by Bob Walsh
Yes, people who live in the formerly great state of California actually like it if their air conditioning and micro-waves and TVs actually have power for them. They hate it if oil is produced in or transported thru the state, but they want the electricity.
The new Public Safety Power Shut-offs that have nailed up to 2 million bodies at a shot are irritating them. They is badly hurting small businesses and actually killing people, though not that many, not directly at least.
PG&E does these shut-offs when a combination of conditions, normally very low humidity and very high wind, increase the chance of their power lines interacting badly with the local flora and starting a fire. Two such fires last year have pushed PG&E into bankruptcy court. The problem with these shut-offs is that once you do them you can't just flip the switch and start them back up. Live people have to eyeball each foot of high power line to check for damage before they do so. That means it takes about 48 hours to get power back after such a shut-off even if there was zero damage to the equipment.
Governor Newsom is pissed off by that and is trying to get some political mileage out of it. He is pretty much flat-out threatening to take over PG&E if they do not quickly come up with a plan. We will see how that shakes out.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Denizens ... Are those some kind of lizards?
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