
PG&E Had Systemic Problems with Power Line Maintenance, California Probe Finds - grzm
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-had-systemic-problems-with-power-line-maintenance-california-probe-finds-11575338873?mod=rsswn
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samcheng
After the San Bruno pipeline explosion, where PG&E gas pipeline maintenance
and inspection records were falsified, is anyone surprised?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion#L...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion#Litigation)

If a company is forced to implement a "compliance and ethics monitoring
program" by the federal government, it has some serious culture problems.

~~~
throw0101a
> _If a company is forced to implement a "compliance and ethics monitoring
> program" by the federal government, it has some serious culture problems._

And where were the state regulators in all of this?

Someone on HN once mentioned that CPUC [1] allowed deferred maintenance on a
lot of stuff because it helped to keep rates down. This prevented customers
screaming at politicians. True/plausible?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Public_Utilities_Co...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Public_Utilities_Commission)

~~~
lscotte
> And where were the state regulators in all of this?

In bed with PG&E the whole time, of course.

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apexalpha
>PG&E sought bankruptcy protection in January, citing more than $30 billion in
potential liabilities from fires sparked by its equipment. This fall, the
utility has blacked out millions of its own customers during strong winds to
try to prevent its equipment from starting more fires, a move that has
generated widespread criticism, including from California Gov. Gavin Newsom
and other state leaders.

How does this work if a private utility company seeks bankruptcy? Do its
responsibilities get taken over by the government? Can they even seize
operations?

~~~
nostrademons
PG&E's in Chapter 11. In Chapter 11 bankruptcy the company continues operating
as if nothing had happened. (Well, except that there may be layoffs and work
furloughs if the company lacks sufficient cash to pay salaries, and they're
probably not making major capital investments.) What changes is the _capital
structure_ \- the payments due to creditors and dividends paid to
shareholders. Basically the company is saying "Well, guess we don't have the
money to pay all our debts, so nobody's getting anything until we work out a
new arrangement that we can actually support with our assets and cash flows."
In this case the bankruptcy was triggered by court judgments that found PG&E
liable for the 2018 fires, so the bankruptcy means that the court settlements
are suspended while another court figures out who's going to pay for them.

In practice, what often happens during Chapter 11 proceedings is that the
stock goes to nearly zero (it's close but not there yet with PG&E), on the
assumption that many of the common stockholders will be wiped out and the debt
recapitalized as shares. Bonds also become very risky, as bondholders expect
that they may not see all of the principal repaid. Assets _can_ be sold off to
pay creditors - this is part of the negotiations in the bankruptcy
proceedings. But ordinary workers largely keep on doing their jobs, though
there's a big cloud of "will there be layoffs or not?" surrounding it.

It's very rare (and almost unheard of in the U.S.) for a private corporation
to be nationalized and taken over by the government; the government generally
is not in the business of running complex operations, other than the military.
Even in the financial crisis of 2009, bankrupt organizations were
recapitalized by the government (where the government basically took over the
debt and wiped out existing shareholders) rather than seized (where the
government installs its own people and takes over operations).

~~~
cardiffspaceman
At a certain point during Chapter 11 the title of the company seemingly
changes to "ABC co, debtor in possession" and that goes on the checks, and
those checks don't get honored as much. I believe this status is not
permanent. The worker's unpaid vacation time becomes a debt and you don't end
up with much of that debt paid off. I _joined_ a company that was in Chapter
11 and none of this affected me adversely, so I think this is a passing phase,
but it would not be fun for the long-time employees.

------
neonate
[http://archive.is/DJ4RR](http://archive.is/DJ4RR)

~~~
campfireveteran
Thank you, kind person.

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jiqiren
Executives that let this happen under their watch should be charged with the
deaths of those 85 people.

