So by default, I would assume that electricity distribution should be a government function, but electric generation could probably work fine as a set of non-monopolies competing to feed energy into the publicly-run grid at the lowest prices.
Just a line item...
I don’t know about PG&E specifically, but in my region deregulation led to an attritted workforce and suspension of capital improvements. Shockingly, the infrastructure is a dumpster fire 20 years later.
Paradise (Camp fire) was sufficiently west that I think its own power lines did not travel through Natl Forest however if I'm not mistaken it was hit by fire from the east (pushed by a wind out of the east), further up into the Sierra, and almost certainly there power lines were in the wilderness.
This is course a bummer given the past effort to provide power to those areas, but maybe it's okay to acknowledge mistakes.
We're in California and are in a community that was affected by PG&E's power shut off.
I think one problem in California is that since I first arrived in the 1980s, the population has grown from 22 to close to 40 mln. And given, again, US cultural proclivities, there's a significant number of people who'd love to move out into at least near-wilderness - but they still expect to be provided with their utilities. Some may be fine living off-grid - but not others. And there's no way, in the US, you can tell them that they can't have their cake and eat it too. Especially if they're rich and some portion of those people moving out into their dream home in or near wilderness are rich and figure that entitles them to having it all.
Why shouldn't PG&E pay for it? They blew their safety budget on executive bonuses. Hell, look at how many hundreds of millions PG&E spends annually on stock buybacks to appease the shareholders.
I don't support other utility customers paying for that. I doubt you do either. That's who pays if PG&E foots the bill.
Define wilderness, there are plenty of people not in dense urban cities in California.
I doubt you do either.
When you assume you make an ass out of "u" and "me". I think rural electrification is important. More important than stock buybacks, executive compensation, and astronomically expensive lobbyists like Willie Brown. Rural service and higher rates don't necessarily go hand in hand.
That said I'd be more okay with paying increased rates for more comprehensive service than I am with paying increased rates to fund PG&E negligence.
Isn't that exactly what just happened and exactly what everyone's complaining about?
This isn't a can't be done safely problem, it's a private firm gambling to squeeze out more short-term profits and hoping it doesn't blow up in their face problem.
The particular problem though is wildfires and they're more slowly caught, and can become larger and more destructive, the further away they are from population.
[0] https://www.consumerwatchdog.org/blog/private-insurance-vs-m...
For example, Santa Clara runs their own public utility[2]. The average resident pays about 10.4 cents per KWh. That's about 30 percent less than rates PG&E charges.
Also, their energy is greener and their infrastructure is better maintained.
The problem with for profit utilities is that they are incentivized to keep things as lean as possible. They neglect maintenance of their infrastructure and use that money for bonuses and dividends. You can see that played out here [1].
[1] https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/PG-E-diverted-safety-...
They aren't incentivised to be excessively lean. The incentive structure for someone who has spent a fortune on expensive capital investment is to maintain it.
There is no point incentive to build a vast system of poles and wires then letting it degrade over time.
Anyway, it won't be capitalist incentives at work; it will be something in the details of the regulations. In Australia, due to poor market regulations, we have the opposite problem where our utilities spend far too much on grid maintenance.
Sure there is: short-term profit.
Making a long-term investment to squeeze it for unsustainable short term profits is genuinely stupid. There is no incentive to do that. They would make more money milking the grid for long-term profits.
If you've got a better name for it I'm all ears. But PG&E has been neglecting their infrastructure at least since the early 90s when their lackadaisical approach to clearing brush led to the Sierra Fire in '94.
Keep in mind that PG&E's record keeping was so lax that they blew up a neighborhood in San Bruno after increasing the pressure on a gas pipeline without knowing if the line could support such pressure. Apparently PG&E also got sued a couple years ago by shareholders alleging gross mismanagement and demanding safety reforms. I'd say there's plenty of stupid and greed at PG&E to go around.
'Incompetence' would be the normal choice. And standard run-of-the mill incompetence has nothing to do with profit motives or incentives.
You can get incompetence with any governance structure; it isn't related to profit motives. If they are being sued by their own shareholders that is quite solid evidence that it isn't capitalist incentives that are the problem.
Generally the costs are lower and service levels higher than privately-held corporations.
Granted, most munis don't have to deal with long-distance distribution, though there are four federal power administrations which do, the Bonneville, Southeastern, Southwestern, and Western Area Power Administrations. Also the Tennessee Valley Authority.
That really seems to be the only thing that matters here, given that the issue is about the liabilities fires due to lack of line maintenance in forested areas.
The interesting question is when you got something that you can't compete with directly like a train line but can compete using other methods like buses or airlines. In that case there might be more incentive to a train line operator to give a good service because of the competition.