Massive California Power Outage Triggers Chaos in Science Labs
Massive California Power Outage Triggers Chaos in Science Labs:
Researchers without access to backup power scramble to save invaluable specimens and expensive reagents.
California's largest utility company shut off power to more than a million people across the northern part of the state on 9 and 10 October. The outage sent scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, scrambling to save specimens and experiments.
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), based in San Francisco, California, planned the outages to reduce the risk of wildfires. [...]The company has said that the power outage could last several days, frustrating residents — including some researchers.
[...] Many labs at UC Berkeley lack reliable back-up power. Some researchers are taking drastic measures to preserve samples and supplies that require refrigeration. James Olzmann, a metabolic researcher at Berkeley, loaded his lab's freezers onto trucks on 9 October and moved them to facilities at the nearby University of California, San Francisco, which still has power.
Jessica Lyons, a molecular biologist at UC Berkeley, says that each lab in her building has a single outlet that is connected to an emergency power system. The main freezer in Lyons' lab, which keeps specimens at -80 °C, is plugged into that outlet. Lyons and her colleagues stocked the other freezers in their lab with dry ice on 8 October after being warned of the impending outages, to keep things cool.
"For any scientist, the bottom line is are all of the freezers getting power right now, or are they not," she says. "I actually don't know the answer to that right now, and they keep telling us not to come in."
I'd not thought of interrupted research when I first learned of PG&E's planned outages. What other "unexpected" venues would be dramatically affected? Sperm banks are obvious now that I think of refrigeration issues. What light-sensitive activities would now be stymied with the power out? What about supporting research animals? There's a lot more than meets the eye.
California PG&E Blackouts: What Electric-Car Makers Have to say about the Situation
CNET spoke with several electric car makers about what they suggest for electric car owners during the "public safety power shutoff" put in place by Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E) .
California PG&E Blackouts: What Electric-Car Makers Have to say about the Situation:
When power will come back on is unclear. For electric vehicle owners, that poses a bit of a problem, since their cars' main source of power comes from electric charging stations at home or at public stations. Without a source of power, EVs won't get terribly far.
Ahead of the blackout on Wednesday, Tesla pushed a notification to owners' cars urging them to fully charge their car ahead of the blackout in their area. In part, the notification said the blackout "may affect power to charging options." The automaker continued, "As always, your touchscreen will display live statuses of Superchargers in your area."
Tesla did not respond to Roadshow's request for comment when we asked for additional information
[...] Audi told Roadshow that E-Tron owners typically drive, on average, 48 miles per day, which leaves plenty of battery reserve in the case of a blackout. With the figure, E-Tron drivers, on average, need to fully charge their cars every four days.
Still, the company checked with Electrify America (a Volkswagen Group subsidiary) and the charging station operator said there are no stations affected by the PG&E blackouts at this time. The Audi E-Tron's in-car navigation will show which Electrify America stations are currently occupied or not available, though the company said it's working to learn what a station would display if it did not have power.
If that's not enough, Audi also offers seven days of Silvercar service to all owners, including those who left the dealership with an E-Tron. "It would allow customers to drive an Audi from Silvercar at no additional cost [if] they needed to get through a difficult period caused by a blackout," a representative told Roadshow via email.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @05:43PM (20 children)
How can experiments that take months or years be setup without contingency plans for problems like this, in a state that is notorious for power issues?
Power cuts like this are very Third World.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @06:34PM (2 children)
Aside the from fire issue, do you have evidence CA has more black-outs than normal? By the way, such a lab should have a backup generator if constant power is necessary for the experiments.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @09:16PM (1 child)
Advanced countries don't have power blackouts that last for days just to reduce a power company's liability for fires. Their power companies take a proactive approach and clear the lines and perform maintenance on an ongoing basis.
(Score: 1) by landshark on Monday October 14 2019, @04:59PM
I remember reading somewhere (and no, I do not have the source) that PG&E is not allowed to clear the trees and brush from the lines.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @06:49PM (12 children)
My thoughts too. Possibly even Fourth World.
