
California Can Expect Blackouts for a Decade, Says PG&E CEO - rahuldottech
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/18/771486828/california-can-expect-blackouts-for-a-decade-says-pg-e-ceo
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mikorym
As a South African, the initial reaction is a knee-jerk, snide comment "get
some", since we have frequent power outages due to a combination of
institutional incompetence and malicious actors. (Apparently, at one point, we
had outages that were "staged" in order for the Gupta family to make money
from coal sales; I am not sure how it worked.)

But as a more sober and conscientious observer, what are the reasons for this?
Is it that fires have been causing too much damage? Is it that the utility
companies are slacking? From the article it is not clear whether putting off
the power is a successful mitigation strategy. It's a bit unimaginable for
California to have the same problems that we have. In our case we have
politics that inadequately qualified people are promoted to management and
hence my question about whether there is logic to this.

But the main difference is we don't have the same fire issues that California
has, or at least, situations where the power lines are the cause of fires.

Edit: We _do_ have fires, but I think we have other (less
straightforward/tangible) issues that we debate in our spare time.

~~~
claudeganon
PG&E has been paying out dividends and executive bonuses instead of
reinvesting in their infrastructure for years. And bought off a number of
state politicians.

Now that climate change is creating conditions for the already wildfire-prone
landscape of California to suffer more frequent and severe events, the power
companies are washing their hands of it. Short of some major state or federal
investment in upgrading energy infrastructure (like the green new deal), I
wouldn’t expect that to change.

~~~
paganel
> PG&E has been paying out dividends and executive bonuses instead of
> reinvesting in their infrastructure for years. And bought off a number of
> state politicians.

Re the dividends part, that's an issue on which our present society will have
to work more and more, because afaik most of those dividends go into the
coffers of pension funds/insurance companies/big institutional investors which
by their very nature "trickle down" that money mostly to people aged over 45
or 50. Most of those reinvestments you mention will get their financial return
in 20-30 years' time, by which point the age-group I mentioned earlier (the
over 45-50) will either be dead or to old too care that much about it.

~~~
torpfactory
Shouldn’t PGE forgo payouts to shareholders in order to keep infrastructure to
a better standard? Surely the long term value of PGE is diminished (and thus
their ability to pay dividends) if they are found liable for fires or effect
rolling blackouts as a “solution”. The pension funds could invest in something
else instead.

~~~
javagram
They suspended dividends two years ago
[https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-
suspends-d...](https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/PG-E-suspends-
dividends-over-possible-wildfire-12445592.php)

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lmilcin
I am not from US but this smells as if PG&E tried to force California and
general population to demand PG&E to be deemed not responsible for fires.

~~~
gimmeThaBeet
That's definitely a dimension of what's happening, none of the utilities have
ever been cool with the nebulous liability presented by inverse condemnation.
I think if anyone were in their shoes, they wouldn't be either.

PG&E knows that they're way less liable for damage caused by service
interruptions than they see they are for being responsible for wildfires.
They're doing what California wants them to even if it's not the intent of the
law.

That's mainly why I think seizing PG&E doesn't solve your problems in the
short/medium term. If the state owned their lines tomorrow, they haven't seen
the last wildfire. I just don't see a scenario in which the state is as eager
to pick as high a number when determining liabilities.

~~~
joshstrange
Unless I'm missing something this completely ignores the decades of
mismanagement and paying huge bonuses/salaries instead of reinvesting in
infrastructure. PG&E put themselves in this position should be held
accountable.

~~~
james-mcelwain
Right, I'd be sympathetic to this liability argument if they weren't
extracting profits and neglecting maintenance. Obviously the fire issue is
bigger than a single utility, but their actions here leave them little public
good will.

~~~
ncmncm
I would demonstrate my sympathy for their desire not to be a public utility
anymore by confiscating their assets, firing their management, and turning
their assets over to someone who does want to be a public utility.

~~~
lmilcin
What you describe is called communism.

PG&E is a company with owners and while you may not like it you can't just
take other peoples' property.

There are appropriate venues to vent your frustration. There is judicial
system where you can go and defend your own rights if you feel PG&E stepped on
it. You can go and vote for somebody to step up and solve the problem. You can
also make other people aware of the problem by using your right to free
speech.

~~~
ncmncm
No. A public utility is permitted what would be anti-trust violations, and
handed a monopoly, in exchange for acting in the public interest. When they
abandon the public interest, they have violated their end of the bargain. The
stockholders are responsible to prevent that; if they fail, they lose their
investment.

