15-03 Who Fiddled While L.A. Burned? Plus: Secondary Ignition Sources in Los Angeles Fires?
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Show 15-03 Summary: This week we’re taking a look at the Los Angeles fires disaster.. And while the far-left Democrats’ environmental policies have gotten a lot of the focus, could there have been other mandates with the electric grid itself that could have amplified the problems? L.A.’s smart meters. Which have been known to cause fires. And even explode when exposed to water and fires. Smart meters were cited in the 2017 Northern California fires. And problems with them go back far earlier. But in the rush for green energy were bureaucrats too eager to look the other way?
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Air Dates: January 18th & 19th, 2025 | Guest: Dr. Bonner Cohen
Los Angeles Fires – What Happened and Why
It’s Climate Change. It’s Gavin Newsome. Or the Democrats. Or the Los Angeles mayor. It’s the fire hydrants. It’s the Santa Ana winds. Well, we definitely played a role. But wherever you look, there is plenty of blame to go around. And as we looked deeper into things, it turns out there could be yet another layer to the blame sandwich. Namely, smart meters. But we’ll come back around to that.
There has already been plenty of blame to go around. And well deserved. From Governor Gavin Newsom to the California far-left democrat supermajorities in the California legislatures to the Los Angeles mayor and water commissioners and fire chief. The list of who-should-be-blamed is lengthy. And that doesn’t even include arson or accidental fires.
And, no, Climate Change was not to blame. We’ve said it before: IF you truly believe that Global Warming is making the Earth hotter and drier, then you would do more forest management and not what the environmental left does. Which is almost nothing. And this is especially true in areas, like Los Angeles, which is an area known for its arid, dry conditions. The failure of the far left’s environmental policies — of get 100s of billions of Climate Change cash from the taxpayers and do nothing with it — was definitely front and center.
But was there yet another layer of Climate Change stupidity at fault? Los Angeles’s mandatory smart meters, as part of their green energy revolution.
Did Smart Meters Make Things Worse
This week we welcome back an internationally recognized expert on natural resources, energy, the environment, and property rights—Dr. Bonner Cohen. He is also a senior policy analyst at CFACT.
There are known problems with smart meters. Yes, they have caused fires. Tens of thousands of them across the country. Yes, they have design flaws. Yes, their lithium-ion batteries can get explosively hot — as much as 5,000°. Which is about 2,000 degrees hotter than the melting point of titanium.
Dr. Cohen knows all too well about the inherent fire dangers of lithium-ion batteries, having written an article just a year ago about their incredible fire hazards. Smart meters have lithium-ion batteries. If they catch fire, they can quickly accelerate to up to thousands of degrees and that heat can get into the homes. They have also been know to be susceptible to water and heat (like fires) and were believed to have played a role in the 2017 Northern California fires.
Smart meters are mandatory in Los Angeles. And they’re a part of the future of green energy—in part because they allow greater control over your usage of electricity. Why? Because they connect wirelessly with the utility company, and can be both adjusted. And switched off. Could they have played a role in the 2025 Los Angeles fires? We don’t know yet. For certain, it is a fact that smart meters have been involved in past fires. And we definitely know that no one will find anything if no one looks. And we know no one will look if no one asks questions.
There is so much to discuss and uncover about smart meters, that we will have to discuss them in more depth in a future show. Because we also know that if the Far Left democrats in California and Los Angeles get their way, the smart meters will be mandatory in the next Los Angeles.
Terrifying Possibilities for More Los Angeles Fires?
But perhaps the most troubling aspect of the so-called smart meters is that since they are remotely accessed, there’s a very real potential that they could be hacked. We already know the Chinese have hacked into U.S. systems and infrastructure. Imagine a scenario where hackers switch on and off smart meters until their lithium-ion batteries overheat and ignite. One house every other block and they could spread before fire crews could get them under control.
That’s potentially pretty terrifying.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey warned, “What they’re doing now, they’re constructing what they call a ‘Smart Grid.’ … [T[o make it easier for you and me to call our homes on our cell phone and turn down our air-conditioning on a hot afternoon if we’re not there. Great, but that may well mean that a hacker in Shanghai with his cell phone could do the same thing or worse. And a so-called “Smart Grid” that is as vulnerable as what we’ve got is not smart at all, it’s a really, really stupid grid.”
And as for those smart meters and their lithium-ion batteries that have been known to catch fire? After we spoke with Dr. Cohen, a massive fire broke out at the Moss Landing Power Plant, the world’s largest maker or lithium-ion batteries. The fire was so bad and there was so much toxic smoke that the area had to be evacuated.
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Show Notes: Research, Links Mentioned & Additional Info
- Be sure to visit CFACT.org. The Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow is a great organization with incredible experts on energy, the environment, and so much more. Like these articles about the Los Angeles fires:
- California government fighting incompetence, malfeasance (CFACT, Jan 16, 2025)
- Countering man-made climate change claims on wildfires (CFACT, Jan 14, 2025)
- Exploiting California’s tragic fires for climate propaganda is just wrong (CFACT, Jan 10, 2025)
- The Los Angeles fire debacle is the peak of the virtue signaling era (CFACT, Jan 11, 2025)
- The L.A. Wildfires Should Be a Wake-up Call (City Journal, Jan 10, 2025)
- “Decades of fire suppression policies have left forests dangerously dense and overgrown”
- Want to learn more about smart meters and their potential role in the Los Angeles Fires? We will have a dedicated page to these (there is a tremendous amount of pages we are still sorting through. But in the meantime, two good resources are:
- The Discovery and Science of Smart Meter Fires — 2021 presentation (via Smart Meter Harm, July 4, 2024). A presentation by a fire scientist, an engineer, and a fire forensic scientist. The direct link to the PDF of the presentation is at this link.
- Another study is “Overview: Fire and Electrical Hazards from ‘Smart’, Wireless, PLC, and Digital Utility Meters,” available as a PDF.
- California government report on SCE Smart Meter program: Rising costs eliminate consumer savings (Smart Meter Harm, 2014)
- Moss Landing Lithium-Ion Battery Plant Fire:
- Evacuation order lifted after fire breaks out (CNN, Jan 17, 2025)
- Burning Tesla’s add to toxic pollution (Financial Post, Jan 16, 2025)
California Fires, Environmentalism, and Green Energy Related Articles
- President Trump gets it on wind (CFACT, Jan 14, 2025),
- The Saturation effect questions the prevailing narrative on CO2 (CFACT, Jan X, 2025)
- GOP attacks on IRA can’t score a clean sweep in red states (CNBC, Jan 12, 2025); EV tax credit is ‘catastrophically stupid (CNBC, Dec 5, 2024)
- “Newly elected Bernie Moreno, is targeting getting rid of the EV tax credit, clarifying that the $75 hundred dollar incentive is catastrophically stupid.”