The Big PG&E Grid Shutdown

A sunny, pleasant day in Humboldt County.  Sitting in my easy chair in my living room, a warm fire in the stove, sipping a cup of coffee, and working on my laptop.  Pretty normal, except there is no electricity in all of Humboldt County, as we'll as most of Northern California, since PG&E has cut the transmission of power due to the risk their high-voltage lines might have in igniting fires in the vast rural mountains through which the grid runs. That decision will hopefully spur the much needed and serious discussion about climate change.  The debate up to now has been mainly about whether human’s use of fossil fuels is responsible for changes in the global atmosphere, producing changes in local climate and weather.  Many key points have been and are being left out of the dialogue with regards to understanding when/how/where that change is, and what are the impacts of that process.  Climate Change is no one thing, but a continuous set of very complex natural processes, affecting our oceans, the various layers of the atmosphere, land forms, water and moisture…virtually everything in the inter-relationships of what we call our global environment.  I recall the old adage “does the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in the Amazon affect me here in Humboldt County?”

So, let’s assume today’s predicament is due to global warming.   I drove through Mckinleyville this morning.  Stoplights not working, but somebody had gone out and put up little stop signs on those little sawhorses.  Drivers were courteous.  Everything else was quiet.  CVS was closed and the parking lot was empty, as were almost every other business in town.  All the gas stations were empty, and their signs advertising $4+ gasoline were dark. The United flight came overhead, heading to unload its passengers to a dark empty terminal.  I drove on into Arcata…the same thing…the shopping center with CVS and Safeway was empty.  The plaza was void of cars and people.  Los Bagels was open, selling bagels and pastries backed yesterday at their dark, unlit counter space.  Again, pretty empty and quiet.  The happening place in the area was Toni’s!  Packed parking lot…which is saying a lot…serving food in their unlit space.  I didn’t go in to see if they were fully up and running with a generator or not; but with what money she made today, she could go out and buy a pretty upscale backup generator system.  The mail was delivered, as was the

SF Chronicle, and our hard-wired landline worked, as did our well phones.  No internet.

What are the ramifications and impacts of all of this?  Emergency services have back-up, and functioned as usual.  I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow at 3pm, set up months ago.  I drove by the office, and of course they were dark and closed.   I guess if there were a real emergency, one could get help.  But what stuns me is the so many impacts on just about everybody…employees called off work, business owners losing sales and business, those people dependent on the internet for their work being down, folks with electric cars not being able to charged and go anywhere, and just the general inconvenience of daily life…hot shower, basic heat (I had both wood stoves going), inability to cook food and losing food in the refrigerator (I fired up our generator for a bit to keep the refrigerator and freezer up to snuff), basic lighting (we have many battery powered lanterns which we use at the cabin), and for some, no TV!!!  I don’t know what is going on because no internet and news…but we do have our cell phones and battery radios to sort of keep in touch.  We are used to this because we have our cabin, which has no electricity or cell service, but everything else, except a flush toilet!    We’ve also backpacked and camped out a lot so it is not really an issue.  A lot of people have no experience with this.  My sister-in-law doesn’t have running water from well when there is no electricity. So many people have to figure it out…they are on their own. 

And then put this in perspective in the big picture…we still have our house and everything…what about the victims of hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, extreme snow and rain, drought and extreme heat…they are also on their own, and many have lost everything.  Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Florida, North Carolina, Louisiana, Texas…Climate change?   What about the rest of the world?  Water, food, employment, energy, migrant displacement…all severely impacted by climate change.  But the most important point nobody is emphasizing (not the media, the `political candidates, people in general) is that this is now, and the science says the weather extremes will continue to get more and more severe.  This is much more than rising sea level, melting glaciers, 2 degrees rise in temperature, etc.  Most important is understanding the interconnectedness of everything, and the enormous future impacts on not just our environment and all the species living in it, but the economic, social, political, technological, and moral impacts on not only us and our children, but on all future generations.  Pretty amazing!!!!!

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Here we are, six days later, and the shit has hit the fan!  Everyone is outraged at the audacity of PG&E…how they handled this whole affair.  Starting at the top…PG&E is in bankruptcy because its transmission line failed and started several of the multi-billion- dollar fires over the last few years.  Instead of focusing major efforts to upgrade and protect the power lines, the top management at the time spent billions lobbying and giving huge dividends to its stockholders.  Those executives are gone…with their million dollar severance and retirement packages, with no liability for what they created.  The new executives wanted additional bonuses so they can be encouraged to do more than what their million dollar a year jobs require.  They basically ignored the ratepayers, and didn’t really care about the various impacts their decisions had on people and communities who had to go without power.  Very bad decisions were made, and those in charge are saying they are doing the best they can, that upgrades cost too much money, things can’t be done in time, etc, etc.  At least they are not denying that the changing climate is impacting the weather in California…more dry forests and grasslands, stronger winds, hotter fires, etc, as well as the fact that our infrastructure…the grid, is outmoded and in terrible shape.  I can go on and on about corporate power vs. the people, about the quest for more and more money and profit, etc.  Here is another example to put alongside health care, prescription drugs, military spending, education, environmental protection, and climate change.

There are solutions…not easy or cheap, but a part of the new “green deal” which features local renewables used locally in small microgrids, along with energy efficiency and smart technology.  The Blue Lake Rancheria, a band of Native

Americans has worked closely with HSU and other entities to create such a microgrid…solar and other renewable technologies, energy storage, and smart deployment all worked very well in Blue Lake.   Their gas station and market were open to meet the needs of local essential demand, their casino/hotel accommodated the elderly and people with specific needs, communications remained intact, and the community was a small bright island in a sea of darkness.  The same folks at the Schatz Lab a t HSU are building a similar microgram in McKinleyville at the airport, and are planning others throughout the county.  Local resources meeting the needs of community when power is affected by flooding, earthquakes, fires, or other events we often endure here on the North Coast. 

San Francisco has been wanting to buy the PG&E poles, wires, transformers, etc., but the utility claims that would remove a large segment of their ratepayers, and they could not function without those dollars.  I think what we will see down the road is the breakup of the mega-giant utility into many small, local, and manageable entities.  All this is, of course, very political, and the big money players will do all they can to prevent loss of huge profits from the generation, distribution, and ultimate selling of electricity.  Renewables, small is beautiful, no nukes, local cooperatives, power for the people, not profit…all those things that we’ve been saying for years may soon be on their way.