REUTERS/Jessica Orellana
Chris White Tech Reporter
November 02, 2019 7:34 PM ET
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom railed against the state’s public utility company for blacking out large portions of the state, but some experts say regulators are partially to blame.
- Regulators in the state are too preoccupied with solar panels, climate change and keeping customers’ rates low to update old transmission lines that can create wildfires, experts say.
- Newsom, a Democrat, says he is considering taking over the utility company if it cannot get its finances together.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other critics are blasting the public utility company responsible for rolling blackouts, but some experts argue regulators’ obsession with climate change is partially to blame.
Newsom suggested Friday taking over Pacific Gas & Electric, a public utility company that shut off electricity recently to nearly 1 million customers to prevent potential wildfires. The California Democrat argued that PG&E’s greed and corruption are leading to the massive blackouts.
“It’s about dog-eat-dog capitalism meeting climate change. It’s about corporate greed meeting climate change. It’s about decades of mismanagement,” Newsom told reporters on Oct. 25. He has not let up, telling reporters Friday that the financially strapped utility might be centralized if it can’t right its ship.
The blackouts were intended to forestall wildfires, which have stymied the state for two years. This has led to a spotty success rate. PG&E told state regulators in an October filing that one of the utility’s snapped wires was found on a transmission tower near where the Kincade Fire began.
That fire, which began on Oct. 23 and is currently 70% contained, charred 77,758 acres in Northern California. Other fires are also wreaking havoc. The Easy Fire and Maria Fire in Southern California, for instance, are charring 1,860 acres and 9,412 acres, respectively.
PG&E’s equipment is not responsible for all of the fires, but investigators found in 2018 that broken or fallen distribution lines caused 12 Northern California wildfires in the October 2017 Fire Siege. Yet experts say PG&E is not entirely to blame for the chao
California’s wildfires are due to several factors, none of them pertaining to climate change, according to University of Washington climate scientist Cliff Mass. California is getting crowded, leading to higher probabilities of wildfires, he told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Poorly maintained electrical infrastructure” and strong, dry winds are playing a significant role, Mass said, adding: Anyone who is citing climate change as a major factor is merely shifting the blame.
Rolling blackouts are a sensible solution given the dense population in large sections of California and the public utility’s rickety infrastructure, Mass noted. In fact, the massive blackouts likely helped reduce potential wildfires despite Kincade and others, he added.
Other experts are making similar arguments. Regulators and consumer advocate groups were too preoccupied with other considerations to fireproof transmission lines, according to Ted Nordhaus, an environmental policy expert and director of research at the Breakthrough Institute.
“To whatever degree PG&E prioritized profits over maintenance, it can’t account for failure to fire-proof transmission and distribution network. It just wasn’t priority for anyone, including regulators and consumer groups,” Nordhaus noted in a Twitter thread Monday.
Regulators who control PG&E’s funding have focused on climate change and other things instead, he stated. (RELATED: Here’s What Wildfires Are Doing To California As Citizens Cope With Rolling Blackouts)
The company spent more than half a billion dollars in 2018 on electric discounts for low-income citizens and another $125 million for efficiency upgrades, The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board noted in an Oct. 25 editorial. PG&E has also used $7.5 billion in allowances since 2012 to pay for reduced emissions.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a news conference at the California State Capitol on March 13, 2019 in Sacramento, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
California lawmakers passed an ordinance in 2015 requiring utilities to pay $100 million annually on solar systems in low-income areas, The WSJ Editorial Board noted. That is in addition to the $2.2 billion in rebates the utilities must offer customers for rooftop solar installations. A ratepayer advocacy division within California’s Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is complicating matters.
CPUC’s Office of Ratepayer Advocates (ORA) argues against maintenance and safety expenditures to keep rates low for customers, according to an application PG&E made to CPUC in 2012 to increase rates. PG&E noted in the document that ORA’s other priorities are making it difficult to maintain current infrastructure.
PG&E, which is bankrupt as a result of costs accrued as a result of deadly fires in 2018, is meanwhile under pressure to keep the lights on while at the same time monitoring old transmission lines that are susceptible to fire. The investor-owned public utility is still providing campaign cash to multiple California politicians, Republican and Democrat alike.
Newsom and his allies, for instance, took $208,400 from PG&E during his run for governor in 2018, California’s ABC10 noted in a July investigation. PG&E gave the governor the maximum amount of $58,400 and gave another $150,000 to a political spending group supporting his candidacy.
