We learned at least two things from this weekend’s (ongoing) blackout: PG&E can’t be trusted to provide reliable service to this city—and new technologies like Waymo are not ready for emergencies and could seriously hinder public safety.
The private utility has for years made maintenance and safety a second priority, after bonus payments to management and high shareholder returns. Along with the other big private power companies in the state, PG&E has asked for even more money from the ratepayers to bump up its stock price.
Now an old transformer caught fire, and the company didn’t have the resiliency to avoid a blackout that impacted a third of the city, and is still going as I write this. We don’t know yet whether a lack of on-duty staff made things worse.
We do know that PG&E has operated illegally in San Francisco for more than 100 years, costing the city tens of millions of dollars a year. You can read a detailed history I did about 30 years ago here…