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Someone's gotta repair and replace 100 year old crumbling infrastructure that they operate for profit in a fire zone during a wind storm. Naw. Let's blame the

Someone's gotta repair and replace 100 year old crumbling infrastructure that they operate for profit in a fire zone during a wind storm. Naw. Let's blame the tax payers for existing instead.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago
Fires are a natural occurrence in California. They happened before humans were there. They're caused by dry conditions and the absence of sufficiently recent fires to have cleared out the abundance of fuel (i.e. dead trees). The source of the fire is not particularly relevant because the fire is the inevitable natural consequence of the conditions. If it isn't caused today by a power line it will be caused tomorrow by a lightning strike. But if a lot of homes burn down and the insurance companies and/or homeowners have more political power than the electric utility, the liability gets shifted there by the politics. And then your electric bill is going to suck in order to pay for the people who built their homes in an inadvisable place.
- timewizard 1y ago
  > They're caused by dry conditions and the absence of sufficiently recent fires to have cleared out the abundance of fuel They're made possible by that. The stacking of fuel, on it's own, does not magically create fire. > The source of the fire is not particularly relevant Of course it is. We're talking about liability and costs. It's extremely relevant. > caused tomorrow by a lightning strike. Then no one should live in California at all. Lightning can strike anywhere. Yet we have a precise map of where all our infrastructure is. Just because one category of risk is difficult to manage does it give you a free pass to ignore others that are easier. > homeowners have more political power than the electric utility Do you honestly expect this wouldn't be the _norm_? Why shouldn't it be? You really want to live in a state where a utility has more political power than you? And supposing they did, are you suggesting that would be better than the current outcome? > who built their homes in an inadvisable place. Take a look at the map of the lightning fires from 2020. Show me which people were in an "inadvisable place." We're talking about millions of people here representing billions of dollars of economic activity. Do we want to measure risk realistically? Or are you just enjoying some bizarre modern schadenfreude of watching someone's life burn to the ground because you don't like the plot of land they were on? What about those who inherited that land and home? It's a weird form of inhumanity that exists here.
  - AnthonyMouse 1y ago
    > They're made possible by that. The stacking of fuel, on it's own, does not magically create fire. The fire triangle is fuel, oxygen and heat. Oxygen is in the air at all times. When the fuel is on the ground, the only thing remaining is heat, and there are both artificial and natural sources of heat. Which means there is going to be a fire whether there is an artificial source or not. > Of course it is. We're talking about liability and costs. It's extremely relevant. We're talking about snookering the electric ratepayer for the cost of inevitable fires by pretending that removing one source of heat could have prevented the fire. There is a plausible case that having more frequent fires is less damaging because it prevents fuel from accumulating. The more fuel is allowed to accumulate the bigger and faster spreading the next fire is when it happens, and the more difficult it is for firefighters to prevent it from spreading into populated areas. > Then no one should live in California at all. There aren't that many fires in modern urban areas because the urban areas aren't full of dead vegetation. The people who choose to live in fire-prone woods are making a different choice. > Do you honestly expect this wouldn't be the _norm_? The issue is that decisions should be made using reason rather than political machinations. Because it isn't actually the power utility paying for this, it's the rate payers. When it should be the people buying houses in a tinder box. > We're talking about millions of people here representing billions of dollars of economic activity. Which seems like a dumb thing to put in places that are inevitably going to be incinerated? > Do we want to measure risk realistically? The way you do this is by putting the cost of the fires on the insurance companies rather than the utility companies, and in turn the insurance premiums of the people who live there rather than the utility bills of the people who live somewhere else. > What about those who inherited that land and home? You're not required to use something dangerous just because you got it from your parents.

Someone's gotta repair and replace 100 year old crumbling infrastructure that they operate for profit in a fire zone during a wind storm. Naw. Let's blame the tax payers for existing instead.

AnthonyMouse 1y ago

Fires are a natural occurrence in California. They happened before humans were there. They're caused by dry conditions and the absence of sufficiently recent fires to have cleared out the abundance of fuel (i.e. dead trees). The source of the fire is not particularly relevant because the fire is the inevitable natural consequence of the conditions. If it isn't caused today by a power line it will be caused tomorrow by a lightning strike. But if a lot of homes burn down and the insurance companies and/or homeowners have more political power than the electric utility, the liability gets shifted there by the politics. And then your electric bill is going to suck in order to pay for the people who built their homes in an inadvisable place.

timewizard 1y ago
> They're caused by dry conditions and the absence of sufficiently recent fires to have cleared out the abundance of fuel They're made possible by that. The stacking of fuel, on it's own, does not magically create fire. > The source of the fire is not particularly relevant Of course it is. We're talking about liability and costs. It's extremely relevant. > caused tomorrow by a lightning strike. Then no one should live in California at all. Lightning can strike anywhere. Yet we have a precise map of where all our infrastructure is. Just because one category of risk is difficult to manage does it give you a free pass to ignore others that are easier. > homeowners have more political power than the electric utility Do you honestly expect this wouldn't be the _norm_? Why shouldn't it be? You really want to live in a state where a utility has more political power than you? And supposing they did, are you suggesting that would be better than the current outcome? > who built their homes in an inadvisable place. Take a look at the map of the lightning fires from 2020. Show me which people were in an "inadvisable place." We're talking about millions of people here representing billions of dollars of economic activity. Do we want to measure risk realistically? Or are you just enjoying some bizarre modern schadenfreude of watching someone's life burn to the ground because you don't like the plot of land they were on? What about those who inherited that land and home? It's a weird form of inhumanity that exists here.
- AnthonyMouse 1y ago
  > They're made possible by that. The stacking of fuel, on it's own, does not magically create fire. The fire triangle is fuel, oxygen and heat. Oxygen is in the air at all times. When the fuel is on the ground, the only thing remaining is heat, and there are both artificial and natural sources of heat. Which means there is going to be a fire whether there is an artificial source or not. > Of course it is. We're talking about liability and costs. It's extremely relevant. We're talking about snookering the electric ratepayer for the cost of inevitable fires by pretending that removing one source of heat could have prevented the fire. There is a plausible case that having more frequent fires is less damaging because it prevents fuel from accumulating. The more fuel is allowed to accumulate the bigger and faster spreading the next fire is when it happens, and the more difficult it is for firefighters to prevent it from spreading into populated areas. > Then no one should live in California at all. There aren't that many fires in modern urban areas because the urban areas aren't full of dead vegetation. The people who choose to live in fire-prone woods are making a different choice. > Do you honestly expect this wouldn't be the _norm_? The issue is that decisions should be made using reason rather than political machinations. Because it isn't actually the power utility paying for this, it's the rate payers. When it should be the people buying houses in a tinder box. > We're talking about millions of people here representing billions of dollars of economic activity. Which seems like a dumb thing to put in places that are inevitably going to be incinerated? > Do we want to measure risk realistically? The way you do this is by putting the cost of the fires on the insurance companies rather than the utility companies, and in turn the insurance premiums of the people who live there rather than the utility bills of the people who live somewhere else. > What about those who inherited that land and home? You're not required to use something dangerous just because you got it from your parents.