For those that don't know, the entire state of California (and other places as well) are currently having a heat wave.
For my county, if we have rolling blackouts, they're only supposed to last one hour.
Bay Area. I did not have any rolling blackouts.
However, on at least one day last week 250,000 did experience rolling blackouts.
Power flickers early this morning, no blackouts yet.
I’m very glad we reroofed using a high emissivity “cool roof” material.
The attic temperature on peak hot days used to reach 150 F, and now only hits 110F. And the living space remains bearable even when the outside air temp is passing 90F.
I expect blackouts — word is PGnE did not want to bring expensive generating backup systems online to cover the need around sunset when solar PV drops off but heat lingers.
I’m thankful to have SMUD (a municipal utility company) and they’re fricking fantastically amazing compared to PGE. If I move a couple miles over, I’d be on PGE experiencing this crap.
It boggles my mind how inept they are.
Some of you won’t have any issues depending on what else is attached to your electric grid. Any grid with a hospital on it is supposed to be exempt from planned outages.
congratulations
26% less unbearable
Im wearing a wet T shirt and wet bandana on my head, sitting in front of a fan. I do not have an Air Conditioner
Thankfully atm it is below 90F here.
We do not have PGE, nor rolling blackouts here
haven’t heard of any yet, but a co-worker participates in a voluntary power shut-off program, so I’ll have to ask her if that happens to her.
my car said it was 111 when I left to grab lunch. Usually it’s lying and it drops after I drive around a bit. That didn’t happen. I checked my home weather station (8 miles away), it said 104…
we tried that “voluntary power shut-off program” one year.
it didn’t work for us because they “un-voluntarily” reduced
(not shut off) power as well…and they did it once when
we had lots of guests in town for a wedding.
the women weren’t happy with that.
warm (not hot) showers.
weak lights for makeup.
we bought ice for cold beer
and the guys were good.
Is PGE the same guys who were allegedly responsible for the outcome of the Paradise town fire?
Yup.
EDIT:
"After a very meticulous and thorough investigation, CAL FIRE has determined that the Camp Fire was caused by electrical transmission lines owned and operated by Pacific Gas and Electricity (PG&E) located in the Pulga area."
(The Camp Fire is what the Paradise town fire is officially called.)
’
PGE sounded familiar, from the movie ” The Smartest Guys in the Room ”
” Portland General Electric. Enron’s infamous energy trading office was located in the same building with the utility in downtown Portland. That was where some of the infamous Enron tapes, like this one, were recorded. ” NPR News
“PG&E becomes one of America’s deadliest corporate criminals”
These headlines are just aweful.
PGE is not PG&E
Portland General Electric is not Pafic Gas & Electric
both are profit driven
both maximise short term profits
rolling blackouts postpone infrastructure expenses
Current rolling blackouts are a Duck Curve issue. It is not a transmission capacity issue either, but a generation capacity issue.
The fire danger blackouts were due to transmission issues - and frequently affected people far downstream from the transmission lines, who themselves may not have been in a fire hazard area.
My parents are in the SF Bay, and have had no rolling blackouts yet - but did experience a lightning-related outage from the recent storm.
Well, there are several kinds of blackouts; for the next few days we’re told a blackout might happen somewhere, but nothing specific about the individual address or even ZIP code.
thank you for the informative link
it says we have enough generation capability from solar, but we dont have the ability to store the power until it is needed for peak demand, after sunset, because storage is cost prohibitive.
as best as I can figure, only 18% of PG&E generation actually comes from Solar power
how that becomes the cause for a duck curve that requires rolling blackouts, for lack of storage, is unclear to me
Word on the street is that having just one more nuclear plant in operation would keep this whole fiasco from happening.
But apparently nuclear power is illegal in CA or something.
34% of PG&E power comes from Nuclear
“PLEASE NOTE: Power mix includes all PG&E-owned generation plus PG&E’s power purchases. ”
There's one nuclear power plant operating in California, and it produces 9.18 percent of the state's power mix.
I honestly don't know if nuclear power is a good thing considering how toxic nuclear waste is.
Worse, you could build a few IFRs (Integral Fast Reactors, which use fast neutrons vs slow [thermal] neutrons), and actually use radwaste from other nuke-plants as fuel, vs canning it and burying it to sit for ages.
Imagine buying 20gal of gasoline for your car, and dumping the entire tank after you drove only a few miles. That’s essentially what today’s nuke-plants do. IFRs wring out almost all of the juice and pulp and leave only low-level radwaste that you could practically just bury in your backyard.
But nope, almost all this “renewable energy” is based off electricity, and gasoline/oil/coal is all being phased out in favor of electricity. Buses, cars, even trucks are being electrified. Ah, we can see how that’ll work out, putting allllllll those eggs into one big electrical basket. Power goes out, whole grid goes down, etc., and nothing works anymore.
Imagine if Cali goes dark for an extended period. How ya gonna charge your Tesla or Volt? At least a Prius could still run on dino-juice to get outta Dodge.
Wellp, at least Canada was on the right track with their CANDU reactor designs…
I gotta look up how efficient propane-run fridges (like for RVs, etc.) happen to be. Might be a good alternative for emergencies.
Ah, perfect timing. See below, umm, above, gaah! previous page about IFRs. They eat “spent” radwaste for breakfast, and leave low-level radwaste that’s almost nothing.