121–130 of 291 posts
I used to think power outages we’re mainly a developing country problem, this definitely changes my understanding of the tiers of maturity of countries.
Many aspects of PG&E should bring to mind developing countries: corruption, graft, incompetent management, etc. It's an embarrassing situation to be in, and both PG&E and the state government are culpable.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unlikely to happen (at least now) in a place that's, uh, culturally like the US. We're in California and are in a community that was affected by PG&E's power shut off. I think one problem in California is that since I first arrived in the 1980s, the population has grown from 22 to close to 40 mln. And given, again, US cultural proclivities, there's a significant number of people who'd love to move out into at least n…
They are welcome to pay for it, especially if they are rich and want it bad.
Why shouldn't PG&E pay for it? They blew their safety budget on executive bonuses. Hell, look at how many hundreds of millions PG&E spends annually on stock buybacks to appease the shareholders.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't accurate. In the Bay Area some cities have decided to run their own public utilities instead of relying on PG&E. For example, Santa Clara runs their own public utility[2]. The average resident pays about 10.4 cents per KWh. That's about 30 percent less than rates PG&E charges. Also, their energy is greener and their infrastructure is better maintained. The problem with for profit utilities is that they are…
> The problem with for profit utilities is that they are incentivized to keep things as lean as possible. They neglect maintenance of their infrastructure and use that money for bonuses and dividends. They aren't incentivised to be excessively lean. The incentive structure for someone who has spent a fortune on expensive capital investment is to maintain it. There is no point incentive to build a vast system of poles…
Sure there is: short-term profit.
I'm genuinely confused over just how heavily regulated PG&E really is. Some people are saying it's basically an unregulated monopoly that does whatever it wants. That in the course of trying to make lots of money they screwed over the state. Other people are saying it's a heavily regulated utility. The state of California is saying how much it can make and what it can do with the money it makes. They point to how muc…
If PG&E were not heavily regulated, why wouldn't they have even just one private competitor? I mean, how hard of a sell is it: knock on door and say, "We're not PG&E." I'm pretty sure 60% of prospects would sign up right away. I've lived 30+ years in California and everybody hates PG&E. I've never talked to someone who had a different opinion.
Why? Because PG&E has fought long and hard to keep their monopoly. They've gone so far as to keep the Ayatollah of the Assembly on their payroll. Marin got a very neutered version of Marin Clean Energy as a result of PG&E and San Francisco still hasn't been able to sneak public power legislation past PG&E.
Is there no technical solution here? They were fined 30 billion, surely that could pay for some sort of fancy lower-risk transmission mechanism?
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/pge-underground-power...
Long story short, PG&E would rather spend the money on executive compensation.
PG&E is the worst power company in the western hemisphere. First in 2000 they had massive power outages due to early deregulation which led to the impeachment of governor Gray Davis. In 2017 the company killed thousands of customers and billions in property because of fires they caused! Now in 2019 they are doing massive shutdowns and directly killing their customers on life support! We have the highest prices (.22c…
PG&E is a terrible company, but spewing a bunch of nonsense hyperbole isn't helpful. Someone else pointed out that your statements about deaths are false. So I'll point out that California's electricity isn't 22¢/kWh. The California average is 16.06¢. https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/ States that have it worse: Hawaii: 26.05¢ Alaska: 19.10¢ Connecticut: 17.55¢ Massachusetts: 17.12¢ Rhode Island: 16.42¢ New Hamps…
“The prudent thing to do when you’re uncertain is to turn the power off,” he said. “When the public complains that everything in the refrigerator is bad and the ice cream melted, then you could blame the judge. I’m willing to take the heat.”
[1] - https://www.kqed.org/news/11737336/judge-pge-paid-out-stock-...
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…
And yet when you try deregulating it, you wind up with Enron. In my opinion, electricity needs to now become a government function. The more people install solar panels and batteries, the less profitable electricity is going to be. It's a death spiral eventually completely dominated by the fixed costs of keeping the network connected and enough electricity production in reserve rather than the variable costs of basel…
There are really two alternatives here. One is that solar+storage never manages to provide cheaper electricity than existing nighttime baseload generation methods. Then the big change is that time of day metering becomes cheaper during the day (when solar generates) and more expensive at night (when baseload generators justify their existence). But that isn't going to destroy the power grid, it's not a fundamental change, it just changes the pricing.
The other alternative is that solar+storage does become cheaper than baseload generation methods even at night. In that case the power grid is destroyed because most people simply stop needing it. It becomes cheaper to over-spec the solar panels on your roof and the batteries (or whatever) in your basement to handle unusual conditions, or suffer not being able to run your air conditioner one or two days out of the year, than to pay the full cost of operating the power grid just to handle those one or two days a year. But in that case there is nothing to privatize/nationalize/whatever because the residential power grid simply ceases to exist.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are welcome to pay for it, especially if they are rich and want it bad.
They are welcome to pay for it, especially if they are rich and want it bad. Why shouldn't PG&E pay for it? They blew their safety budget on executive bonuses. Hell, look at how many hundreds of millions PG&E spends annually on stock buybacks to appease the shareholders.
I don't support other utility customers paying for that. I doubt you do either. That's who pays if PG&E foots the bill.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They are welcome to pay for it, especially if they are rich and want it bad. Why shouldn't PG&E pay for it? They blew their safety budget on executive bonuses. Hell, look at how many hundreds of millions PG&E spends annually on stock buybacks to appease the shareholders.
The other poster is talking about people moving into the near wilderness. I don't support other utility customers paying for that. I doubt you do either. That's who pays if PG&E foots the bill.
Define wilderness, there are plenty of people not in dense urban cities in California.
I doubt you do either.
When you assume you make an ass out of "u" and "me". I think rural electrification is important. More important than stock buybacks, executive compensation, and astronomically expensive lobbyists like Willie Brown. Rural service and higher rates don't necessarily go hand in hand.
That said I'd be more okay with paying increased rates for more comprehensive service than I am with paying increased rates to fund PG&E negligence.