In a high regulation environment like the US and California, I would have thought that an essential utility like electric power would be taken over by the state if the private operator can't provide continuous service.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @08:14PM (11 children)
Its just end-stage socialism. The government meddles and perverts everyones incentives until eventually you cannot get the stuff you need for any price.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @08:37PM
On the other hand, no Facebook or Twitter.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Saturday October 12 2019, @12:31AM (9 children)
What socialism? All I can see is corporatism , capitalism, cronyism.. no socialism at all...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:02AM (3 children)
You do not see any socialism in California?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:17AM
so cliche
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:25AM (1 child)
By definition when corporate--that is, private--interests are meddling with regulation and infrastructure, it's the opposite of socialism. Words have meanings, my friend...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:47AM
So the national socialist party was not socialist according to your definition? https://mises.org/library/vampire-economy [mises.org]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @08:45AM (4 children)
California's beyond reasonable environmental regulations most likely prevents them from clearing the area around their equipment of vegetation and debris.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday October 12 2019, @09:35AM (3 children)
no, fairly clear [ca.gov] that they have the Law telling them they have to clear, prune, etc
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @08:13PM (2 children)
They were told they couldn't raise prices by the government. It is straight socialist price controls leading to shortages. It's hilarious how blind people are to the most obvious thing in the world. This is always the end result. 100% of the time.
Price controls -> shortages.
Remember that.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Saturday October 12 2019, @09:18PM (1 child)
maybe the executive bonus fund [sfchronicle.com] could have paid for some extra maintenance.
Also, going back to an earlier AC comment, "regulation" is not socialism, and "capitalism" (amongst many 'systems") usually leads to exploitation, with or without regulation.
Other countries don't have everyone out to exploit everyone else. Weirdly, people from the US don't see this and see a nice thing, they just seem to see missed opportunities for profit ("why isn't that person making more money, they could charge more/cut corners/etc etc").
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday October 12 2019, @11:41PM
This sort of occurrence was predicted when California deregulated their power. It's decision by profit, not decision by need.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Friday October 11 2019, @11:54PM
California's not notorious for power outages — that's why so few people were prepared to lose theirs.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:33AM
What would you use as fuel for the generators? Gas? Diesel? Too bad there's no gas either.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Gas-another-worry-as-PG-E-shuts-off-power-14504278.php [sfchronicle.com]
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Saturday October 12 2019, @02:44PM
I worked in a lab where this happened many years ago - one bad storm and months of work down the tube. Scientists can be no better than the rest of the public when it comes to assuming the magic pixies will always be there waiting at the socket.
Labs are expensive, money's tight, roll the dice and don't buy a backup generator for your project because what are the chances? You can assume the site's backup generator system will keep everything up, then find out it wasn't properly maintained when the power goes down and it blows up while coming on line. Or assume it's a whole-site backup and plug a critical piece of equipment into a socket that isn't connected to the backup system.
Working on Health & Safety in a lab complex taught me that Really Smart People are not so different than regular people, they just come up with more creative, clever ways of fucking up.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:07PM
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @05:46PM
(not) power to the peepuls!
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 11 2019, @05:51PM (17 children)
I call shenanigans. They're cutting power to prevent wildfires? Absurd. They're probably cutting power because they don't want to spend the money to generate the power necessary, or are having some other kind of problems and they're running with this cover story to hide that. Or they're negotiating with the state and not getting what they want so they're switching off the power to a million people to play hardball. Remember when Governor Chris Christie throttled the traffic to the George Washington Bridge to mess with the mayor of Ft. Lee, New Jersey? We'll see if any rogue employee leaks the real story in this wonderful Information thingie we have going on now.
Whatever the case may be, it's a really fucking stupid move in a state that pretty universally has excellent solar potential (insolation). If I was one of those paying customers that suddenly found my home or business in a blackout because of this crap the very first call I would make is to a solar installation outfit to go off grid and tell PG&E to fuck off forever. That company deserves to suddenly have a million fewer customers and the state that concurred with said stupid fucking decision deserves to have many billions of dollars fewer taxes on those utilities.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by insanumingenium on Friday October 11 2019, @05:53PM (1 child)
FYI the setup you will get from one of those solar installation outfits will probably involve a grid tie inverter, which will shut down power to your home in case of a blackout. This is a safety measure to avoid energizing lines potentially being repaired by linemen.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 11 2019, @06:04PM
Not if you have a smart switch to prevent islanding. Also not if you don't have a grid tie and use something like a Tesla Powerwall to buffer your usage.
