‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room

Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by thereisnospork on Saturday October 12, 2019 @09:07PM (#21237531)

This may be a naive question, but why aren't they being bankrupted (or hurt financially) for cutting off the power voluntarily? Their nominal job is to provide power, not doing so for reasons that aren't acts of god should open them to liability and/or (severe) penalties for violation of contract.

If the appropriate legal framework doesn't currently exist I can't imagine a 'The lights stay on' bill would be all that unpopular politically.

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by dragonwriter on Saturday October 12, 2019 @11:25PM (#21238159)

> This may be a naive question, but why aren't they being bankrupted (or hurt financially) for cutting off the power voluntarily?

Well, lots of reasons, but one absolute blocker is that they are already bankrupt because of their liability for wildfires in 2017 and 2018.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Gas_and_Electric_Com...

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by sjg007 on Saturday October 12, 2019 @09:09PM (#21237547)

No, the bankruptcy is due to the wildfires from last year.

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by corebit on Sunday October 13, 2019 @10:20AM (#21240482)

Like all service providers in every industry, you can probably get an SLA from them if you really want one. Otherwise you're stuck with Best Effort service. If that doesnt meet your expectations, you're free to shop around and pay for better service. Choice is good.

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by Thorrez on Sunday October 13, 2019 @03:53AM (#21239093)

Do they have contracts saying they will provide power 100% of the time?

Is them shutting the power off different from a tree falling on the line cutting power off? What if power went out due to some equipment failing that they didn't perform proper maintenance on?

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by ncmncm on Sunday October 13, 2019 @01:33PM (#21241580)

They are a Public Utility, granted a monopoly in exchange for providing reliable power distribution. If they can't do that, they have no reason to exist at all, certainly not as a monopoly.

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by williamDafoe on Saturday October 12, 2019 @09:11PM (#21237558)

Remember that CA impeached the governor Gray Davis in 2000 for power outages .. I bet that PG&e is thinking of doing the same thing today to Gavin Newsom!

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by Simulacra on Saturday October 12, 2019 @10:41PM (#21237963)

Point of clarification: It was a recall, not impeachment. Impeachment is an act of the legislature, recall is an act of the voters.[0]

[0].https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_gubernatorial_recal...

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by ncmncm on Sunday October 13, 2019 @01:40PM (#21241621)

Furthermore, he was not recalled for the power outages. His recall was bankrolled by those he was fighting having California pay the $80Bn embezzled with the aid of Enron and Dynegy.

Arnold Schwarzneggar stole the governership, and promptly made the state pay the $80Bn. Californians paid through the nose for going along with the recall.

If Gavin gets hit with a recall, it will be more of the same. Californians will be the poorer for it. There are a lot of billionaires here, but also widespread extreme poverty. No coincidence, that.

It is very cheap to run a recall campaign in California.

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Re:‘This Did Not Go Well’: Inside PG&E’s Blackout Control Room by inferiorhuman on Saturday October 12, 2019 @10:23PM (#21237868)

How do you figure that?

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