Yves here. The shaky state of the US grid is yet another indictment of neoliberalism, which over time produces underinvestment, particularly in long-term projects. Andrew Haldane has shown, for instance, that corporations looking at potential investments use an overly high return target. That does not simply mean that they wind up rejecting projects that would be attractive. It also particularly disfavors those with long-term payoffs.
Utilities like power companies are allowed to charge for their services based on the size of their rate base, as in total assets adjusted by some magic formula over my pay grade. I am not clear on how those formulas changed over time, but results like PG&E’s appalling degree of underinvestment suggest the sort of criticism I recalled when I was young, that the schemes in place led to investment feather-bedding, resulted in changes that had the effect of going too far in the other direction. Even leaving the sorry state to PG&E out of the picture, various reports suggest the US needs a very large amount of catchup investment, even before getting to the belief that a big further rampup in capacity because AI is warranted.
Again, the ancient among us may recall the pristine sound quality of land lines and how disconcerting adjusting to the latency and poorer audio quality of cell phones was. I kept a copper land line in NYC as long as possible and the phone service was explicit that it was not investing in its efforts to force users off copper (which would free the telcos of common carrier regulatory obligations). But other side beenies was that that the big utilities sometimes used their big cash flow for public spirited projects like Bell Labs.
To the post below: underinvestment could have been prevented even with changes in pricing formulas with active and forward-thinking regulation. But we don’t do that in America.
By Alex Kimani, a veteran finance writer, investor, engineer and researcher for Safehaven.com. Originally published at OilPrice
- Aging grids and extreme weather are straining U.S. power reliability, with natural gas plants proving especially vulnerable during crises.
- Upgrading the grid carries a multi-trillion dollar price tag.
- FERC has approved the first major U.S. transmission upgrade in over a decade, aiming to speed up grid modernization and improve reliability.
Last week, a monkey snuck into a substation in Sri Lanka and knocked out power, plunging the island nation into darkness that lasted six hours. The major blackout forced medical facilities and water purification plants in the country to turn to backup generators to maintain critical operations while traffic was gridlocked because traffic lights were not functioning.
Unlike many developing nations, Sri Lanka has ample installed power generation capacity and has plenty to spare even during peak demand periods. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka, like many countries, has an outdated power grid that’s vulnerable to widespread disruptions.
And, the U.S. is not much better, with rolling blackouts, freezing homes and skyrocketing electricity prices now the norm rather than the exception. A few decades ago, power outages in vast swathes of the United States were relatively rare and would normally be seen as black swan events. Unfortunately, mass blackouts have now become a regular feature of modern American life. Power outages have increased 64% from the early 2000s while weather-related outages have soared 78%. According to one analysis, the United States now records more power outages than any other developed country, with people living in the upper Midwest losing power for an average of 92 minutes every year compared to just 4 minutes in Japan.
Climate change and extreme weather events are largely to blame for this sad state of affairs. However, the U.S. is not an exceptional case, with Europe feeling the adverse effects of a rapidly changing climate just as keenly as, if not worse than, the U.S. A closer look at the problem reveals that one fuel could be at the center of the conundrum: natural gas.
Over the past two decades, the shale revolution unlocked a deluge of cheap natural gas, and made it easier for the country to transition from coal-fired generation to natural gas plants. Indeed, natural gas is widely touted as the ‘bridge fuel’ as the world gradually moves away from coal as the primary fuel used to generate electricity to renewables thanks to natural gas having a much cleaner emissions profile than coal. Gas now makes up ~41% of U.S. power generation, more than double its share in Europe’s energy mix at 19.6%.
The harsh reality is that natural gas plants, even relatively modern ones, are proving to have the worst failure rate when faced with extreme weather compared with other generation methods. During the massive Arctic Blast, gas units accounted for 63% of the failures while representing just 44% of the total installed capacity. The country’s vast network of gas plants and pipelines–the largest in the world–and the regulations that govern them simply were never designed or built without the realities of extreme weather in mind. Gas facilities aren’t uniformly winterized, with many relying on single gas pipelines for supply. Meanwhile, many generators lack the ability to burn an alternate fuel or keep back-up gas on hand in case of emergencies.
