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L.A. power utility found irregularities on equipment where wildfire broke out

30 points by MilnerRoute 2y ago

tw04 2y ago
https://archive.is/9m4UI https://archive.is/9m4UI
WorkerBee28474 2y ago
Seems misguided to blame a spark for the fire when the fire is 0.000001% spark and 99.999999% fuel.
- mullingitover 2y ago
  When billions of dollars are on the line, the culpability for that spark is everything.
  - jncfhnb 2y ago
    The culpability is on those who created the conditions for the fuel
    - shreezus 2y ago
      Both can be true at the same time. That said, utility companies have a duty to properly maintain infrastructure, and this is an easier problem to fix. There are a few companies working on this, such as Gridware (https://www.gridware.io https://www.gridware.io).
- bradchris 2y ago
  Considering PG&E delaying and ignoring maintenance was 100% the cause of the 2018 Paradise fire that burned down an entire town of 30,000 people, it would be foolish to not investigate
  - squirtle24 2y ago
    It's politically convenient to blame PG&E for what happened in Paradise. But I would not say it's 100% on them; I've been to Paradise before the fire, and it was impressively beautiful being surrounded by all the trees and nature, like living in a forest. But even back then, I remember thinking it was a massive tinder box that could go up in flames. For reference, here is a picture of an average street in a relatively urban part of Paradise, before the fire [1]. The houses farther away from the main street had even more foliage. The area is mostly older retirees, who didn't have the energy/will to trim back the growing unburnt fuel on their (massive plots of) land. For argument's sake, it'd be like surrounding your house with barrels of gasoline, then putting the blame 100% at PG&E for starting the spark. In fairness part of the blame is on the property owners, or perhaps the local gov't for not taking fire safety measures to limit the spread or damage. [1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/E83WWnYX2pDjXzxY8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/E83WWnYX2pDjXzxY8
    - Ccecil 2y ago
      Second that... I remember driving up the main highway into Paradise, CA and saying to myself "if there is a fire here...anyone on this highway is screwed". Fast forward less than 10 years and I was watching the news reports of people driving blind through the fire at nearly the exact spot. The entire town was on a ridge with tons of fuel (pine trees)...elevations below that was nothing but dry grass. Although the fire was caused by power lines...All it would have taken was cigarette butt.
  - stickfigure 2y ago
    This is a bit like saying the 2020 Beirut explosion was 100% caused by the carelessly dropped cigarette (or whatever started the initial burn; nobody knows). Well yes, in the sense that someone somewhere did something that triggered the cascade of effects that produced the boom. But assigning "100% of the cause" to that individual just lets everyone else in the chain escape blame. If it isn't PG&E this year, it will be something else next year. Or the year after that. Like the LNU complex, it could be simple lightning. Which is not to say that PG&E doesn't bear some responsibility, but "100% of the cause" is too reductive.
- switch007 2y ago
  Fuel is everywhere and unavoidable though?
- 01100011 2y ago
  The fuel, while not all native vegetation, is mostly evolved to burn. But it is "supposed to" burn every 100 years or so from lightning or other natural cause. Humans have quickened the pace at which CA coastal sage scrub catches on fire(like, 12-25 years or something). I think the residents and city also bear some responsibility because the risk of fire in coastal southern CA is widely known. People just don't like to follow CalFire guidelines or pay the costs of protecting their property. But if there was poor design or lack of maintenance in the electrical grid that rises to the level of negligence then the utility should pay.
- sapphicsnail 2y ago
  I would definitely blame an arsonist for starting a fire
bradchris 2y ago
I don’t understand much about transmission lines as an industry, but I really have never understood why California allows what seems like essentially a duopoly to manage its electrical grid, especially around its major population centers like LA and SF. The rates aren’t low, they’re routinely linked to natural disasters, and they’re slow to respond to customer complaints. It seems as absurd to me as if one single company were to own all of a city’s water pipe infrastructure. Maybe that’s actually common too, I just don’t understand why. If it’s simply because municipalities sold them off long ago for short-term windfalls, my next question is why we as a state allow that, in the same sense that we don’t allow selling state parks without major hullabaloo. Granted, I’m covered by LADWP, the nation’s largest municipal water and power utility that even predates this form of the city’s government itself, and I’ve really only had outstanding service with them (I noticed a small leak with a water main forming a minor puddle on a side street and within an hour someone was out there fixing it), so I guess I am wondering what the case for privatized utilities even is. Could someone who knows better than I please explain why the state or local municipalities don’t/can’t manage their grid?
- bastard_op 2y ago
  There's probably more accurate answers, but I'd say they don't because they don't want the responsibility internally and/or don't have the funding, and can't because they're too ineptly run to do anything properly. Having spent a good part of my career consulting for state and local governments in IT, it's an easy generalization to say they're mostly all incompetently run, and not something most are equipped to support from the top down. Even when run well, they're not well funded, and if some of the people actually are good, they're probably too busy fighting and offsetting the incompetent ones to do any good. The flip side is I've also worked for several power companies over the years, and they're not often much better. They're at times better run and better people, but so dragged back by bureaucracy and politics they can't get out of their own way to do any good if they wanted to.
  - bradchris 2y ago
    Sure, I get that having a profit-motive is one way the market can incentivize efficiency. But without the ability for any real competition (i.e. there will only ever be one set of main transmission wires or water pipes for an area, we won’t ever have two completely distinct physical competitor networks serving the same identical addresses) does that still hold? For a private company in sole ownership of a utility, how does the market keep the incentive to cost-cut (i.e. increase profit by reducing expenditures on things like timely customer service or deferring capex) in check versus actually improving service and efficiency above “it still works” ? It’s not like any individual could choose another provider of electricity, so therefore it’s not much of a market at all. What is the motive to do anything other than rent-seek without a competitor to incentivize them to improve? At least municipal and state leaders have some sort of accountability in that they could get voted out if it’s going wrong on their watch. Meanwhile PG&E was rewarding its shareholders by raising rates and deferring maintenance for paying out high dividends rather than re-investing in itself, which seems like exactly the opposite thing the public would want to incentivize.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
This article is about the Eaton fire. Cliff Mass, a Professor of atmospheric science at the university of Washington, stated about a month ago that the Palisades fire was caused by a power transmission line (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-palisades-fire-start.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-pal...). It’ll be really infuriating if it turns out all the biggest California fires were caused by utility issues.

