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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

#141

Post by dragonwriter »

thereisnospork wrote: post #77
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…

This may be a naive question, but why aren't they being bankrupted (or hurt financially) for cutting off the power voluntarily? Their nominal job is to provide power, not doing so for reasons that aren't acts of god should open them to liability and/or (severe) penalties for violation of contract. If the appropriate legal framework doesn't currently exist I can't imagine a 'The lights stay on' bill would be all that…

> This may be a naive question, but why aren't they being bankrupted (or hurt financially) for cutting off the power voluntarily?

Well, lots of reasons, but one absolute blocker is that they are already bankrupt because of their liability for wildfires in 2017 and 2018.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Com...

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

#142

Post by Aperocky »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #57
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…

> They are clearly signaling to the politicians that they better shield them from further liability or expect more of this behavior. It's not exactly hard to fight back against that. Make fires cost them enormous sums of money, and make outages also cost them enormous sums of money. Give them extremely clear monetary incentives to improve as many lines as possible and make shutdowns as small as possible.

Looks like you’re out of the loop. They are already in bankruptcy negotiation

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

#143

Post by redtexture »

williamDafoe wrote: post #82

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…

Gray Davis lost a recall election, was not impeached.

Schwarzenegger won in the replacement election, in a three way race with 48% of the vote.

2003 California gubernatorial recall election

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gubernatorial_recal...

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

#144

Post by dragonwriter »

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.

> My money is they get taken over by the state.

A number of their operations are being taken over by local public utilities in the current bankruptcy.

> Privatizing a utility was always a stupid move to begin with

PG&E isn't the result of privatizing a public utility, it's always been private.

> It's time we get to fixing all the damage Regan did to this country

If you mean Ronald Reagan, PG&E (or it's predecessors before various mergers and name changes) has been a private energy company since before he was born, so while there is lots you can blame him for, PG&E existing as a private energy firm isn't among them.

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

#145

Post by dragonwriter »

inferiorhuman wrote: post #117
rayiner wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how California’s HSR project recently exploded due to run away costs, calling the concern about the state take over more things “fear mongering” is pretty dense.

CAHSR died the death of a thousand paper cuts (e.g. SF and south bay routing, grade separation, signalling, trump). All of that created an untenable situation. The closest equivalent with municipal power is the gobs of money PG&E has spent trying to kill local and statewide public power legislation.

> CAHSR died the death of a thousand paper cuts

CAHSR is surprisingly alive and active for something that died.

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

#146

Post by dragonwriter »

navigatesol wrote: post #78
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…

> The stock rose 3% Friday After crashing 30%+ the day before. They are essentially bankrupt.

> They are essentially bankrupt.

No, they are actually bankrupt.

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

#147

Post by simpsond »

saalweachter wrote: post #45
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.

My general metric for whether something should be a function of government (or so heavily regulated by government that the distinction is moot) is "Does this business function best as a monopoly?" By default, I assume everything that does should be a government function, and everything that shouldn't should be regulated to avoid becoming a monopoly. So by default, I would assume that electricity distribution should b…

I agree that distribution should be gov regulated, and it is. I also agree that generation should be open market (it is, and those companies are still regulated by NERC, etc). That said, the distribution companies in CA are publicly traded... and that is a problem IMO.

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

#148

Post by simpsond »

chrisweekly wrote: post #48
patfla wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Need it be an all-or-nothing proposition? I imagine there being some particular places where it'd make good sense to bury some lines.

San Diego (SDGE) has a plan to bury most lines in the next 50 years. I feel like this would happen faster if they were not beholden to shareholders (NYSE:SRE). Distribution and the charges associated with it are government aided monopolies... Should a publicly traded company have a gov granted monopoly?

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

#149

Post by mehrdadn »

zaroth wrote: post #127

Judge William Alsup (remember him?) who is overseeing the PG&E case in San Francisco said about shutoffs; “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-...

William Haskell Alsup. :-)

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

#150

Post by rectang »

zaroth wrote: post #127

Judge William Alsup (remember him?) who is overseeing the PG&E case in San Francisco said about shutoffs; “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-...

Alsup is my favorite jurist. He's 74; may he preside forever.

The above quote benefits from a little more context. Alsup's point is that PG&E paid dividends while slashing the maintenance budget — and as a judge, he's willing to step in and say "that's not right".

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