Re:Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy
by dehrmann on Monday October 28, 2019 @11:29AM
(#21377819)
> the estimate price of these multi-day blackouts is on the order of $1 billion per blackout
But that's not the cost to PG&E. PG&E (or the state) would have to find a way to get some of that somewhat hidden opportunity cost.
Re:Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy
by Robotbeat on Monday October 28, 2019 @12:26PM
(#21378400)
The state already does that through regular, economy-wide taxes. (Maybe this is why it's a bad idea to grant a monopoly to a for-profit company like PG&E that doesn't take into account the externalities of power outages... Then again, Texas' very deregulated but non-monopoly ERCOT seems to do pretty well. So either state-owned OR deregulated may be optimums compared to PG&E...)
Re:Private firefighters go to work for California's wealthy
by xadhominemx on Monday October 28, 2019 @05:08PM
(#21381692)
$1m/mile is off by like a factor if 10. PG&E thinks it costs $3-5m/mile to bury _distribution_ lines: http://www.pgecurrents.com/2017/10/31/facts-about-undergroun...
It costs $1 million per mile (roughly) to bury transmission lines. PG&E has about 18,000 miles of transmission lines. That's about $18 billion to bury the lines. Sounds like a lot, but...
...the estimate price of these multi-day blackouts is on the order of $1 billion per blackout. Given multiple blackouts per year, and we're talking just a few years to pay back the price of burying the transmission lines. https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/A-cool-billion-...