PG&E also donated more than $800,000 directly to candidate campaigns and another $3 million to political groups, which ultimately went back into candidates’ war chests, according to ABC10’s investigation, which relied on state records.
Newsom’s office has not provided the DCNF a statement regarding the governor’s handling of the blackouts or wildfires. PG&E has also not responded to multiple requests for comment, nor has CPUC.
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Newsome himself is a fire hazard. The grease just ozzes out of that guy.
If you want to see what a Californian utility will be like under full government control, it doesn’t take too long an attention span to figure it out. See ‘Oroville Dam Spillway Disaster’.
These blackouts are not what are called rolling blackouts.
Why do people keep saying that?
I’m sure I’m out of loop here, and probably off base, but here goes my half-pfennig on this:
Let us consider two changes to what has happened over the past years, starting with (number one) good land/forestry management, which should have included thinning, fuel removal, controlled/prescribed burns, and other basic land management. If I’m not mistaken, does this not involve or include the State Forestry Service, and the national governmental agencies, who often take the lead in determining major aspects of land management?
And, number two, suppose the money spent on fighting mythical ‘climate change’ had been invested in replacing overhead power lines with underground conduit(s), as I see was proposed some time ago? Are not the underground power connections more robust, and able to handle weather events better? Yes, as a geologist I understand California has some tectonic issues; this is why you study an area where underground utilities are proposed, and install mitigation measures.
Again, if this is all old hat, please understand that I’m relaying something I thought I heard a long time ago. I seek correction and/or updating,
Vlad
re: “And, number two, suppose the money spent on fighting mythical ‘climate change’ had been invested in replacing overhead power lines with underground conduit(s), ”
Impractical. Suggest you audit a course or two in this technical subject at your local uni OR find the equiv on YT.
In 2002, I went to my first energy conference in California, where newly appointed Public Utility Commissioner President Mike Peevey was guest speaker.
After listening to his speech, I understood just how complex energy in CA was: PUC, CEC, CAIR, California Natural Resource Agency and CA State Government were all involved. The difficulties of doing energy in CA became obvious to me, so I asked Mike if there was any chance of California making their energy and utility business any less complex.
The whole room laughed including Mike and then a lawyer, lobbyist, or accountant said: “There goes our revenue stream.
This is a long way of saying California has many groups to blame, besides PGE.
Hey people, before you use Seattle City Light as an example of low electricity rates from state-owned utilities check on sources of electricity. The northwet US has traditionally had much hydro-electric power. (Has one nuclear plant in south central WA, had some coal-fired generation near Centralia, and has an NG-fired plant at Sumas near the Canadian border.
That plant was built to use NG from the big pipes coming from NE BC, which also supplied NG for heating to areas of the US. The Sumas plant may have been affected a year ago by failure of one of the two big pipes and reduced pressure in the other that in hindsight is too close to the other. A reminder of vulnerability of supply routes. I don’t know if NG from new fields such as the Baaken is now piped into NW WA.
BC has much electric power generation, especially from the Peace River in NE BC, with more coming as the ‘Site C’ dam is being built. In recent decades it has profitted from selling power into the US, using its storage dams to give it flexibility of timing of delivery – and sometimes buying coal-generated power from Alberta at low rates. Unfortunately supplying to the US put it in the sights of politicians and lawyers in big wrangles about price and supply in California.
BC’s rates are low because of that hydro power, though I have not dug into how the dams were paid for, it is a state agency. About a tenth of Anthony’s marginal rate in Chico.
And note that Seattle City Light got conned by someone claiming to be of North American Indian ancestry – not the brightest company at the time (poor CEO).
Rather than provide interesting anecdotes, provide actual rates and reliability comparisons. For example, provide the rates and reliability of city owned and operated Seattle City Light compared with for profit PSE rates and reliability in Kirkland, Bellevue and Redmond which are very close to Seattle. This is where the rubber hits the road so to speak.
Compare the rates and reliability between city owned and run LADWP and for profit PG&E in San Francisco or for profit SDGE.
I’m surprised that Anthony Watts hasn’t made these comparisons since I believe he lives in California.
re: “Rolling Blackouts”
HWGA.
NOT rolling blackouts. CA was _not_ short on generation assets.
Do you really know what a rolling blackout is, and WHY it is implemented?