The progressives have spent all of their money on social justice programs with little to show for it (human feces, homelessness). The only problem is that this takes money away from basic infrastructure and although you can let things slide for ten years or so, any longer and it will take a lot more money to rebuild than if things were properly maintained in the first place.
Case in point - from Denny at Grouchy Old Cripple.
GOC links to an article at the Wall Street Journal which is now behind a pay-wall:
California Blackouts
California continues to descend into Third World status. The latest step is planned blackouts.
No U.S. utility has ever blacked out so many people on purpose. PG&E says it could knock out power to as much as an eighth of the state’s population for as long as five days when dangerously high winds arise. Communities likely to get shut off worry PG&E will put people in danger, especially the sick and elderly, and cause financial losses with slim hope of compensation.
Blackouts. They’re not for Third World nations anymore, just states run by Dimocrats.
In October, in a test run of sorts, PG&E for the first time cut power to several small communities over wildfire concerns, including the small Napa Valley town of Calistoga, for about two days. Emergency officials raced door-to-door to check on elderly residents, some of whom relied on electric medical devices. Grocers dumped spoiling inventory. Hotels lost business.
Too bad. So sad.
PG&E is “essentially shifting all of the burden, all of the losses onto everyone else,” said Dylan Feik, who was Calistoga city manager until earlier this month.
The Utility News website: Utility Dive has more:
PG&E revises wildfire mitigation plan to remove hard inspection and improvement deadlines
PG&E's wildfire mitigation plans are facing fresh scrutiny after the utility's revised proposal noted the scope of proactive de-energization efforts and sought to remove inspection and action deadlines.
I love that bureaucratic double-speak: proactive de-energization efforts - would it hurt them too much to just say intentional blackouts? And then there is this howler: and sought to remove inspection and action deadlines - we want you to trust us when we say that everything is just fine and dandy.
A little bit about scope:
The revised plan also provided more details about the potential for widespread blackouts, in the event it must proactively shut down some transmission lines in times of high wind. PG&E said it has "expanded the scope" of its Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) program to include high voltage transmission lines.
"If these high voltage transmission lines are de-energized during a PSPS event, the interconnected nature of the grid could result in a cascading effect that causes other transmission lines and distribution lines — potentially far from the original fire-risk areas — to be de-energized," the utility said.
That means areas far from high-risk zones, like San Francisco or San Jose, could be de-energized.
This will get people's attention as well as lead to wide-scale rioting. Why didn't they just budget for known expenses for maintenence and not blow all their money on alt.energy and shutting down safe and carbon neutral nuke plants.
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