Posted on 10/18/2019 4:42:30 PM PDT by karpov
PG&E Corp.’s chief executive said Friday that it could take as long as 10 years for the company to improve its electric system enough to significantly diminish the need to pull the plug on customers to reduce the risk of sparking fires.
Bill Johnson, who joined the company in May, made the disclosure at a California Public Utilities Commission hearing where the panel’s president, Marybel Batjer, sharply criticized the company’s “inadequate execution” of a shut-off in which it turned off power to large portions of Northern California for more than two days last week.
The commission convened an emergency meeting to examine PG&E’s handling of the massive blackout, which left roughly two million people in the dark and created widespread havoc from the Bay Area to the northern reaches of the state. Several of the company’s top executives were summoned to detail the problems and take questions from regulators.
“I can tell you that you guys failed on so many levels on fairly simple stuff,” Ms. Batjer said.
The agency earlier this week ordered PG&E to address numerous problems with its strategy for such blackouts, known as public safety power shut-offs. It condemned the company’s failure to provide maps and other critical information to residents and local officials ahead of the shut-off. PG&E’s website crashed for two days during the blackout, and its call centers were overwhelmed.
Mr. Johnson on Friday apologized for the hardships caused by the shut-off but defended the company’s decision to implement it, noting that none of its power lines sparked fires, even though strong winds in certain areas caused damage to its system.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Yes. Indemnify PG&E for liability from fire-related lawsuits.
Carbon credit for you and you and you
Stupid idea I’m afraid. There is nothing they would like more than immunity from liability. If they had that they would do nothing to prevent fires, improve their equipment or anything else. Giving people an undeserved pass seldom solves problems. It only assures that the problems will get worse.
How about better forest management?
Ridiculous.
This could be fixed before spring.
Good question!
Not at this moment. Some steady light rain.
If present trends continue, California is entering a dark age.
The simple solution to all this is for California to go Carbon Free! They want to get rid of coal fired power plants, just shut it down. Goodbye, Google, Facebook and Twitter! I don’t feel sorry for these idiots on being stuck on stupid! That all being said, this is a great opportunity for Trump to start riling up California and turn it Purple. I can’t fathom the people are enjoying this crap.
The company has been charging its customers a surcharge for years to cover the cost of the upgrades and maintenance so they wouldn’t have to do this.
Where’d all that money go?
Theft. Fraud. Graft and grift. And CA politicians are neck deep in it.
When I lived there most of the problem was due to poor land management as a result of California’s “environmental” policies that allowed heavy overgrowth and stopped the clearing of old brush and trees around power lines. This wasn’t on the utility but firmly at the feet of environmental lunatics. Also that allowed the few cases of arson to grow wildly out of control.
Doesn’t sound good. Some hedge fund piranhas were given control of the bankruptcy. Some claim they will just rob the shareholders and anything of value and may say Hasta la vista.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/pge-shareholders-could-get-wiped-out
The future living under the Green New Deal.
Might as well get used to it, folks.
A little something to look forward to for those still in the sh*t bucket.
Cut the power off for two weeks in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills, then sit back and watch how damn fast this ends.
Cut the power off for two weeks in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills, then sit back and watch how damn fast this ends.
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I’m sure they either have or will soon have large propane-fueled, automatic, state-of-the-art generators to run their central air conditioning, control their lawn irrigation systems, their pools and saunas and hot tubs, not to mention the in-home theaters, large Sub Zero freezers, charge their Teslas and power their hyperbaric chambers and isolation tanks and whatever other luxuries I am likely totally unaware of.
They won’t even notice.
I left Ca many years ago but i am currently building a battery bank for my home. Keeping it super simple at first and absolutely no grid connection. I have both forklift batteries and golf cart batteries.
Plenty of charging options, wind, solar even a real honest to god steam boiler generator.
Substandard equipment. Rats paid to look the other way.
Good! No fires! I’m very happy!
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