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In this situation, I feel like it's a case of "don't blame the player, blame the game". Californian law has been structured such that if PG&E maintains equipmen

In this situation, I feel like it's a case of "don't blame the player, blame the game". Californian law has been structured such that if PG&E maintains equipment with best-in-class industry practises....it is still deemed to be responsible for a fire if it started at one of their sites. So what would you do? Shut the thing down...as to not cause any more fires... the fire services has shown itself not capable of containing the blazes and the weather conditions are terrible so...of course you blame the big evil company ....I'm not saying PG&E should take no blame, they should where merited but I feel like the public narrative has gone too far in one direction.

SaltyBackendGuy 7y ago
> don't blame the player, blame the game I don't think this is a good excuse when dealing with public safety. We should, however, acknowledge all parties culpable. "Over the past decade the company contributed around 245 times to political action committees which in turn made their own donations." [0] The government is also to blame. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/pge-california-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/pge-california-politic... More coverage. [1] https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/governor-newsom-most-state-lawmakers-took-money-from-convicted-felon-pge/103-2414790f-3a19-4411-92c2-fe23b519d646 https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/governor-n... (sorry for the ads) [2] https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article228836074.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler... Edit: Formatting
- Blackstone4 7y ago
  My statement "don't blame the player, blame the game" is clearly a gross oversimplification. The damage caused by CA forest fires is a complicated multi-factor problem...contributing factors include the weather, PG&E maineance standards, politicians, fire service, and above all a lack of ability to adapt to changing weather conditions. I feel like the public narrative is hindering possible solutions.
  - danans 7y ago
    You left out one major player: investors. Investor owned utilities like PG&E are considered a rock solid place to put your retirement funds to get a predictable rate of return. As an investor with a short term perspective, I'd be very opposed to PGE reducing or eliminating my dividend in order to fund safety and fire maintenance, i.e. give me the money now, fires be damned. If I'm giving up a dividend, I'd rather invest in a growth stock. That's likely the force at the root of why there is so much pressure for profit over safety. The business decisions are optimized for the demands of investors, and the total magnitude of the dividend paid to investors like many of us probably dwarfs the bonuses paid to the execs. That system was working fine (and in lower fire risk service areas, like most areas east of the Rocky mountains, it still is) until the true unmodeled risks of poor maintenance and climate change finally manifested, and here we are on the other side. California is a matchbox, and barring major changes in energy generation and distribution technology and infrastructure to lower the risk, it will be risky to deliver electricity here no matter who is providing it, be that PGE or a hypothetical state owned utility. The benefit of the latter is that it is freed from the financial obligation to investors, and can focus on safety and delivery.
    - inferiorhuman 7y ago
      You left out one major player: investors. Investor owned utilities like PG&E are considered a rock solid place to put your retirement funds to get a predictable rate of return. As an investor with a short term perspective, I'd be very opposed to PGE reducing or eliminating my dividend in order to fund safety and fire maintenance, i.e. give me the money now, fires be damned. If I'm giving up a dividend, I'd rather invest in a growth stock. It's not just the dividends. It's the $100 million from their safety budget that they blew on executive compensation. There's also the hundreds of millions of dollars annually that PG&E is spending on stock buybacks every year. California is a matchbox, and barring major changes in energy generation and distribution technology and infrastructure to lower the risk, it will be risky to deliver electricity here no matter who is providing it, be that PGE or a hypothetical state owned utility. The benefit of the latter is that it is freed from the financial obligation to investors, and can focus on safety and delivery. It's risky to deliver electricity anywhere. PG&E is reckless and dishonest above and beyond the norm.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  It's the only way to solve a problem when new players are free to enter at any time. (So, this one time things may be different, but it's not a certainty.) Of course, part of the game rules must be player punishment, otherwise the game is severely broken. But yes, you don't fix anything by focusing on the players.
dfsegoat 7y ago
Sonoma County, CA here. Currently under the power shutoff and went through both the Tubbs fire in 2017 and the Kincade fire just last month: It goes beyond the line maintenance issue - that is really a red herring IMO: Clearing all fuels X-meters around lines doesn't help when you have hundreds of acres of fuel that hasn't burned in almost 80 years on either side of it, as we do here. The bigger issue is that California has gradually seen a decrease in controlled burns in these areas. A controlled burn is a fire set by Cal-Fire/Forestry managers in order to mitigate fuel buildup in fireprone areas. When I was a kid, it was common to have pretty large controlled burns. My father was involved in setting them up. Anecdotally, in speaking with him, as more people (reaD: money) moved into the area, there was more and more uproar about controlled burns - eventually they just tailed off because people would be scared, complain about the smoke, nuisance etc. TL;DR: Maintaining the lines and clearing brush doesn't matter when you have thousands of acres of fuel that hasn't burned in 60-80 years. That is a state/regional management issue. And when you buildup that much potential energy in an area, the laws of thermodynamics tend to take care of it.
