California throws lifeline to PG&E over potential Camp Fire liability

[apdst]

This move by the state government is in exchange for PG&E not going public about how state laws wouldn't allow for the brush to be cleared away from power lines.

 

[mike2810]

A company like PG&E would more likely go Chapter XI, reorganization under bankruptcy. It would not shut down.

Most likely.

What will be interesting is how other States homeowner insurance rates may go up due to the loss in CA. We can throw in other disasters like Hurricanes. I doubt insurance companies can tolerate the claims being paid out over the last few years.

 

[mike2810]

Lots of companies go bankrupt and continue on; United Airlines come to mind...

I realize that.

 

[jet57]

I realize that.

So your point is moot.

 

[Grand Mal]

Interesting concept.

You do realize that CA gets energy from other States. CA has no surpluss energy. AZ Palo Verde Plant is one source CA gets electricity from.

They buy electricity from BC, too.

 

[poweRob]

Interesting concept.

You do realize that CA gets energy from other States. CA has no surpluss energy. AZ Palo Verde Plant is one source CA gets electricity from.

If you made the lines competitive and profitable for anyone selling energy, that might very well change.

 

[upsideguy]

Most likely.

What will be interesting is how other States homeowner insurance rates may go up due to the loss in CA. We can throw in other disasters like Hurricanes. I doubt insurance companies can tolerate the claims being paid out over the last few years.

When global warming starts impacting the bottom line of insurance carriers and doubles homeowner premiums, maybe people will begin to take it seriously.

 

[The Mark]

Would you prefer PG&E go bankrupt and shut down?

If they caused some fires which killed some people?

What would we do with a person who did this?

Jail them for life, or maybe put them in a mental institution.

I doubt the corporation will get that punishment though.

 

[Unitedwestand13]

If they caused some fires which killed some people?

What would we do with a person who did this?

Jail them for life, or maybe put them in a mental institution.

I doubt the corporation will get that punishment though.

If the corporation is directly responsible for causing the fire, they should at least pay for the damage caused

 

[The Mark]

If the corporation is directly responsible for causing the fire, they should at least pay for the damage caused

I don't think that is sufficient.

If malfunctioning power lines caused some fires, those managers who didn't direct resources to prevent such would seem to be partially at fault.

 

[mike2810]

When global warming starts impacting the bottom line of insurance carriers and doubles homeowner premiums, maybe people will begin to take it seriously.

Agencies have been pitching FIREWISE for over 10+ years. Some get it. Some don't.

 

[azgreg]

Why even bother posting? I mean you will type whatever trump last said now matter what the facts are.

I'm supposing your next comment will be that they should've "raked" the forest floors.

 

[mike2810]

If they caused some fires which killed some people?

What would we do with a person who did this?

Jail them for life, or maybe put them in a mental institution.

I doubt the corporation will get that punishment though.

One rumor is that the Camp fire was caused from a transformer that exploded. If true I doubt that PG&E could have predicted that transformer would fail.

Here is one for you. Would you hold any homeowner responsible for not meeting FIREWISE standards. If a property was not meeting Firewise standards and caught fire. That burning house may have been the ignition source for the next house.

imo, Paradise was built in a known high fire risk area. High winds, low RH% does not bode well when there is a fire.

 

[The Mark]

One rumor is that the Camp fire was caused from a transformer that exploded. If true I doubt that PG&E could have predicted that transformer would fail.

Here is one for you. Would you hold any homeowner responsible for not meeting FIREWISE standards. If a property was not meeting Firewise standards and caught fire. That burning house may have been the ignition source for the next house.

imo, Paradise was built in a known high fire risk area. High winds, low RH% does not bode well when there is a fire.

I watched some coverage where they were talking about how the evacuation of Paradise was not completely possible due to insufficient roads out.

And thus deaths.

 

[mike2810]

I watched some coverage where they were talking about how the evacuation of Paradise was not completely possible due to insufficient roads out.

And thus deaths.

That may be. Not all small mountain communities have good ingress and egress. I know of a few in AZ that it is one way in/out and it is a dirt road.

 

[JoanDavis]

Would you prefer PG&E go bankrupt and shut down?

I would prefer the people who knew a problem existed be asked why they didn't do something about it. If they took action the bushfires might have been prevented and people wouldn't have died or lost their homes and belongings. Oh and I want the orange thing to apologise for the hateful and untruthful tweet he posted blaming the Californian government and threatening to withdraw federal funding.

 

[mike2810]

I would prefer the people who knew a problem existed be asked why they didn't do something about it. If they took action the bushfires might have been prevented and people wouldn't have died or lost their homes and belongings. Oh and I want the orange thing to apologise for the hateful and untruthful tweet he posted blaming the Californian government and threatening to withdraw federal funding.

What problem are you eluding too? Cause of the Camp fire has yet to be determined. I can agree the President has been talking out his butt regarding the CA fires.

Here is a wildland firefighters take (mine) on what you posted. Why didn't the homeowners Firewise their property. We have been educating the public for over 10+ years. Why didn't the local government in charge of zoning require the developer to construct houses to Firewise standards? Why didn't the town/community of Paradise have an active Firewise program to work with the State, County, Federal and Private companies to reduce the risk surrounding the community.

The President is not wrong in that our land needs better management at all levels. Many of our forested areas are overgrown and need of fuel reduction. This problem did not start with the current administration. It has been going on for decades. You can blame Congress for not adequately funding resource management on Federal Land. You can blame the State government for not adequately funding resource management on State land. You can blame local/county government for not funding fuel management on land they are responsible for. You can also blame the home owner for not taking care of their property. You can blame Private companies (utilities) if they failed to maintain powerlines and right of way to code.

