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Notorious R.I.M. posted:https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/chem/surface/level/overlay=cosc/orthographic=-55.21,-30.05,687 This thing kicks rear end
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 20:49 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:09 |
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FMguru posted:Well, she does know you better than just about anyone else. Not really; she left almost 30 years ago. (I don't want to take away from your well-structured burn, though.)
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 21:12 |
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VideoGameVet posted:Once you get past Del Mar, most of the route is already double-tracked or can be. Double tracked, but if you're running express trains at high speed, you'll still need to dodge the Coaster and Amtrak, meaning you're not going to be going that fast until past Oceanside. Also, you're still never going to be allowed to electrify any of it. The Del Mar section is sliding into the sea, but the way things move here, if they don't just close down the rail line altogether (which there is support for), they're probably at least a decade away from doing anything. Also, I don't know if adding in a long tunnel through Torrey Pines will do much to help the people already spooked by the HSR price tag. And these same problems are repeated over and over as you move up through Orange County. Trying to run a modern HSR line past a few billion dollars of beach houses isn't trivial. So take all of the negatives of the coast route and add in factors like San Diego currently having no mass transit aside from a bus or two going up the 15 to inland north county while we already have an Amtrak route to LA going up the coast, and you can see why not going through the beaches isn't as crazy as it seems at first glance.
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 21:50 |
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https://twitter.com/adlerben/status/1190365168057761792 Is there a special bankruptcy provision for public utilities? Because ordinarily the federal bankruptcy judge is going to "cool story, bro" this sort of thing.
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 22:03 |
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Weembles posted:Double tracked, but if you're running express trains at high speed, you'll still need to dodge the Coaster and Amtrak, meaning you're not going to be going that fast until past Oceanside. Also, you're still never going to be allowed to electrify any of it. To go HSR you would need to eliminate all the at-grade crossings. That would be a good thing anyway. As a weekly user of Amtrak on that route, I can tell you the Amtrak employees would appreciate the reduction in suicide delays. I think what we need is INCREMENTAL improvements. Get the speeds up. Eventually, electrify.
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 22:25 |
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Also the LOSSAN Corridor moves 10% of the automobiles imported to the US. It's not a minor economic link by any means.
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 22:49 |
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https://twitter.com/KQEDnews/status/1190389048851890176?s=20
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# ? Nov 1, 2019 23:20 |
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Die PG&E Your homes should twist and burn Die, Eat poo poo and Die
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 00:45 |
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https://twitter.com/dannoyes/status/1190326077391917056 gently caress PG&E.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:10 |
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fermun posted:https://twitter.com/dannoyes/status/1190326077391917056 People should expect to stop having refrigeration if we get serious about climate change anyway.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:15 |
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Apparatchik Magnet posted:People should expect to stop having refrigeration if we get serious about climate change anyway. The hottest of takes
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:25 |
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Spazzle posted:The hottest of takes He's in the energy generation thread comparing AGW to the inevitability of death.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:30 |
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Up on the gallows A utility exec Snap! The crowd hoots, cheers
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:30 |
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East coast goon here with some questions. My unfortunately right-winged father spouted off some nonsense earlier today (unasked) about how PG&E were being crucified for no real reason. That the real culprit is California's "strict environmental regulations" holding PG&E back from fixing problems that resulted in the wildfires. That is obviously a huge load of horseshit. However, it occured to me that I actually know very little about the backstory here with PG&E, beyond the accepted fact that they hosed up. I've got a couple of questions for Cali-goons or anyone else knowledgeable. This should hopefully get me up to speed on all this. 1. What exactly happened on PG&E's end to cause the wildfires? 2. Is this "PG&E innocent, regulations to blame" idea something you've encountered out in the wild?
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:39 |
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Mutant Headcrab posted:1. What exactly happened on PG&E's end to cause the wildfires? They've been constantly sued by the state for not following the law requiring a certain level of brush clearance near high-power lines. The regulations aren't the problem, the problem is that PG&E aren't obeying them e:vvvv I mentioned above that San Diego's utility, after a terrible series of fires in the mid-2000s, sucked it up and spent the money to clear brush, upgrade systems, improve monitoring, and bury lines. You'll notice there have been no blackouts and almost no fires in San Diego this year, despite it being as parched and as wracked by Santa Ana winds as the rest of the state. FMguru fucked around with this message at 01:54 on Nov 2, 2019 |
# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:44 |
PG&E aren't the only electrical utility in California. Why wouldn't the regulations be causing this issue for everyone else?