I wonder if PG&E reckoned with the hazards of taking down their grid or all the potentially crippling lawsuits that will likely ensue from enraged customers? And if the state gave them license to summarily screw a million citizens who did nothing wrong, nothing bad could come from their rage at being thus targeted, right?
California was such a great state, and has been such a powerhouse for so long. It's almost as if the Establishment there is trying to kill it on purpose.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday October 11 2019, @06:16PM
I think it's simpler than that, but equally obnoxious: they are simply trying to minimize the risk for being liable for another massive wildfire that could cause loss of life and property damage. But not only do science labs suffer, but also private citizens who rely on electric power for their very survival, like, for example, people who rely on home medical equipment. It doesn't seem like anyone is looking at, or owns, the bigger picture of the tradeoffs between leaving the power on and shutting it down.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hartree on Friday October 11 2019, @06:21PM (1 child)
They're doing it for liability shifting purposes.
They got sued over a previous fire that likely started from PG&E equipment, so now they impose onerous power cuts on their customers. By doing this, they don't greatly lower the risk (I'm betting that bunches of home generators, often quickly installed by homeowners themselves, are much more dangerous than the usual power grid) but they can say "it's not our fault".
Extra bonus: They also cause so much political ruckus that they can get a tame state congresscritter to introduce a liability cap for them and get it voted into law.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by darkfeline on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:36AM
It would be most poetic if they were also sued for liability for the hot mess that this shutdown turned out to be. You can't just shut down power for days/weeks (what it sounds like it's going to be) to a third of an entire state with only a few hours warning. Oh, the site where they posted the outage map also got DoS'ed to death as one might expect. And generally there has been very little information provided, and what information was provided was not very accurate.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @06:29PM
> don't want to spend the money to generate the power necessary
That's certainly possible, but my guess is that they haven't done much of anything about trimming all the trees that are in their distribution lines (or near enough that they could blow into contact). If they haven't kept up with the "forestry" aspect of their business, they certainly deserve whatever they get...but since they have already filed bankruptcy, maybe the company feels they have nothing left to lose?
In terms of who is damaged--do you think that all the grocery stores and food warehouses have backup power for all their freezers/coolers? My guess is that most stores have backup power for emergency lighting, so that people can exit the building safely, and not much more. That is going to be a lot of food tonnage.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @06:33PM (1 child)
It's called Santa Ana wind (in the south) and Diablo wind (in the north). And on cue, the wildfires started:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-10-10/fire-bay-area-college-pge-power-outage [latimes.com]
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article236029373.html [sacbee.com]
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Saturday October 12 2019, @12:09AM
Even though someone invented the term "Diablo Winds" back in the 1990s, AFAIK virtually nobody used the term until the mass media pushed it during the 2017 wildfires to the point that social media users (particularly people who didn't grow up here) picked up on it. I suspect most older adults still refer to them as the Santa Anas.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by nitehawk214 on Friday October 11 2019, @06:51PM (1 child)
They got their asses sued for causing wildfires last year to the tune of 11 figures. They figure its cheaper to shut down instead of actually preventing fires. They are a monopoly so what are people going to do, use a competitor?
https://www.npr.org/2019/09/13/760479525/pg-e-to-pay-11-billion-insurance-settlement-over-wildfires-in-paradise-and-elsew [npr.org]
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 11 2019, @09:08PM
And have filed for bankruptcy, to fuck over any settlements from their lack of power distribution line maintenance.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday October 11 2019, @09:09PM (5 children)
Chris Christie's shenanigan with that bridge? A more pertinent anti-social move was what Enron did to California prior to the Dot-com crash. Enron manipulated electricity markets to drive up prices. A side effect was California suffering from rolling blackouts and brownouts and the like.
