Blackout

By Douglas Lummis

Pacific Gas and Electric corporation (PG&E) holds a virtual monopoly over electrical power on the U.S. west coast. On Saturday, August 10, most of PG&E's electricity went out, from Canada to Mexico.

We turned on our (battery powered) radio. A PG&E representative was saying that the company did not yet know the exact cause of the power failure. The whole west coast electrical system is a single grid, he explained, and an accident had happened in one place in Idaho. He advised listeners to unplug their appliances. "Nothing will happen, but better safe than sorry."

Power was restored to San Francisco, though outages continued in other locations for days afterwards. And the explanation kept changing: It was a forest fire in Oregon. It was a problem in Bakersfield. It was too many air conditioners. Or it was a power line that sagged, touching some trees. Vague.

Then on August 13 the TV news showed something shocking. Seven houses had caught fire in Hayward, near San Francisco. The cause: an electrical surge. One resident was interviewed: "Suddenly flames started spurting out of the walls and shooting out of the sockets." The camera showed electrical sockets blackened by fire. The fire department saved most of the houses; one ― if I heard correctly ― was completely destroyed.

We have all heard of electrical surges destroying appliances. For example, a friend told me that lightning hit the electrical lines near her house last year, and her computer was damaged. But her house did not catch fire.

Were those houses in Hayward hit by an electrical force greater than lightning? How could such high voltage get past fuses and circuit breakers? Presumably the electricity simply jumped across the gap.

Why would fire shoot out of wall sockets? Presumably because the electricity was leaping across connections. Why would flames spurt out from the walls? Presumably because electricity was burning the insulation off the wires.

If the electric company set seven houses on fire, shouldn't it be front-page news? But it was not mentioned the next day, at least not in the San Francisco papers. A few days later there were a few lines about it at the end of an article. On page 20.

And on the same page there was yet another explanation of the blackout. There were "voltage fluctuations" in PG&E's huge electrical grid, and safety switches began to shut off. Regions were cut off from the main grid, and power plants were shut down. The purpose: to protect against power surges.

So the seven houses that burned in Hayward are the key to understanding the blackout. PG&E's electrical system has become so huge and powerful that the company is barely even able to understand what is happening with it. When it gets out of control, all they can do is shut it down (this was the second big blackout this year). Otherwise houses might start exploding into flame.

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