30 points by MilnerRoute 2y ago

tw04 2y ago

https://archive.is/9m4UI https://archive.is/9m4UI

WorkerBee28474 2y ago

Seems misguided to blame a spark for the fire when the fire is 0.000001% spark and 99.999999% fuel.

mullingitover 2y ago
When billions of dollars are on the line, the culpability for that spark is everything.
- jncfhnb 2y ago
  The culpability is on those who created the conditions for the fuel
  - shreezus 2y ago
    Both can be true at the same time. That said, utility companies have a duty to properly maintain infrastructure, and this is an easier problem to fix. There are a few companies working on this, such as Gridware (https://www.gridware.io https://www.gridware.io).
bradchris 2y ago
Considering PG&E delaying and ignoring maintenance was 100% the cause of the 2018 Paradise fire that burned down an entire town of 30,000 people, it would be foolish to not investigate
- squirtle24 2y ago
  It's politically convenient to blame PG&E for what happened in Paradise. But I would not say it's 100% on them; I've been to Paradise before the fire, and it was impressively beautiful being surrounded by all the trees and nature, like living in a forest. But even back then, I remember thinking it was a massive tinder box that could go up in flames. For reference, here is a picture of an average street in a relatively urban part of Paradise, before the fire [1]. The houses farther away from the main street had even more foliage. The area is mostly older retirees, who didn't have the energy/will to trim back the growing unburnt fuel on their (massive plots of) land. For argument's sake, it'd be like surrounding your house with barrels of gasoline, then putting the blame 100% at PG&E for starting the spark. In fairness part of the blame is on the property owners, or perhaps the local gov't for not taking fire safety measures to limit the spread or damage. [1] https://maps.app.goo.gl/E83WWnYX2pDjXzxY8 https://maps.app.goo.gl/E83WWnYX2pDjXzxY8
  - Ccecil 2y ago
    Second that... I remember driving up the main highway into Paradise, CA and saying to myself "if there is a fire here...anyone on this highway is screwed". Fast forward less than 10 years and I was watching the news reports of people driving blind through the fire at nearly the exact spot. The entire town was on a ridge with tons of fuel (pine trees)...elevations below that was nothing but dry grass. Although the fire was caused by power lines...All it would have taken was cigarette butt.
- stickfigure 2y ago
  This is a bit like saying the 2020 Beirut explosion was 100% caused by the carelessly dropped cigarette (or whatever started the initial burn; nobody knows). Well yes, in the sense that someone somewhere did something that triggered the cascade of effects that produced the boom. But assigning "100% of the cause" to that individual just lets everyone else in the chain escape blame. If it isn't PG&E this year, it will be something else next year. Or the year after that. Like the LNU complex, it could be simple lightning. Which is not to say that PG&E doesn't bear some responsibility, but "100% of the cause" is too reductive.
switch007 2y ago
Fuel is everywhere and unavoidable though?
01100011 2y ago
The fuel, while not all native vegetation, is mostly evolved to burn. But it is "supposed to" burn every 100 years or so from lightning or other natural cause. Humans have quickened the pace at which CA coastal sage scrub catches on fire(like, 12-25 years or something). I think the residents and city also bear some responsibility because the risk of fire in coastal southern CA is widely known. People just don't like to follow CalFire guidelines or pay the costs of protecting their property. But if there was poor design or lack of maintenance in the electrical grid that rises to the level of negligence then the utility should pay.
sapphicsnail 2y ago
I would definitely blame an arsonist for starting a fire

