“Although 92-percent of the reasons for wildfires are non-powerline related, people associate such firestorms with modern technology.”

“Localized, small and mobile natural gas-fueled power plants and generators, coupled with underground power lines, offer the only localized option for safe and reliable electricity. Rooftop solar panels and giant solar and wind farms located in remote desert areas merely increase reliance on transmission lines that have to be routed through wooded areas.”

What often fans the flames of anti-modernism in California is apprehension and hysteria, about risks of modern technology such as nuclear reactor radiation, nuclear bomb firestorms, and, now, new, recurring reverse neutron-bomb-like seasonal firestorms in mountain areas that kill people but leave trees standing (e.g., Paradise Fire, 2018).  

Physicist H. W. Lewis’s book Technological Risk points out that fear and risk are not the same.…

“California’s reliance on hydropower and proliferation of remote, centralized renewable energy plants; the mandated environmental mothballing of 19 coastal natural gas power plants located close to customers; redundant transmission lines for green power; and seasonal wind blasts, results in lethal blast-furnace-like wildfires that leave trees alone but incinerate houses.”

“California leaders and opinion-makers must first abandon their blame game and diagnose the problem more clearly than using clichés like ‘global warming,’ ‘Donald Trump,’ ‘greed’ or even ‘not enough clear cutting,’ if they are going to responsibly deal with the dangerous unintended consequences of de-modernizing its electric grid.”

A question arising out of California’s recent wave of wind-fanned wildfires, is why are public officials mainly attributing the cause to downed electric transmission lines that comprise less than ten percent of all the causes of such fires?…

The Alliance for Wise Energy Decisions (AWED) is an informal coalition of individuals and organizations interested in improving national, state, and local energy and environmental policies. Our premise is that technical matters like these should be addressed by using Real Science (please consult WiseEnergy.org for more information).

A key element of AWED’s efforts is public education. Towards that end, every three weeks we put together a newsletter to balance what is found in the mainstream media about energy and the environment. We appreciate MasterResource for their assistance in publishing this information.

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:
Everything You Hear About Billion-Dollar Disasters Is Wrong
Wind turbines don’t lead to a windfall
Perpetual Infants: $100 Billion in Subsidies and US Wind & Solar Want More
NY State blows smoke to hide wind costs
California Subsidizes Natural Gas Plants to Prevent Widespread Blackouts
The Electric Car Fantasy
Germany stipulates turbine setbacks to be 3300± feet
Conventional Wind Energy – A Design Deadly for Birds
Inherit The Wind
PUC’s Former Lawyer Says Approval Of Hawaii Wind Project Violated Law
First-of-a-kind U.S.…

“Nevertheless, you’d think the Governor and others would be actively trying to make things better, rather than just pointing fingers. Well … they are making it worse by taking away the one alternative to electricity that can provide cooking and hot water and space heat and does so much more efficiently–natural gas.”

I sit here at my computer this morning after suffering through the latest “PSPS” (public safety power shutoff), which left me without electricity a total of ten full days in October.  Kind of ironic given my 45+ years in energy policy–and frustrating too since this is less an Act of God than an Act of Man–or Government.

I understand the need to reduce fire risk in California’s hot dry climate where utilities (such as PG&E) need to de-energize power lines lest they spark when blown down or branches fall on them. …