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in California, currently famous as a wildfire center of the West, the local power company (12 million customers?) was required to run power to rural areas long

in California, currently famous as a wildfire center of the West, the local power company (12 million customers?) was required to run power to rural areas long ago. About 40,000 miles of power lines in California are using cable quality from the 1940s, which are illegal to use now in any way. But the cost to replace those lines directly is not eligible for rate increases to customers, so they stay as they are. Yet cutting trees is a cost that is eligible for pay rate increases to customers (roughly, legalese warning).. so more and more trees are cut. Surprise! (not) Meanwhile "look birds are doing it" is in the headlines.. There is a political panic about this in Sacramento so in 2022, there are some changes, but the details of the wire quality are in this report: A Study of Risk Assesment and PG&E's GRC ; Liberty Consulting Group 2013

asdff 4y ago
I'm of the opinion its only a matter of time before PG&E and other power companies are seized by the state. What a boon that would be for those under private electric, considering I suffer through no rolling outages at all from public electric in CA. Currently PG&E are paying $25 billion to bury 10,000 miles of line (1). Meanwhile in 2021 the state of california had a 75 billion dollar surplus (2), and in 2022 the state had a 100 billion dollar surplus (3). The state could bury those 40,000 miles with one year's worth of budgetary surplus and no increase to rate payers (how PG&E is coming up with their $25 billion). 1. https://www.kcra.com/article/moving-pge-power-lines-underground-cost-who-foots-the-bill/39960842 https://www.kcra.com/article/moving-pge-power-lines-undergro... 2. https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/05/10/california-has-a-staggering-757b-budget-surplus-1381195 https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/05/10/... 3. https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/06/california-budget-surplus-explained/ https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/06/california-budget-su...
- mulmen 4y ago
  How do public electric rates compare to PG&E?
  - asdff 4y ago
    Public electric rates are about half as much as far as I can tell looking for these rates online. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-options/understanding-rate-plans/understanding-rate-plans.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-o... https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/wcnav_externalId/a-fr-elecrate-schel?_adf.ctrl-state=4n3384ili_4&_afrLoop=422206498105458&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=hi3i33aib_14#%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dhi3i33aib_14%26_afrLoop%3D422206498105458%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dhi3i33aib_30 https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/wcnav_externalId/a-fr-elec...
  - zbrozek 4y ago
    They're typically much lower. PG&E customers are mercilessly fleeced. Silicon Valley Power and Palo Alto charge around $0.14/KWh. PG&E averages around 3x as much, though their base rate (whose quota most people handily exceed) is only $0.32/KWh right now. That the CPUC has let this happen is a shameful failure of governance.
    - mistrial9 4y ago
      worse, GNewsom is well aware of every part of this. The current Governor grew up with his Father dealing with these topics from the inside for decades. It was a public sport in the 1980-90s to lambast PG&E with detailed litany, and somehow with the power of money and a badge, here we are. Adding to that failure is, the original PG&E that built the infrastructure, was widely regarded with deserved respect. It was an engineering problem in the early days and the engineering management earned their place with many very challenging projects completed successfully. The executives in place at PG&E successfully branded critics as "extreme lefties" and "uninformed" while keeping ultra-secret records, and it worked.
prawn 4y ago
There'd be a good portion of California that was very suited to home solar: remote, sparse, sunny, little shading. I wonder if they could incentivise some areas to do away with power cables by subsidising solar and home batteries? Or somehow minimise the powerlines required?
- lovich 4y ago
  That sounds like just doing away with the grid, and my understanding is the utilities have the legal monopoly on whatever resource because the government wanted a stable grid over a hyper efficient market
joe_the_user 4y ago
Absolutely, PGE's awfulness is almost surrealistic, cartoon villain level. Here in Nevada City, they cut a variety of historic trees along Broad street, towards the end of 2020. They had previously agreed to put lines underground and had taken matching money from the city for the project. But then used the excuse of the bankruptcy to renege on the plan. These trees were a tiny fraction of the trees that could fall on their lines and remain up, of course. And they put the lines underground this year, for shits and giggles as well. Oh, we actually did an urban sit against the tree cutting and saved maybe one tree in the end. But hey. Of course, all these shenanigans are nothing compared to the people they killed in Colma, Santa Rosa and elsewhere.
spywaregorilla 4y ago
I don't know the details specific to this case, but its a hard problem. Wires from that long ago had different tech, and may have faced metal shortages from world events. I would not try to imply it was a malicious thing. Europeans don't get it. They don't have a lot of overhead wires. Everything is buried because everything is so dense that its cost effective to do so. Overhead wires are cheap to put up, and EXTREMELY expensive to replace. It's dangerous work. And it's slow. You can't just turn off people's power, so the lines are live while they do replacements. 40k miles is going to cost tens of billions of dollars and take... way longer than anyone is going to budget time for. It's probably just not possible. Tree cutting usually refers to trimming branches so the canopy is not near the wire. It's far from a perfect solution. There's almost always regulatory requirements to do this. Meanwhile the forests are all super dry and have years of extra brush at the bottom because the state has done a terrible job of forestry management. It's a tough situation.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  > the state has done a terrible job agree with the substance of your comments if not the spin, however please note that in California, the large majority of lands are Federal not State. Add to that the private lands, and also a remarkable mess of tiny borders and claims even deep in the woods, and you get an idea of how things are legally here.

