
Electric-Car Owners Hard Hit by California Power Shutdown - elorant
https://news.yahoo.com/electric-car-owners-hard-hit-170900778.html
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sandstrom
This sounds like something a developing country would do. How about not
clearing trees next to our power lines and just shut down instead, because
it's easier?

I have never heard of a power company in any developed country handling the
problem like this.

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gambiting
The problem is that some states like California have decided that if a fire is
started as a result of the power lines interacting with anything, even as a
result of an accident/severe weather, the power company is 100% responsible
for the cost of cleanup. Which of course means that for a power company, the
only 100% logical decision is to shut off power any time there is a strong
wind - why the hell would any company ever risk a multi-million dollar bill
for putting out fires if they can just simply switch off the power for a
while? They can do their dilligence and clear out any branches near the
powerlines, but accidents still happen and as long as the power company is
held 100% responsible financially for those I don't see how they could _not_
shut down power during severe weather.

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badchorizo
The power company that got nailed with the $30 billion (or whatever it was)
judgment for possibly causing a huge destructive fire is publicly traded. This
matters because if shareholders had to eat that loss, it would destroy the
valuation of the company and stock would plummet. Execs and board of directors
get a lot of pay as stock and options, so cratering the stock isn't
acceptable. So instead they passed the loss onto ratepayers i.e. innocent
customers have a surcharge for decades to pay for a fire caused by utility
negligence (and whether the utility did in fact cause the fire was never
proven one way or the other, but it's easy to create a villain for juries to
blame). We need to get a grip on our insignificance compared to natural
forces. Wildfires are as inevitable as hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, etc.
Humans can't stop them, but we can be prepared to flee and/or adapt to the
resulting changes to the environment. Humans dominate Earth because we make
plans and we adapt to whatever the planet throws at us.

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lacker
The company, PG+E, went bankrupt. The shareholders did eat a big loss. They
might still be incompetent but it’s not like they’re making huge profits off
this shutdown.

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clouddrover
Although if you do have charge in your battery, electric cars can act as a
backup power supply for your home to help mitigate power outages like these.
The CCS and CHAdeMO standards have roadmaps for vehicle-to-home protocols:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78XGElU2I0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78XGElU2I0)

[https://www.chademo.com/technology/v2x/](https://www.chademo.com/technology/v2x/)

[https://insideevs.com/news/342354/charin-ccs-combo-
standard-...](https://insideevs.com/news/342354/charin-ccs-combo-standard-to-
offer-v2g-by-2025/)

~~~
myself248
And do-it-yourselfers have been installing datacenter UPSs, when they can find
one whose battery-bank voltage is similar to the car's traction-pack voltage:

[http://www.priups.com/others/Doug/index.html](http://www.priups.com/others/Doug/index.html)

[http://www.priups.com/others/charlie/index.html](http://www.priups.com/others/charlie/index.html)

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lolc
I've never seen sparks on power lines except when trees touched them. Is that
what causes all this? They're cutting power because they can't cut trees fast
enough?

~~~
rurounijones
They cut trees back as standard maintenance. What I have read is that they
reduced these maintenance programs as cost savings measure and this is the
result.

Since the company is being held liable for huge amounts due to fires caused by
their lack of maintenance the logical business decision for them is to just
not provide power when the risk of sparking a fire is too high.

It is better for the shareholders to just not provide power than to pay the
fines.

~~~
XorNot
This really sounds like when you start just leveling criminal charges at the
board because neither of these options are acceptable.

~~~
michaelt
As I understand it, PG&E is a weird situation, as they're a for-profit but
heavily regulated monopoly with no competitors. So, in terms of wildfires
their options are:

1\. Spend their savings on network maintenance. Not possible as they've got
zero money having been liable for a bunch of costly wildfires.

2\. Stop serving loss-making wilderness customers who need costly-to-maintain
cables run through forests. Not possible due to legal service obligation.

3\. Raise prices for loss-making customers who need long runs of costly-to-
maintain cables. Not possible due to legal regulation of prices.

4\. Raise prices for all customers, to pay for better network maintenance. Not
possible due to legal regulation of prices.

5\. Transfer loss-making customers in fire-prone areas to competitors who can
serve them more efficiently. Not possible, as they have no competitors (except
much more expensive options like diesel generators)

6\. Go out of business. Also seemingly somehow impossible, despite having
their finances wiped out by all the wildfires they've caused.

7\. Pay for network upgrades/bankruptcy by cutting executive bonuses. Legally
possible, and maybe politically popular, but it's nowhere near enough money,
and what sort of chump would take a job where their pay depended on solving
financial problems with their origins 20 years ago, in political issues
outside of their control?

8\. Make the problems worse, in the hopes massive outages will motivate
politicians to give them cash, let them raise prices, or let them drop
customers. Or maybe just nationalise them to put them out of their misery
<\--- YOU ARE HERE

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goatinaboat
It’s very difficult to match the capability of “carrying a jerrycan of petrol”
with current electrical technology.

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watt
I think it's much easier to make your own electricity than to make your own
petrol if it comes to that.

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pinkfoot
Pyrolysis (at a reasonably large scale) can make acceptable diesel out of
plastic, biowaste, or cooking oil.

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mikestew
I’m no chemical engineer, but just the fact that I’ve never heard that word
tells me I’m not doing that in my garage after an emergency. I’m going with
self-generated electricity. _That_ I know several ways of doing, from common
household materials.

~~~
ppf
Out of interest, how would you do this, and how much power do you expect to
generate?

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mikestew
If it came down to it, I could make one of the world's most inefficient
electrical generators with some wire and some magnets. More specifically, we
have potential electrical generators all around us. Anything with an
electrical motor can potential be reversed to generate.

So I don't have anything specific in mind, nor any numbers to work with, but
I'm confident I'd figure something out. I'm a likely to have more success with
that than I am making diesel in my garage.

~~~
ppf
You'd need a few machine shop tools to make your own generator, as well as
access to magnets and other specific materials (iron laminations, etc), as
well as a good understanding of magnetics. I think you underestimate what
'world's least effecient generator' means - if energy suddenly became scarce,
I wouldn't spend my time to make something that would probably make a few
watts at best.

Your best bet, if you really want electrical power in this scenario, is to
reuse a motor or car alternator. Now the biggest issue is a source of power -
unless you have access to a flowing river, you're pretty much stuck with wind.
And here, you'll be limited by your ability to make efficient blades. In fact,
your best power source might be you, using a bike-mounted generator. I've
though about makig one for fun, but it's a lot of effort to go through, to
make a device that would probably make 150W.

Realistically, IMHO in this scenario I would abandon electronic devices and
stick to hand tools.

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makerofspoons
It's not green but owners in fire-prone areas should be keeping a generator
plus fuel on hand to charge up if they need to evacuate.

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pro_zac
You could even put the fuel and generator in the back of your Tesla pickup and
charge while you drive! Except I'm sure it won't drive while plugged in.

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205guy
Given the fires at the oil storage tanks in the Bay Area, I wonder if CA will
shut down petroleum infrastructure during high fire risk.

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human_banana
This is why "plug in hybrid" is such an attractive setup. You can get a decent
EV only range, and then hybrid like MPG once that's exhausted.

As long as you can get gas or electricity you can keep moving.

