
PG&E Outage Darkens Northern California Amid Wildfire Threat - Metacelsus
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/09/us/california-power-outage-PGE.html
======
cameldrv
The Camp fire was legally PG&E's fault, and you can blame them for not
maintaining their equipment and starting a fire, but you can't blame them for
the magnitude of the fire. The Camp fire was so huge because:

a) Large parts of California have fire as part of their natural ecological
lifecycle. In most of the U.S., downfall wood rots, but in most of California,
it's too dry so it just sits there building up until it catches on fire.

b) People like to live near or in the woods, like they can in other states, so
they lobby the government to suppress fires. Suppressing fires causes more
buildup of downfall wood. If fires are always suppressed, the energy will
simply keep building up until it can support a fire so fast and so extreme
that it cannot be contained by Cal Fire.

c) We're experiencing some changes in the climate, and we just got out of a
huge drought that killed off a very large number of trees in California.

There will always be ignition sources, whether it's a camp fire, a cigarette,
power lines, an arsonist, a truck with a hot catalytic converter parked over
dry grass, or lightning, large amounts of combustible material laying on the
ground will eventually burn. If we just say the problem is poorly maintained
power lines and fix all of them, or turn off the power for weeks every year,
nothing will change. The fuel will still be there and eventually something
will light it on fire.

I highly recommend this lecture by Stephen Pyne that goes into all of this and
has some extremely interesting information about the history of fire
suppression in the U.S., and how the Native Americans learned how to
effectively manage fire in California over centuries.
[http://longnow.org/seminars/02016/feb/09/fire-slow-fire-
fast...](http://longnow.org/seminars/02016/feb/09/fire-slow-fire-fast-fire-
deep/)

~~~
product50
While PG&E is definitely at fault here, I feel California deserves this type
of treatment. With the extremely stringent regulations which place PG&E at
risk for massive fines/penalty for wildfires even if they take all possible
precautions, this is the logical outcome of a company trying to stay afloat.

~~~
throwaway5752
Sorry, if it's not PG&E it will be some guy with a cigarette, drunk campers,
or lightning.

The root cause of this is hotter temperatures than the area is adapted to.
They're up 3 deg F over average and rising. It's killing trees with drought
paired with hotter fires than the native trees evolved to tolerate.

I don't mean to be gloomy but this is the just the beginning, it's getting
much worse.

~~~
chrisco255
Droughts are nothing new to California. The worst droughts were in the 30s,
70s and 80s: [https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-california-
re...](https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-california-
retrospective-20150413-story.html)

But also, there's fossil evidence of 200 year droughts in California:
[https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-
pa...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-
periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/)

------
josephdviviano
For those looking for their motivations, here it is (recall PG&E filed chapter
11 to navigate liability payments):

"Second, any catastrophic wildfires caused by PG&E this year could upend the
bankruptcy proceedings. That is because both bondholders’ and shareholders’
reorganization plans allow _investors to back out if PG &E even appears to
cause any catastrophic wildfires_.

Specifically, both groups’ plans give investors the chance to withdraw their
financing offers if unexplained fires in PG&E’s service area damage more than
500 buildings—unless its power lines were “de-energized” or turned off, or
regulators clear it of responsibility. That may help explain the wide scope of
this week’s precautionary power outages."

The management has their backs up against the wall and the interest groups
involved don't care at all whether you have power, they just want to extract
value from this company.

[https://www.barrons.com/articles/pg-e-stock-slumps-after-
jud...](https://www.barrons.com/articles/pg-e-stock-slumps-after-judge-rules-
bondholders-can-propose-bankruptcy-plan-51570711538)

------
dehrmann
You can't have 99.99% reliable power, cheap power, transmission through
tinerboxes, and hold the utility liable for fires.

I _expect_ parts of the Bay Area not in the hills to not lose power because if
you can't clear brush around the high-voltage lines going to urban centers,
you have no business being a utility.

~~~
lubujackson
I'm surprised to see so much unconsidered support for PG&E here.

