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Interesting. I'm kinda sympathetic to PG&E on this though. These big lines don't have much under them, inspection is by helicopter, and the lines cannot be shut

Interesting. I'm kinda sympathetic to PG&E on this though. These big lines don't have much under them, inspection is by helicopter, and the lines cannot be shut down. I would not be surprised if "fix it when it breaks" is a nationwide phenomenon for high tension lines. What makes it bad is how fire-prone California is. I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. And in PG&E's defense I doubt anyone was living near the lines when they were built 100 years ago. If forest fire was an acceptable outcome of line failure 100 years ago when the lines were built, is it PG&E's fault that tons of people moved into this fire prone area? In my mind the cities nearby should have paid them to make the lines safer. To me this is like the people that move near a concert hall then complain that it's loud. Or move to a floodplain and complain when it floods... It seems like it's been known that these lines were a fire risk for a very long time, and cities should have paid to make them safer before zoning so much land for residential. I assume, but cannot prove, that PG&E probably enumerated the risks when the land was sold or rezoned but their concerns were ignored. Having done a study on the wear of the hooks themselves, it seems unlikely they would not have notified communities nearby of the risk. My prediction is that they start to point fingers at the government, but people continue to sue the power company because sueing the government is hard.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
akira2501 6y ago
> and the lines cannot be shut down. Of course they can. A failure is an unplanned shutdown, and I doubt that leads to better outcomes than a planned shutdown. Also this thread demonstrates that PG&E replaced _other_ parts of the same tower. > I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. I'm of the opinion that climate change makes this a moving target, and this is simply one of the obvious repercussions. > is it PG&E's fault that tons of people moved into this fire prone area? No, it's their fault that even though they made $550 million in profits in 2018, and made other improvements to these towers, they still failed to keep them in proper repair. Also, it's not always "fire-prone." California experienced a bit of drought in 2018. > and cities should have paid to make them safer Shouldn't the company making $550 million in profits pay to make them safer?
- xyzzyz 6y ago
  If California doesn't like PG&E making $550M profit, and would like PG&E spend more on maintenance, it should set lower profit target, and allow PG&E spend more money on maintenance. PG&E operates based on decisions of California Public Utilities Commission, which decides, among other things, how much money PG&E is allowed to make, and how much it is allowed to spend on maintenance. Here's what it looks like: https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M102/K361/102361873.PDF https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M102/K... PG&E would love to spend more money on maintenance. It doesn't cut into their profits, because their expenses and profits are set by state government commission anyway. Of course, the government commission has some incentive to keep the rate low, to make citizens happy, which makes it limit how much money PG&E can make and spend. The above is not meant to imply that if PG&E worked like any normal company, they'd maintain their shit better -- I have no idea if they would. However, in the current regime, where CPUC exercises so much control over what PG&E does and how much money it makes and spends, the blame cannot be solely placed on PG&E side.
  - zzapplezz 6y ago
    > If California doesn't like PG&E making ... profit.. it should set lower profit target, and allow PG&E spend more money on maintenance Who makes decisions at the CPUC? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is circular logic.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      Political appointees who have enormous incentives to keep electricity prices as low as possible.
      - pmalynin 6y ago
        And yet California has one of the highest electricity costs in the country. Things definitely don’t add up.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
floatingatoll 6y ago
PG&E pled guilty to the charges brought against them, in part because there was clear evidence of their leadership intentionally neglecting their infrastructure for decades until it fell into such disrepair as to start a forest fire. They chose to remain quiet about their neglect until it became impossible to do so, sealing their fate. If they had demonstrated a history of decades of campaigning to get the problem solved, rather than silently neglecting it, they might not have been found guilty at all. (This is from memory, so if I got any specifics wrong, see replies for corrections.)
mrbabbage 6y ago
There is no defense for PG&E for the Camp Fire. This is an organization that is notorious for under-maintaining its assets. Its state of repair is so shoddy that it regularly turns off power for many days at a time ("public safety power shutoffs") to huge swathes of its service area. No other comparable utility does this - not San Diego Gas and Electric, not the Victoria Electricity Cooperative (Australian utility), no one, because they have entered the 21st century and don't need to resort to crude hacks like shutting off all power to prevent fires. The proof is in the thread. Barely 10 years ago, PG&E pleaded guilty to another felony, when its under-maintained gas pipeline in San Bruno exploded, killed 8 people, and leveled a neighborhood. That utility has a cultural problem going to the very top that prioritizes profit over safety, and I sincerely hope it emerges from bankruptcy reformed.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bhawks 6y ago
  PGE also was responsible for contaminating the ground water in Hinkley California with millions of gallons of chromium in the the 1960s and then covering it up for 20 years. There is something seriously wrong with PGE and it's attitude towards it's infrastructure and public safety.
  - mensetmanusman 6y ago
    Not sure how important it is to bring up something from 60 years ago. All the workers from that time are likely dead.
    - andromeduck 6y ago
      But the culture isn't.
- aaron695 6y ago
  > not the Victoria Electricity Cooperative (Australian utility), The state next to Victoria does, and did recently. https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/304387/catastrophic-fire-danger-and-the-power-to-switch-off-supply/ https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/304387/catastrophic-...
mjevans 6y ago
There is plenty of blame to spread around. Regulations should require sufficient redundancy for scheduled outages on individual lines for regularly scheduled service during non-critical times. Communities should not be allowed to form, and should be actively wound down if they are within dangerous areas with seasonal problems. Fires, Floods, Extreme doubts, unsustainable water table use, etc. This should _begin_ at a federal level with a re-location act, and should involve planning and support at every stage of government to proceed in an orderly way for society. Edit: Also, of course, the company is still at fault, I forgot to point that out while going over other aspects of the systemic failure of society (people and organizations of people) as a whole.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Communities should not be allowed to form, and should be actively wound down if they are within dangerous areas with seasonal problems. But when we abandon most of the West (earthquake, fire, drought), midwest (flooding, tornados, east and particularly gulf coast (hurricanes), there's a whole lot of economic output lost from working land (farming, mineral extraction, etc.) that won't be replaceable when you crowd the remaining population into whatever safe bubble you have left. The reason people live in dangerous areas is because they are often inherently economically productive, and in fact many of the things that make land suitable to human habitation are associated with periodic risk (freshwater supply and flood risk tend to go together, for instance.)
