written 26 October, 2025
published 2 November, 2025
When day to day life seems to be working, it is tempting to assume it will always be like this, with no need to make any significant changes. But this is a false assumption. Change may be the only constant. But preparing for change takes effort and expense. Furthermore, the frequency and magnitude of an event we are preparing for are essentially unknowable. At best we have probabilities, and emerging trends.
Yet we have examples where society has changed behavior toward preparedness. Every car now has seatbelts, and laws require their usage. In earthquake areas, building codes demand more expensive construction methods to survive the expected shaking. Fire resilient construction methods were the beginning of the building codes.
However, these all resulted from repeated experience of how expensive car crashes, earthquakes, and fires are for the individuals and the community at large. Preparing is more difficult when the event we imagine hasn't happened yet, especially when the preparations are expensive. In risk/reward terminology, Black Swan events are very low probability with very significant consequences. It is easy to dismiss these, since they seem not very likely, but when they happen, the entire system can be destroyed.
For example, nobody thought the housing market could collapse, so the financial world was unprepared when trillions of dollars were lost in 2007. Only a few saw it coming, though in retrospect it was obvious, given the fundamentals of highly levered funds, poor loan quality control, combined with financial herd mentality thinking. The challenge is to see what might be coming before the fact, and taking steps to change the situation, or at least minimize the impact.
So far, Ukiah has never had a prolonged electrical power blackout. The 2019 PSPS event lasted only four days. Based on history, why should we worry about power resilience? But in a rapidly changing world, history is an inadequate guide.
People are becoming aware the transmission grid is antiquated and operating close to capacity, but grid system changes are expensive and slow. Climate related events are increasing, adding stress to the system, but the federal stance violently denies reality, leaving us unprepared. The AI building frenzy is creating huge pressures for increased power demand and delivery from a system already at the brink. In the face of these growing trends, the likelihood of grid failure is increasing.
Since electricity is essential to everyday life, when is goes away everything is disrupted for the duration. Studies of electrical power resilience estimate 10 percent of our normal power consumption is designated critical, without which people die. Another 15 percent is designated priority, supporting core community economic functions. In Ukiah this level of basic power resilience requires 75 megawatt hours per day.
Almost none of the power used in Ukiah is produced locally. Fewer than 3 percent of the homes have roof top solar, and fewer still have any battery storage. The dam at Lake Mendocino has two generators, but they aren't able to stand on their own without a grid signal for stability, even if there is water flow available. Many individuals and businesses, as well as some essential community functions such as the sewer and water plants, have emergency generators. These are all fossil fueled, with finite capacity which must be replenished if the blackout lasts more than a few weeks. Combined, they represent only a fraction of the power needed for complete community power resilience.
Building local power production and storage is possible, but will take investment and the will to make it happen. The good news is hardware prices continue to drop, even with the current tariff insanity, and the cost is on the same order as the $60M purple pipe sewer project Ukiah recently completed. Furthermore, the electricity produced is fixed cost, without inflation for the next 25 years, an increasingly attractive economic value.
Investor-owned power systems are dominated by short term profit above all else. In contrast, our municipal system is primarily focused on service, providing reliable, affordable power to everyone. The point of power resilience is the heart quality of keeping people alive and keeping our community economically functioning, essential values that are difficult to quantify. Combining these subjective values with the beneficial hardware cost perspective makes power resilience economically and socially sensible, and therefore more likely to happen.
No other community in the county has this opportunity. Let's work to keep the lights on!
