Should essential services be publicly owned

Page 7 of 9« First<456789>
January 5th, 2019 at 3:51:52 AM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Dams do not have a market 'cost'. if there no market, there is no market price.

Wet grains would poison. Particularly wet rye, which causes anorexia nervosa.

regulations affect service levels and redundancy, not just price structures. price of a snowplow in Atlanta is different than in Alaska. So is the price of not having one.
January 6th, 2019 at 3:28:03 PM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
Quote: Fleastiff
Dams do not have a market 'cost'. if there no market, there is no market price.
There are many power entity's that are/were interested in our little hydro at Terror Lake when ownership was divested. Now I believe the power company sells clean credits to those that gen with coal or diesel ? In that sense there is definitely a market.

The Dow isn't a market either, in the sense that a grocery store is a market.


Quote:
regulations affect service levels and redundancy, not just price structures.
How do regulations affect redundancy at a utility? I'm not seeing what you are saying? Regardless of the local officials [PUC] whether it's a private/public entity, when the phone rings, somebody gets dispatched. There is and should be a pecking order about reconnecting during major outages, Since 911 every provider in the country has been required to have a disaster plan.

It was funny when the feds came by our little utility telling us to get a plan if the lights should go out. lol. It's like, what do you guys think we do here everyday?


Quote:
\price of a snowplow in Atlanta is different than in Alaska. So is the price of not having one.
I think the law of supply and demand are at work? Some things are actually cheaper up north. Like beer or fishing poles were surprisingly affordable .

Plowing is fun until you get hypnotized by the long hours and big flakes.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury. GW
January 6th, 2019 at 4:57:58 PM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
Quote: AZDuffman
The bigger issue is that the fires have spread because of forest mismanagement on the part of CA. Green-types think that they know how to manage a forest when they have never left the city. You need controlled burns and logging to get rid of deadwood. The greens fight good forest management, thinking every tree is sacred. But the choice is smaller controlled burns or large fires years later. This has been warned about for decades. Meanwhile the governor blames global warming climate change! To put it all on PG&E is absurd.
I had a response to this that timed out on me, but it's important enough to respond..

I do not blame PG&E. I think they all do a pretty remarkable job, keeping outages down and fires to a minimum. These people have thousands of miles of energized high voltage line. IMO, they are a very good company. So many folks assume that the cure is to put all lines underground. In a neighborhood ok, but for larger transmission or to now bury existing lines, the cost would be phenomenal.

That said, it is hard to imagine the flack, power company's receive 24/7 about their lines on their right of way and peoples vegetation. animals, fences, ad infinitum. The position of "complaint handler" is often open at many power company's. I think even Paco wants a pole moved. : )

There exists layers of places for the public to complain about what the power company is doing.

In the PNW, west of the cascades if it weren't for the amount of rain, power company's would also need fire crews on call. The amount of tree strikes is unbelievable. Most of the time, that energy just goes up in a whiff of smoke or steam. Landowners are often less than happy about the utility's trimming their trees. Especially to the edge of wide easements. I think BPA's easements are 300 ft. wide, iianm? Smaller company's with say a 30 ft. easement, fight with tree huggers routinely telling them that their dead 100ft. tree, leaning toward the powerline can easily land on the wires and start a fire. That tree is actually the land owners responsibility, but no one wants to pay a competent tree specialist to remove it, especially if they are legitimate and charge what it would take with all the insurance's needed to do it. It's a frigging zoo.

Back to the forest service. I remember when they managed the forest and understood what it took to manage trees for the benefit of the forest, and people.

First came the environmentalists, then came the bugs.

When I was little, my parents told me not to fly my kite into the powerline, cuz it would electrocute me. Imagine that the millions of miles of energized electrical lines are actually hot. It is like there are miles and miles of controlled fires. Anywhere I've lived, I took into consideration what would happen if a wildfire were to happen in that area. I feel for the people that lost everything in those fires, but they are at least partially to blame.

People that live in straw houses shouldn't barbeque inside. Maybe electric customers should have to pass a captcha questionaire to get power? Doesn't everybody at least consider a survival plan in case of fire, flood, quake or storm?

I grew up in logging country, and watched the devastation caused by environmentalists. Watched generations of good hard working moral logging family's go under, to protect an owl, that actually preferred logging .

Anyway, yeah I agree, the forest is mismanaged to the detriment of the forest and all the creatures.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury. GW
January 6th, 2019 at 5:35:44 PM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: petroglyph


That said, it is hard to imagine the flack, power company's receive 24/7 about their lines on their right of way and peoples vegetation. animals, fences, ad infinitum. The position of "complaint handler" is often open at many power company's. I think even Paco wants a pole moved. : )


One thing I do know is most ROWs were signed years ago. Everyone involved is dead, but the ROW is still a deed restrictive element. I can only imagine the complaints. The public thinks electricity comes from the wall socket.


Quote:
Back to the forest service. I remember when they managed the forest and understood what it took to manage trees for the benefit of the forest, and people.

First came the environmentalists, then came the bugs.

