Good video on the PGE electic shut down!!

I have watched this fellow do very informative reports on the Orville Dam and various Commercial plane crashes. He is a Commercial airliner pilot. Very intelligent fellow that does an excellent job of breaking this stuff down into understandable terms. He has a video/post on the current electric shut down.

Some highlights he does not go into very much because of YOU tube's rules. 1) This shut down is a result of new rules after last years Camp wild fire. 2) The trees growing out over the lines is partly the result of PGE being forced to use and spend MILLION of dollars to raise it renewable energy percentages. Also in some areas they had been stopped from aggressively trimming trees back by environmental groups.

This problem has many causes but one of them is lack of infrastructure maintenance. The Orville spillway problem was from this too. In the US, massive amounts of infrastructure repairs and maintenance has not been done in the past. It is showing up NOW with system failures. "NEW" projects are politically exciting and have huge amounts of taxpayer support. Infrastructure maintenance is not very exciting and does not have the support it needs to have. Look at the bridges that are in poor repair in most states.

CA PGE electric shut down.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m1xcX_X0wc

P.S. Just for your information Mr. Brown is currently on a medical leave from his commercial pilot job. He is fighting prostate cancer. His PSA was higher than they wanted it to be and he had a treatment that should complete his recovery BUT it causes it PSA count to go SKY high for months. Until it is back in the acceptable range he can not fly due to not meeting the FAA medical requirements. This includes his person plane as well. He can fly his plane with another pilot in the plane with him. He has to fly so many hours to keep his pilot registrations. This mainly his private plane. His commercial will have to be caught back up when his PSA is better. Then he has a lot of training before he can pilot commercial aircraft again. The only reason I am bringing this up is that he is taking donations for his videos over on Patreon. His income is very reduced until he is back flying again.
CA PGE electric shut down 2019

His job at the airline will be union protected. Part 121 flying requires a 1st class medical with an exam every 6 months if you're in the left seat. Once he gets his medical back the company will put through either recurrent training or long term training (depending on how long he was out) and then a "PC" (proficiency check) in the simulator (basically, a kind of checkride).

The Federalist had a good article with a lot of background on how Cali got in this mess. The natives used to do some forest burning along with natural burns that kept the undergrowth in check. Also Cali used to have a fair amount of logging so there was planting and then harvesting and resulting check on undergrowth. Once logging and burning became no-no's then all the undergrowth accumulated and built up a huge surplus of nice dry fuel such that once moderate fires now become huge conflagrations and damages or kill the mature trees.

I live in Mariposa County where we have many wildfires. We have had a lot of fires start this year but the firefighters have knocked them down quickly.There is a big one going now up to 5000 acres, I think it nearly under control. Down power lines do start fires, I saw one happen about week ago. There may be an arsonist around too, a lot of fires have started at roadsides. I don't think climate change had much to do with it. It doesn't rain May thru Oct, that is normal. It gets up to 102, that is normal. More rain would help.

We still have power here even though that fire is about 4 miles away. Generator is ready.

Pretty interesting, we definitely take energy for granite!! He reminds me of Ronald Reagan !!

If the problem is trees on power lines during a extreme drought, please school me in how a short term shutdown of power will solve the problem. My backwoods logic would tell me that more trees would fall during a storm rather than during a drought.

Interesting article. People have generators, but no gas to run them. Stan

Centex I did not mean that he would not be back to work. He just straight up said his income dropped by about 50%. He is a conservative fellow so he is fine but I feel that paying him something for his time making these videos I watch, is just a fair wage.

(quoted from post at 07:08:21 10/11/19) If the problem is trees on power lines during a extreme drought, please school me in how a short term shutdown of power will solve the problem. My backwoods logic would tell me that more trees would fall during a storm rather than during a drought.

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Steamboat, from watching the network news the utility shut the power off not due to drought but due to coming high winds. It appears rrom this evening's news that perhaps they were right.

(quoted from post at 07:08:21 10/11/19) If the problem is trees on power lines during a extreme drought, please school me in how a short term shutdown of power will solve the problem. My backwoods logic would tell me that more trees would fall during a storm rather than during a drought.

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Steamboat, from watching the network news the utility shut the power off not due to drought but due to coming high winds. It appears from this evening's news that perhaps they were right.

I did not think you meant that.

I was just throwing out extra information about how that system generally works. It certainly wouldn't hurt to help the guy out.
He should be getting some LTD money at this point but you are right that his income will be down substantially. Even though his job is protected in an ultimate sense, the company won't pay him to not fly!

I understand that having solar panels don't help because they make so much excess power they are wired into the grid to power it too. When the grid is shut down no power at all.

(quoted from post at 16:15:31 10/11/19)

(quoted from post at 07:08:21 10/11/19) If the problem is trees on power lines during a extreme drought, please school me in how a short term shutdown of power will solve the problem. My backwoods logic would tell me that more trees would fall during a storm rather than during a drought.

Click to expand...

Steamboat, from watching the network news the utility shut the power off not due to drought but due to coming high winds. It appears from this evening's news that perhaps they were right.

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Yes, shut down due to high winds and the fact that they were sued basically for providing power during windy conditions and lost. Now the do gooders are screaming because they complied with the intent of the lawsuit.

I heard on the radio a couple of weeks ago that some of PGE's
power lines and towers are over 100 years old.

In general, he is spot on, If the environmental nut jobs had not forced the wasteful spending on useless renewables, and if they had left the Utility alone and let them clear cut the right of ways, like has been done for 50 years plus, this would not be a problem. California's government is to blame for last years fires, and this years black outs. Hope they are enjoying their electric cars too... oops, can't charge them either.

Hope they have a backup Bicycle.....

(quoted from post at 10:54:52 10/11/19) Interesting article. People have generators, but no gas to run them. Stan

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And who's fault is that?

They're shutting off power if the wind gets over 25 mph.
Here on the plains, we'd have no power most days if they did that here.

Everyone should own a generator that will operate all the essentials with power to spare . And enough fuel for that generator to operate for a month .