‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#31

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

simpsond wrote: post #28

Public utilities should not be for profit companies, especially public listed companies. They shouldn’t aim to maximize profits. If they were to instead maximize utility, they may re-invest in infrastructure more heavily and put power lines under ground. Maybe I am missing something and someone can offer a counter argument.

The key is regulation, we have privatised utilities in the UK and although they aren’t perfect they appear to be much better than what Californians are putting up with. Before they were privatised they suffered from terrible under investment as every right wing government would squeeze their finances.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#32

Post by tomohawk » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

luckydata wrote: post #13

dstroot wrote: post #11

It will be interesting watching how all this plays out. As others have noted the liability math has certainly changed. Enough to bankrupt one of the largest utility companies in the country. One the other hand this is also a political statement. They are clearly signaling to the politicians that they better shield them from further liability or expect more of this behavior. Shut the power down when the wind blows, af…

My money is they get taken over by the state. Privatizing a utility was always a stupid move to begin with and they are finally proving it beyond any reasonable doubt. It's time we get to fixing all the damage Regan did to this country.

Private companies electrified the US. This model was pioneered by Samuel Insull.

https://www.masterresource.org/insull-samuel/insull-rural-el...

FDR didn't like competition for attention, and hounded Insull in court for years.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#33

Post by beams_of_light » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

simpsond wrote: post #28

Public utilities should not be for profit companies, especially public listed companies. They shouldn’t aim to maximize profits. If they were to instead maximize utility, they may re-invest in infrastructure more heavily and put power lines under ground. Maybe I am missing something and someone can offer a counter argument.

They're regulated in such a way that they basically print money, in certain circumstances. I do agree though, power companies should not be publicly operated at this point in time. It might have made sense when electricity being delivered to homes and businesses was a new and somewhat optional concept, but we've reached a point where it's exceedingly rare to _not_ have electricity available at all times. I believe PG&E is essentially telling the state of California, "So, you're going to sue us for billions of dollars because of wildfires you think our transformers caused? I guess we'll have to retalia...er, shut off the power sometimes in order to prevent fires."

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#34

Post by patfla » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:06 PM UTC

simpsond wrote: post #28

Public utilities should not be for profit companies, especially public listed companies. They shouldn’t aim to maximize profits. If they were to instead maximize utility, they may re-invest in infrastructure more heavily and put power lines under ground. Maybe I am missing something and someone can offer a counter argument.

Putting power lines underground is very expensive - meaning, very nearly prohibitively so. Or actually prohibitively so when you consider that PG&E has to serve vast areas of wilderness in California.

Paradise (Camp fire) was sufficiently west that I think its own power lines did not travel through Natl Forest however if I'm not mistaken it was hit by fire from the east (pushed by a wind out of the east), further up into the Sierra, and almost certainly there power lines were in the wilderness.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#35

Post by golemiprague » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

simpsond wrote: post #28

Public utilities should not be for profit companies, especially public listed companies. They shouldn’t aim to maximize profits. If they were to instead maximize utility, they may re-invest in infrastructure more heavily and put power lines under ground. Maybe I am missing something and someone can offer a counter argument.

It is not so much about being "public utility", it is about competition, if you can't have competition there is no point giving the rights to some private company which acts like a monopoly. Transportation is also public utility and yet it makes sense to have different taxi companies or airlines.

The interesting question is when you got something that you can't compete with directly like a train line but can compete using other methods like buses or airlines. In that case there might be more incentive to a train line operator to give a good service because of the competition.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#36

Post by milofeynman » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:08 PM UTC

simpsond wrote: post #28

Public utilities should not be for profit companies, especially public listed companies. They shouldn’t aim to maximize profits. If they were to instead maximize utility, they may re-invest in infrastructure more heavily and put power lines under ground. Maybe I am missing something and someone can offer a counter argument.

I agree. Dallas has this problem. It basically took a girl dying in a gas explosion for the lines to be repaired: https://www.dallasnews.com/news/courts/2019/05/30/atmos-sett...

Just a line item...

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#37

Post by BurningFrog » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #23

tryptophan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Private utilites work just fine in every other state. Maybe this just a California being California issue again. No need to throw the baby out with the bathwater...

> Maybe this just a California being California issue again. California is a high fire risk state regardless of whether the utility is publicly owned or investor (aka privately) owned. The risk is on a level that doesn't occur in many other states. If the costs of fires are going to be socialized anyways (by immunizing utility from the liability, hence putting the burden on the ratepayers), the question of whether th…

> ...or PGE will have to [...] which is not permitted under current PUC rules

Sounds a lot like California being California to me...

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#38

Post by hackbinary » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

Natural monopolies should not be private.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#39

Post by rb808 » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

simpsond wrote: post #28

Public utilities should not be for profit companies, especially public listed companies. They shouldn’t aim to maximize profits. If they were to instead maximize utility, they may re-invest in infrastructure more heavily and put power lines under ground. Maybe I am missing something and someone can offer a counter argument.

You'll say that until the company is full of public service workers who dont care and electricity costs 3x as much. Pretty much every developed country has privatized electricity generation to keep prices down.

Re: ‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

#40

Post by mlyle » Sat, Oct 12, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

joe_the_user wrote: post #20

pascalxus wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the math changed because they were sued for something that should've been acceptable risk. So now it's unacceptable risk. What goes around, comes around.

They didn't wind-up liable because arcing electricity just happens to sometimes 'cause fire. They wound-up liable because they gutted their tree-trimming operations and paid the difference in dividends. That is something that definitely makes you liable regardless of whether the original thing is an acceptable risk. Now, it's hard to if this is indeed a "bail us out or we'll shut down at every strong breeze" statemen…

> They didn't wind-up liable because just happens to sometimes 'cause fire.

California is a strict liability state when it comes to utility line fires: even if the utility isn't negligent, the utility must pay damages.

> They wound-up liable because they gutted their tree-trimming operations and paid the difference in dividends.

This is open to debate; it might be good evidence of negligence. But evidence of negligence doesn't matter.