It's not about holding the utility "liable for fires", it is holding them
liable for gross negligence by failing to perform critical or routine
maintenance. These aren't difficult or impossible problems. The Camp Fire was
caused by a system that was significantly overdue for upgrading:
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-knew-for-years-its-
lines-c...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-knew-for-years-its-lines-could-
spark-wildfires-and-didnt-fix-them-11562768885)

Time and again, PG&E ignored maintenance requirements and funneled profits to
execs and stockholders. The San Bruno pipeline explosion was also entirely
preventable: [https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/How-PG-E-missed-
chanc...](https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/How-PG-E-missed-chance-to-
avert-San-Bruno-blast-6283494.php)

What's more, PG&E falsified safety records as a matter of course:
[https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/us/pge-falsifying-
records/ind...](https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/us/pge-falsifying-
records/index.html)

So PG&E showed tidy profits by ignoring their infrastructure and doing it so
completely that their people on the street simply lied about maintaining
things because no one cared... until stuff began to systematically began to
blow up and burn down: [https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/the-
histor...](https://www.abc10.com/article/news/investigations/the-history-of-
pges-problems/103-b7badd6e-8eea-4ae3-a935-8628ba98b87e)

The problem is one of accountability. PG&E execs roll from court case to court
case but face no risk of personal jail time for decisions that have caused
tens to hundreds of preventable deaths:
[https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-
pge-c...](https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-pge-
criminal-20160810-snap-story.html)

So the courts get more and more frustrated, fining PG&E larger and larger
amounts. But the utility never actually fix their known problems, they simply
pass the bill back to their customers, declare bankruptcy and, at this point,
turn off the power preemptively as some sort of power move to try to force
government compliance.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>I'm surprised to see so much unconsidered support for PG&E here.

California hasn't woken up yet so you've got Europe and the east coast who are
mostly impartial observers looking at it and going "yup, while probably not
ideal this is not an unreasonable outcome considering the situation."

~~~
yabadabadoes
yes, though I actually do think it is about as ideal as it can get. The reason
Enron didn't change the discussion about privatization into how to undo it is
that the US wants privatization to remain legitimate so it can force it on
other nations via the IMF and extract wealth like a bad pay day loan company.
Companies being afraid to deal with privatization, courts destroying companies
for doing it wrong, etc are all gettig the precedent necessary give developing
nations options to protect themselves from exploitation that largely
originates from California.

------
DangitBobby
> Meteorologists said the strong winds that were forecast in the hills and
> canyons on Wednesday resembled those that propelled deadly fires in the wine
> country of Napa and Sonoma Counties two years ago. The power company, which
> declared bankruptcy in January in the face of tens of billions of dollars in
> liabilities from past fires, said it was not taking chances this time.

Makes sense.

~~~
14
Idk, a power company that can not safely power people year round does not make
any sense to me. Obviously they want to shift that liability here but I would
argue if you can't supply power year round then you have no business turning a
profit and as others have said here if it wasn't for the fires they caused
they were set to turn a profit. Perhaps that profit came at the expense of
proper equipment maintenance? So no a business selling an essential service
that makes its shareholders profits makes absolutely no sense when they had
money they could of used to fix some of the lines.

~~~
edoo
That is to be expected with a government supported monopoly. Buckle up.

------
PureParadigm
At UC Berkeley all classes were cancelled today (Wednesday) because PG&E said
campus would lose power. Buildings, libraries, computing services all shut
down... but power stayed on all day. I'm sure the administration is very upset
that all this happened for no reason.

~~~
cameldrv
Not very long ago, people would have just improvised solutions to not having
power. For classrooms with windows, do a lecture without PowerPoint. For those
without, maybe set up some battery powered lighting, open the doors, or just
hold the lecture on the lawn.

I am very dismayed with the recent tendency in America for administrators of
institutions to just give up when the slightest obstacle is put in their path.

~~~
PureParadigm
Yes, there's definitely some truth in what you're saying -- UC Berkeley
managed back in 1868 presumably without power, but it's also much bigger and
has different facilities now. It's not as simple as just telling 40,000+
students to improvise. Many buildings, especially those with deep basements
(like Soda Hall) may have ventilation problems without power. With the number
of students here, holding lecture on the lawn or even rearranging to rooms
with windows would be complete chaos, assuming that's even possible. To top it
all off, elevators might also not function and cause issues for people in
wheelchairs, etc.

The current news now is classes will be held unless the power actually does go
out.