- francisofascii 7y ago
  Is it a situation in which the state would have to step in and force a controlled burn on a municipality? Are there viable alternatives to controlled burns?
fzeroracer 7y ago
PG&E has not been maintaining equipment. That's the entire crux of the issue. They have been found legally negligent with maintenance. I'm not sure why people keep pushing this narrative about PG&E doing everything right when it was clear they did many things wrong. They've been found criminally negligent multiple times now on separate occasions.
- snagglegaggle 7y ago
  Companies do not make decisions. People do. So who was criminally negligent?
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    PG&E, repeatedly, as a decided matter of law, over a period of decades. This isn't even a question. It's a matter of public record.
    - snagglegaggle 7y ago
      A charter filed with the state can't make decisions was my point. That, miraculously, no one has really been held liable is a travesty.
- Blackstone4 7y ago
  I feel like you are confusing the issue here. The law states that they are legally to blame no matter what condition their equipment is in. Therefore it would make sense to temporarily shut down the system. As to whether or not their equipment caused the large fires is another issue and another discussion altogether.
  - fzeroracer 7y ago
    No, the law has been (and the court case has been linked here before) is that falsifying inspection reports and not actually performing your due diligence in maintaining your power lines and what not opens you up to liability. The entire reason why they have to shut down their systems is because for years they've been making shit up in order to avoid having to do actual maintenance. And now rather than performing the proper safety inspections and maintenance, they're shutting down the systems due to their prior screwups.
diffeomorphism 7y ago
That is the narrative PG&E is trying to push but I am not buying it. What seems to be the case instead is that "best-in-class industry practises" would be completely fine but are deemed to be too expensive. So their choices are: - Actually employ best practices. - half-ass it and possibly be punished for it (too risky). - Moan loudly about how horrible everything is, shutdown much more than necessary and wail how you are "forced" to do that. If you are obnoxious enough about it for long enough some legislation will be passed to allow you to half-ass it. -
- Blackstone4 7y ago
  Ask yourself, what does the law incentivize in a situation like this? I'm not saying that PG&E is not to blame...it may well be that they've done a bad job but it's not black & white. I feel like the opinions you outlined above reflect the public narrative… that PG&E are the devil and 100% to blame for everything when the fires were caused by multiple factors…i.e. PG&E equipment, weather conditions, fire service etc. Public narrative is a gross oversimplification and those in a position of power control that narrative (i.e. the politicians).
- dahdum 7y ago
  Those best practices are deemed too expensive by the CPUC, who has authority over the PG&E budget and retail rates. PG&E is legally allowed only a small profit as a percentage of revenue. Without it they couldn’t raise private capital, and would require public funds directly. They have every incentive to spend as much money on maintenance as is required, assuming the politicians allow the rates to rise.
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    PG&E is legally allowed only a small profit as a percentage of revenue. Without it they couldn’t raise private capital, and would require public funds directly. They have every incentive to spend as much money on maintenance as is required, assuming the politicians allow the rates to rise. They also have an obligation to spend their safety budget ON SAFETY RELATED ACTIVITIES. Instead they blew their wad on a cash bonus for the CEO. If they can't find the money to maintain their equipment maybe it's time to claw back the $100,000,000 they stole.
conistonwater 7y ago
Elsewhere in the thread somebody linked to the court order (http://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/2019/Alsup-PGE-01.09.19.pdf http://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/2019/Alsup...), and I don't see how this explanation can possibly be correct. In particular, (a) PG&E has a history of falsifying inspection reports, (b) PG&E must keep power lines clear of trees, (c) the power lines can't arc during high winds, (d) because of the history of falsified inspections PG&E must re-inspect things. These terms don't seem particularly onerous, especially with respect to making power lines safe during high winds---I assume that's the sort of thing every energy company does already anyway. In particular, what do you mean, in this context, when you say "best-in-class industry practises"?
- Blackstone4 7y ago
  Note I said, "if". I was refering to the law and what would be the implications even if they maintain best-in-class industry practises. This wasn't so much a statement about PG&E as it was about CA law.
wcarron 7y ago
> the fire services has shown itself not capable of containing the blazes You realize how large these fires are, right? It is an incredible achievement that they are contained even a little bit. These fires can be so large and burn so hot that they create their own weather patterns over hundreds, even thousands of square miles. Saying "fire service has show itself not capable of containing" fires is nearly as ignorant as blaming beach life guards for being "incapable of containing a hurricane storm surge"
- neuronflux 7y ago
  And yet, that's the job of fire fighters. Lifeguards don't contain storms...
- dfsegoat 7y ago
  I beg to differ: Fire services saved my town just last month when the largest fire in our counties history was set to erase it from the map. They can make a stand where they need to if they have time. Source: "Inside the fight to save Windsor from the Kincade Fire" [1] 1 - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10278596-181/inside-the-fight-to-save https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10278596-181/inside-the-f...

