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

nytimes.com

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

#91

Post by maxerickson »

FooHentai wrote: post #88
maxerickson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there are areas that we can't afford to safely provide power to, we shouldn't provide power to those areas anymore. This is course a bummer given the past effort to provide power to those areas, but maybe it's okay to acknowledge mistakes.

>If there are areas that we can't afford to safely provide power to, we shouldn't provide power to those areas anymore. Isn't that exactly what just happened and exactly what everyone's complaining about?

I have the feeling that poor regulation and mismanagement are bigger contributors than affordability (or whether "safe" lines can be built).

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

#92

Post by geitir »

heimatau wrote: post #84

What I strongly believe is being overlooked here is not the fact that their 'liability math' has changed but the fact that this is the result of regional utility monopolies. The entire energy sector are allowed to operate in these terrible ways because they have local governments supporting their terrible business models. Price of energy hasn't gone down because there is no actual competition. Without these large gov…

What blackout are you talking about in Atlanta? I'm from Atlanta and the only one that comes to mind is in 2017 the airport lost power due to an underground fire. But that was specifically the wiring of the airport and not due to utility negligence

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

#93

Post by AnthonyMouse »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #60
BurningFrog wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...or PGE will have to [...] which is not permitted under current PUC rules Sounds a lot like California being California to me...

Your "[...]" skips over the option where they have smaller immediate profits in exchange for securing the future of the company. Is that a bad option for some reason?

A company selling shares to raise capital is an alternative to other methods of raising capital, like taking out a loan. Asking why they don't just make smaller profits is like asking why they don't just pay a lower interest rate on their loans. It presumes that someone exists who is willing to lend them the money at the lower rate of return.

Companies have the option of shutting down operations and selling off their assets. PG&E presumably has a fleet of trucks and equipment, land rights etc., which were paid for with investors' money. If their profits fall below the level that could be achieved by selling off those assets and then investing the money at the market rate of return, it becomes profitable for raiders to come in and buy the company and do that with it, so the company has to stay more profitable than that in order to prevent that from happening.

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

#94

Post by gjouft55 »

tryptophan wrote: post #19
luckydata wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 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...

But we live in a free market of ideas. No reason to have one state operate it’s utilities like every other, except to satisfy social memes.

We’ve done the privatize it all experiment even given evidence that services like Medicare can be run pretty cheaply, and, well, Kansas and Oklahoma.

I’d be curious to see if California could save rate payers money. My guess is the conventional finance wisdom about big government spending is more like fear mongering to protect special interests.

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

#95

Post by mjevans »

jimmcslim wrote: post #30
luckydata wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My view is that transmission and distribution of electricity are natural monopolies and therefore should be government-owned. Generation however should be opened up to market mechanisms that find a price for power, reliability/dispatchability, and emissions.

Some forms of generation; the ones that aren't tied to specific geographic circumstances or LARGE heavily regulated super-industrial sites (that I personally recommend are secured by the military due to high energy densities).

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

#96

Post by mjevans »

hackeraccount wrote: post #58
hackbinary wrote: post #38

Natural monopolies should not be private.

At some point - and I suspect PG&E has reached this point but I'm not sure - a regulated monopoly is the same thing as a public utility. If you tell someone what they have to do, what they can charge and how much they can make then what's the distinction but that entity and part of the government?

Budgets; and this is the argument, the natural monopoly parts, like the roads we drive on, should be owned by the people, not a company.

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

#97

Post by creato »

heimatau wrote: post #84

What I strongly believe is being overlooked here is not the fact that their 'liability math' has changed but the fact that this is the result of regional utility monopolies. The entire energy sector are allowed to operate in these terrible ways because they have local governments supporting their terrible business models. Price of energy hasn't gone down because there is no actual competition. Without these large gov…

Are electric utilities really that bad? For a relatively tiny amount of money, you get the equivalent energy of dozens of slaves on bicycles that react instantly to your needs for 99.9% of your life.

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

#98

Post by clouddrover »

Electric cars have the potential to act as a backup power supply for your home to help mitigate power outages like these. The CCS and CHAdeMO standards are working on vehicle-to-home (and vehicle-to-grid) protocols:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x78XGElU2I0

https://www.chademo.com/technology/v2x/

https://insideevs.com/news/342354/charin-ccs-combo-standard-...

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

#99

Post by throwawaycanada »

creato wrote: post #97
heimatau wrote: post #84

What I strongly believe is being overlooked here is not the fact that their 'liability math' has changed but the fact that this is the result of regional utility monopolies. The entire energy sector are allowed to operate in these terrible ways because they have local governments supporting their terrible business models. Price of energy hasn't gone down because there is no actual competition. Without these large gov…

Are electric utilities really that bad? For a relatively tiny amount of money, you get the equivalent energy of dozens of slaves on bicycles that react instantly to your needs for 99.9% of your life.

PG&E didn't invent electrical power. They fulfill a role identical to thousands of similar organizations around the world. Apparently, they do a very poor job of it.

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

#100

Post by Mountain_Skies »

geitir wrote: post #92
heimatau wrote: post #84

What I strongly believe is being overlooked here is not the fact that their 'liability math' has changed but the fact that this is the result of regional utility monopolies. The entire energy sector are allowed to operate in these terrible ways because they have local governments supporting their terrible business models. Price of energy hasn't gone down because there is no actual competition. Without these large gov…

What blackout are you talking about in Atlanta? I'm from Atlanta and the only one that comes to mind is in 2017 the airport lost power due to an underground fire. But that was specifically the wiring of the airport and not due to utility negligence

When I lived downtown, we regularly had power outages despite being able to see both Georgia Power hq and Southern Company hq from our roof. It wasn't just us. The World of Coca-Cola, the Center for Civil Rights, and the surrounding buildings frequently lost power. Only the Georgia Aquarium and the Inforum/ACA were spared due to their highly redundant backup power generators. I had less power outages in rural Alabama than I did in downtown Atlanta. For whatever reason the power grid was very fragile in that part of town. I've been told it's because Georgia Power didn't actually build a grid but used a cheaper hub and spoke trunk system. No idea if that's correct but it was shameful how poor their service was in the shadow of their headquarters (and the shadow of their parent company).
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