  - rcpt 6y ago
    California mountain towns are not economically productive. I doubt they could even exist without the rest of the states taxes supporting their infrastructure.
    - bhawks 6y ago
      Yes, this happened in an isolated mountain town. Let's set that aside for a moment. PGE demonstrates neglectful behaviours towards all of its infrastructure. It has transmission lines everywhere and has the same general attitude to maintenance and safety. Ask the people of San Mateo how safe they feel with PGEs gas lines. There are serious long term problems inside PGE and it's doubtful they are going to change. PGE presents a serious risk to Californians everywhere.
zaroth 6y ago
The big change is not that somehow PG&E is going to inspect every hook on every tower. It’s not like they can just climb the tower and check it out, as you say they inspect with helicopters and cameras. Probably many of these towers don’t have a clear means to even access them with heavy equipment. Instead, the approach is they will simply shut off the power during these high risk days. Interesting that they actually warned that they could shut off power in the days leading up to the fire, but never actually did. To me, those are the meetings to zero in on when it comes time to lay the blame. I wonder, what was the calculus to cutting power (which itself can have health & safety impacts to the populace) and how much of it was political? PG&E has 100,000 miles of transmission lines, so perhaps about a million of these towers. To put that in perspective, historically they spend billions of dollars a year on maintenance and upgrade on the order of 100-200 miles of transmission lines per year.
- tonyhb 6y ago
  Or, you could be responsible and say 'hey, we have no documentation for this power line and it's 90 years old. Our knowledge of materials science say this should have worn out. Let's be proactive and replace things'. You don't need to physically inspect every item to be safe, here. You rely on precaution, standard shelf life, and operational procedures. If that's difficult, so be it. That's the price people pay for choosing to live in the sticks. This should all be accounted for. You think that hospitals inspect every item every 3 months? Hell no. A lot of things have lifecycles and it's just replaced because that's the tolerance, and it's safer in the long run. PG&E should be the same.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    The average age of a PG&E tower is 68 years old.
    - bhawks 6y ago
      PGEs own linemen were concerned about wear on these towers. They sent samples from the field to labs for metallurgical analysis. PGEs own scientists estimated that the components would wear out in 100 years. PGE took this information and did nothing. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiErOkaUMAA178t?format=png&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiErOkaUMAA178t?format=png&name=... This is not how you maintain critical infrastructure. This is embracing failure and simply not caring about the consequences.
cco 6y ago
It feels like a great use case for a drone, you could get closer, the video can be taken by non-inspectors and then reviewed later/stored.
- Animats 6y ago
  That's how it's done now.[1] But seeing wear on a hook is tough even with high resolution photos, because the wear is between hook and eye and doesn't show clearly until the setup is disassembled. [1] https://youtu.be/7-JTqwUyD5o https://youtu.be/7-JTqwUyD5o
  - dv_dt 6y ago
    Did you look at the photos of the hook, it should be visible to a proper inspection. That marketing video of inspections is either picked for nice panning shots, or is simply inadequate operation to make it look like they can inspect faster than they should to be effective.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    Can't you just infer it by how much of the original eye is unoccupied?
  - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
    Where a park can't be verified, its replaced regularly. Replacing them every 30 years won't bancrupt anyone.
- avianlyric 6y ago
  In the UK helicopters are used as drones simply aren’t fast enough to image an entire transmission line in a reasonable amount of time. However unlike PG&E we take high resolution photographs of every major component on a transmission tower, and manually inspect and classify every image take. Images of this type would have identified this fault, at least once during inspections taken during the last couple of decades. Source: Worked for a company that did these inspections.
aaronblohowiak 6y ago
>and the lines cannot be shut down yes, they can. >I doubt anyone was living near the lines when they were built 100 years ago. Paradise, CA was on a railroad map ca 1900: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stranger-in-paradise/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stranger-in-paradise/
williadc 6y ago
> I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. Along similar lines of thinking, humans should not be living in areas that flood regularly, or that have earthquakes regularly, or that have hurricanes regularly, or that have tornadoes regularly, or that have insufficient water, or that have excessive heat or cold regularly, or that have high rates of animal-transmitted disease. This doesn't leave many places for people to live.
- rcpt 6y ago
  It actually leaves quite a lot of places to live. Yes an asteroid could hit anywhere but the notion that suburban sprawl out into every corner of the wilderness is justified by that is ludicrous.
  - rubidium 6y ago
    It would be a really fun map though, to determine where is "safest" based on an individuals risk profile.
    - rcpt 6y ago
      Insurance rates map https://howmuch.net/articles/homeowners-insurance-rates-2020 https://howmuch.net/articles/homeowners-insurance-rates-2020 But there’s got to be a higher resolution one out there.
    - throwaway189262 6y ago
      These exist, somewhere. Data centers are very interested in disaster risk since they don't have many other constraints
- throwaway189262 6y ago
  It does. The west coast is fire and earthquake prone. The east, hurricanes. There's a giant swath of land in "flyover country", the Midwest, that doesn't have any particular disaster risk. But people like living near the oceans, mountains, and where weather is nice. That should be okay, but the government shouldn't be throwing money at them. Let them know the area is dangerous, and if they want to live there, they're on their own. I get miffed when we bail these people out with federal funds for disaster relief. They should be required to have private insurance, with insurance free to set rates based on risk. If it's too expensive to get insured, don't live there
baddox 6y ago
I mean, you have to be more careful when you’re in a more dangerous area. If you live on a remote farm you can hit golf balls from your back porch. If you live in a suburb, not so much. Is this unfair?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

