One of my friends who works at Edison was saying how they don't want the transformers exploding because the constant load wasn't giving the infrastructure a break, I told him if Arizona can handle it, then it clearly can be designed to handle the load.
He is quite MAGA too, but I guess working for a power company gives one certain biases.
Texas had a roughly month long triple-digit heatwave in August. That's pretty much the norm every year (sometimes we have multi-month triple-digit heatwaves), and we never have issues with overload.
California gets those temperatures for months too, used to handle it too.
Though to be fair, this past weekend most inland places in Southern California were over 115. My place was 118, and normally we might get a day or two over 110, but usually in the high 90's and low 100's.
I love this state. We have our own power grid, water and ability to grow food. In fact, we don't need any part of the US if shit ever fell apart. It's an independent country in and unto itself. If we took a couple weeks to clean up Austin, this state could survive anything.
As an electrical engineer myself I think what he's referring to is that electrical grids cant carry as much current in hot weather because the air cannot cool the lines and equipment like it can in colder weather. This isn't a problem in a properly invested in electrical grid as it would be designed for the worst case scenario with plenty of spare capacity on the lines and transformers. What is sounds like California is doing is pushing their grid to the limit so that it is failing on hot days because it can't carry all of the current needed without overheating. When lines overheat they also droop down which is how fires are started if brush isnt being maintained. Proper maintenance of power lines means cutting brush and the environmentalist wackos in California don't like that. Instead they then have to resort to shedding load, aka shutting off peoples power. If they didn't do that there would be lines drooping into trees or cascading blackouts like the northeast one in 2003.
Proper investment and maintenance would prevent all of this. Electrical grids have worked fine in hot temperatures for decades. Texas has a well maintained modern grid, at least in the areas I've worked in.
and tbh all this always boils down to information. most people would vote differently if they had this information, but instead they're blasted 24/7 with white ppl must die, nature good don't touch it, and other similar shit
I looked at the outage map and they cut power to the rural areas (which I've lived).
The landscape of Arizona and the parts of California that have been cut is drastically different. Arizona is arid and dry with little foliage. California the lines are around tons of dry foliage ready to light up and can spread much easier.
Also, the way power lines are distributed in neighborhoods in the rural California areas from the main lines - I believe it becomes a weird issue of "is this the property owners responsibility or PG&E's". For example, it cost 10k per pole I recall to get power from the main lines to a ranch house.
One of my friends who works at Edison was saying how they don't want the transformers exploding because the constant load wasn't giving the infrastructure a break, I told him if Arizona can handle it, then it clearly can be designed to handle the load.
He is quite MAGA too, but I guess working for a power company gives one certain biases.
Texas had a roughly month long triple-digit heatwave in August. That's pretty much the norm every year (sometimes we have multi-month triple-digit heatwaves), and we never have issues with overload.
California gets those temperatures for months too, used to handle it too.
Though to be fair, this past weekend most inland places in Southern California were over 115. My place was 118, and normally we might get a day or two over 110, but usually in the high 90's and low 100's.
And Texas uses 44% more power than CA, mostly due to industrial customers including petrochemicals and refineries. It's good to have your own grid!
I love this state. We have our own power grid, water and ability to grow food. In fact, we don't need any part of the US if shit ever fell apart. It's an independent country in and unto itself. If we took a couple weeks to clean up Austin, this state could survive anything.
As an electrical engineer myself I think what he's referring to is that electrical grids cant carry as much current in hot weather because the air cannot cool the lines and equipment like it can in colder weather. This isn't a problem in a properly invested in electrical grid as it would be designed for the worst case scenario with plenty of spare capacity on the lines and transformers. What is sounds like California is doing is pushing their grid to the limit so that it is failing on hot days because it can't carry all of the current needed without overheating. When lines overheat they also droop down which is how fires are started if brush isnt being maintained. Proper maintenance of power lines means cutting brush and the environmentalist wackos in California don't like that. Instead they then have to resort to shedding load, aka shutting off peoples power. If they didn't do that there would be lines drooping into trees or cascading blackouts like the northeast one in 2003.
Proper investment and maintenance would prevent all of this. Electrical grids have worked fine in hot temperatures for decades. Texas has a well maintained modern grid, at least in the areas I've worked in.
and tbh all this always boils down to information. most people would vote differently if they had this information, but instead they're blasted 24/7 with white ppl must die, nature good don't touch it, and other similar shit
You distilled it down almost perfectly.
I looked at the outage map and they cut power to the rural areas (which I've lived).
The landscape of Arizona and the parts of California that have been cut is drastically different. Arizona is arid and dry with little foliage. California the lines are around tons of dry foliage ready to light up and can spread much easier.
Also, the way power lines are distributed in neighborhoods in the rural California areas from the main lines - I believe it becomes a weird issue of "is this the property owners responsibility or PG&E's". For example, it cost 10k per pole I recall to get power from the main lines to a ranch house.