Bottom line. With the fuels, the temps and wind once a fire started it was going to be tough. From the scenes I have seen of Paradise the fire quickly became a house to house fire. The house were pretty packed in to a heavily forested area. Not good.

https://wildfiretoday.com/2018/11/0...se-california-forcing-evacuations/#more-62042

 

[JoanDavis]

When global warming starts impacting the bottom line of insurance carriers and doubles homeowner premiums, maybe people will begin to take it seriously.

Disagree. As long as trump and the republicans keep denying climate change doesn't exist, their supporters will keep believing their BS.

 

[HumblePi]

When global warming starts impacting the bottom line of insurance carriers and doubles homeowner premiums, maybe people will begin to take it seriously.

The thousands people in California that lost their homes but realize how lucky they are not to have lost their lives are certainly taking it seriously but It doesn't matter as long politicians in Washington aren't. Acknowledging that climate change is threatening our planet is going to cost wealthy men too much money, so they'll deny it for that reason.

 

[WCH]

Why even bother posting? I mean you will type whatever trump last said now matter what the facts are.

I'm supposing your next comment will be that they should've "raked" the forest floors.

This has been an ongoing issue for CA way before Trump said anything. I know it's hard for those who worship government to understand but, sometimes they make bad choices.

 

[ludin]

I keep reading that term in this context and don't understand it. Forest management? How the hell do you manage a forest? I mean, okay, I'm on 21 acres and I understand woodlot management but a forest? BC is about a million square klicks, California about a half-million. How do you manage a forest that's tens of thousands of square miles?

you don't manage the whole thing. you manage the parts that would cause the most issues.
we do regular controlled burns where i live to prevent this sort of thing from happening.

and it works very well.

 

[ludin]

The thousands people in California that lost their homes but realize how lucky they are not to have lost their lives are certainly taking it seriously but It doesn't matter as long politicians in Washington aren't. Acknowledging that climate change is threatening our planet is going to cost wealthy men too much money, so they'll deny it for that reason.

poor electrical grid maintenance and poor land management has nothing to do with global warming.
you guys need to stop hijacking actual scientific terms.

climate change is real and has been happening for thousands and thousands of years.
but it doesn't mean what you think it means in this context.

 

[poweRob]

This has been an ongoing issue for CA way before Trump said anything. I know it's hard for those who worship government to understand but, sometimes they make bad choices.

What was California supposed to do to manage all that federal land?

You haven't a clue at all do ya? Just worship dear leader and slurp up every word that trickles from his lips despite how damn dumb he is. It's absolutely amazing how he makes an idiot like George W Bush look like a mensa candidate.

 

[WCH]

I keep reading that term in this context and don't understand it. Forest management? How the hell do you manage a forest? I mean, okay, I'm on 21 acres and I understand woodlot management but a forest? BC is about a million square klicks, California about a half-million. How do you manage a forest that's tens of thousands of square miles?

Concentrate on areas where the people live and clear our trees close to homes.

The Native Americans used methods of prescribed burning that helped maintain healthy forests and grasslands. When they were discouraged from doing so, we've had centuries of mismanagement leading to more and more catastrophic fire conditions. CA is one of the states that has prohibited proper management.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/dbnf/home/?cid=stelprdb5281464

 

[chuckiechan]

From CBS News

California throws lifeline to PG&E over potential Camp Fire liability
​

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Shares of Pacific Gas & Electric soared Friday after California's top utility regulator said his agency will help the company deal with potentially crippling liability costs from wildfires.

Stock prices soared nearly 38 percent after plunging 60 percent and losing $15 billion in valuation in the week following the Northern California wildfire that is the nation's deadliest in a century.

No cause has been determined, but speculation has centered on PG&E, which reported an outage around the time and place the fire ignited. The death toll from the so-called Camp Fire has risen to at least 63, with hundreds of people still unaccounted for. California state investigators in June faulted PG&E-owned power lines for sparking a dozen blazes in Northern California in the fall of 2017 that killed 46 and incinerated nearly 9,000 homes and other structures.

Late Thursday, California Public Utilities Commission President Michael Picker sought to calm financial markets by indicating support for the continued viability of PG&E and other publicly traded utilities.

COMMENT:-

So PG&E is going to get to charge all customers extra in order to pay some customers for the damage caused by the negligence of PG&E (for which it isn't insured [which insurance it already charges all customers so that it will be able to pay some customers for damage suffered]).

But, not to worry, the California government has taken steps to ensure that the shareholders of PG&E don't suffer any loss due to declines in share prices.

In the words of Tommy Douglas "It's socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us.".
​

Back to PG&E, the state doesn't want to just bankrupt them, the state wants to buy them out while they gradually convert all private electrical generation companies to private for a couple of reasons. To prepare the playing field the state won the following court ruling with language that amounts to buttressing California's right to "taking in the public good" through regulation:

But from the perspective of PG&E’s management this means, “Even though we don’t believe we caused those fires, we’ll probably still have to pay liability settlements of large but indeterminate amounts.”

IOW, the state says you are a dead man walking.

Besides PG&E's ineptness in other places, the state wants their union membership transferred to PERS. (State Employee Retirement System) to buttress up their negative numbers.

In a sense the state wants all generators speaking the same party line lest the natives start asking questions, plus the state wants the control. The state will probably turn them into a non profit public utility like SMUD which I have and is quite a bit cheaper than PG&E. So we get lower prices, the state gets more union members and their money. And we have socialized power that works.

Side note: I would love the DoJ to look into insider trading in California. Knowing in advance when the government is going to put it's hand on the stock market is how these pricks get so rich.