The Electric Grid Is a Wildfire Hazard. It Doesn’t Have to Be
By Michael E. Webber, Opinion piece for The New York Times.
Excerpt: One year after the deadly wildfires on Maui and a few weeks after Hurricane Beryl knocked out power to millions of Houston-area residents, it has become abundantly clear that our electricity grid is dangerously vulnerable. ...wildfires and sustained blackouts may be a preview of how an aging grid could falter spectacularly as weather becomes more extreme and demand for electricity continues to rise. ...This past spring, a decayed utility pole broke in high winds in the Texas Panhandle, causing power wires to fall on dry grass and igniting the largest fire in the state’s history. Two people died and more than one million acres burned. The Maui wildfire that killed more than 100 people and destroyed the historic town of Lahaina last year began after winds knocked down power lines, also igniting dry grass. The 2018 Paradise fire in California started when a live wire broke free of a tower that was a quarter-century past what the utility Pacific Gas & Electric considered its “useful life.” Eighty-five people died and nearly 14,000 homes were destroyed. ...Solutions exist to reduce the risk of wildfires, such as burying power lines, inspecting every mile of the system, installing modern sensors for early detection of wildfire risk, and controls that allow for the remote disconnection of vulnerable sections of the grid. Granted, these fixes are expensive. To bury transmission lines can easily cost $3 million to $5 million a mile. But research from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab concluded that these overhauls also save money in lives protected and damage avoided in storm-prone areas....