Because i was co-developer of some of the first utility-scale projects in the Altomont, i was always welcome there, but the relevance in the Wilson days dissappeared.

Me kinda stunned at what’s happening now, with the austrian gearing up for a renewable Cali. Looks like they’re trying to catch up with Germany and Japan.

What did you do there?

That was Senator Steve Peace, whom some of you may remember as the guy who made the cult film, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (I think they ate Chicago). Can’t make this stuff up.

And Crazy Horse — we may know each other? Ever work for the CEC?

Three decades in wind power generation, including having testified in Congress about opening the grid.

One story, which no one will read, is appropos.

I’m having a drink and a cigar at Tosca’s in SanFRanDisco, despite the ban, for Tosca’s was a favorite of the Mayor. Next to me at the bar were two gents buying expensive and also smoking cigars, despite the ban. I overheard DC political intalk. Asked what’s up. Said they worked for the Clinton admin.

Told them they should pay more attention to the vulnerability of the national grid. Told them i could take out the west coast for many months with a VW bus mit sunroof and a few Vietnam era mortars. Explained how, and why i knew, being a power producer which fed into the biggest substation in the world, Tesla, near Altamont Pass in Cali.

They laughed and contin ued to mock me, saying the federal gubmint would not permit such vulnerability. chastized, but angry at their blindness, i slunk into submission.

2 or 3 days later, i’m driving a truck with my girlfriend’s belongings from Portland back to SF. when it’s time to tank up again, the first station has no power, so can’t tank, and go to the next. also no power, the proprietor thinks there’s an outage, try the next.

There was no next. The grid was down from Texas to Canada and the Pacific. 11 hours. 2 or 3 days after the discussion about the grid vulnerability with these DC knowitalls.

But that downtime came from high winds blowing some trees across the major line to Cali from Bonnevile Power Admin, causing a spark to spark.

11 hours, entire west coast. And that has little to do with what a few well-placed explosions at key points in the grid would do.

I’ve discussed this with key planners to no avail, so i’m not worried to post this here. The grid is weak, and vulnerable beyond your belief.

We fought so strongly to get the powers to wake up, to no avail. For those of you in SF, drive out in the altamont on Patterson Pass road to the top, and look down on the central collection point for most of the electricity that comes into Cali. Tell me what you think.

Kinda metaphorical…

I remember back in the late 90’s a tree branch in Idaho took out a main Western Grid transmission line. All throughout California, Oregon and Nevada (I think), the power was out for days as they tried to figure out what had happened. It wasn’t a total outage here. There were pockets of power and some humongous generators at big box stores like
Costo and Home D., but it was a major mess.

We had dinner that night at Yamashiro, a Japanese restaurant with a generator, at the top of a hill overlooking Los Angeles. Wow. Pretty much the whole city was dark. Not something ya see everyday.

Last week I started writing down what it would be like here in my town if we had electricity like the Iraqi’s do. So many things we take for granted are automatically out of the picture – shopping, driving, cooking, seeing. I think we should do a latenight serial story about a town with no power. You know, you write some, then I write some then Bustedknuckles takes a piece, then Trex…and so on and so on and so on.

GSD @ 145

Dickie-boy, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Don’t forget to stock-up on money to pay for hookers.

Morris threatens to leave America.

Good riddance, pervert.

-GSD

From that article:

However, Morris went on: “Obama’s in fact a better first than [Clinton] is. First black is better than first woman, in politics.”

I wonder how he made that calculation? Remember Shirley Chisolm?

What a churl. And what an easy way to get rid of him forever! Does anyone really care what Dicky thinks? I know Hill don’t.

Dickie-boy, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out.

Don’t forget to stock-up on money to pay for hookers.

Morris threatens to leave America.

Good riddance, pervert.

-GSD

From that article:

However, Morris went on: “Obama’s in fact a better first than [Clinton] is. First black is better than first woman, in politics.”

I wonder how he made that calculation? Remember Shirley Chisolm?