More alarmingly, even the best gas generating facilities are showing a large degree of vulnerability. PJM Interconnection LLC is the operator of the country’s largest power grid, serving 65 million people in 13 states and Washington, DC, or about a fifth of Americans. The firm’s grid is generally considered to be one of the most reliable in the country thanks to its ample operating reserves and rich shale gas deposits. During the winter blast on Dec. 23, 2022, PJM called a “maximum generation emergency action,” meaning standby plants were supposed to run ramp up to full power. Whereas nearly 20% of those gas plants ran at 100% or more for at least an hour, more than 20% never got above even half capacity while many dropped to 0% output at some point during the emergency. PJM spokesperson Susan Buehler has conceded that generation performance during the storm “was not acceptable,” and added, “What we need, and what we are working on with all of our stakeholders, regulators and policymakers, is for all of our resources to perform when called upon.”
Mind you, PJM actually performed better than many neighboring grids, many of which reported widespread electricity interruptions or blackouts, leaving one to wonder how the country’s multiple, highly fragmented and aging grids will manage to stay afloat as Americans continue to consume ever increasing amounts of electricity. During the crisis, a large number of new-model combined-cycle gas plants failed, with some reporting mechanical issues, and failures to start according to people familiar with the operations and official filings. Others couldn’t get the fuel frozen wells, falling pipe pressure or compressor station failures. Others failed to get gas because they are supplied by utility pipelines that prioritize households and businesses first.
“That’s a crisis that’s coming. It’s coming a lot closer and a lot nearer and a lot faster than even I thought a year ago when I first said we’re facing a reliability crisis,’’ Mark Christie, a member of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has told Bloomberg.
More Renewables And Grid Upgrades
Some experts suggest that extending the existing gas infrastructure can help solve the problem. Many, however, believe that grid upgrades and incorporating more renewable energy is the long-term solution.
For decades, the United States has been relying on an aging electrical grid that’s increasingly unstable, underfunded and incapable of taking the country to a new energy future. Despite being the wealthiest country in the world, the U.S. only ranks 13th in the quality of its infrastructure.
Indeed, the U.S. power grid is considered the weakest link in the ongoing energy transition.
A study by UC Berkeley and GridLab found that it will be economically feasible for renewable energy to power 90% of a reliable grid by 2035, while only depending on natural gas for 10% of annual electricity production. Unfortunately, whereas renewable power sources have grown dramatically in recent years, the country’s aging electrical grid is simply incapable of fully integrating them into our energy use, leading to so much potential power wasted.
But, as is usually the case, the biggest challenge remains funding: a Wood Mackenzie analysis has estimated it would cost a staggering $4.5 trillion for the U.S. to fully decarbonize, including constructing and operating new generation facilities; investing in transmission and distribution infrastructure, making capacity payments, delivering customer-facing grid edge technology and more. Suddenly, the $13 billion that the previous administration allocated to upgrading the national grid looks puny.
FERC Approves First Major U.S. Electric Transmission Upgrade
Thankfully, the United States’ aging power infrastructure might soon start getting a much-needed revamp–if the Trump administration is up to it. Last year, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approved the first major electric transmission policy update in over a decade, a move expected to speed up new interregional lines to help the grid cope with surging demand. The new rule marks FERC’s first ever update on long-term transmission planning and is seen as a big win for the U.S. administration’s ambitious goal to generate 80% of the country’s electricity from renewables by 2030 and 100% carbon-free electricity by 2035.
“This rule cannot come fast enough,” FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, who voted in favor of the final rule, told Reuters.“There is an urgent need to act to ensure the reliability and the affordability of our grid. We are at a transformational moment for the electric grid with phenomenal load growth,” he added, citing the surge in domestic manufacturing, proliferation of data centers, and the surge in extreme weather events.
