What Effect will PG&E Bankruptcy have on life in Norcal ?

What Effect will PG&E Bankruptcy have on life in Norcal ?

going out 5 years.

I keep reading about PG&E's bankruptcy filing.

PG&E says they have to raise rates 5-fold to deal with one judge's order that they inspect all (some huge number) of their power lines.


All of this palavering between Cal State gov., the bankruptcy judges, PG & E management, people suing PG&E for fire damages.

Palavering is good, most of the time. But this "design by committee" is their answer to PG&E's 2017 & 2018 wildfire record.

Which was "spotty".


Jesus * Christ

How does a state deal with that ?

The bankruptcy is a negotiating maneuver. Not sure that insight helps.

NorCal needs a power company that can distribute e-lect-tricity without starting fires.

The company best positioned to do that, says they can't do it, thoroughly & completely, without raising rates to about 75 cents an hour.

What are NorCal electricity rates now ? (residential & commercial)

What effect will that have on Cannabis growers ?


If the power company can't make money and manage wildfire risk as a for-profit company, what are they going to do ?

Make it a non-profit ?


The only possible answer I see is massive de-centralization (e.g. an existing 2.5 Megawatt facility in Santa Rosa that burns methane from the landfill to generate electricity for about 1000 homes.)

PG&E cutting rural power to prevent power lines from sparking =
rural citizens running generators =
1/100 or 1 in a 1000 making a mistake, that sparks a fire.

I don't think PG&E cutting rural power is going to be a true fix.


Anyway, just looking at the situation, I can't help but wonder - how the hell are they going to work this out ?

I don't see how they can do anything but raise rates. if not 5-fold, some other amount.

I bet lots of folks start looking at alternative energy sources!

MJPassion said:

I bet lots of folks start looking at alternative energy sources!

Click to expand...

Solar photovoltaic is getting cheaper and cheaper.

I think the way US society is going, organizations like Google will outlast the US itself.

The multiple coincident trends -
* cheaper photovoltaic,
* California's inability to corral wildfires - made much worse in 2019 by the 5 week stand-down of Fed. wildfire folks
* Bankruptcy status of many state & local governments, due to unfunded liabilities
* Bankruptcy status of the Federal government, compensated only by its ability to print money
* Bankruptcy status of PG&E - that's who supplies Google with electricity

Lead to some obvious conclusions -

Who has the ability to solve BIG technological problems ? Google, Apple, etc.

I can't help but respect the people who were hurt by PG&E negligence, and will get shorted by the PG&E bankruptcy.

Probably not many people are planning on buying their home furnishings from Sears - because Sears is bankrupt.

But they're all planning on getting their electricity from PG&E ?!

Most astute 5 year olds can come up with a better plan that what we are seeing unfold in California.

Of course, any town that splits off from the grid & relies on Photovoltaic, also has to plan on Energy Storage - or have generators ready to pick up the slack.

What a bunch of fascinating, overlapping, coincident (i.e. simultaneous), clusterfucks California (and much of the US) has become.