SaltyBackendGuy 7y ago

> don't blame the player, blame the game I don't think this is a good excuse when dealing with public safety. We should, however, acknowledge all parties culpable. "Over the past decade the company contributed around 245 times to political action committees which in turn made their own donations." [0] The government is also to blame. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/pge-california-politics.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/23/us/pge-california-politic... More coverage. [1] https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/governor-newsom-most-state-lawmakers-took-money-from-convicted-felon-pge/103-2414790f-3a19-4411-92c2-fe23b519d646 https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/governor-n... (sorry for the ads) [2] https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article228836074.html https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-aler... Edit: Formatting

Blackstone4 7y ago
My statement "don't blame the player, blame the game" is clearly a gross oversimplification. The damage caused by CA forest fires is a complicated multi-factor problem...contributing factors include the weather, PG&E maineance standards, politicians, fire service, and above all a lack of ability to adapt to changing weather conditions. I feel like the public narrative is hindering possible solutions.
- danans 7y ago
  You left out one major player: investors. Investor owned utilities like PG&E are considered a rock solid place to put your retirement funds to get a predictable rate of return. As an investor with a short term perspective, I'd be very opposed to PGE reducing or eliminating my dividend in order to fund safety and fire maintenance, i.e. give me the money now, fires be damned. If I'm giving up a dividend, I'd rather invest in a growth stock. That's likely the force at the root of why there is so much pressure for profit over safety. The business decisions are optimized for the demands of investors, and the total magnitude of the dividend paid to investors like many of us probably dwarfs the bonuses paid to the execs. That system was working fine (and in lower fire risk service areas, like most areas east of the Rocky mountains, it still is) until the true unmodeled risks of poor maintenance and climate change finally manifested, and here we are on the other side. California is a matchbox, and barring major changes in energy generation and distribution technology and infrastructure to lower the risk, it will be risky to deliver electricity here no matter who is providing it, be that PGE or a hypothetical state owned utility. The benefit of the latter is that it is freed from the financial obligation to investors, and can focus on safety and delivery.
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    You left out one major player: investors. Investor owned utilities like PG&E are considered a rock solid place to put your retirement funds to get a predictable rate of return. As an investor with a short term perspective, I'd be very opposed to PGE reducing or eliminating my dividend in order to fund safety and fire maintenance, i.e. give me the money now, fires be damned. If I'm giving up a dividend, I'd rather invest in a growth stock. It's not just the dividends. It's the $100 million from their safety budget that they blew on executive compensation. There's also the hundreds of millions of dollars annually that PG&E is spending on stock buybacks every year. California is a matchbox, and barring major changes in energy generation and distribution technology and infrastructure to lower the risk, it will be risky to deliver electricity here no matter who is providing it, be that PGE or a hypothetical state owned utility. The benefit of the latter is that it is freed from the financial obligation to investors, and can focus on safety and delivery. It's risky to deliver electricity anywhere. PG&E is reckless and dishonest above and beyond the norm.
marcosdumay 7y ago
It's the only way to solve a problem when new players are free to enter at any time. (So, this one time things may be different, but it's not a certainty.) Of course, part of the game rules must be player punishment, otherwise the game is severely broken. But yes, you don't fix anything by focusing on the players.

dfsegoat 7y ago

Sonoma County, CA here. Currently under the power shutoff and went through both the Tubbs fire in 2017 and the Kincade fire just last month: It goes beyond the line maintenance issue - that is really a red herring IMO: Clearing all fuels X-meters around lines doesn't help when you have hundreds of acres of fuel that hasn't burned in almost 80 years on either side of it, as we do here. The bigger issue is that California has gradually seen a decrease in controlled burns in these areas. A controlled burn is a fire set by Cal-Fire/Forestry managers in order to mitigate fuel buildup in fireprone areas. When I was a kid, it was common to have pretty large controlled burns. My father was involved in setting them up. Anecdotally, in speaking with him, as more people (reaD: money) moved into the area, there was more and more uproar about controlled burns - eventually they just tailed off because people would be scared, complain about the smoke, nuisance etc. TL;DR: Maintaining the lines and clearing brush doesn't matter when you have thousands of acres of fuel that hasn't burned in 60-80 years. That is a state/regional management issue. And when you buildup that much potential energy in an area, the laws of thermodynamics tend to take care of it.

francisofascii 7y ago
Is it a situation in which the state would have to step in and force a controlled burn on a municipality? Are there viable alternatives to controlled burns?

