As the holiday season
approaches, it looks like we here in Humboldt County will have all the spirit
and festivities to enjoy, without being blacked-out by PG&E. The fiasco that played out and continues to
unravel for the huge utility is almost unbelievable. Some highlights:
PG&E
is in bankruptcy, due to the gross mismanagement by the past corporate leaders
and board of directors, and the California PUC over the past untold years. Failure to put money into the necessary upgrades
to the natural gas sector, as well as the electricity divisions, has led to
huge disasters amounting to billions of dollars in property loss, as well as
lives lost. The utility upheld its
commitment to paying a 12% dividend to its investors, and millions of dollars
to the incompetent upper management. Most
of those in power have resigned or been fired, with their million-dollar
severance payouts. The new executives
are just as bad, or worse. They asked
for millions more money just so they would have the incentive to do their jobs!
(1) WOW!
That was denied.
The
past failure to understand and address climate change in their California
territory contributed to devastating fires over the pas few years. Billions of dollars lost by the people in
their domain…homes, businesses, infrastructure, livelihood…this can’t be valued
with dollars…although they are trying to do so in their bankruptcy
proceedings. Whatever happens over the
next few years will be a grand moral tragedy.
In Paradise, a community that lost 11,000 houses and businesses last
year, only 11 homes have been rebuilt.
In Santa Rosa, which was devastated by fire two years ago, a few more
homes have been replaced. My personal
conversation with a retired insurance attorney in that area laid out the game
plan for the insurance and utility industry…”we’ll give you 35 cents on the
dollar for replacement…if you don’t like that, then sue us…good luck, cause we’ll
tie you up in court and legal costs for years.”
It’s the American way! Same thing
is happening in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, etc.
Case
in point…PG&E parent corporate is/was worth $68 billion, and now run by
Bill Johnson. PG&E Electricity Utility
is a subsidiary, worth $3.24 billion, holding 32 bonds worth $18 billion. It is run by Andy Vesey. But this is a publicly traded company…owned
by “investors.” 92% is owned by 703
institutions…huge hedge fund companies, such as Vanguard which owns 7.3%,
Blackrock has 2.5%. The $30 billion
Boston hedge fund Baupost now owns 4.6%.
they just bought $1 billion in fire claims for $0.35/on the dollar. Smart! They might wind up paying 30-35 cents to the
claimants…but if they pay more, then they get to write of that excess as a capital
loss…win, win, win for everybody but the folks who had their lives destroyed by
the criminal and negligent actions of those very the people in charge. Mortimer Buckley owns Baupost which manages
$5.3 trillion worth of funds. Do you
really think he really gives a shit about the peons in California? If he really cared, he would buy us rakes so
we can go out and rake our forests! Interesting
that the bulk of these fires and losses occurred in the coastal chaparral and oak
savannas, and not in major timber producing lands that those damn environmentalists
have locked up. When you hear of the “investors”
whether in the stock market, or corporate annual meetings, they are a handful
of very rich, and thus very powerful people in terms of our monetary
policies. When the investors voted down
a proposal to address climate change at the last annual meeting for Exxon…who
do you think forced that decision…the “investors” …the folks who hold a few measly
shares of Exxon in their retirement portfolio?
Here
in Humboldt County, PG&E blacked us out for 35-48+ hours. I was off for 35 hours. County-wide outrage! We have 10 state of the art natural gas engines
in our new power plant that can produce all the electricity we need
locally. The entire plant was idled for
the blackout period. There was a negligible
threat of transmission-caused wildfire in most of Humboldt County. The big concern was the major transmission
line carrying electricity to and from the major grid in Redding, some two
hundred miles away. Switching that line OFF would have allowed pretty much all
of Humboldt County to remain electrified, as a relatively small
micro-grid. The decision to not do that
was made at the high corporate level by Mr. Johnson, a million miles away from
reality. His response to the folks who
lost perishables during the blackout was “I got that, but one
of the things we did was give them the opportunity to actually refill their
refrigerator 'cause their house is still there." It is estimated the County lost over $1million
in lost wages, revenue, business, etc., as well as the financial and human
impacts of the residents (and ratepayers.) We’re told that this will probably
go on for the next ten years or so.
Generators are selling like hotcakes!
So is gasoline, ice, canned goods, etc.
However, this will most-likely not happen again in Humboldt County! I was
involved with our local leaders to call PG&E to task, and we are involved
in the larger State-wide efforts to deal with the “too big to fail” corporate
monstrosity. There is a state-wide
coalition to break-up PG&E’s monopoly, and create many small microgrids
that would be co-operatives, removing big money from sucking out our dollars
and local control. (2)
This transition will
take time, technological innovation, lots of money…but most of all political
will. It is so complex…economic,
environmental, technical, social, moral…but it is what many of us have seen for
many years as common sense for a sustainable and equitable future.
Go to the Letter 201142019.pdf
file:///C:/Users/Licensed%20User/Downloads/Letter%20dt%201142019.pdf