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:50 |
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Mutant Headcrab posted:2. Is this "PG&E innocent, regulations to blame" idea something you've encountered out in the wild? This was the subject of a recent segment on Tucker Carlson proposed by a guest from the Wall Street Journal. The premise of it is that PG&E can't afford to do maintenance due to the fact that they are buying more expensive green energy rather than using cheaper fossil fuels and hiring "useless" staff like diversity officers. As FMguru said, it doesn't hold up because they could have done all the necessary foliage cutbacks that would have prevented fires with the money that they gave out in dividends, spent on stock buybacks, and gave out in executive bonuses.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 01:59 |
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If PG&E had no money due to ~regulations~, where are the profits and bonuses coming from?
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 02:01 |
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Did anyone ever math out how much non-HSR train we could have got with all the projected money we're expecting (or expected, given the plan has changed a number of times) to spend on HSR? How much of those budgets are land acquisition costs (Like a rough fraction)? I know this stuff isn't quite straight forward. BeAuMaN fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Nov 2, 2019 |
# ? Nov 2, 2019 03:39 |
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BeAuMaN posted:Did anyone ever math out how much non-HSR train we could have got with all the projected money we're expecting (or expected, given the plan has changed a number of times) to spend on HSR? How much of those budgets are land acquisition costs (Like a rough fraction)? As with any rail project, most of the difficulty is in the right of way. Not just land acquisition costs but redevelopment & rerouting of impacted infrastructure, tunneling etc. A huge part of the CA HSR cost overruns were due to the projected costs of tunnels. I don't think there are real advantages or savings to a similar non-HSR project. It would only be significantly cheaper if it could make use of existing rail lines, and the issues there have more to do with the big NOP from existing owners of that right of way and competition with freight, etc. The cost overruns--as with many doomed engineering projects--were mostly a result of not having or hiring people who knew what the gently caress they were doing and instead relying on a disjointed and poorly organized consortium of a shitzillion different engineering consultancy firms.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 04:01 |
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Why didnt they just hire Shinkansen and Chunnel engineers? Made in USA stuff or were the skillsets not applicable to the CA terrain???
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 04:32 |
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FilthyImp posted:Why didnt they just hire Shinkansen and Chunnel engineers? i beileve it's the second one at least according to a segment i saw on CNBC
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 04:44 |
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Mutant Headcrab posted:2. Is this "PG&E innocent, regulations to blame" idea something you've encountered out in the wild? PG&E receives money, often through approved rate hikes, to clear vegetation and keep their systems up to date, and spends about 30% of it on the stated goals, and then puts the rest into becoming an even more profitable company. People in conservative states are saying that because their own rates are lower and their utility isn't letting 100 year old power lines start fires, it's clearly because PG&E is diverting that 70% to cover the cost of liberal bleeding-heart regulations. None of them can actually prove this. They are not the ONLY electrical provider in California, or even in northern California. As a city, Sacramento is a climate change disaster waiting to happen, but SMUD (Municipal Utility) never has to apologize for accidentally burning down Citrus Heights because they let the trees grow into the power lines. Anaheim in conservative Orange County is also municipalized, and never burns down Disneyland trying to follow some Berkley socialist's climate agenda. San Diego's power is from a company called Sempra, but you never hear of San Diego having fire-related blackout problems. Only PG&E does this. Craptacular! fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Nov 2, 2019 |
# ? Nov 2, 2019 06:37 |
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VideoGameVet posted:To go HSR you would need to eliminate all the at-grade crossings. That would be a good thing anyway. That would be fanstastic, but also another thing that is very unlikely to happen along that specific route. Just look at some of the current level crossings in Google street view and imagine how popular the solutions would be with the locals.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 06:45 |
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Craptacular! posted:San Diego's power is from a company called Sempra, but you never hear of San Diego having fire-related blackout problems. Only PG&E does this. Well, not anymore. They tried to burn down San Diego for a couple of years and then things *got fixed.*
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 07:10 |
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Mr Interweb posted:i beileve it's the second one It can't be that. The initial shinkansen construction needed over 65 miles of tunnels blasted through mountains and thousands of new bridges built. Japan has a lot less flat terrain than California does. More people should read about the history of that project. It was massively criticized from every direction right up until it launched and was a huge success and profitable. Hell, the shinkansen has stations in undesirable locations and relatively small towns just like the proposed CA HSR does, and it works out just fine.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 07:26 |
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FilthyImp posted:Why didnt they just hire Shinkansen and Chunnel engineers? The California government does not get to choose which engineers they hire
