While the exact cause of the wildfires that have killed more than 110 people and resulted in more than $5 billion in damages is still unknown, investigators are looking at what role downed, live power lines may have played.
The island's main power supplier, Hawaiian Electric, owned and operated the lines in question. And preliminary analysis indicates the company knew its lines could be a fire risk. But rather than devote resources to making the grid more resilient, it instead plowed money into meeting the state's renewal power mandate.
As The Wall Street Journal reports:
Former regulators and energy company officials said the utility was focused…on procuring renewable energy. Hawaii has been on a push to convert to renewables since 2008, when a run-up in oil prices sent electrical rates at Hawaiian Electric—which relied on petroleum imports for 80% of its energy supply—through the roof. In 2015, lawmakers passed legislation mandating that the state derive 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2045, the first such requirement in the U.S.
With the law in place, the company responded in kind:
The drive to reach the renewable goals also preoccupied private energy companies working with Hawaiian Electric and state energy officials, said Doug McLeod, a consultant who served for several years as the Maui county energy commissioner.
“Looking back with hindsight, the business opportunities were on the generation side, and the utility was going out for bid with all these big renewable-energy projects,” he said. “But in retrospect, it seems clear, we weren't as focused on these fire risks as we should have been.”
There's much more to this story, including questions about the role state officials and regulators played in all of this. Time will tell about how much politics, regulatory inertia, and a dogged push into renewables may have contributed to the disaster.
But one cautionary note seems to be emerging about government mandates and the power they have to focus attention and resources away from immediate needs (none of which make for great phot-ops or reelection materials) toward distant, expensive, and potentially dangerous green goals.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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I was blaming the owners (the mega investment firms Blackrock, Vanguard, et al) of the Hawaiian Electric Company for announcing several years back that they would not maintain their power poles or clear vegetation around the power lines, presumably out of greed. But can you blame them when the state legislature told them a few years before that the state would have to convert to strictly so-called renewable sources?
So between ignorant politicians, terrible political appointments to key decision-making positions, and overly influential environmentalists who wouldn’t allow clearing of dry farm lands, they had a perfect recipe for an eventual out-of-control disaster. Why did the state and the county listen to the environmentalists?
Everyone is rushing to sue the electric company. Too bad they can’t sue the root cause of the inferno — government officials at the state, county, and city levels.
They didn’t need orbital lasers firing at Maui when they had a perfect storm of dry vegetation, weak power poles, and incompetent people in place, all due to government ineptitude. All it took was high winds to knock over the hot power lines as the trigger.
Well, like the Democrats and their rabid supporters say, “You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet”.
And in lieu of all the death, destruction, and monetary losses from the entire ordeal, they will convince people to look at the bright side of things………….
“No mean tweets”.
The most likely explanation for the Lahaina fire and constant brush fires in California is that brush and trees were allowed to grow up under and around the powerlines. High winds put the lines in contact with the vegetation and each other, causing sparks to fall into the dry grass below. California’s moronic government prohibits cutting of trees and brush in the power-line rights-of-way, and even around some residential housing. This is to provide habitat for lizards, gophers, rats, snakes, and other wild creatures which move into the tall grass and brush. When the uncleared brush starts a fire during high winds, the power companies get sued senseless and power bills rise accordingly. Power companies in California now shut off the power to their lines when high winds are forecast to save themselves from lawsuits bringing them near bankruptcy. All this is due to California’s stupid rule that they are prohibited from clearing brush and trees under and adjacent to the lines. When Dems are in complete control like in California and Hawaii, idiotic results and often deadly wildfires are practically guaranteed.
CEB – yep – the hard core greenies for some insane reason cannot (likely will not) realize that a minimal clear zone – say 50 feet on each side of the power lines will pretty much stop disasters of this magnitude from happening. Those zones would have little if any impact on those critters. It is ‘almost’ as if they care more about the critters you mentioned than human lives. Oh wait, I ‘almost’ forgot about such ‘important’ critters as the delta smelt, the snail darter and the spotted owl, my bad.
The GREEN people will attempt to do anything and everything to keep the truth from being well known that IF Hawaii had not attempted to follow the proverbial “yellow brick road” to become GREEN, there would never have been this disaster.
I hope the sane non-GREEN people will expose the GREEN hoax from this day forward, but their big money-people will spend and spend to downplay they truth. The police had even shut down traffic going out so that more people would be devastated as they were trapped. Many of them have been interviewed how they were stopped and made to turn around. What a tragedy of ethics by the Hawaiian government (aka Democrats) just be keep GREEN factors quiett.
More like Gaia worship.
The Maui disaster has DEMOCRAT written ALL over it.
From the locals to the causation to the obstruction of relief.
Over a thousand died there but the remains are all incinerated, so the CRATS will get off light.
Smash and Grab Elections have consequences.
And of course, our Liar-In-Chief had “no comment”…
Many years ago when Yellowstone was on fire and smoking up the Front Range – reporters would mention that Forest Rangers stated that not clearing underbrush for sure and I guess even smart, harvesting of timber keeps runaway fires less likely to get out of control. Human beings live on this planet and the problem with Green folks is they have tunnel vision. If they would stop the hysterical pronouncements of bringing the polar cap to an end 20 years ago, oops! that didn’t happen and so on and so on we could let nature take its course, educate folks, and initiate change in an orderly manner. The way everyone acted like Gore was gospel and “knew” what needed to be done NOW, was ridiculous, but did make him really wealthy! It was like chicken little running around yelling the “the sky is falling”! Keeping “nature” just the way it was before man just for the sake of having it that way is nonsense.