akira2501 6y ago

> and the lines cannot be shut down. Of course they can. A failure is an unplanned shutdown, and I doubt that leads to better outcomes than a planned shutdown. Also this thread demonstrates that PG&E replaced _other_ parts of the same tower. > I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. I'm of the opinion that climate change makes this a moving target, and this is simply one of the obvious repercussions. > is it PG&E's fault that tons of people moved into this fire prone area? No, it's their fault that even though they made $550 million in profits in 2018, and made other improvements to these towers, they still failed to keep them in proper repair. Also, it's not always "fire-prone." California experienced a bit of drought in 2018. > and cities should have paid to make them safer Shouldn't the company making $550 million in profits pay to make them safer?

xyzzyz 6y ago
If California doesn't like PG&E making $550M profit, and would like PG&E spend more on maintenance, it should set lower profit target, and allow PG&E spend more money on maintenance. PG&E operates based on decisions of California Public Utilities Commission, which decides, among other things, how much money PG&E is allowed to make, and how much it is allowed to spend on maintenance. Here's what it looks like: https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M102/K361/102361873.PDF https://docs.cpuc.ca.gov/PublishedDocs/Published/G000/M102/K... PG&E would love to spend more money on maintenance. It doesn't cut into their profits, because their expenses and profits are set by state government commission anyway. Of course, the government commission has some incentive to keep the rate low, to make citizens happy, which makes it limit how much money PG&E can make and spend. The above is not meant to imply that if PG&E worked like any normal company, they'd maintain their shit better -- I have no idea if they would. However, in the current regime, where CPUC exercises so much control over what PG&E does and how much money it makes and spends, the blame cannot be solely placed on PG&E side.
- zzapplezz 6y ago
  > If California doesn't like PG&E making ... profit.. it should set lower profit target, and allow PG&E spend more money on maintenance Who makes decisions at the CPUC? It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is circular logic.
  - rayiner 6y ago
    Political appointees who have enormous incentives to keep electricity prices as low as possible.
    - pmalynin 6y ago
      And yet California has one of the highest electricity costs in the country. Things definitely don’t add up.
- dragonwriter 6y ago

