Saturday, January 19, 2019

The END of PG&E .


PG&E used to be a pro-consumer company in the vary beginning .  However Over the last 3 decades,  the once family orientated  utility provider that had humble beginnings began to .  change .  The company began to place profits over people & public safety . So they began (1)>>to slowly gouge its customers raising rates , pro rating , setting tiers based on a baseline . We have to remember the Smart Meter. Pacific Gas & Electric’s smart metering began with much controversy  . Already, the company has had to fend off accusations that its installation of smart meters hiked energy rates.In 2001 State power regulators decided today how to divvy up the biggest electric rate hike in California history, boosting rates by as much as 80 percent for residential customers who use the most power. While PG&E problems over the decades began to manifest , we may remember the rolling black outs in California today, turning out the lights in approximately 500,000 homes, including some in Beverly Hills. Back then I guess that no one could pondered that PG&E was having some kind of problems . The apologetics for the utility company kept a lot of serious problems hidden for decades .  (2)>>Again in 2001 PG&E said they have lost $13 billion since last year because of the high cost of wholesale energy. Energy wholesalers have been reluctant to provide power to cash-strapped companies because they fear they will not be paid. PG&E’s crisis represents a big, tangible cost of climate change (see this), with wildfires becoming a chronic problem in California. So even if PG&E emerged from a Chapter 11 process that dealt with liabilities arising from wildfires in 2017 and 2018, it would remain hobbled in terms of courting investors who would then be worrying about the wildfires of 2019 or 2020 or whenever. However I personally think that (3)>>PG&E is heading either for a Federal or State takeover . California has set its sights on having millions more electric cars on the road over the next decade, but the planned bankruptcy of Pacific Gas and Electric Co., the state’s largest investor-owned utility, could complicate efforts to achieve that goal.U.S. government also has become entangled in PG&E’s financial crisis -- brought on by deadly wildfires that tore through California in 2017 and 2018, The BIG question of its survival is vary sketchy . If PG&E goes down its vary likely that the DOW JONES and the Market will take a huge dive in the next few months into this new year. The Wall Street Journal reported that the California utility company is facing g huge fines and bankruptcy . PG&E Corp. plans to file for bankruptcy protection by the end of the month as it faces more than $30 billion in potential liability costs related to its role in sparking deadly California wildfires. Its really vary staggering how this has blow up over the years . Its become part of the great conspiracy AS how the fires started . Was it a combination of dry brush , or faulty equipment ? I wrote about the California fires a few times , my own thoughts on this that no one at least any federal investigators would have brought up the word arson . With its financial liabilities that had been mounting, the company’s shares dropped by more than 20 percent . More than half of its market value has been wiped out since late last week as the fires have spread. Investigators have yet to determine the cause of the deadliest of the current blazes, known as the Camp Fire, which has killed at least 56 people and destroyed virtually the entire town of Paradise, about 90 miles north of Sacramento. PG&E disclosed in a regulatory filings that an outage and damage to a transmission tower were reported in the area shortly before the fire started.  Culminating months of debate over how to respond to massive wildfires that swept California last fall, destroying thousands of homes, Gov. Jerry Brown signed legislation that will make it easier for utility companies to pass on their liability costs to customers and bolster the state’s forest management efforts. Clearing the uncertainty hanging over the company begins with consolidating the litany of claims against it into a known quantity and dealing with them expeditiously. 

NOTES AND COMMENTS: (1)>>to slowly gouge its customers raising rates. My PG&E is on a balanced payment -I pay the same amount every month. I was able to lower my balanced payment amount by washing clothes in cold water, turning off lights when not in use (like your father said!), and not just leaving my computer on all day. (BTW,if your computer is off and it's draining energy, look again-it ain't off, is my guess.)I think they randomly price gouge in the winter months. I took a vacay in October once and came back to a bill that was tripled. I called to complain, "how the hell did I use this much gas and electricity while I was  away ...explain?" Their answer was "it must have been a gas-meter misread" so I demanded a price adjustment, and only had to pay the same amount as the prior month. Honestly I think they are just robbing folks to see who will pay without question. IN 2017 One state lawmaker says regulators may be to blame for skyrocketing PG&E bills residents are reporting recently. Senator Jerry Hill wanted to investigate the Public Utilities Commission (PUC). He says something doesn’t seem right and he’s determined to find out what.But where this went?       (2)>>Again in 2001 PG&E . That was how it worked in 2001, when PG&E’s utility subsidiary went bankrupt, caught between maladroit California power-market reform and demonically adroit Enron traders. What makes today’s case different, and far more difficult, is that it isn’t just the liabilities incurred so far that have broken PG&E’s model. (3)>>PG&E is heading either for a Federal or State takeover . From the politicians’ point of view, including new governor Gavin Newsom, PG&E’s entry into bankruptcy could be seen as risky, in the sense that it empowers a new figure in all this: the bankruptcy judge. Indeed, PG&E may have hoped giving notice of a potential filing would push the state to make a last-minute intervention.

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