Featured PG&E bankruptcy

when corporations go off the rails, the common people always end up paying

 

irony of ironies .... no one wants to hear someone on a 'rant' - but it wasn't too long ago i'd posted on utility corruption - from the millions their board allocates to their greedy pocket lining selves - to charging solar home owners (that help stabilize poorly maintained local equipment) fees, corruptly rationalized as necessary because "PV owners don't pay their fair share - so poor grama has to get her rates hiked" ..... to the millions allocated to lobbies for status quo regs - so the utility doesn't have to remove / replace antiquated equipment - to NOT even having to move old wooden power polls farther off roads & highways - where they are much more likely to NOT get run into - bringing down hot wires into dry California brush. POOF - fire - go figure. Nope - Cali can fund an over-budget bullet train - but money to stop likely fire deaths? Nope. Thank you corrupt so Cal Edison & PG & I .... as well as Moon Beam Jerry Brown ..... a winning combo.
(stepping away from the pulpit now)
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Aren't all big corporations corruption in one way or the other?

 

iduno but that just reminded me, during the huge earthquake in Ventura County not too many years back the insurance industry tried the same crap. They lined their own Pockets, used up all the money, then the earthquake struck & the ins industry across the board declared bankruptcy so the homeowners had to wait - some longer than a decade to even get any repairs .... at least those who had earthquake insurance ..... which costs up the wazoo.
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As someone who has the “privilege” of having PG&E as backup power (we have a solar array), I’m not surprised given their tacts on employee pay as well as not addressing root causes of failures or learning from past events.

When they pay their employees 25-30% more and invest in employee satisfaction rather than in infrastructure and solving large picture problems, we are seeing what happens when that occurs. There is less available funding.

We’ll see what changes, but unfortunately probably not much. Just glad we put the solar panels up to avoid future PG&E rate hikes to pay for their “excellent service”.

 

Sound like another case of bad management to me.

 

If you noticed I am down on big business I am because I believe they are the cause of a lot of the problems this country has had in the past and the cause of most of our wars, not to get political though.

 

I watched the vice episode (HBO) on this yesterday. It didn't fully answer the question, but PG&E is one of the 4 companies that caused the california black outs in 2000/2001 (not in vice this go around), and looks like their procedures contributed to at least 3 california fires costing billions of dollars.

PG&E put out notices that they may have to black out areas the day before. They had warning, and they did not cut power. The episode pointed out that if not for the extreme conditions partially caused by climate change, partially caused by people building in the fire zone, the damage would have been much less. California's version of deregulation really has not worked, and PG&E really deserves to have a total management change or be forced to be dissolved.

One of the environmentalists suggested battery back up and solar panels in the fire zones so that black outs when needed are an easier decision. This has nothing to do with the power in the bay area where most of the pg&e plug-in customers live other than the company may raise their rates. It has to do with the management of transmission and black outs, and pg&e has shown on at least 4 occasions that they are not competent.

 

Not defending PG&E. But that isn't the whole story. A month or two before the big fire last year they did cut power to a different location just in case and you can imagine the uproar that occurred. I read somewhere that the number of fires caused by power line failure per year is about 500 in PG&E's area. So what happens is that once a fire starts the high winds, brush and dense forest just burn and burn.
There is no excuse for them not doing more...but a lot of it is due to building in forests, inadequate roads near the houses, bad forest management. There is maybe some climate change factor too. But the outgoing governor did a poor job on all the other things and just threw up his hands and said climate change caused this -- it is the new normal, get used to it.

Note to new governor: We could stop using fossil fuels worldwide tomorrow and we'd still need to manage the forests better for 100 years to get back to "normal."

It you look at pictures of Yosemite from 100+ years ago you'll see there are 1/3 to 1/2 as many trees. We need to either thin some of the trees (hey -- they are renewable) or they are going to burn down every so often. So don't live near them.

PG&E isn't causing the problem...they are just amplifying it.

Glad I have solar...my rates otherwise would have gone up over 40% since I installed them 4 years ago.

[/rant]

Mike

 

Yes and I pointed out in the non truncated copy

I image the uproar from the power outages would have been much lower than that of the 83 killed and 14,000 homes destroyed in the campfire. This is both a failure of government in the state of california and of PG&E management. I'd say forest management at least according to vice was not really related to the problem even though some in DC want to point there fingers there. There is a blame game, but Sacramento and PG&E are both to blame.

If we look at the historical climate record the normal that those advocating in california was never normal, there was a wet period and lots of droughts. Absolutely non fossil fuel would not change that.

Or if you do build buildings that don't burn (brick, concrete, metal) and expect power outages so have back up batteries and generators or solar.

Both PG&E and the government of california are making the problem worse! Its the same sentiment, but phased a little differently so that we don't make excuses to just raise rates when PG&E or SCE screw up, as they both have done quite a bit.

But this is part of California's mismanagement of utility regulation. In the last 4 years power costs should not have gone up. Glad you are escaping the incompetence of the state and big publicly traded utilities. I got out of it when I moved back out of California.

 

Who approves the rates that blend into the budget that drives the capital expenditures for improvements? Appointed by who? People want low rates so guess what happens.

 

Costco provides a living wage - great products - warranty & service for a great price, even here in SoCal. So it is a doable goal. So all you are really saying is that regulatory commissions & governmental entities can't do it - nor can their contractors.
Other peoples money - that's the dif
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Will not make excuses for the incompetence of PG&E. But not sure they are worse than the majority of California's utilities.

Geography/biomes are a big problem for PG&E. Their total service area is about half of the state with a very large percent of forestry (conifer and oak woodland) therein. Their forest fire risk potential is far greater than the next CA utility. California/CPUC should be doing much more to properly manage all of the state's utilities.

 

Maybe ½ the state - but the central valley is pretty barren - so you can scratch that ½ part off, and much of the coastal area as well because it receives a decent amount of rain - especially above the Bay Area. Maybe look at it the opposite way. With such a huge area, they have more customers' money that ought to have gone into decent infrastructure. Think how much property could have been spared, & lives as well - if they have simply done what was suggested decades ago. Stop putting so many power lines above ground. More costly up front, but not in the long run.
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Already ignored the central valley. Posted the second map above to show that most of the inhabited forested areas are in PG&E territory. That’s a lot of dry fuel. Also dry in the non-PG&E southern half, but relatively little fuel there.

Also, much more expensive for PG&E to run lines underground with low population density where the fires occur. It’s a problem the other state utilities have much less to deal with.