The educational system has failed you if you never learned about this.
Anticipating your next objection: no, public education is also not Communism.

Communism, by numerous well-attested examples, means exterminating millions of
citizens for no offense but existing. I don't find anyone proposing that.
Here.

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kylehotchkiss
The amount of home generators is going to quickly increase, which will do
wonders for air quality when the power lines are cut.

~~~
jjulius
Purchased by who, though? The cost of living is already so high that only the
wealthy will be buying them.

~~~
lazide
You can buy a decent 'emergency' generator (aka high air pollution and noise)
for ~ $500 sufficient to run most homes. Compared to cost of living in
California, that is dirt cheap (a week or less of living expenses).

One problem with these emergency portable generators of course, is they lack
safety components to stop them from catching fire. So we might end up with
notable fires caused by generators used because PG&E shut off power to 'stop
fires'. It shifts the liability to the consumer though, so PG&E is off the
hook.

Few people really believed PG&E was going to do this, so a lot of people
haven't purchased equipment yet. We'll see how it shapes up long term.

~~~
Fjolsvith
As people turn to home power generation, PG&E will lose revenue. So, PG&E will
suffer in the longer term as they lose customers. Not very good business
planning.

~~~
kylehotchkiss
Keeping a gas or diesel generator fueled and running for days at a time is not
super cheap. Plus if your whole city's power is cut and everybody else is
running their generators, there's a risk of fuel price increases or even fuel
shortages.

Solar & batteries are a solution but people won't adopt as a solution with
this sort of timeline and current solar/battery prices. There'd need to be a
slow but certain rise in PG&E prices and a some sort of tax rebate to really
get people to convert over.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Reliability is what sells me on electric supply. Take that away, I will find
something more reliable, and I will make the investment in local, personal
generation if there isn't a source.

~~~
lazide
Local, personal generation is usually incredibly inefficient due to loading
factors (you need to buy a generator that can handle most of your peak load,
but they are only efficient at roughly half that - so your idle load is a huge
waste, and when near peak you will be horribly inefficient).

Maintenance is also a huge pain - I've got an off grid cabin, and I can assure
you, you will quickly tire of dealing with it if you are using it as your day
to day power source.

Backup (propane or natural gas) generators that auto kick in aren't a bad
option, but are much more expensive (about an order of magnitude higher).

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mrfusion
I asked this in another thread and got a healthy dose of downvotes instead of
an answer. But why can’t they do a controlled burn along the path of the power
lines?

If it’s too risky they could even do it at a different time of year when
there’s less risk.

~~~
MiguelVieira
PG&E maintains over 18,000 miles of transmission lines.

~~~
mrfusion
So the question is how many of those go through fire prone areas. Perhaps
there’s a 90/10 rule for where to expend the most effort.

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appleflaxen
If this is the best that the private sector can do, it seems like it is
probably time to let the public sector take over.

~~~
randyrand
Why would the public sector do better?

~~~
kayfox
Because they exempt themselves from liability.

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rpmcmurdo
I am from the east coast, and compared to where I grew up, the power grid is
way more reliable. Where I grew up, the utilities were not undergrounded, and
many neighborhoods were heavily forested. Whenever there was a big front of
thunderstorms in summer or, worse, an ice storm in the winter, large swaths of
the area would lose all of their utilities besides natural gas. Sometimes
these outages would last several days.

It was inconvenient, but nobody wanted to pay for the cost of undergrounding
utilities, so it was something you just dealt with. A few people bought
generators, but most didn't. The only time the outages really caused hardship
was during ice storms, but fortunately those were pretty rare.

I now live in CA. PG&E made the right call here. A couple days of no
electricity is better than burning an entire town to the ground in a
firestorm.

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bamboozled
Really, California is considered the tech hub of the world, how is this ok ?

~~~
zzzcpan
Well, like hundred years of propaganda starting from the Edward Bernays times
convinced generations to accept this broken system of privately owned
monopolies, which has this inherent perverse incentive to rent seek with no
limit and neglect actual products or services they are supposed to provide.

