions. It doesn't really matter where the initial spark comes from, it's inevitable that big fires will happen in conditions like this.
I think a reasonable way to handle this would be to assign liability for fires according to the cost of handling a typical fire, not the specific fire. It shouldn't matter whether effectively the same negligent act causes a small brush fire that causes no damage and goes out by itself or a monster wildfire. The difference between those two outcomes has nothing to do with the negligent actions and everything to do with the surrounding conditions.
- dbcurtis 7y agoUm... PG&E was way behind on brush clearing. They still are. Of course, there are people that don’t want PG&E to trim their trees, hopefully those folks have got religion now. The Santa Rosa fire was absolutely started by PG&E equipment and deferred brush clearing.
- throwaway5752 7y agoYes. Nobody, including the person you replied to, is disputing that. But we're scapegoating PG&E for global warming. CA is a tinderbox compared to 20 years ago. Utilities are always behind on brush clearing everywhere. It's only now it's creating megafires. It's not environmentalists either. It's the average summer being 3-4 degrees F hotter than average and increasing.
- dbcurtis 7y agoNo. I am not scapegoating PG&E for global warming. With proper line maintenance Santa Rosa would not have had 5 separate transformers start fires. The wind was bad enough that they probably would have also had to cut power to not spark any fires. Climate change is a thing, yes, but PG&E dodging necessary expenses is also a thing.
- product50 7y agoOk - so then suffer with power cuts. It is wrong to say that PG&E is a likely worse than any other US utility company. And playing safe than sorry is the natural outcome if we are going to blame them every fire.
- lubujackson 7y agoOk, so then why not do routine maintenance? Why do you support PG&E ignoring maintenance while taking home profits for decades? Or are you a shill?
- ncmncm 7y agoCalifornia just came out of many years of drought without those fires. The fires happened after an unusually wet year. It is negligence. Brush and tree clearance are not harder than 50 years ago. There was no sudden surge of trees and brush to cut. They just chose not to do it.
- anjel 7y agoAnd that brush and tree maintenance is way cheaper than the cost of lost economic activity these intentional outages will generate. It's a liability waiver shakedown for sure.
- throwaway5752 7y agoDidn't the preceding years of drought kill a bunch of trees, leaving standing fuel? Also, wasn't 2017 the hottest summer ever in California at the time, although I think 2018 broke that record, and I think it's on track to break the record again in 2019?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]