I grew up in logging country, and watched the devastation caused by environmentalists. Watched generations of good hard working moral logging family's go under, to protect an owl, that actually preferred logging .

Anyway, yeah I agree, the forest is mismanaged to the detriment of the forest and all the creatures.


To me it all goes back to who knows what they are talking about. I have said here before, I have talked to green-leftie types who could and did not distinguish between ozone depletion and global warming. Without taking sides, if you cannot tell the difference, you are uninformed. When I was a PCO we heard all the cries of people not wanting to use pesticides. Same people did not understand what their world would otherwise be like.

It was always the same divide. "Educated" folks thought they knew far more, yet their lives were so sanitized they probably by choice lived in an HOA that denied even a vegetable garden. But they never saw the real world. Then there were those who were trying to do their job with their hands tied more and more. That group actually got out into the woods. They were fisherman, deer hunters, or knew those people. But they were looked down upon by the first group. The first group always had more free time on their hands, so were more politically active.

If the groups are balanced it will work out. But in CA and the PNW, the first group is now so dominant that you can forget about good forest management in our lifetime.
The President is a fink.
January 6th, 2019 at 6:46:39 PM permalink
kenarman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 14
Posts: 4470
The problem with the forests now is not too many fires but not enough fires. Fires are supressed until the fuel load makes it impossible to stop a fire. Traditionally we had many more fires and the fuel load on the forest floor was constantly being burned up in the small fires. Without that fuel the fires didn't become the monster fires we have now and burnt themselves out. This constant renewing of the forest created a healthy and better forest. Of course the 'green monsters' would sooner ignore the truth and use the fires as 'proof' of their global warming religion.
"but if you make yourselves sheep, the wolves will eat you." Benjamin Franklin
January 7th, 2019 at 4:34:32 PM permalink
beachbumbabs
Member since: Sep 3, 2013
Threads: 6
Posts: 1600
Quote: kenarman
The problem with the forests now is not too many fires but not enough fires. Fires are supressed until the fuel load makes it impossible to stop a fire. Traditionally we had many more fires and the fuel load on the forest floor was constantly being burned up in the small fires. Without that fuel the fires didn't become the monster fires we have now and burnt themselves out. This constant renewing of the forest created a healthy and better forest. Of course the 'green monsters' would sooner ignore the truth and use the fires as 'proof' of their global warming religion.


I don't think it's correct to throw it on 'green monsters'. It's more ignorance on the life-cycle of a forest, that spans the eco-position spectrum.

There are firs, for example , that only regenerate when their pine cones have been burned. There are plants essential to the healthy ground cover that only grow after a fire clears the overhanging dominant canopy. The forest floor stops nourishing a lot of intermediate plants and the animals that depend on them when it's totally overgrown and fires are not allowed to cleanse them.

Seems like it's been several decades, at least, since the forestry management people figured this out. But it's a cruel rebirth, and people building in or near forests makes it even harder to complete the cycle.

Tough choices, especially when you're looking at the remains of Paradise, CA.
Never doubt a small group of concerned citizens can change the world; it's the only thing ever has
January 7th, 2019 at 5:04:37 PM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisha_Williams CEO of PG&E is the first Latina female CEO of a fortune 500 company.
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury. GW
January 9th, 2019 at 12:19:36 AM permalink
petroglyph
Member since: Aug 3, 2014
Threads: 25
Posts: 6227
It is completely possible that the cause of some of these fires were due to bullets. Bullet damage to powerlines is a constant. Many of the sub station transformers have been hardened, but lots of the grid will always be exposed. https://www.kcra.com/article/pgande-bullet-holes-damaged-lines-found-near-camp-fire/25562361
The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury. GW
January 9th, 2019 at 7:03:01 AM permalink
JimRockford
Member since: Sep 18, 2015
Threads: 2
Posts: 971
Quote: kenarman
The problem with the forests now is not too many fires but not enough fires. Fires are supressed until the fuel load makes it impossible to stop a fire. Traditionally we had many more fires and the fuel load on the forest floor was constantly being burned up in the small fires. Without that fuel the fires didn't become the monster fires we have now and burnt themselves out. This constant renewing of the forest created a healthy and better forest. Of course the 'green monsters' would sooner ignore the truth and use the fires as 'proof' of their global warming religion.

The Sierra Club has been fighting over aggressive fire suppression for decades.
The mind hungers for that on which it feeds.
January 9th, 2019 at 1:02:29 PM permalink
beachbumbabs
Member since: Sep 3, 2013
Threads: 6
Posts: 1600
Quote: JimRockford
The Sierra Club has been fighting over aggressive fire suppression for decades.


You're right, and that's exactly why I don't support them. Or the people driving spikes into trees to make them unusable for timbering.

OTOH, I don't support clear-cutting without replenishment, just because that's the most cost-effective. They can be selective. They can reforest. And they can, after selecting the most useful trees, do pre-planned controlled burns to complete the life-cycle and conserve properly. That's how to defeat huge uncontrolled wildfires - plan firebreaks and harvests.

JMHO.
Never doubt a small group of concerned citizens can change the world; it's the only thing ever has
Page 7 of 9« First<456789>