floatingatoll 6y ago

PG&E pled guilty to the charges brought against them, in part because there was clear evidence of their leadership intentionally neglecting their infrastructure for decades until it fell into such disrepair as to start a forest fire. They chose to remain quiet about their neglect until it became impossible to do so, sealing their fate. If they had demonstrated a history of decades of campaigning to get the problem solved, rather than silently neglecting it, they might not have been found guilty at all. (This is from memory, so if I got any specifics wrong, see replies for corrections.)

mrbabbage 6y ago

There is no defense for PG&E for the Camp Fire. This is an organization that is notorious for under-maintaining its assets. Its state of repair is so shoddy that it regularly turns off power for many days at a time ("public safety power shutoffs") to huge swathes of its service area. No other comparable utility does this - not San Diego Gas and Electric, not the Victoria Electricity Cooperative (Australian utility), no one, because they have entered the 21st century and don't need to resort to crude hacks like shutting off all power to prevent fires. The proof is in the thread. Barely 10 years ago, PG&E pleaded guilty to another felony, when its under-maintained gas pipeline in San Bruno exploded, killed 8 people, and leveled a neighborhood. That utility has a cultural problem going to the very top that prioritizes profit over safety, and I sincerely hope it emerges from bankruptcy reformed.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bhawks 6y ago
PGE also was responsible for contaminating the ground water in Hinkley California with millions of gallons of chromium in the the 1960s and then covering it up for 20 years. There is something seriously wrong with PGE and it's attitude towards it's infrastructure and public safety.
- mensetmanusman 6y ago
  Not sure how important it is to bring up something from 60 years ago. All the workers from that time are likely dead.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    But the culture isn't.
aaron695 6y ago
> not the Victoria Electricity Cooperative (Australian utility), The state next to Victoria does, and did recently. https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/304387/catastrophic-fire-danger-and-the-power-to-switch-off-supply/ https://www.sapowernetworks.com.au/data/304387/catastrophic-...

mjevans 6y ago

There is plenty of blame to spread around. Regulations should require sufficient redundancy for scheduled outages on individual lines for regularly scheduled service during non-critical times. Communities should not be allowed to form, and should be actively wound down if they are within dangerous areas with seasonal problems. Fires, Floods, Extreme doubts, unsustainable water table use, etc. This should _begin_ at a federal level with a re-location act, and should involve planning and support at every stage of government to proceed in an orderly way for society. Edit: Also, of course, the company is still at fault, I forgot to point that out while going over other aspects of the systemic failure of society (people and organizations of people) as a whole.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> Communities should not be allowed to form, and should be actively wound down if they are within dangerous areas with seasonal problems. But when we abandon most of the West (earthquake, fire, drought), midwest (flooding, tornados, east and particularly gulf coast (hurricanes), there's a whole lot of economic output lost from working land (farming, mineral extraction, etc.) that won't be replaceable when you crowd the remaining population into whatever safe bubble you have left. The reason people live in dangerous areas is because they are often inherently economically productive, and in fact many of the things that make land suitable to human habitation are associated with periodic risk (freshwater supply and flood risk tend to go together, for instance.)
- rcpt 6y ago
  California mountain towns are not economically productive. I doubt they could even exist without the rest of the states taxes supporting their infrastructure.
  - bhawks 6y ago
    Yes, this happened in an isolated mountain town. Let's set that aside for a moment. PGE demonstrates neglectful behaviours towards all of its infrastructure. It has transmission lines everywhere and has the same general attitude to maintenance and safety. Ask the people of San Mateo how safe they feel with PGEs gas lines. There are serious long term problems inside PGE and it's doubtful they are going to change. PGE presents a serious risk to Californians everywhere.

zaroth 6y ago

The big change is not that somehow PG&E is going to inspect every hook on every tower. It’s not like they can just climb the tower and check it out, as you say they inspect with helicopters and cameras. Probably many of these towers don’t have a clear means to even access them with heavy equipment. Instead, the approach is they will simply shut off the power during these high risk days. Interesting that they actually warned that they could shut off power in the days leading up to the fire, but never actually did. To me, those are the meetings to zero in on when it comes time to lay the blame. I wonder, what was the calculus to cutting power (which itself can have health & safety impacts to the populace) and how much of it was political? PG&E has 100,000 miles of transmission lines, so perhaps about a million of these towers. To put that in perspective, historically they spend billions of dollars a year on maintenance and upgrade on the order of 100-200 miles of transmission lines per year.