~~~
cameldrv
It's exactly this attitude that I hate. Guy in a wheelchair can't get to class
because the elevator is out? Swap rooms with another class on the ground floor
or get a few strong guys together and carry 'em up the stairs or have someone
hold a phone and livestream the lecture or have someone take notes and give
them to him after class.

Cancelling every single class without even trying just says that what the
university is doing isn't important. It begins to look like the only thing
that matters is providing the appearance of an education. If things get a
little difficult, as long as someone else can be blamed, no harm done by
skipping some material, you weren't going to use it in real life anyhow.

~~~
Fnoord
> It's exactly this attitude that I hate. Guy in a wheelchair can't get to
> class because the elevator is out? Swap rooms with another class on the
> ground floor or get a few strong guys together and carry 'em up the stairs
> or have someone hold a phone and livestream the lecture or have someone take
> notes and give them to him after class.

My father (RIP) has been in Venice twice. Once, he was healthy, and he even
shot a picture (before my time, back in early 70s) which won a price (he had
his own dark room where he produced the picture as well).

The second time he was in Venice, he was with his family (I was ~10). He was
sitting in a wheelchair, was legally blind, physically weak, had MS, ... I
have no idea how Venice is these days but back than (90s) it was not
wheelchair-friendly as there where bridges with stairs _everywhere_. I will
never forget how two man carried him, in his wheelchair, over every bridge.
And there was a lot of them! Because of that we were able to do some sight-
seeing as a family, and were able to see Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di
San Marco. We also managed to get him (on our own risk) into a gondola,
reliving his first experience in Venice (the picture he won a price with was
of a gondolier).

As for your post, I'd like to agree (dislike defeatist approach), but we
depend more and more on the Internet these days. Without power, no Internet. I
don't know exactly how UC depends on it. What I'd prefer, though, is trying to
work around it, but apparently for one reason or another UC did not want to,
and I am curious why not. It turns out their defeatist approach was wrong
anyway.

A few years ago the power was out here for multiple hours, and I was happy to
have my e-reader charged. I also sometimes have something similar with battery
devices plus thunderstorm (I tend to disconnect my laptops and smartphones
during thunderstorm).

------
gnicholas
The communications around this outage have been a complete mess. PG&E claimed
the outage was being driven by high temperatures, low humidity, and high
winds. My town, near Redwood City, was supposed to lose power today at noon.
This was perplexing to us because it was not hot (75 degrees), dry (40+
percent humidity), or windy (6 mph).

But everyone has been running around preparing for the outage that we were
assured would come. They’ve now pushed back the outage to midnight, but I have
no idea whether that will actually happen.

And of course, their website has been down pretty much the entire day, and the
phone lines are clogged. At the very least, they should have made sure the
website could handle the load. They’ve been talking about the possibility of
this shutdown for months, so there’s no excuse for the website being
completely unprepared.

~~~
kelnos
The communications around this have indeed been a mess.

The driver of the outages is indeed what PG&E claims, but it's not necessarily
in your area. Your city may be affected simply because they need to de-
energize transmission lines (that run through a high-risk area) that serve
your city.

~~~
gnicholas
I had the same thought. But when the power was turned off in my town last
night, the corridor that was affected was not near us. PG&E should have known
that (1) the conditions were not even close to what they had thought on the
ground, and (2) except for certain transmission corridors in our area, no one
would be affected. Instead they caused massive inconvenience and minor panic,
with businesses closing and schools spending lots of time planning for
unnecessary contingencies.

------
Reedx
Doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. And there are second-order effects to
consider:

\- Food waste from freezers and refrigerators

\- Candle use increasing risk of fires

\- Generators being purchased that will largely end up collecting dust or
being returned

\- Loss of business at local stores/restaurants/bars/etc

What else?

