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Utilities are weird, I could easily be wrong/offbase but going after them legally always feels vaguely like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The threat

Utilities are weird, I could easily be wrong/offbase but going after them legally always feels vaguely like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The threat of inverse condemnation just feels like short term thinking of how you interact with your utility. Forget return on equity and shareholder returns, if you really hold a utility liable like that, not only would PG&E probably go away, I don't know how you'd get another utility to step in. I seriously think you'd need some giant Cal co-op, or you're going to have to charge seriously high prices to make it worth the risk, or go gridless, which sounds cool but infeasible at that kind of scale if you had to do it in a couple years.

EADGBE 8y ago
There's plenty of places that have no other option. They have to use said utility company in order to get utilities. Example, https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2014/02/06/commission-report-puts-blame-on-mge-in.html https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2014/02/06/commi... I guarantee you that JJ's restuarant in this example is still using MGE for their gas. They have no other choice here. Even though it killed one of their employees through negligence.
olliej 8y ago
> Utilities are weird, I could easily be wrong/offbase but going after them legally always feels vaguely like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The threat of inverse condemnation just feels like short term thinking of how you interact with your utility. No. The short term thinking is saying "here, private corporation, fell free to turn a profit by not maintaining your assets in the knowledge that you will be bailed out when you burn down a city". The long term effect of this is that tax payers do the following: * Pay the "profitable" corporation to receive what ever utility it is providing. * Pay vastly more than it would have cost to simply maintain the utility when recovering from whatever disaster is caused by the utility not maintaining their system. In the absence of liability for failure to maintain their network, a utility has (according to modern corporate policy) a /duty/ to not maintain their network, so they can maximize the money they give to their shareholders. > if you really hold a utility liable like that, not only would PG&E probably go away, I don't know how you'd get another utility to step in. You mean like an actual public entity? As has been the case in most countries for a long long time? > or you're going to have to charge seriously high prices to make it worth the risk No. If a company needs liability insurance at a feasible price they'd need to actively work to mitigate risk - private insurance would be a good hammer for that as failing to maintain your lines and equipment would increase the costs of your insurance. The other problem with this is it assumes that the cost of "seriously high prices", is higher than the cost for tax payers when they are having to pay to deal with whatever disasters and recovery costs directly.
jartelt 8y ago
PG&E would likely just go threw bankruptcy again like it did in 2001. Then, it would come back and operate again. The primary loses would be the PG&E shareholders not necessarily all the PG&e rate payers.

EADGBE 8y ago

There's plenty of places that have no other option. They have to use said utility company in order to get utilities. Example, https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2014/02/06/commission-report-puts-blame-on-mge-in.html https://www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/news/2014/02/06/commi... I guarantee you that JJ's restuarant in this example is still using MGE for their gas. They have no other choice here. Even though it killed one of their employees through negligence.

olliej 8y ago

> Utilities are weird, I could easily be wrong/offbase but going after them legally always feels vaguely like cutting off your nose to spite your face. The threat of inverse condemnation just feels like short term thinking of how you interact with your utility. No. The short term thinking is saying "here, private corporation, fell free to turn a profit by not maintaining your assets in the knowledge that you will be bailed out when you burn down a city". The long term effect of this is that tax payers do the following: * Pay the "profitable" corporation to receive what ever utility it is providing. * Pay vastly more than it would have cost to simply maintain the utility when recovering from whatever disaster is caused by the utility not maintaining their system. In the absence of liability for failure to maintain their network, a utility has (according to modern corporate policy) a /duty/ to not maintain their network, so they can maximize the money they give to their shareholders. > if you really hold a utility liable like that, not only would PG&E probably go away, I don't know how you'd get another utility to step in. You mean like an actual public entity? As has been the case in most countries for a long long time? > or you're going to have to charge seriously high prices to make it worth the risk No. If a company needs liability insurance at a feasible price they'd need to actively work to mitigate risk - private insurance would be a good hammer for that as failing to maintain your lines and equipment would increase the costs of your insurance. The other problem with this is it assumes that the cost of "seriously high prices", is higher than the cost for tax payers when they are having to pay to deal with whatever disasters and recovery costs directly.

jartelt 8y ago

PG&E would likely just go threw bankruptcy again like it did in 2001. Then, it would come back and operate again. The primary loses would be the PG&E shareholders not necessarily all the PG&e rate payers.