asdff 4y ago

I'm of the opinion its only a matter of time before PG&E and other power companies are seized by the state. What a boon that would be for those under private electric, considering I suffer through no rolling outages at all from public electric in CA. Currently PG&E are paying $25 billion to bury 10,000 miles of line (1). Meanwhile in 2021 the state of california had a 75 billion dollar surplus (2), and in 2022 the state had a 100 billion dollar surplus (3). The state could bury those 40,000 miles with one year's worth of budgetary surplus and no increase to rate payers (how PG&E is coming up with their $25 billion). 1. https://www.kcra.com/article/moving-pge-power-lines-underground-cost-who-foots-the-bill/39960842 https://www.kcra.com/article/moving-pge-power-lines-undergro... 2. https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/05/10/california-has-a-staggering-757b-budget-surplus-1381195 https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/05/10/... 3. https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/06/california-budget-surplus-explained/ https://calmatters.org/politics/2022/06/california-budget-su...

mulmen 4y ago
How do public electric rates compare to PG&E?
- asdff 4y ago
  Public electric rates are about half as much as far as I can tell looking for these rates online. https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-options/understanding-rate-plans/understanding-rate-plans.page https://www.pge.com/en_US/residential/rate-plans/rate-plan-o... https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/wcnav_externalId/a-fr-elecrate-schel?_adf.ctrl-state=4n3384ili_4&_afrLoop=422206498105458&_afrWindowMode=0&_afrWindowId=hi3i33aib_14#%40%3F_afrWindowId%3Dhi3i33aib_14%26_afrLoop%3D422206498105458%26_afrWindowMode%3D0%26_adf.ctrl-state%3Dhi3i33aib_30 https://www.ladwp.com/ladwp/faces/wcnav_externalId/a-fr-elec...
- zbrozek 4y ago
  They're typically much lower. PG&E customers are mercilessly fleeced. Silicon Valley Power and Palo Alto charge around $0.14/KWh. PG&E averages around 3x as much, though their base rate (whose quota most people handily exceed) is only $0.32/KWh right now. That the CPUC has let this happen is a shameful failure of governance.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    worse, GNewsom is well aware of every part of this. The current Governor grew up with his Father dealing with these topics from the inside for decades. It was a public sport in the 1980-90s to lambast PG&E with detailed litany, and somehow with the power of money and a badge, here we are. Adding to that failure is, the original PG&E that built the infrastructure, was widely regarded with deserved respect. It was an engineering problem in the early days and the engineering management earned their place with many very challenging projects completed successfully. The executives in place at PG&E successfully branded critics as "extreme lefties" and "uninformed" while keeping ultra-secret records, and it worked.

prawn 4y ago

There'd be a good portion of California that was very suited to home solar: remote, sparse, sunny, little shading. I wonder if they could incentivise some areas to do away with power cables by subsidising solar and home batteries? Or somehow minimise the powerlines required?

lovich 4y ago
That sounds like just doing away with the grid, and my understanding is the utilities have the legal monopoly on whatever resource because the government wanted a stable grid over a hyper efficient market

joe_the_user 4y ago

Absolutely, PGE's awfulness is almost surrealistic, cartoon villain level. Here in Nevada City, they cut a variety of historic trees along Broad street, towards the end of 2020. They had previously agreed to put lines underground and had taken matching money from the city for the project. But then used the excuse of the bankruptcy to renege on the plan. These trees were a tiny fraction of the trees that could fall on their lines and remain up, of course. And they put the lines underground this year, for shits and giggles as well. Oh, we actually did an urban sit against the tree cutting and saved maybe one tree in the end. But hey. Of course, all these shenanigans are nothing compared to the people they killed in Colma, Santa Rosa and elsewhere.

spywaregorilla 4y ago

I don't know the details specific to this case, but its a hard problem. Wires from that long ago had different tech, and may have faced metal shortages from world events. I would not try to imply it was a malicious thing. Europeans don't get it. They don't have a lot of overhead wires. Everything is buried because everything is so dense that its cost effective to do so. Overhead wires are cheap to put up, and EXTREMELY expensive to replace. It's dangerous work. And it's slow. You can't just turn off people's power, so the lines are live while they do replacements. 40k miles is going to cost tens of billions of dollars and take... way longer than anyone is going to budget time for. It's probably just not possible. Tree cutting usually refers to trimming branches so the canopy is not near the wire. It's far from a perfect solution. There's almost always regulatory requirements to do this. Meanwhile the forests are all super dry and have years of extra brush at the bottom because the state has done a terrible job of forestry management. It's a tough situation.

mistrial9 4y ago
> the state has done a terrible job agree with the substance of your comments if not the spin, however please note that in California, the large majority of lands are Federal not State. Add to that the private lands, and also a remarkable mess of tiny borders and claims even deep in the woods, and you get an idea of how things are legally here.