~~~
AndrewBissell
Completely agree with you, but I'll be surprised if even the outsized bonuses
and dividends they paid themselves over the past ten years (with money which
should have gone to line maintenance and upgrades) are clawed back.

~~~
costcopizza
Not sure why this is being downvoted as it's been the case.

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olivermarks
PG&E is far away from the concept of a modern 'smart grid', running archaic
and obsolete overground infrastructure. It is incredible that companies like
Tesla are also in California when the Paradise fire, caused by a 100 year old
rusty pylon failing on an inaccessible hillside, resulted in massive
subsequent precautionary power outages that rendered EV's useless in recent
emergency situations.

~~~
Johnny555
To be fair, gas powered vehicles are less effective in a power outage too
since without power (or a backup generator) at the gas station, they can't
refuel. Of course, you can drive your gas powered car outside of the area to
refuel, but you can do the same with an EV -- during the recent PG&E scheduled
outages, EV owners worked out a rotation for the EV chargers at work so they
could all recharge at work while the power was out at home.

My gas powered car can go about 160 miles on half a tank of gas (which is
about the average amount I have in it at any time). If I had an EV, I'd charge
it overnight, so I'd have 200 - 300 miles of range in the event of a power
outage.

~~~
namibj
Well, you can bring gas in far more easily than the equivalent amount of
electricity... That said, scheduled outages shouldn't ever be a thing except
when you're getting new in-house wiring. Anything else that can be scheduled
should only cause a few seconds of power loss during the physical switchover
from your line getting disconnected from the old feed-in and re-connected to
the new feed-in. If this takes more than a minute, they're doing something
wrong (yes, this implies stripping the cable while live and all that. Routine,
and easy to contain at the voltages (<1kV) involved. Higher voltages do come
up, but at least here in Germany those are redundant setups usually based on
rings at the smallest (10kV) scale. The redundancy would be reduced during
this, but that's just an increased failure risk, not a certain outage.)

~~~
Johnny555
I'm not sure you're aware of the scheduled outages I'm referring to (and why
would you? You live in a country with reliable power). I'm referring to the
scheduled outages where our power company decides to turn off power for entire
cities and regions because they didn't invest enough money in maintaining
their power grid to prevent wildfires during high winds and trees blow into
the power lines.

So it leads to the case where hundreds of thousands of people have no power at
home, but often a short distance away (like maybe where they work), the power
is fine.

~~~
namibj
I'm aware of what PG&E is doing. Sorry if I sounded otherwise.

That said, I mentioned these things because it's a should. I'm compassionate
for those in that unfortunate situation.

I don't know about how the distance scales are regarding the interactions
between commuting, geography, infrastructure sections, etc. I'm partially
arguing about a situation with a less voluntary shutoff on a comparable scale.
A scenario with similar infrastructure availability, just larger regions with
sparse/meager availability. Think of what you'd have in case of a sudden jump
to 100% renewables. Existing storage doesn't suffice for 24/7 traditional load
curves. Overall demand is higher than supply....

Anyways, it was more a yawning in defeat than a case of "confused pikachu".
(Forgive me for the wording, and feel free to correct. I'm not trying to
joke.)

------
Aloha
I wish I could find a copy of this report online

~~~
mzs
It's on the CPUC FTP server

ftp.cpuc.ca.gov:News_and_Outreach

'I1906015 Appendix A SED Camp Fire Investigation Report REDACTED.pdf' '259 MB'
'12/2/19, 7:40:00 AM'

~~~
l1n
ftp://ftp.cpuc.ca.gov/News_and_Outreach/I1906015%20Appendix%20A%20SED%20Camp%20Fire%20Investigation%20Report%20REDACTED.pdf
for a link

------
olliej
But at least they were paying out dividends. Sure those dividends were being
paid directly by tax dollars in the form of the inevitable bail out, but at
least private individuals got that money first.

~~~
dang
Please don't post snarky rage comments here. I know it's the internet, but
that's not what this site is for, as you'll notice if you review the
guidelines:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