tonyhb 6y ago
Or, you could be responsible and say 'hey, we have no documentation for this power line and it's 90 years old. Our knowledge of materials science say this should have worn out. Let's be proactive and replace things'. You don't need to physically inspect every item to be safe, here. You rely on precaution, standard shelf life, and operational procedures. If that's difficult, so be it. That's the price people pay for choosing to live in the sticks. This should all be accounted for. You think that hospitals inspect every item every 3 months? Hell no. A lot of things have lifecycles and it's just replaced because that's the tolerance, and it's safer in the long run. PG&E should be the same.
- zaroth 6y ago
  The average age of a PG&E tower is 68 years old.
  - bhawks 6y ago
    PGEs own linemen were concerned about wear on these towers. They sent samples from the field to labs for metallurgical analysis. PGEs own scientists estimated that the components would wear out in 100 years. PGE took this information and did nothing. https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiErOkaUMAA178t?format=png&name=small https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EiErOkaUMAA178t?format=png&name=... This is not how you maintain critical infrastructure. This is embracing failure and simply not caring about the consequences.

cco 6y ago

It feels like a great use case for a drone, you could get closer, the video can be taken by non-inspectors and then reviewed later/stored.

Animats 6y ago
That's how it's done now.[1] But seeing wear on a hook is tough even with high resolution photos, because the wear is between hook and eye and doesn't show clearly until the setup is disassembled. [1] https://youtu.be/7-JTqwUyD5o https://youtu.be/7-JTqwUyD5o
- dv_dt 6y ago
  Did you look at the photos of the hook, it should be visible to a proper inspection. That marketing video of inspections is either picked for nice panning shots, or is simply inadequate operation to make it look like they can inspect faster than they should to be effective.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  Can't you just infer it by how much of the original eye is unoccupied?
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
  Where a park can't be verified, its replaced regularly. Replacing them every 30 years won't bancrupt anyone.
avianlyric 6y ago
In the UK helicopters are used as drones simply aren’t fast enough to image an entire transmission line in a reasonable amount of time. However unlike PG&E we take high resolution photographs of every major component on a transmission tower, and manually inspect and classify every image take. Images of this type would have identified this fault, at least once during inspections taken during the last couple of decades. Source: Worked for a company that did these inspections.

aaronblohowiak 6y ago

>and the lines cannot be shut down yes, they can. >I doubt anyone was living near the lines when they were built 100 years ago. Paradise, CA was on a railroad map ca 1900: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stranger-in-paradise/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/stranger-in-paradise/

williadc 6y ago

> I'm of the opinion that humans should not be living in areas that burn regularly. Along similar lines of thinking, humans should not be living in areas that flood regularly, or that have earthquakes regularly, or that have hurricanes regularly, or that have tornadoes regularly, or that have insufficient water, or that have excessive heat or cold regularly, or that have high rates of animal-transmitted disease. This doesn't leave many places for people to live.

rcpt 6y ago
It actually leaves quite a lot of places to live. Yes an asteroid could hit anywhere but the notion that suburban sprawl out into every corner of the wilderness is justified by that is ludicrous.
- rubidium 6y ago
  It would be a really fun map though, to determine where is "safest" based on an individuals risk profile.
  - rcpt 6y ago
    Insurance rates map https://howmuch.net/articles/homeowners-insurance-rates-2020 https://howmuch.net/articles/homeowners-insurance-rates-2020 But there’s got to be a higher resolution one out there.
  - throwaway189262 6y ago
    These exist, somewhere. Data centers are very interested in disaster risk since they don't have many other constraints
throwaway189262 6y ago
It does. The west coast is fire and earthquake prone. The east, hurricanes. There's a giant swath of land in "flyover country", the Midwest, that doesn't have any particular disaster risk. But people like living near the oceans, mountains, and where weather is nice. That should be okay, but the government shouldn't be throwing money at them. Let them know the area is dangerous, and if they want to live there, they're on their own. I get miffed when we bail these people out with federal funds for disaster relief. They should be required to have private insurance, with insurance free to set rates based on risk. If it's too expensive to get insured, don't live there

baddox 6y ago

I mean, you have to be more careful when you’re in a more dangerous area. If you live on a remote farm you can hit golf balls from your back porch. If you live in a suburb, not so much. Is this unfair?