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They're not the only electric utility company in California - just the biggest by far. The second biggest is Southern California Edison, who by coincidence happ

by makomk 7y ago

They're not the only electric utility company in California - just the biggest by far. The second biggest is Southern California Edison, who by coincidence happen to have caused what was apparently the second largest wildfire in modern Californian history (Thomas fire in 2017). It sounds like their fire prevention shutoffs haven't been going so well either: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/southern-california-edison-says-it-reenergized-power-line-before-start-of-maria-fire https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/southern... All of the other Californian power companies are much smaller, and I'm not sure they're doing massively better. According to a New York Times article a few months back, the example state officials have pointed to of what PG&E should be doing, San Diego Gas & Electric, only managed to cause "far fewer fires than PG&E" thanks to their own aggressive monitoring and targetted blackouts - which is to say that they're still causing fires - and they're far smaller than PG&E.

inferiorhuman 7y ago
They're not the only electric utility company in California - just the biggest by far. The second biggest is Southern California Edison, who by coincidence happen to have caused what was apparently the second largest wildfire in modern Californian history (Thomas fire in 2017). Edison settled the lawsuits over the Thomas fire without admitting guilt. To me that seems like a good indication that there was a much less clear case for negligence than there is for PG&E. Guess who started the largest fire… It sounds like their fire prevention shutoffs haven't been going so well either: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/southern.. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/southern.... Edison started a fire as they started to turn electricity back on. How many did PG&E start while the power was out? The last count I'd heard was five. San Diego Gas & Electric, only managed to cause "far fewer fires than PG&E" thanks to their own aggressive monitoring and targetted blackouts - which is to say that they're still causing fires - and they're far smaller than PG&E. Maybe it's time to shrink PG&E down to a manageable size? I'm not suggesting the other utilities are particularly well behaved, rather PG&E is worse. Take, for instance, fire prevention efforts. Edison disables their automatic reclosers during fire season. PG&E? lol. They're thinking about it.
- danans 7y ago
  > Maybe it's time to shrink PG&E down to a manageable size? You mean shrinking the service area? If so, some other entity will have to take over distribution in the areas removed from PG&E. It's not like those areas are going to go off-grid. If those entities are locally owned and controlled (i.e. municipal power, as some CA cities have) it might make those more incentivized to proactively deal with maintenance issues - after all - people don't generally want to endanger their neighbors. But if it's just a slightly smaller investor-owned utility, it's not clear that they'll be incentivized any differently than PG&E is. And remember that PG&E's size is part of what enabled it to achieve economies of scale, which in turn results in higher profits and dividends for investors. Finally, even if you shrink PG&E, you still have the problem of maintaining transmission lines, which have been responsible for starting a number of fires. Some entity has to be responsible for maintaining those.

by makomk 7y ago

inferiorhuman 7y ago

They're not the only electric utility company in California - just the biggest by far. The second biggest is Southern California Edison, who by coincidence happen to have caused what was apparently the second largest wildfire in modern Californian history (Thomas fire in 2017). Edison settled the lawsuits over the Thomas fire without admitting guilt. To me that seems like a good indication that there was a much less clear case for negligence than there is for PG&E. Guess who started the largest fire… It sounds like their fire prevention shutoffs haven't been going so well either: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/southern.. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-11-01/southern.... Edison started a fire as they started to turn electricity back on. How many did PG&E start while the power was out? The last count I'd heard was five. San Diego Gas & Electric, only managed to cause "far fewer fires than PG&E" thanks to their own aggressive monitoring and targetted blackouts - which is to say that they're still causing fires - and they're far smaller than PG&E. Maybe it's time to shrink PG&E down to a manageable size? I'm not suggesting the other utilities are particularly well behaved, rather PG&E is worse. Take, for instance, fire prevention efforts. Edison disables their automatic reclosers during fire season. PG&E? lol. They're thinking about it.

danans 7y ago
> Maybe it's time to shrink PG&E down to a manageable size? You mean shrinking the service area? If so, some other entity will have to take over distribution in the areas removed from PG&E. It's not like those areas are going to go off-grid. If those entities are locally owned and controlled (i.e. municipal power, as some CA cities have) it might make those more incentivized to proactively deal with maintenance issues - after all - people don't generally want to endanger their neighbors. But if it's just a slightly smaller investor-owned utility, it's not clear that they'll be incentivized any differently than PG&E is. And remember that PG&E's size is part of what enabled it to achieve economies of scale, which in turn results in higher profits and dividends for investors. Finally, even if you shrink PG&E, you still have the problem of maintaining transmission lines, which have been responsible for starting a number of fires. Some entity has to be responsible for maintaining those.