(Image H/T: Time.com)
Especially those that its powerlines start, like those that turned out to kill innocents. To save lives by fire, P&G may cause even more from stopping its product:
PG&E’s Radical Plan to Prevent Wildfires: Shut Down the Power Grid. “When dangerously high winds arise this year, the utility says it will black out fire-prone areas that are home to 5.4 million people.”
Splendid. To keep itself out of court on one hand, I’m betting it’s going to start an even worse firestorm than the Camp wildfire. And may even cause more deaths:
No U.S. utility has ever blacked out so many people on purpose. PG&E says it could knock out power to as much as an eighth of the state’s population for as long as five days when dangerously high winds arise. Communities likely to get shut off worry PG&E will put people in danger, especially the sick and elderly, and cause financial losses with slim hope of compensation.
So, P&G will put lots of people and businesses at risk simply for its own hide. If someone is on an electrical medical device and P&G suddenly pulls the plug, I’m quite sure there are enough ambulance chasing lawyers in California that would be quite happy to help the next of kin in cases like this.
In October, in a test run of sorts, PG&E for the first time cut power to several small communities over wildfire concerns, including the small Napa Valley town of Calistoga, for about two days. Emergency officials raced door-to-door to check on elderly residents, some of whom relied on electric medical devices. Grocers dumped spoiling inventory. Hotels lost business.
A test run. Such a test, probably without much warning, caused a lot more expenses and angst. And those same ambulance chasing lawyers I just mentioned I bet will have legal kinfolk that will be happy to help out the businesses that are driven to the brink (and then over it) as the monoply provider decides to REALLY use its monopoly power and these consumers effective go from having ONE provider to NONE.
PG&E is “essentially shifting all of the burden, all of the losses onto everyone else,” said Dylan Feik, who was Calistoga city manager until earlier this month.
Essentially, yes. Risk burden and financial losses? Yes, yes, and yes. What will happen is that all these consumers may start to put in their own generators for outages. Which will cause more “environmental damage” from emissions, right? Will require more gas, right – but how will consumers pay for it? Will California’s CARB even allow the added emissions? Renewables backed up by batteries even more expensive (1 Tesla Powerwall only lasts a day and costs $7,000). What’s a consumer to do with low cash and an overbearing unelected, unaccountable set of bureaucrats saying “our air is more important than your comfort (or, life).
But what will the State of California do? It has been running its energy providers out of State for decades so shutting it down for breach of contract for refusing to service its clients? What’s it going to do – put P&G out of business by suing it for everything under the sun (after all, its Attorney General Beccerra has been suing Trump to keep allowing illegals to move in; a suing man if there was one). It’s own laws will make it difficult to get power to those folks. What’s it going to do – decide to become a Sanctuary State from its own laws? Heck, why not – there’s a reason why CA is known as the Nuts and Fruits State, right?
Actually, I’d be hoping that finally the voters would finally take ahold of their senses and realize that enough is enough. However:
I’d ask the last conservative to leave California to turn off the lights, but they probably already will be.
Naw, P&G has already said it will turn the lights out for them, ON them.
(H/T: Instapundit)
