California power shutoffs: when your public utility is owned by private investors
Source: The Guardian
California power shutoffs: when your public utility is owned by private investors
Widescale power shutdown reveals the depth of California’s infrastructure problems amid a growing climate crisis
Susie Cagle in Oakland
Sat 12 Oct 2019 06.00 BST
Last modified on Sat 12 Oct 2019 15.39 BST
When the United States’ largest investor-owned utility, Pacific Gas and Electric, shut down power to millions of Californians this week, nearly no one was ready. Not governments. Not businesses. And certainly not the general public.
As parts of the state went dark, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, told reporters he was “outraged because it didn’t have to happen”.
“They’re in bankruptcy due to their terrible management going back decades. They’ve created these conditions, it was unnecessary,” he said about PG&E. “This can’t be the new normal.”
But Newsom also called public safety power shutoffs in cases of potential wildfire risk “not novel”. State regulators approved PG&E’s plans. And the municipalities that called on vulnerable residents to use personal resources to pre-emptively evacuate knew this was coming.
The wide-scale public safety power shutdown revealed the depth of California’s infrastructure problems amid a growing climate crisis, as “de-energizing” policy trades one possible disaster for another.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/11/california-power-shutoffs-when-your-public-utility-is-owned-by-private-investors
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