~~~
gothroach
I spent eleven hours today hooking up large generators (up to 2MW) for
businesses. I'm a controls/PLC guy so it's not what I normally do but this was
an all-hands-on-deck situation. Two places had their fire alarms go off as
soon as the power was restored (due to issues with fire pump controls too long
to get into here) and they weren't able to disable the alarm in time to
prevent a fire dispatch.

Fire resources getting needlessly tied up plus a ton of hastily-connected
generators seems like a recipe for a problem.

Side note, I lost track of how many times I had to explain to people why their
giant solar arrays wouldn't be able to power their facility when the grid is
down.

~~~
mycall
> I had to explain to people why their giant solar arrays wouldn't be able to
> power their facility when the grid is down

Is there an actual size of solar array that could power their facility?

~~~
gothroach
The main reason is that most solar arrays are set up in such a way that they
require the grid to operate. If you want to run your array without the grid
it's a different type of system and requires additional hardware (transfer
switches) to ensure that you don't backfeed power to the grid, creating a
safety hazard for people working on the lines. Storage is also a necessity if
you're operating off-grid.

Newer inverters also use a type of communication over the power line where the
utility can among other things tell the system to curtail export power if
there's too much of a surplus on the grid.

------
breck
Won’t the number of deaths from power outages outnumber the deaths from fires?

Also, what if a fire still happens, and people don’t know because the power is
out?

~~~
cnst
> Also, what if a fire still happens, and people don’t know because the power
> is out?

Good pount! If a tree falls in the forest, will it make any noise?

------
dbcurtis
So I’m sitting here in 94087 waiting for the lights to go out, but still have
electricity here. Depite PG&E’s robo-caller leaving me a warning twice a day.

Anyway, my generator is ready to go so that the freezer doesn’t thaw.
Otherwise so far it has been a non-event.

~~~
dehrmann
Unless it's a quirk of power transmission, I'm surprised much of that area
would be affected. I was thinking anything west of Foothill would be dicey.

~~~
dbcurtis
Apparently most of 94087 is good, but my little corner of it seems to share a
feed with some of the Cupertino hill country. At least going by the outage
maps I have seen.

~~~
dehrmann
Ahh. Yeah; all the maps I saw looked like hill country.

------
cmurf
1\. State takes it over, destroys the shareholders (they've mismanaged the
company, so I'm not terribly sympathetic to them)

2\. State releases them from their liabilities, gets nothing but debt and
lawsuits out of the deal, effectively insures the shareholders bad management.

3\. State refuses to release them from liability, shareholders take a haircut
or perhaps worst case are destroyed, and state is caught holding a large
amount of the liability anyway in the ensuing bankruptcy.

The state should not be blackmailed. Option 1 has the least moral hazard and
there's an option for the state to spin it off as a private company later, and
California citizens profit.

~~~
gimmeThaBeet
The problem with 1 and 3 that isn't accounted for is that then you have go on
dealing with your other utilities acting like you didn't just eat their
neighbor's heart on national television.

When utilities bring their rate cases to the CPUC, they're factoring in the
liabilities they face. If now you're one fire away from the State of
California ruining you, their going to argue they need higher return on
investment, higher rates, higher revenues to accommodate infrastructure, and
they're going to be right. Policy people aren't going to swallow that sitting
down because it's political poison, they burn the state down so you grant them
rate increases.

No matter whose hands their in, most of the risk is going to be borne by the
ratepayers. Public or private, short of redesigning the entire grid, that risk
doesn't go away.

~~~
kelnos
I don't think anyone is arguing that if PG&E needs more funding to actually
fix the problem, they shouldn't get it. I think it's fair to be skeptical,
though. PG&E had $1.66B in profit in 2017. Why was that money not put toward
paying down maintenance debt throughout the year?

I fully expect PG&E to be bailed out yet again. At the end of the day, repairs
need to be made, and it's hard to do that when you're bankrupt. But there need
to be consequences. I worry about CA's ability to manage PG&E directly, but
maybe it's time. At the very least, a power company should not be a profit-
seeking corporation. It should not be paying out dividends. Every penny (minus
some cash set aside for a rainy-day fund) it brings in should be reinvested in
the grid, immediately.

