Does anyone underground transmission? Heat would be a giant obstacle, but I'd imagine insulation would be a close second.
People have advocated it here but the power company pretty much said it wasn't close to practical. I had to prepare comments for a planned new transmission line and that wasn't really in my remit. Sometimes it is hard to tell when the consultation process is designed to be driven to their desired outcome or whether they are really evaluating possible solutions. In this case, they were probably right in terms of the burial but chose a crappy route and ignored the impacts on agriculture. Interferes with centre pivot irrigation and hard to do aerial spraying with a powerline across your potato field and other issues.
Out here in the flatlands, using modern directional-boring technology, burying distribution lines is a snap and affordable. Transmission lines are a completely different animal.
Does anyone underground transmission? Heat would be a giant obstacle, but I'd imagine insulation would be a close second.
Burying power lines is hugely expensive but if anyone can afford it, it is the US. It makes maintenance much harder, too. But with current technology, they can instantaneously tell precisely where a break occurs. One trouble currently is that they will shut down the power to keep from starting new fires in the winds and that exacerbates the other problems. Perhaps too little, too late, but large areas north of LA were without power after the fires started.
Every fire is going to be different and add to understanding of what can be done better. I have been involved in several post-mortem evaluations of events/accidents and they really only are useful if everyone approaches it from the point of view of looking for what can be done for improvement, rather than pointing fingers.
Out here in the flatlands, using modern directional-boring technology, burying distribution lines is a snap and affordable. Transmission lines are a completely different animal.
Well if the proper resources are available when the fire starts and is very small, perhaps it could be extinguished, regardless of how strong the winds are.
And it has come to light that the Eaton / Altadena fire was most likely started by power lines from good old SCE. That was the one that most concerned me when it first started. It had the greatest potential to cause a wide open burn that made a straight line to Long Beach through regular neighborhoods of the ordinary folk. It's still burning strong and the winds are kicking up again. Sure it is somewhat contained, but we don't know what side of the fire is contained and which is still out of control.
This event is still far from over.
Burying power lines is hugely expensive but if anyone can afford it, it is the US. It makes maintenance much harder, too. But with current technology, they can instantaneously tell precisely where a break occurs. One trouble currently is that they will shut down the power to keep from starting new fires in the winds and that exacerbates the other problems. Perhaps too little, too late, but large areas north of LA were without power after the fires started.
Every fire is going to be different and add to understanding of what can be done better. I have been involved in several post-mortem evaluations of events/accidents and they really only are useful if everyone approaches it from the point of view of looking for what can be done for improvement, rather than pointing fingers.
this had nothing to do with the fighting a fire when there are hurricane force winds....
Well if the proper resources are available when the fire starts and is very small, perhaps it could be extinguished, regardless of how strong the winds are.
And it has come to light that the Eaton / Altadena fire was most likely started by power lines from good old SCE. That was the one that most concerned me when it first started. It had the greatest potential to cause a wide open burn that made a straight line to Long Beach through regular neighborhoods of the ordinary folk. It's still burning strong and the winds are kicking up again. Sure it is somewhat contained, but we don't know what side of the fire is contained and which is still out of control.
The Santa Ana winds happen several times a year, every year. The Santa Monica fire would not have started if the guy was not careless with his leftover coals. Doesn't mean that these winds only blow like this every several decades.
How close is RP in Eureka to the fire? Looks close.
Although on BlueSky someone was saying it was an almost exact rerun of the Santa Monica Mountain fires of 1938 so it sounds like the area is exposed to this kind of risk on a regular basis, just at relatively long intervals.
The Santa Ana winds happen several times a year, every year. The Santa Monica fire would not have started if the guy was not careless with his leftover coals. Doesn't mean that these winds only blow like this every several decades.
These are the same winds that are powerful enough to bring snow and freezing temps to the beaches in Orange County some winters. Pretty amazing when you consider that in California, snow is an elevational event as in the snow usually doesn't fall below certain elevations depending on things like local temps and storm strength. Snow at sea level in So Cal is a big deal.
there are unique rules and regs related to CA insurance, in response to insurer premiums and dropping coverage.
i'm certainly not smart enough to comment on how effective these new rules are, but the underlying issue is the cost and frequency of events have increased, which is changing the market.
but clearly, this had nothing to do with the fighting a fire when there are hurricane force winds....
Although on BlueSky someone was saying it was an almost exact rerun of the Santa Monica Mountain fires of 1938
so it sounds like the area is exposed to this kind of risk on a regular basis, just at relatively long intervals.
In my experience insurance actuaries are actually quite good at quantifying risk. They are just working with a limited dataset due to our relatively short time of record-keeping, so revisions of risk profiles can be expected as we gather more data over time.
Ya think that the insurance companies might actually know the actual state and readiness of reservoirs and how well forest management and fire mitigation is not being done as it should be ?
And then the budgets of fire departments are cut by millions of dollars ?
Ya think that the insurance companies might actually know the actual state and readiness of reservoirs and how well forest management and fire mitigation is not being done as it should be ?
And then the budgets of fire departments are cut by millions of dollars ?
might be an interesting question if we were just talking California...but we have the same question for most states with homes near wildfires like CO, or flooding risk like FL.
I live in a wildfire area outside of denver. i recently had my premium jump by over $1k to ~$6.5K, after a few years of similar jumps. Tried calling at least six other firms for a quote - Allstate, Geico, Farmers, Great American...and none of them are writing policies.
Daughter has a fairly modest home in area north of tampa, ~30 miles from the ocean. Rate has jumped in recent years by about 100%....are they mismanaging their flood zones, even though she isnt in one?
A premium is based on the cost of the funding the risk (rising from inflation) and the probability of the risk occurring (also rising) plus their profit above that formula).
insurance cos understand that both the costs and the probabilities are rising, the latter to some extent from mismanagement, but more so from a perspective of climate change and population growth.
Ya think that the insurance companies might actually know the actual state and readiness of reservoirs and how well forest management and fire mitigation is not being done as it should be ?
And then the budgets of fire departments are cut by millions of dollars ?
