Wildfires

As a backdraft to anongoing investigationof utility infrastructure involvement in the Northern California wildfires, a still-incomplete attempt to map utility transmission lines is raising questions about how effective regulators and utilities have been in taking preventive action.

As wildfires raged through the iconic wine country and other parts of Northern California Wednesday, natural gas and electric service was cut off to thousands of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) customers.

Facing a “flattening out” of revenue sources in the wake of a scourge of summer wildfires and continued low domestic natural gas prices, Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead on Friday submitted a supplemental 2013-14 state budget with a 6% annual reduction in the state’s general fund spending.

Although among the smaller, less-life threatening of Colorado’s wildfires so far this summer, the Pine Ridge fire along the Western Slope tested the gas industry with the shutting in of more than 100 wells in part of the Piceance Basin (see Shale Daily, July 9), but the response was effective and expected by the gas industry, according to Encana Corp.’s manager in charge on the ground, David Grisso.

Although among the smaller, less-life threatening of Colorado’s wildfires so far this summer, the Pine Ridge fire along the Western Slope tested the gas industry with the shutting in of more than 100 wells in part of the Piceance Basin (see Daily GPI, July 9), but the response was effective and expected by the gas industry, according to Encana Corp.’s manager in charge on the ground, David Grisso.

One of the wildfires choking Southern California caused Sempra Energy’s Southern California Gas Co. (SoCalGas) utility to close operations at its largest underground natural gas storage facility, Aliso Canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains in the far northwest end of the suburban San Fernando Valley section of Los Angeles, about 35 miles from downtown. SoCalGas is the largest gas distribution utility in the nation.

Weather related stories were big news in 2007, with heat and drought scorching the South and Southeast, wildfires burning their way through southern California and global warming worries worldwide, but perhaps the biggest weather story of the year was the Atlantic hurricane season that wasn’t.

Weather related stories were big news in 2007, with heat and drought scorching the South and Southeast, wildfires burning their way through southern California and global warming worries worldwide, but perhaps the biggest weather story of the year was the Atlantic hurricane season that wasn’t.

With wildfires, threatened transmission systems and triple digit statewide temperatures, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) ended another week of consecutive all-time peak-demand records, topping the 45,000 MW level twice, but managing to avoid calling any power alerts.