Under the Biden administration, FERC worked to reform how new electric transmissions are approved and paid for. The final rule requires transmission project participants to submit plans for how to split costs between states and companies and also determine whether transmission proposals will meet long-term needs cost-effectively and give operators the ability to re-evaluate projects that face delays or cost-overruns or delays.
Thank you, Yves.
It’s not that bad here, Blighty, yet, but we did have some in the early noughties. The UK system is ageing and under similar strain and neglect.
There were two power cuts, lasting about 10 minutes each on Tuesday evening and an hour apart, in mid-Buckinghamshire and one for longer in the same area a month ago.
Thanks for info Colonel. I was about to write that we are to EXPECT power cuts here but seems they’ve arrived early. For a few years now our household has been receiving annual official letters requiring us to confirm there are vulnerable (elderly) people here who need continued power.
It is abundantly clear that TPTB are preparing for selective blackouts. Though obviously I’d prefer they pull their finger out re renewable, I laughed hollowly when Britain’s last old school power station down the road at Ratcliffe-on-Soar was finally decommissioned recently.
I also went down the rabbit hole of “now our landline is via fibre internet and you’re taking away all the copper wires, what happens to our non-mobile phone connections in a power cut?” I gave up getting a sensible answer to this in the end.
Thank you, Terry.
From what one hears, professional engineers and stakeholders like you are increasingly kept out of the discourse.
The British electrical system is relatively healthy right now, mostly due to an unexpected drop in demand over the last decade (a 9% drop between 2010 and 2017), which meant that various dire predictions widely circulated a few years back are not coming true. The core issue with generation seems to be a lack of base load/storage due to the closure of so many coal plants and the failure to build new nuclear (although it seems likely that the latter has accidentally turned out to be a good policy, as the new planned capacity was very over-optimistic). The capacity margin (i.e. the emergency reserve) is quite good right now, largely due to demand dropping. The latter seems to be primarily due to energy saving policies as well as some deindustrialisation, but a lot may be the impact of domestic solar roll outs a decade ago thanks to Cameron’s initial enthusiasm for the ‘green crap’.
The system is now very heavily dependent on a combination of wind (30% annually) and natural gas (26%), with a lot of imports from Ireland and France. Solar is coming on very rapidly, but there would be huge problems in the event of a restriction in gas supplies at the wrong time of year. The high retail prices are primarily due to natural gas setting the strike price.
Prior to Brexit, the UK was following the fairly strict investment criteria set out by the EU aimed at strengthening the grid. I’m not sure whether Britain is still following EU norms, but I would guess not.
‘Approved the first major electric transmission policy update in over a decade, a move expected to speed up new interregional lines to help the grid cope with surging demand.’
This page might give an indication of which States will need work done and may need to be prioritized. Texas is really sucking up the energy but was surprised to see both California and Florida almost tied for second and third place. Why is Florida using so much? It can’t be all air cons-
https://www.statista.com/statistics/560913/us-retail-electricity-consumption-by-major-state/
Well, Rev, Florida is the third-most populous state after California and Texas:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/states
And the heat and humidity make it really really difficult, if not impossible, to live there without the air conditioning on for about half the year. What I can’t account for is Ohio’s disproportionately high electricity use…
Per household, California is 5th least in consumption; after Hawaii, Alaska, Vermont, and Maine.
https://www.chooseenergy.com/news/article/the-states-that-use-the-most-and-least-amount-of-energy-per-household/
Not a surprise – the weather in the California where most people live is really mild most of the year.
But with Newsom and the state legislature, plus clamorous local Climate Change Commitees pressing to ban natural gas in homes and industry, the load will increase over time.
The last nuke sitting on a series of interlacing earthquake faults gets a reprieve.
That’s Newsom’s payback to his main donor PG&E, the court testimony, self admitted murderer of hundreds.
https://www.utilitydive.com/news/ex-nrc-inspector-californias-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant-needs-to-be-shut/302329/
Not my area of expertise, but my understanding of the US system is that there are tax advantages to electricity suppliers to putting in ‘new’ infrastructure that don’t apply to upgrading existing lines and substations. So ‘new’ lines may not necessarily be optimum. Modern high voltage cables are hugely more efficient and have higher capacity that equivalent lines from even 20 years ago, so even fairly modest works like regular recabling can have significant benefits.