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scarejunba
We can't live in the forest. Building in the tinderbox is CA's equivalent of
TX's building in the flood plain.

~~~
microcolonel
You can, there are some fairly straightforward principles of building in these
environments to prevent the spread of fires, the technique works. Now, getting
folks to care about fixing their homes, when they are insured for such a small
proportion of the costs they generate, is a taller order.

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Rarok
I don't understand how the powerlines can affect to wildfires. They can put
powerlines in any place or how it works? In my country (Spain) there are laws
to say exactly how much meters of free space are needed depending on what
capacity has the powerline. That means that you can't build anything there and
that if a powerline goes in your forestal terrain you can't plant any tree
there (thats why people don't like powerlines over theirs lands). That also
does that all the forestal ground have a good number of firewalls because of
the powerlines.

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jameskegel
It’s really sad how tribalist politics have pervasively overtaken rational
discussions. I dream of discourse that doesn’t devolve into conversations
about leftists, conservatives, and various interest groups.

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surds
I was in CA last year with the major wildfires going on. Not there this time,
so am curious if this approach worked this year.

If yes, I suppose that controlled, scheduled blackouts is a positive move (not
a competent one given that this is CA we are talking about) as it avoids a
huge loss of lives, property, forest and avoids a ton of air pollution. (The
generators are gonna cause it anyways. :( )

On the flip side, is PG&E using this time to improve infrastructure or should
expect it to extend the timeline by another decade in 7-8 years from now?

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thorwasdfasdf
this is what happens when you sue a company for something that was an
acceptable risk. it now becomes unacceptable and this is the consequence.

~~~
dano
I think you're right on target with that observation. A compromise of limited
liability and aggressive infrastructure upgrades may be the way to go.

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Agustus
Context from the official statement is that PG&E does expect to require
blackouts, but it will not be the same magnitude of black outs as seen a few
weeks ago.

~~~
jjulius
Where did you infer that? Literally the first sentence is...

>The CEO of Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. told California energy regulators
that the state will likely see blackouts for another 10 years like the one
imposed last week that left as many as 800,000 customers without power.

Not only that, but it's impossible to claim that future blackouts won't be of
the same magnitude. The blackouts are determined by weather patterns, none of
which can be predicted this far out. It's entirely possible we get another
weather forecast in a year that calls for the same region-wide high winds and
dryness.

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asdf333
if the ceo can’t figure it out he needs to be replaced.

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_red
I've lived in two developing countries in my life, and its interesting how CA
is morphing back into that. Small enclaves of super-rich, very high price
communities where everything works, surrounded by large swaths of shanty towns
where nothing works.

~~~
claudeganon
After living in LA for a few years, it certainly does feel exactly the way you
describe within the city.

But those juxtapositions are literal blocks apart from each other. The Google
campus is next door to a shanty town in Venice, and their security sic the
police on them for any minor infractions (or just made up ones). Very similar
situation with the redevelopment downtown.

It really does give you a bleak portrait of the tolerance for inhumanity
within the context liberal Capitalism. California is ostensibly as “wacky
leftist” as the US gets and it’s a bleak, cruel place in many regards.

~~~
maxaf
American liberals are always yelling for more “humanity”, but they keep quiet
about the requirement that humanity must come at someone else’s expense. Yes,
we need cheaper housing - but not here. Yes, guvment must build better jails -
but not here. Yes, please run more buses - but not down my street. Yes, we
must accept more refugees - but put them somewhere far away, certainly not
anywhere near my child’s route to school.

Liberalism and NIMBYism are joined at the hip. Liberalism is loud and
ostentatious, while NIMBYism is prosecuted quietly via the court system,
lobbying, and political donations. There’s a certain poetic beauty to how both
seem to coexist in the same group of people.

~~~
jakelazaroff
I’m not sure where you get those ideas? Where I live in NYC, they recently
shut down a major street to cars so buses could run more easily — and the
furthest left want to expand that. The left leaning people I know want to
_close_ jails, not build better ones elsewhere. We opposed an Amazon campus in
our backyard specifically because it would drive up rents — and the furthest
left want rent control.

Liberals are obviously not a monolith of only ethically consistent people, but
I definitely don’t see the pervasive NIMBYism.

~~~
maxaf
I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Here the same people who yell for
affordable housing also go to court to block construction of new towers. The
same people who complain about buses stuck in traffic on W 86th St also
prevent the introduction of universal metered parking and congestion pricing.

But my original comment was mainly addressing the NIMBYism in California. Look
at SF: it's a low-rise city of sky-high demand and prices. Who's preventing
new construction? The same local NIMBYs who enjoy rising property values due
to severely restricted supply of land that can be built on.

~~~
jakelazaroff
I until very recently lived downtown, where congestion pricing would actually
take effect, and the people most in support were again the furthest left.

SF does seem to be more NIMBYish, but I’m not sure why you think it’s a
microcosm of liberalism.

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not_a_cop75
"But Johnson said it could take 10 years before such outages are "really
ratcheted down significantly." "

Strikes me as a CEO that suddenly wants very much to have his golden parachute
and be out of this pickle.

