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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

#111

Post by svaha1728 »

cagenut wrote: post #7

IMHO finding problems with how PG&E handled this will be much like looking through your graphs and logs after an outage. When you go looking for trouble, you find it, but most of what you see, despite being true and bad, is just red-herrings and statistical noise. The real causal factors are systemic and so deeply baked in that its very important we find scape goats lest we have to come to grips with what a 2C future…

Completely agree. It is very unlikely that a utility will step in to fill PG&E’s shoes. Infrastructure, generally speaking, is more expensive to maintain than we realize.

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

#113

Post by inferiorhuman »

sokoloff wrote: post #86
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…

> In 2017 the company killed thousands of customers 47, not "thousands", assuming all the 2017 wildfire deaths were attributable to PG&E. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_California_wildfires

In addition to the forty-odd folks killed in 2017, PG&E started the the Camp Fire (2018) where 85 people died, one is still missing, and 17 were injured. Who knows how many will get sick from the chemicals leeching out of the plastic water infrastructure and into the water itself.

In 2015, PG&E only killed two people (Butte Fire).

PG&E also poisoned a few hundred in Hinkley (the town Erin Brockovich made famous). PG&E killed another 8 in San Bruno (and injured 58.

Oh gosh, let's not forget the Sierra Fire of 1994.

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/PG-E-Guilty-In-1994-Sier...

Edit: Oh gosh, downvotes. Do you guys really need links to all the blood on PG&E's hands?

https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10160680-181/the-camp-fir...

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

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

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)

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

#114

Post by Simulacra »

williamDafoe wrote: post #80
thereisnospork wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Remember that CA impeached the governor Gray Davis in 2000 for power outages .. I bet that PG&e is thinking of doing the same thing today to Gavin Newsom!

Point of clarification: It was a recall, not impeachment. Impeachment is an act of the legislature, recall is an act of the voters.[0]

[0].https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gubernatorial_recal...

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

#115

Post by heartbreak »

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…

ERCOT prices in August were $9/kWH for several hours of the month, and the average rate for my load zone was well over $1/kWH. Are you sure $0.22/kWH is the “highest prices”?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/texas-pow...

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

#116

Post by Overtonwindow »

aodin wrote: post #109
navigatesol wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

PG&E filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protections on Jan. 29th of this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Compa...

So Will this make it worse?

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

#117

Post by inferiorhuman »

rayiner wrote: post #106
gjouft55 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#118

Post by inferiorhuman »

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...

Private utilites work just fine in every other state.

Do they? The feds already had to step in when private companies deemed large swaths of the United States unprofitable (see also: rural electrification and the TVA).

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

#120

Post by gjouft55 »

rayiner wrote: post #106
gjouft55 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

“Given my cherry picked anecdote, gfy.” says yet another random fart of the universe no one will remember.
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