bradchris 2y ago

I don’t understand much about transmission lines as an industry, but I really have never understood why California allows what seems like essentially a duopoly to manage its electrical grid, especially around its major population centers like LA and SF. The rates aren’t low, they’re routinely linked to natural disasters, and they’re slow to respond to customer complaints. It seems as absurd to me as if one single company were to own all of a city’s water pipe infrastructure. Maybe that’s actually common too, I just don’t understand why. If it’s simply because municipalities sold them off long ago for short-term windfalls, my next question is why we as a state allow that, in the same sense that we don’t allow selling state parks without major hullabaloo. Granted, I’m covered by LADWP, the nation’s largest municipal water and power utility that even predates this form of the city’s government itself, and I’ve really only had outstanding service with them (I noticed a small leak with a water main forming a minor puddle on a side street and within an hour someone was out there fixing it), so I guess I am wondering what the case for privatized utilities even is. Could someone who knows better than I please explain why the state or local municipalities don’t/can’t manage their grid?

bastard_op 2y ago
There's probably more accurate answers, but I'd say they don't because they don't want the responsibility internally and/or don't have the funding, and can't because they're too ineptly run to do anything properly. Having spent a good part of my career consulting for state and local governments in IT, it's an easy generalization to say they're mostly all incompetently run, and not something most are equipped to support from the top down. Even when run well, they're not well funded, and if some of the people actually are good, they're probably too busy fighting and offsetting the incompetent ones to do any good. The flip side is I've also worked for several power companies over the years, and they're not often much better. They're at times better run and better people, but so dragged back by bureaucracy and politics they can't get out of their own way to do any good if they wanted to.
- bradchris 2y ago
  Sure, I get that having a profit-motive is one way the market can incentivize efficiency. But without the ability for any real competition (i.e. there will only ever be one set of main transmission wires or water pipes for an area, we won’t ever have two completely distinct physical competitor networks serving the same identical addresses) does that still hold? For a private company in sole ownership of a utility, how does the market keep the incentive to cost-cut (i.e. increase profit by reducing expenditures on things like timely customer service or deferring capex) in check versus actually improving service and efficiency above “it still works” ? It’s not like any individual could choose another provider of electricity, so therefore it’s not much of a market at all. What is the motive to do anything other than rent-seek without a competitor to incentivize them to improve? At least municipal and state leaders have some sort of accountability in that they could get voted out if it’s going wrong on their watch. Meanwhile PG&E was rewarding its shareholders by raising rates and deferring maintenance for paying out high dividends rather than re-investing in itself, which seems like exactly the opposite thing the public would want to incentivize.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

This article is about the Eaton fire. Cliff Mass, a Professor of atmospheric science at the university of Washington, stated about a month ago that the Palisades fire was caused by a power transmission line (https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-palisades-fire-start.html https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2025/01/where-and-how-did-pal...). It’ll be really infuriating if it turns out all the biggest California fires were caused by utility issues.