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>They are now in competition for transmission with the private entity PacifiCorp that jointly owns some substations with PG&E and spans six states. Then they c

>They are now in competition for transmission with the private entity PacifiCorp that jointly owns some substations with PG&E and spans six states. Then they can also acquire the PacifiCorp substations. Even better, make it a public utility thing, and forbid (with some transition plan) private companies handling this infrastructure entirely. >unless you are also wishing to have CalPower be a department within the state government that rivals CalTrans for quality and timeliness of service. Since other countries manage to have public infrastructure like trains and power grids and have it work well, perhaps it's not some unobtainable magical goal, but just a specific failure because of the way CalTrans was managed - and can thus change if there's the political will?

shagie 2y ago
Other countries are smaller than California and as countries have more authority over their land. My claim is that the state of California does not have the funds to compensate multiple multi-state public and private companies within its borders, nor the equipment to be able to maintain that infrastructure (all the way down to the individual houses and the transformers on the pole), nor the manpower to be able to staff it. If the claim is "caltrans doesn't either - they use contractors for the projects and are only responsible for state highways - the local town roads are the town's infrastructure that the town maintains - not the state" Then you're going to hand over PG&E's gas and electrical infrastructure to San Francisco for them to maintain? How does a properly regulated utility company fundamentally differ from the state owning the equipment but allowing the private sector to do what it does? And if it was properly regulated, then PG&E and the state would be agreement about how to handle the addition of household solar... which is what people are up in arms about. I still hold that the state of California would be ill-equipped and poorly prepared to be able to assume all the responsibilities for all of the electrical infrastructure in the state (which is far more than PG&E).
- coldtea 2y ago
  >Other countries are smaller than California and as countries have more authority over their land There are countries much larger than California out there - France (with public rail) is 1.5 times the size of California and over 2x the population. >I still hold that the state of California would be ill-equipped and poorly prepared to be able to assume all the responsibilities for all of the electrical infrastructure in the state (which is far more than PG&E). Perhaps. But that's on them. Not some infeasibility to do so with public (state) owned electrical infrastructure.

shagie 2y ago

Other countries are smaller than California and as countries have more authority over their land. My claim is that the state of California does not have the funds to compensate multiple multi-state public and private companies within its borders, nor the equipment to be able to maintain that infrastructure (all the way down to the individual houses and the transformers on the pole), nor the manpower to be able to staff it. If the claim is "caltrans doesn't either - they use contractors for the projects and are only responsible for state highways - the local town roads are the town's infrastructure that the town maintains - not the state" Then you're going to hand over PG&E's gas and electrical infrastructure to San Francisco for them to maintain? How does a properly regulated utility company fundamentally differ from the state owning the equipment but allowing the private sector to do what it does? And if it was properly regulated, then PG&E and the state would be agreement about how to handle the addition of household solar... which is what people are up in arms about. I still hold that the state of California would be ill-equipped and poorly prepared to be able to assume all the responsibilities for all of the electrical infrastructure in the state (which is far more than PG&E).

coldtea 2y ago
>Other countries are smaller than California and as countries have more authority over their land There are countries much larger than California out there - France (with public rail) is 1.5 times the size of California and over 2x the population. >I still hold that the state of California would be ill-equipped and poorly prepared to be able to assume all the responsibilities for all of the electrical infrastructure in the state (which is far more than PG&E). Perhaps. But that's on them. Not some infeasibility to do so with public (state) owned electrical infrastructure.