I see other utilities being freaked out by this to be a good thing. Act in the
public interest, or we will take over your operations. You serve at the
pleasure of the public, not your shareholders.

------
creato
Assigning significant blame to PGE for fires even when their equipment is at
fault is stupid. The _main_ factor in every big fire is hot, dry conditions.
It doesn't really matter where the initial spark comes from, it's inevitable
that big fires will happen in conditions like this.

I think a reasonable way to handle this would be to assign liability for fires
according to the cost of handling a typical fire, not the specific fire. It
shouldn't matter whether effectively the same negligent act causes a small
brush fire that causes no damage and goes out by itself or a monster wildfire.
The difference between those two outcomes has nothing to do with the negligent
actions and everything to do with the surrounding conditions.

~~~
dbcurtis
Um... PG&E was way behind on brush clearing. They still are.

Of course, there are people that don’t want PG&E to trim their trees,
hopefully those folks have got religion now.

The Santa Rosa fire was absolutely started by PG&E equipment and deferred
brush clearing.

~~~
throwaway5752
Yes. Nobody, including the person you replied to, is disputing that.

But we're scapegoating PG&E for global warming. CA is a tinderbox compared to
20 years ago. Utilities are always behind on brush clearing everywhere. It's
only now it's creating megafires. It's not environmentalists either. It's the
average summer being 3-4 degrees F hotter than average and increasing.

~~~
ncmncm
California just came out of many years of drought without those fires. The
fires happened after an unusually wet year.

It is negligence. Brush and tree clearance are not harder than 50 years ago.
There was no sudden surge of trees and brush to cut. They just chose not to do
it.

~~~
throwaway5752
Didn't the preceding years of drought kill a bunch of trees, leaving standing
fuel?

Also, wasn't 2017 the hottest summer ever in California at the time, although
I think 2018 broke that record, and I think it's on track to break the record
again in 2019?

------
baron816
I wouldn't be surprised if Tesla got a lot of orders for panels and batteries
this week.

~~~
makomk
I wouldn't be surprised either, but it might not help people all that much. I
don't think Tesla's current Powerwall can charge from solar when the grid's
down due to the AC link between the solar inverter and the Powerwall only
working when connected to the grid.

------
yodon
The SF Chronicle has an updating map of outage locations[0]

[0][https://projects.sfchronicle.com/trackers/power-
outages/](https://projects.sfchronicle.com/trackers/power-outages/)

------
vaxman
PG&E will be seized for this.

~~~
dehrmann
And then what? Clear space around transmission lines? Bury transmissions
lines? Costs money. Keep the power going when it's risky? Fires. Raise rates
for all customers, you'll get pretty angry people. Realistically, all you can
do is raise rates for people in risky areas to cover the cost of either
maintenance or fires.

This is just the consequence of suing PG&E for fires.

~~~
brianpgordon
PG&E paid $798 million in dividends in 2017 and $925 million in 2016.

~~~
dehrmann
That lacks any sort of context.

For one, its last dividend was paid in September 2017 before concerns about
wildfires. Its dividend yield in 2017 was around 3.2%, and its profit was
$1.6B. 3.2% isn't getting rich, and people don't buy utilities to get rich,
but they expect dividends for their troubles, and the dividend kept up with
inflation.

In hindsight, would it have been better to try to prevent wildfires? Yes, but
it wasn't clear this was an issue, so in the absence of that, utilities pay
out their profits to shareholders.

Its profit margin in 2017 was almost 10% (high than you'd expect for a
utility), but if you look at earlier years, its all over the map, and its
revenue isn't growing.

~~~
ltbarcly3
I think the point is that dividends are a distribution of profits, and they
shouldn't be booking profits at all if they are violating regulations and
endangering lives by avoiding maintenance expenses.

