Do Something About Wildfires! Okay, We Will.

[Ben]

Well, this should add fuel to the fire.

One of the current CA fires appears to have started via a power line that was NOT shut down.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-wildfire-possible-source

[Hawkmoon]

In shutting off the electricity, PG&E cut power to the distribution lines that supply homes, but not to its long-distance transmission lines.

I thought it was the long-distance, high voltage lines that were the purported culprits last year.

[Ben]

Also from the article:

The disclosure comes after a PG&E worker was targeted in an attempted attack earlier this week, officials said.
Cows stand on a ridge as the Kincade Fire approaches in unincorporated Sonoma County, Calif., on Thursday. (AP)

In that incident, the worker’s front passenger seat window was reportedly shot at by a projectile. The employee was not injured in the incident and the projectile was believed to be fired by a pellet gun.

PG&E President and CEO Bill Johnson had called the incident a “deliberate attack” and called on communities to stop such acts of “violence,” according to SFGate.

That's a bit more Atlas Shrugged material there.

[Cliffh]

Personally I like the way PG&E's giving CA .gov the finger.  "Won't let us do what we need to clear the right of way and then blame/sue us?  Well, FU!" 

DW talked to my brother today, seems that he's in one of the areas to have their power cut and may end up with a mandatory evac order.  Everyone needs to have a backup plan....

[TechMan]

This seems like a good place to post this.  I don't know the accuracy of this, so take it with a grain of salt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLkF6zLxg_U

[Hawkmoon]

Another perspective:

https://nypost.com/2019/10/28/californians-created-their-current-apocalypse/

President Trump had it right last summer: “There is no reason for these massive, deadly and costly forest fires in California except that forest management is so poor.”

On his final day in office, Gov. Jerry Brown admitted as much by quietly signing bills removing impediments to “controlled burns” and allotting $190 million a year to “improve forest health and fire prevention.”

But that’s not remotely enough: California’s Forestry Department would like to double its amount of tree and brush thinning over the next five years — but isn’t sure it can. Its deputy director, Helge Eng, sees “a significant public-education campaign ahead of us as foresters to get the public to understand” how dangerously unnatural it is to not thin out forests.

[Ben]

And now they have to deal with the unintended consequences of generators. 

I'm cracking up, because as they assail Trump because he wants the special CA vehicle emissions stuff done away with, CA is currently allowing generators into the state that are not CA compliant for pollution. Their holier than though crap on emissions crumbled pretty fast when it meant there wasn't enough product to meet demand and no generator company was going to change production or take a risk of the rest of the country not buying their product to make more CA compliant generators.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/california-burns-generator-companies-make-power-grab-n1076611

[dogmush]

From Ben's article:

I’m afraid he is going to fall and break his neck and we’ll have no power to call 911,” she said. The Hurds knew they needed to invest in a power alternative, so they bought a 3500 Predator generator for $800 in early October that runs on unleaded gasoline. It powers their two small refrigerators, a TV and their cellphones. They share the generator with neighbors who can’t afford one of their own.

I knew libs could be stupid, but who pays full price for a Harbor Freight Generator?  Holy Crap!  Don't they know those things go on sale every other month?  Also someone should mention what all you can run with 3.5 Chinese kilowats, before they blow up their fridges with 90 VAC.


I am well into Nelson "Ha Ha!" territory on this whole thing. Make it functionally impossible to cut trees around lines, combined with not letting the forest service thin growth out ever, combine with strict limits on the ability of utilities to raise rates to cover unforeseen maintenance and upgrades (or even foreseen ones) and this is what you get.  8 or 9 years of good fires should probably have the *expletive deleted*it cleared out so it won't burn again for a while.  The only thing that could make this better is if PG&E's plants burn down so they just can't have power/

[MechAg94]

From Ben's article:

I knew libs could be stupid, but who pays full price for a Harbor Freight Generator?  Holy Crap!  Don't they know those things go on sale every other month?  Also someone should mention what all you can run with 3.5 Chinese kilowats, before they blow up their fridges with 90 VAC.


I am well into Nelson "Ha Ha!" territory on this whole thing. Make it functionally impossible to cut trees around lines, combined with not letting the forest service thin growth out ever, combine with strict limits on the ability of utilities to raise rates to cover unforeseen maintenance and upgrades (or even foreseen ones) and this is what you get.  8 or 9 years of good fires should probably have the *expletive deleted*it cleared out so it won't burn again for a while.  The only thing that could make this better is if PG&E's plants burn down so they just can't have power/

The better part would be if the actual city dwellers got hit by the power outages.

[Hawkmoon]

From Ben's article:

I’m afraid he is going to fall and break his neck and we’ll have no power to call 911,” she said. The Hurds knew they needed to invest in a power alternative, so they bought a 3500 Predator generator for $800 in early October that runs on unleaded gasoline. It powers their two small refrigerators, a TV and their cellphones. They share the generator with neighbors who can’t afford one of their own.

I knew libs could be stupid, but who pays full price for a Harbor Freight Generator?  Holy Crap!  Don't they know those things go on sale every other month?  Also someone should mention what all you can run with 3.5 Chinese kilowats, before they blow up their fridges with 90 VAC.