One particular issue the US faces is that it has a highly decentralized settlement pattern – this is both expensive to supply and makes building in resilience very difficult (i.e. you end up with a lot of houses depending on just a single circuit). This also applies here in Ireland where we had lots of blackouts in the west coast that went on for at least 2 weeks after a recent big storm. The overall national grid wasn’t affected and supplies to all major cities and towns worked flawlessly – it was the local supplies to thousands provided by 32kV and lower local lines that were knocked out (mostly by falling trees) and proved very difficult to repair and replace, there were just too many of them going down at once. I suspect this is a particular problem in the midwest. There are, simply, too many scattered homes and businesses requiring supplies that can feasibly be reinforced with the level of overlapping circuits that is essential for a resilient supply. I don’t know if the figures exist, buy my guess would be that if you averaged the cost of electrical infrastructure hardware per dwelling in large parts of the US, the cost would be far higher than that in countries with denser settlement patterns such as Japan or Germany.
I was talking recently to an engineer friend who recently bought a house in a rural area in the SW of Ireland. He was upgrading the house and crunched the numbers and came to the conclusion that a solar and battery combination now made investment sense for him – not just in terms of annual payback but just in peace of mind for future storms. While too many domestic solar panels can be problematic in some grids (complex reasons), its probably good for his local grid network too. This is the sort of thing that should be encouraged, but Trumps tariffs war on China will probably frustrate, unless someone has a quiet word with him.
Incidentally, while the much maligned data centre industry gets a lot of deserved criticism for driving up electricity demand, they are a major player in forcing governments to strengthen local and regional grids – avoiding outages is extremely important for them, and they will frequently pay for extra circuits just for this security. One major data centre company even paid for an upgraded cycle track near me – it proved cheaper for them (fewer regulatory issues) to lay an underground 110kV line along an existing low grade path to provide the necessary third circuit for a major new centre. So if you want to avoid outages, living close to a data centre probably isn’t a bad idea.
And to add…
… for those interested in the very complex institutional set up of US electrical supply system, and how even minor tweaks to regulation can have very profound impacts on what gets built, this review of Sandeep Vahaseen’s book on the history of electrification in the US gives a good overview of an incredibly complicated subject.
On a lighter note, Arthur Hailey, of Airport fame, wrote Overload in the late 1970s about electric utilities. Thinly veiled reference to PG&E in California, in the lead company GP&L aka God’s Power and Light, and many observations for background and entertainment.
One thing that I have noticed is that the neoliberals have a deep aversion to capital spending, which is only rivaled by their dislike of paying workers more. Some other upgrades, such as making natural gas plants more cold resistant are possible, but it’s hard to justify for a private sector company.
https://www.arnolditkin.com/blog/plant-accidents/the-effects-of-cold-weather-on-natural-gas-power/
They are always going to lobby for looser regulations and especially in the US, there are always going to be corrupt politicians at their beck and call.
There are other problems. Speaking as someone who has had colleagues work in the civilian nuclear industry, I do know that a large amount of infrastructure is decades old and is in need of replacement. That’s something that a private sector company is more reluctant to do, especially if the payoff is on the timescale of several decades. It may simply be that the Western neoliberal model is fundamentally incompatible with running a utilities company.
Apparently the poorer Americans are more likely to be hit by power outages.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/increasing-power-outages-dont-hit-everyone-equally1/
I don’t see the US having the political will, in the case of the elites, a sense of noblesse oblige, and frankly, state competence to address these challenges. What this will means is that the US will see its infrastructure gradually worsen in the coming decades.
There is mixing apples and oranges here… the “grid” is applied here the HV transmission system (>=100kv and highly networked with redundancy), subtransmission (30-99kv also networked) and the lower voltage distribution system (under 30kv and generally radial). These are all connected, but very distinct for regulation, operating and planning. It is the latter that causes most interruptions for residential and commercial users. Large commercials and industrials are fed of the higher voltages. Both the frequency and duration of outages are highly skewed; the average frequency and duration is always much higher than the median. It silly to compare US average customer outage duration in Japan versus the entire US. A more valid comparison would be comparing ConEd and Tokyo (both networked underground distribution systems).