~~~
dehrmann
I looked through old news stories. I found this (April 2016):

[https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article74496267...](https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/fires/article74496267.html)

> Cal Fire blames PG&E for Butte Fire, will seek $90 million

> A Cal Fire investigation has found Pacific Gas and Electric Co. responsible
> for the 2015 Butte Fire, one of the most destructive wildfires in state
> history.

Also found this (July 2016):

> Pacific Gas & Electric Company has signed a multi-million dollar
> contract...to remove about 160,000 dead trees that were cut down to protect
> power lines on private property in 10 Central California counties.

[https://www.sierrastar.com/news/local/article90649657.html](https://www.sierrastar.com/news/local/article90649657.html)

There wasn't tons of outrage--op-eds saying this is a disaster waiting to
happen--and they probably saw "most destructive wildfires in state history"
and $90M and decided it was manageable. They were also probably still focusing
on preventing the next San Bruno pipeline explosion and less worried about
wildfires. It's too easy to look back with a hindsight bias and say "of course
they should have done more."

~~~
ltbarcly3
I have no idea how you managed to find that stuff but missed the deadliest
wildfire in California history, and when they exploded a neighborhood?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_(2018)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Fire_\(2018\))

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/business/pge-
fire.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/15/business/pge-fire.html)

Not only was PG&E found liable due to poor maintenance, they have gone
bankrupt as a result.

Then there was the time PG&E didn't maintain their gas pipelines and one
exploded an entire block of houses, killing 8 people:

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

Or you could google for "PG&E maintenance" and click the first link that isn't
on PG&E's website:

[https://www.salon.com/2019/10/09/after-choosing-profits-
over...](https://www.salon.com/2019/10/09/after-choosing-profits-over-
maintenance-california-utility-giant-forces-blackouts-on-customers/)

------
abstractbarista
The fact that anywhere in the USA has planned blackouts is absolutely
unacceptable.

Build the infrastructure in a manner which is impervious to high winds.

Glad I don't live in CA, because it sounds like the electricity is _more_
expensive yet _less_ reliable.

I guess this happens because they are legally at fault for causing fires. I'm
not sure that's sane, unless they can be proven to be grossly negligent, like
if they allowed lines to sag right above the ground.

~~~
iamhamm
I’d recommend Normal Accidents by Charles Perrow. I no longer believe the
impervious system is possible. I do think PG&E needs to be forced to invest
more in the infrastructure, but, at the end of the day, these accidents will
still happen imo.

------
jjeaff
So their plan is just to completely turn off the power anytime there is a fire
hazard? What if the hazard remains for weeks?

This seems more like a stunt to convince the state to release them from some
liability.

~~~
hurrdurr2
I think you hit the nail on the head there. This is basically PG&E C suite
folks blackmailing the state.

~~~
ncmncm
I.e., "Look what you made us do!"

The Santa Rosa fire started from five+ places where wires swung and arced and
set surrounding branches on fire. They just sent a crew out to each one. If
after the fifth incident, they had cut power for just a few hours, there would
have been no conflagration. If they had cut back the branches so they did not
surround the wires, as they are expected to do and used to do, there would
have been no conflagration.

This is PGE very clearly demanding that the state act to free them from their
responsibilities. If the state does, PGE thould also be freed from any
responsibility to return a profit to shareholders, or to pay salaries to
existing executives.

------
35787
The problem isn’t pge, it’s the weather. How does anyone expect pge to never
allow a _single_ failure? They used to happen all the time and it didn’t
matter because California wasn’t a fucking tinder box. The problem isn’t pge
it’s the tinderbox. Take away pge and you will still have fires as was
demonstrated today in Moraga where 50 acres burned where there was no power.
Take away the tinderbox and you won’t have fires. Everyone hating on pge is
nothing short of a mass hallucination.

~~~
rrss
This would make a lot more sense if the failures of PG&E infrastructure that
caused previous fires were not because of negligence.

It's one thing to criticize the utility for a rare failure when they engaged
in reasonable maintenance and quite another when the failure was due to poor
maintenance hidden behind falsified records.

~~~
35787
The point is that the fires aren’t caused by their negligence. They would have
happened anyway as you just admitted. But the uproar is blaming them for
fires. It’s incorrect.