PG&E is no paragon of virtue and fair dealing. They tried to bill both me and my landlord for the same electricity. At first, the landlord blamed me for not having signed up for electricity like I was supposed to, but I had kept every bill PG&E had sent me, and showed him PG&E was at fault. My bills and his bills even had the same meter number. But at least the rolling blackouts of that time were not their fault.
If you live in California, you are well advised to have at the least a good surge suppressor for your valuable electronics. Better is a UPS. They're a pain, but even a cheap one can save you a lot of work, give you a few crucial minutes to save and shut down in the event of a power outage.
(Score: 5, Informative) by captain normal on Friday October 11 2019, @09:57PM (4 children)
The Enron shenanigans led to the PGE's bankruptcy in 2001. After reorganizing in 2004, the company became the property of a New York holding company. Before 2001 PGE did a very good job of having trees and brush cleared from around transmission lines. After that they cut expenses by not doing so, nor did they fully keep up with mapping and inspecting high pressure natural gas pipelines. This led to the disaster in San Bruno which killed 8 people and injured dozens and destroyed over 100 homes.
They sent billions of dollars off to corporate stock holders and company officers. They upped their bottom line by failing to do due maintenance on their plant. This was gross criminal neglect That resulted in many deaths not to mention billions of dollars in damages.
The company officers and board of directors, in my opinion, should be locked in jail for the rest of their lives.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 3, Informative) by captain normal on Friday October 11 2019, @09:59PM (1 child)
Forgot something:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Company [wikipedia.org]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:59AM
Any company that does this. https://www.kqed.org/news/11304045/pge-is-using-h-1b-visas-to-send-it-jobs-overseas [kqed.org]
Does not give a fuck about anyone.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Saturday October 12 2019, @05:19PM (1 child)
What is it about California state government that allows such a loss of regulatory control over public utilities to happen? Or is the problem the nature of the land and the population density it has to support?
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Saturday October 12 2019, @07:45PM
Actually it was a Federal Bankruptcy Judge. And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (the Republican "Governator"). Also the President of the U.S. G.W. Bush.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 3, Informative) by sjames on Friday October 11 2019, @11:12PM
It actually is wildfires, but the root problem is that they are cheaping out on properly clearing the land their transmission lines run over and have failed to properly secure those lines from shorting periodically under foreseeable windy conditions.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by EJ on Friday October 11 2019, @06:02PM (4 children)
The solution is to not live in a 3rd world shi**hole state. Move somewhere civilized like the East Coast.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday October 11 2019, @06:06PM (2 children)
Yeah, stuff like that never happens on the East Coast [wikipedia.org].
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Friday October 11 2019, @09:23PM
Maybe he meant the east coast of Australia. The last power outage I had was over a year ago. It lasted for 45 minutes, I was given two weeks written notice it was going to happen and a reminder text the day before.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by EJ on Friday October 11 2019, @10:05PM
ROFLMAO! New York...
Anything north of Virginia may as well be California.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 13 2019, @02:33AM
May be a good idea...now if only all the snowbirds that have moved here in the last 30 years would only go back to the shi*hole east coast where they came from, California would be a much better place.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday October 11 2019, @10:44PM (2 children)
Do they CHOOSE the environment, or an easy life?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 12 2019, @01:24AM
or fire pg&e and make it a state run utility... instead this because profit is more important than maintenance
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:57PM
(Score: 2) by Coward, Anonymous on Saturday October 12 2019, @03:50AM
California has other priorities than maintaining its power grid. They spent $62 Billion [seia.org] on solar energy and probably over $10 Billion more on wind energy. Meanwhile, PG&E has bought back billions of shares [ycharts.com], costing tens of Billions more Dollars, and payed $1 Billion per year in dividends for many years [streetinsider.com] (about 500 M shares outstanding).
How expensive would it be to cut back trees that are overgrowing power lines [ien.com]? Where is the state regulator who could hold PG&E's feet to the literal fire? Last time California had widespread blackouts, the governor was recalled [wikipedia.org].