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PG&E files for bankruptcy. Here's why that could mean bigger electricity bills
PG&E Corp., which owns California's largest electric utility, filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday in anticipation of huge legal claims, starting an unpredictable process that could take years to resolve and is likely to result in higher energy bills for the millions of Californians who depend on Pacific Gas & Electric for power.
PG&E said a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, which allows the company to continue operating while it comes up with a plan to pay its debts, was the only way to deal with billions of dollars in potential liabilities from a series of deadly wildfires, many of which were sparked by the company's power grid infrastructure.
"Through this process, we will prioritize what matters most to our customers and the communities we serve — safety and reliability," interim Chief Executive John R. Simon said in a statement. "We believe that this process will make sure that we have sufficient liquidity to serve our customers and support our operations and obligations."
Energy experts say PG&E's rates probably will increase when the utility emerges from Chapter 11 protection because bankruptcy inevitably makes it more expensive for a company to borrow money and creates large legal and other bankruptcy-related costs. The utility passes such expenses along to its customers.
"It's almost impossible to see a way out of this that doesn't have some short-term cost increases," Ralph Cavanagh, co-director of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a recent interview.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by PiMuNu on Wednesday January 30 2019, @03:00PM (9 children)
It turns out that if a private company responsible for infrastructure goes bankrupt (maybe because they took profit instead of investing in said infrastructure), everyone else ends up paying. Will share holders pay back some of their dividends?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by DannyB on Wednesday January 30 2019, @03:08PM (8 children)
If a company public or private falsifies records, disobeys codes about brush clearance around transmission towers or poles, and any other violations of law, just for the sake of profit . . .
. . . then the INDIVIDUALS who made those decisions should end up in prison.
Period.
There shouldn't be some shield for people committing crimes . . . just because it is profitable to do so.
The Mafia commits crimes, for profit, yet we seem to think of them as criminal. Maybe because we see real victims.
But white collar crimes also have victims. The customers who will pay higher rates. People whose homes or property was destroyed. People without power, when an outage occurred just minutes before a fire had started.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/19/us/camp-fire-pge-invs/index.html [cnn.com]
> A failure of gardening.
> In the aftermath of this year's Camp Fire in Butte County, which has claimed at least 86 lives, PG&E reported "an outage" on a transmission line in the area where the blaze began, about 15 minutes before it started.
> The company provided a list of "new and enhanced safety measures," including upgrading its vegetation management efforts,
> "What we have to do is put a fire chief in charge and make PG&E garden its power lines and make PG&E modernize its equipment,"
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(Score: 1, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday January 30 2019, @03:31PM
For once Fake News CNN is right. It comes down to GARDENING. The RAKING and the WATERING. As I've said many times. You RAKE the forest. Then you WATER it. Keep that up and no fires. Look at Finland, I was with the President of Finland, he said "we're a Forest Nation." He called it a forest nation, and they spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things. And they don't have any problem. Or what it is, it’s a small problem. But California is totally insane. They're diverting massive amounts of water into the Pacific Ocean. While their forests are dieing. And they don't TREE CLEAR. They leave so many dead Trees standing there. And they can catch fire so easily. So easily.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @04:38PM (1 child)
Agreed. The shareholders of a publicly traded company have no say in what happened. They are victims, not villains. The ones responsible are those that decided to break safety code laws.
The question is to what extent are safety code violations responsible and to what extent can this be a cause of lighting strikes and natural disasters outside of their control. I haven't really dug into it but has anyone else read into it?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:32PM
The question is to what extent are safety code violations responsible and to what extent can this be a cause of lighting strikes and natural disasters outside of their control. I haven't really dug into it but has anyone else read into it?
These are the fire codes in question. Can't say I'm familiar with them at all, though. [ca.gov]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bussdriver on Wednesday January 30 2019, @06:54PM (1 child)
It should be public. Like the DoT and the roads. Politicians need to live or die on the power company just as they do with transportation falling apart.
Electricity is as NECESSARY as roads are.
Monopolies can not compete. A monopoly's competition is the oversight system itself; it's naturally anti-democratic and will always end up attacking freedom in the end (ironically with Orwellian marketing saying they are the freedom fighters.)
Profit is NOT required for infrastructure and there are plenty of people who are not solely motivated by greed. (Which are the types you need in politics; only fools elect greed addicts...)
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 30 2019, @07:33PM
A smart greedy non-fool might elect greed addicts?
I suppose in some sense they are a fool.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 30 2019, @09:52PM (2 children)
It's a great idea that will never happen.
Who would bother running a company they could not leach money from
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 31 2019, @02:45PM (1 child)
We live in a capitalist system. There is nothing wrong with owning a company. Or having it publicly tiraded. There is nothing wrong with it being profitable. There is nothing wrong with enjoying the blessings of that profitability.
Where something wrong occurs is when the business is run in a way that is against the public interest and common good. Regulations are needed to put constraints on just how far business can go. Pollution. Chemical, Toxic, Biological or Radioactive waste. Corrupting politicians. False advertising. Misleading, deceptive and confusing product marketing. Those are just some examples of reasonable constraints.
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(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Thursday January 31 2019, @06:00PM
Well of course there is nothing wrong with companies being publicly tiraded! That's what's happening here.
There may even be nothing wrong with them being publicly traded. After all, what could be better than gaining Utility from a Utility?
This sig for rent.