Full price? Yes, that's full price -- for the wrong generator.

https://www.harborfreight.com/3500-watt-super-quiet-inverter-generator-63584.html

They paid a premium for a "super quiet" inverter generator that's not powerful enough to run one house, and they're using it to run two houses. I paid $599 for a Harbor Fright 7500 watt generator that's enough to run the complete essentials of my house even in winter. It will do my well pump, boiler, lights, and a toaster over or microwave, with plenty left over to run lights if I don't go crazy. As for not being able to call 9-1-1 if the power goes out -- that's why I still have a landline telephone, with an old-fashoned phone that runs off the phone line and doesn't need external power.

For $100 less, these morons could have bought a generator that puts out more than twice the power AND is California CARB-compliant.

https://www.harborfreight.com/9000-watt-max-starting-extra-long-life-gas-powered-generator-carb-63968.html

[Angel Eyes]

... filling their bathtub with water to flush their toilets.

Huh?  Water pumping stations also had their power cut?

[K Frame]

"California CARB compliant"

I have a funny feeling that California will be banning all portable gasoline powered generators very, very soon...

[WLJ]

"California CARB compliant"

I have a funny feeling that California will be banning all portable gasoline powered generators very, very soon...

With a small print exemption for the elites

[230RN]

dogmush smartassed:

Also someone should mention what all you can run with 3.5 Chinese kilowatts, before they blow up their fridges with 90 VAC.

<giggle giggle>  ...chinese kilowatts

Ben wisdomed:

...that's why I still have a landline telephone, with an old-fashoned phone that runs off the phone line and doesn't need external power.

Terry sycophanted:

Me, too.

[Fly320s]

dogmush smartassed:

<giggle giggle>  ...chinese kilowatts

Ben wisdomed:

Terry sycophanted:

Me, too.

You can't just go around verbing new words.

[WLJ]

You can't just go around verbing new words.

Better than inventing new genders on the fly

[230RN]

Better than inventing new genders on the fly

Zip it, WLJ.

Oh, and 90VAC is 127 Peak Volts in China and the whole rest of the world, so how can anybody complain about that?

[Fly320s]

Better than inventing new genders on the fly

Aint nobody inventing nothing on me.

[WLJ]

Zip it, WLJ.

Oh, and 90VAC is 127 Peak Volts in China and the whole rest of the world, so how can anybody complain about that?

People complain about words being invented on the fly but the left turns around invents genders on the fly.

Anyhow

So these things are only putting out a steady 90v? I'm kind of in the dark about generators. (that pun was totally by chance btw)

[WLJ]

Besides I kind of enjoy some of the the more inventive made up words

[230RN]

"So these things are only putting out a steady 90v? I'm kind of in the dark about generators. (that pun was totally by chance btw)."

I think (without putting words in his mouth) what dogmush was getting at was that the Chinese would be "stretching" things in order to claim 3.5 kilowatts.   I thought "Chinese kilowatts" was pretty funny.

If so, then trying to put an actual load of 3.5 kW on their generator would load it down too much and force it to put out only 90VAC.

Ninety VAC on your refrigerator motor would not be enough to turn your refrigerator motor at its full speed.

If it isn't spinning at full speed, it is not generating a "back voltage" high enough to limit the input current at 90VAC.  (Remenber that  every motor is a generator and every generator is a motor.)

Therefore the refrigerator motor would burn up.

This can be illustrated by taking it to the extreme points, that is, by completely stalling a motor, so that the back-voltage (the so-called "back-EMF") has to be zero.

So essentially the full supplied voltage is applied to the stalled motor without being opposed by any back voltage and it will probably burn up unless there is enough plain old resistance in it to hold the current down.

To illustrate, I have several small 220 Volt computer fans I run at 110 Volts, but they are "impedance Protected" (read "resistance protected") so they won't burn out even if totally stalled.  The label actually says "Impedance Protected."  (You can loosely think of "impedance" as being "resistance" in AC circuits.  Loosely.)

Bear in mind that dogmush's remarks were in jest, although theoretically plausible, so take all this with a grain of salt.

Terry, 230RN

I use these at 110V because they are dead silent.  They just sort of move air around a little without the full-voltage fan noise.

[dogmush]

Terry is correct.  I was implying that many chinese things don't achieve their "rated" outputs.  Cheaper electronic and electrical things from china are notorious for this. So the joke was if you actually tried to pull 3.5 kW from that (American kW, if you will) it would fail and provide low voltage, and destroy your things.  They are *supposed* to put out 220/110V 60hz AC.

FWIW I have an 8750 HF Generator.  The engine is a direct copy of a Honda (by direct, I mean I can put Honda parts on it), but when hooked to a load bank and spun really pushed, I get about 7.5kW before it just gives up, and only about 7.3 kW before the voltage starts wandering.  I'm fine with it, because I knew going into it that it the rating was more of a guideline than a hard rule.

Same thing with a couple VFD's I have.  I buy about 1-2hp more drive than the motor I plan to attach to it, and it works fine.  Try to run a 3hp motor on a 3hp Chinese VFD, and you should have a fire extinguisher handy.  Even having to spec up the stuff, Chinese components are cheaper than "smaller" US, European, or Japanese ones.  Slave labor will do that for a business, I guess.

I recommend HF generators for occasional use, because they are cheap, and work well if you realize you are buying ~80% of the generator on the label.  Except the two stroke one.  That things a POS.

[Ben]

Ha! From the Washington Post no less! 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/11/11/pge-helped-fund-careers-calif-governor-his-wife-now-he-accuses-utility-corporate-greed/