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 07:32 |
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Craptacular! posted:. Only PG&E does this. To be fair, So Cal Edison also does a pretty good job of burning down places adjacent to LA
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 07:40 |
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Also to be fair, much of PG&E's difficult infrastructure is not in the densely urbanized areas: they're burning down rural towns and setting fire to the countryside outside cities where they have vast networks of cross-country power lines subjected to high winds due to steep elevations, and where regular maintenance is more difficult and more expensive. Which is no excuse because as others have said repeatedly, they A) refused to spend the money they were allocated for maintenance and B) rewarded their shareholders and their executives with that money instead. And keep in mind this is a company that already just presents its costs to the CPUC, which lets them then tack on a profit margin and charge the result to rate payers. So they already have a government-guaranteed profit. The poo poo about environmental regulations is so transparently bullshit because PG&E can just charge ratepayers whatever it costs to meet those regulations, period. The only costs they're not being allowed to pass on to ratepayers are the settlements to the victims of the disasters they've caused through criminal negligence, and that is the only reason they're in bankruptcy. Everything else is as easy as <costs> + <state-set profit margin> = <amt. charged to ratepayers> + <dividends and bonuses>.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 08:06 |
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Leperflesh posted:Also to be fair, much of PG&E's difficult infrastructure is not in the densely urbanized areas: they're burning down rural towns and setting fire to the countryside outside cities where they have vast networks of cross-country power lines subjected to high winds due to steep elevations, and where regular maintenance is more difficult and more expensive. The San Bruno pipeline explosion was another PGE cost costing shareholder value success story.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 12:47 |
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Leperflesh posted:Also to be fair, much of PG&E's difficult infrastructure is not in the densely urbanized areas: they're burning down rural towns and setting fire to the countryside outside cities where they have vast networks of cross-country power lines subjected to high winds due to steep elevations, and where regular maintenance is more difficult and more expensive. The San Bruno pipeline explosion was another PGE cost costing shareholder value success story.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 12:47 |
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The Glumslinger posted:To be fair, So Cal Edison also does a pretty good job of burning down places adjacent to LA Which is weird, because I've worked with SCE before and they seem to do a decent job at clearance and maintenance. From what I saw, when they had problema they just kinda threw money at the problem to make it go away.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 14:14 |
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Thanks to you goons who answered my questions. I feel like I have a better grasp on the situation. Stay safe, goons who are in that area. At least, as safe as you can when your lives are threatened by company greed.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 15:20 |
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Craptacular! posted:They are not the ONLY electrical provider in California, or even in northern California. As a city, Sacramento is a climate change disaster waiting to happen, but SMUD (Municipal Utility) never has to apologize for accidentally burning down Citrus Heights because they let the trees grow into the power lines.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 17:32 |
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Here is an SJMN piece about how PG&E fell so far behind other state power agencies (specifically, San Diego): https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/11/02/how-pge-fell-10-years-behind-san-diego-on-wildfire-safety/ San Diego: quote:Over the past decade, San Diego Gas & Electric has buried 10,000 miles of power lines: 60% of its lines are underground. It was the first big California utility to shut off power during extreme fire-risk days. It has hired five meteorologists, built 190 weather stations, replaced 18,000 wooden power poles with stronger steel poles, put up more than 100 cameras on mountain tops, and brought in two state-of-the-art firefighting helicopters to drop water when fires start near its lines. PG&E: quote:FMguru fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Nov 2, 2019 |
# ? Nov 2, 2019 20:59 |
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Huh, that's a really good article to have handy if I ever get in an argument with some "the regulations are strangling PG&E!" dumbfuck.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 22:15 |
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... Looks like SCE is in "We're not legally admitting our equipment caused the fire, but we'll be cooperating fully with the investigation of why the fire started seven minutes after we re-energized the lines." mode.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 23:09 |
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Uh, which fire?
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 23:15 |
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Maria fire.
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# ? Nov 2, 2019 23:37 |
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# ? May 25, 2024 14:09 |
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i think power companies should remain private so they can unleash the efficiency of the private sector the efficiency gains i am referring to are of course the private sector's version of thermodynamics that lets a for-profit private company produce more electricity from a set amount of fuel than a public entity, as depicted in atlas shrugged Shear Modulus fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Nov 3, 2019 |
# ? Nov 3, 2019 00:23 |