11 ms·

Being mad about the past (and PG&E did bad things in the past) doesn't have any bearing on what they're doing now. Their equipment is poorly maintained. Fire

Being mad about the past (and PG&E did bad things in the past) doesn't have any bearing on what they're doing now. Their equipment is poorly maintained. Fire risk is high. What do you want them to do, keep running power in high risk areas, cause more fires, and go more bankrupt? CA taxpayers pay either way, either more disruption from power outages or more property destruction. Note I'm talking operationally. Clawing back money from executives and dissolving the company are not operational changes that address the risky equipment and dangerous conditions. Neither of those will address this year's or next year's problems, and that $100 million would pay for burying at most about 50 miles of transmission lines. As far as disabling the automatic reclosers, maybe they should, but I'm going to take a wild guess that that they don't do that for a reason, and not just that they are being stupid. Perhaps those breakers are tripped so frequently that not reclosing them automatically would lead to massive outages anyway, and those would be unplanned outages which would be more difficult for people to handle. Nobody is talking about letting them off the hook. They're in bankruptcy court and judge Alsup is taking things seriously. But being mad and assigning penalties isn't going to fix the fires or the blackouts any time soon. It would have been good years ago to dig through PG&E's financials and get mad years about their misuse of maintenance funds, but nobody did that, or at least nobody got sufficiently mad if they did. It's too late to be mad about prior malfeasance once a disaster materializes. Actual solutions would be to raise rates immediately by a lot, like 50-100%, and pay people starting now to go out and mitigate problems (clear vegetation) and start to coordinate repairs. Every $.01 (per kWh) rate increase generates $6 million per day assuming an average of 25,000 MW and no usage-based pricing (and completely inelastic demand). 25e6 kW times 24h times $.01/kWh

inferiorhuman 7y ago
What do you want them to do Easy. Step 1: the $100 million from the safety budget that got redirected to the CEO? Get it back. With interest. Use that $100+ million to start undergrounding lines. Step 2: disable the automatic reclosers like every other California utility does during fire season. Step 3: submit a dissolution plan to the CPUC
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  >Use that $100+ million to start undergrounding lines. That'll get them how much, maybe 10-20 miles? LADWP just paid $130 million for 11 miles of undergrounding (although it was a higher voltage line in an urban area which is a bit more expensive)
  - inferiorhuman 7y ago
    That'll get them how much, maybe 10-20 miles? Closer to 100 miles. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/pge-underground-power-lines-cost-14503808.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/pge-underground-power...
  - cgriswald 7y ago
    Even if that's all they get, they should think of it as a PR expense. I think spending it on clearing vegetation it would go farther in the short term and go a long way towards taking away the negative talking points about them. That bonus is a big sticking point with a lot of people.
cgriswald 7y ago
> What do you want them to do... 1. Deliver reliable, safely-transported power as nearly every other utility in the United States is able to do. 2. Fix the problem. 3. Handle the outages like professionals. Maintain lines of communications with customers. Keep information as accurate and up-to-date as possible. (1) has been made impossible for decades according to PG&E. (2) isn't really happening[0], fault PG&E. (3) might be completely outside their wheelhouse. [0]- https://www.kqed.org/news/11767619/monitors-spot-check-of-pge-wildfire-safety-effort-finds-missed-trees-recordkeeping-errors https://www.kqed.org/news/11767619/monitors-spot-check-of-pg... But sure, it's just the past people are angry about, so let's let PG&E off the hook.

inferiorhuman 7y ago

What do you want them to do Easy. Step 1: the $100 million from the safety budget that got redirected to the CEO? Get it back. With interest. Use that $100+ million to start undergrounding lines. Step 2: disable the automatic reclosers like every other California utility does during fire season. Step 3: submit a dissolution plan to the CPUC

Rebelgecko 7y ago
>Use that $100+ million to start undergrounding lines. That'll get them how much, maybe 10-20 miles? LADWP just paid $130 million for 11 miles of undergrounding (although it was a higher voltage line in an urban area which is a bit more expensive)
- inferiorhuman 7y ago
  That'll get them how much, maybe 10-20 miles? Closer to 100 miles. https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/pge-underground-power-lines-cost-14503808.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/pge-underground-power...
- cgriswald 7y ago
  Even if that's all they get, they should think of it as a PR expense. I think spending it on clearing vegetation it would go farther in the short term and go a long way towards taking away the negative talking points about them. That bonus is a big sticking point with a lot of people.

cgriswald 7y ago

> What do you want them to do... 1. Deliver reliable, safely-transported power as nearly every other utility in the United States is able to do. 2. Fix the problem. 3. Handle the outages like professionals. Maintain lines of communications with customers. Keep information as accurate and up-to-date as possible. (1) has been made impossible for decades according to PG&E. (2) isn't really happening[0], fault PG&E. (3) might be completely outside their wheelhouse. [0]- https://www.kqed.org/news/11767619/monitors-spot-check-of-pge-wildfire-safety-effort-finds-missed-trees-recordkeeping-errors https://www.kqed.org/news/11767619/monitors-spot-check-of-pg... But sure, it's just the past people are angry about, so let's let PG&E off the hook.