fzeroracer 7y ago

PG&E has not been maintaining equipment. That's the entire crux of the issue. They have been found legally negligent with maintenance. I'm not sure why people keep pushing this narrative about PG&E doing everything right when it was clear they did many things wrong. They've been found criminally negligent multiple times now on separate occasions.

snagglegaggle 7y ago
Companies do not make decisions. People do. So who was criminally negligent?
- cgriswald 7y ago
  PG&E, repeatedly, as a decided matter of law, over a period of decades. This isn't even a question. It's a matter of public record.
  - snagglegaggle 7y ago
    A charter filed with the state can't make decisions was my point. That, miraculously, no one has really been held liable is a travesty.
Blackstone4 7y ago
I feel like you are confusing the issue here. The law states that they are legally to blame no matter what condition their equipment is in. Therefore it would make sense to temporarily shut down the system. As to whether or not their equipment caused the large fires is another issue and another discussion altogether.
- fzeroracer 7y ago
  No, the law has been (and the court case has been linked here before) is that falsifying inspection reports and not actually performing your due diligence in maintaining your power lines and what not opens you up to liability. The entire reason why they have to shut down their systems is because for years they've been making shit up in order to avoid having to do actual maintenance. And now rather than performing the proper safety inspections and maintenance, they're shutting down the systems due to their prior screwups.

diffeomorphism 7y ago

That is the narrative PG&E is trying to push but I am not buying it. What seems to be the case instead is that "best-in-class industry practises" would be completely fine but are deemed to be too expensive. So their choices are: - Actually employ best practices. - half-ass it and possibly be punished for it (too risky). - Moan loudly about how horrible everything is, shutdown much more than necessary and wail how you are "forced" to do that. If you are obnoxious enough about it for long enough some legislation will be passed to allow you to half-ass it. -

Blackstone4 7y ago
Ask yourself, what does the law incentivize in a situation like this? I'm not saying that PG&E is not to blame...it may well be that they've done a bad job but it's not black & white. I feel like the opinions you outlined above reflect the public narrative… that PG&E are the devil and 100% to blame for everything when the fires were caused by multiple factors…i.e. PG&E equipment, weather conditions, fire service etc. Public narrative is a gross oversimplification and those in a position of power control that narrative (i.e. the politicians).
dahdum 7y ago
Those best practices are deemed too expensive by the CPUC, who has authority over the PG&E budget and retail rates. PG&E is legally allowed only a small profit as a percentage of revenue. Without it they couldn’t raise private capital, and would require public funds directly. They have every incentive to spend as much money on maintenance as is required, assuming the politicians allow the rates to rise.
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  PG&E is legally allowed only a small profit as a percentage of revenue. Without it they couldn’t raise private capital, and would require public funds directly. They have every incentive to spend as much money on maintenance as is required, assuming the politicians allow the rates to rise. They also have an obligation to spend their safety budget ON SAFETY RELATED ACTIVITIES. Instead they blew their wad on a cash bonus for the CEO. If they can't find the money to maintain their equipment maybe it's time to claw back the $100,000,000 they stole.

conistonwater 7y ago

Elsewhere in the thread somebody linked to the court order (http://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/2019/Alsup-PGE-01.09.19.pdf http://s1.q4cdn.com/880135780/files/doc_downloads/2019/Alsup...), and I don't see how this explanation can possibly be correct. In particular, (a) PG&E has a history of falsifying inspection reports, (b) PG&E must keep power lines clear of trees, (c) the power lines can't arc during high winds, (d) because of the history of falsified inspections PG&E must re-inspect things. These terms don't seem particularly onerous, especially with respect to making power lines safe during high winds---I assume that's the sort of thing every energy company does already anyway. In particular, what do you mean, in this context, when you say "best-in-class industry practises"?

Blackstone4 7y ago
Note I said, "if". I was refering to the law and what would be the implications even if they maintain best-in-class industry practises. This wasn't so much a statement about PG&E as it was about CA law.

wcarron 7y ago

> the fire services has shown itself not capable of containing the blazes You realize how large these fires are, right? It is an incredible achievement that they are contained even a little bit. These fires can be so large and burn so hot that they create their own weather patterns over hundreds, even thousands of square miles. Saying "fire service has show itself not capable of containing" fires is nearly as ignorant as blaming beach life guards for being "incapable of containing a hurricane storm surge"

neuronflux 7y ago
And yet, that's the job of fire fighters. Lifeguards don't contain storms...
dfsegoat 7y ago
I beg to differ: Fire services saved my town just last month when the largest fire in our counties history was set to erase it from the map. They can make a stand where they need to if they have time. Source: "Inside the fight to save Windsor from the Kincade Fire" [1] 1 - https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10278596-181/inside-the-fight-to-save https://www.pressdemocrat.com/news/10278596-181/inside-the-f...