Distribution reliability is regulated by state utility comissions and they set reliability thresholds and delivery rates. Transmission and generation reliability is regulated by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), a nonprofit corporation created in the 2005 Energy Policy Act after the 2003 blackout. NERC issues regulations, including new facilities, and standards and reports to FERC. FERC generally sets transmission ROI. Transmission rates are variable; there are long term contracts and short term and spot rates administered by the independent system operators (PJM is one of several). ISOs also direct building of new facilities. ISOs are primarily market operators. The transmission component of a consumer bill is relatively small. The last element element of a bill is supply, representing the generation cost. Supply and delivery charges are the vast majority of a bill. We can thank Thatcher and Clinton for unbundling the electricity system and deregulation. This stunted investments and raised costs; where public power exists (eg, TVA, coops in the midwest and PNW, Nebraska) it is considerably cheaper.
As PK notes, the US electric system is sprawling and using different design philosophies in different private companies. Because was built as independent non-connected system, there are legacy issues that can only be solved by massive investment and central planning. Most other first world places had central planning after WW2 or before.
We should also note that decades of deindustrialization, particularly after the GFC stunted demand. Indeed it was flat from 2007 and 2021 (small increase pre Covid). Data centers, a bit more manufacturing and residential demand is now driving up demand. Because of rate recovery and flat demand there was little incentive or need for investment in the transmission grid. During my consulting days typically the number of new circuits increased 2%/year and most were splits to accommodate new generation. Circuit miles increased more modestly. But even now new capacity is a mish-mash of happenstance localized planning!
I don’t know what reliability or prices are in China. but they are building an enormous grid with long DC lines to transport renewables eastward. They are building dozens of pump storage hydro plants to solve intermittancy. It is being done with central planning.
The US simply is incapable of doing great things. The new FERC rule is a bandaid on a huge festering, infected wound. It won’t work. Look for the lights on at your local data center outside the window of your cold, dark house with your dead EV in the driveway.
“The HV transmission system (>=100kv and highly networked with redundancy), sub-transmission (30-99kv also networked) and the lower-voltage distribution system (under 30kv and generally radial)”
Aye, this is a good point. And I would also add the “240v distribution system that goes to housing”. And like the lower-voltage distribution system, failures in the 240v system also cause a lot of interruptions when they’re above ground. Fortunately, they can be undergrounded pretty easily and inexpensively (my own neighborhood has this feature), and it’s become more and more common.
Alas, undergrounding is not so easy on the higher-voltage stuff. Pretty much anything above 5kV requires shielded and armored cables, and those are wildly more expensive to install, thanks to costly cable, frustrating minimum bend radius requirements, and special termination procedures. They’re also a lot more time-consuming and expensive to repair if something should go wrong. And the stray capacitance that shielded cables introduce can made short-circuit events much more exciting in a bad way.
When the 75 yo oil filled underground transmission cables in places like NYC, Philly, etc fail the rule of thumb was a repair taking a month and costing $1 million. Probably 2x now for both!
The largest US cable project in decades is the 339 mile Champlain Hudson Power Express is a 400 kv DC cable being laid in said waters. It has 1250 mw capacity to transport power from Quebec to NYC. It’s costing $6 billion, $17.7M per mile. It is a Blackstone toll road, the public NY Power Authority has been locked out of such projects. Government wants the market fairies to save us!
Nearly $18 million per mile for a total of $6 billion?!? Sheesh. When I wrote my previous comment, I was thinking about how terribly painful it would be to bury even medium-voltage 13.8kV distribution lines (like the one I have on the back edge of my back yard). Burying 100+kV high-voltage lines seems like utter madness.
Heck, the South Koreans managed to build most of their nuclear fleet for ~$2500/kW, which would translate to $3.1 billion for the 1250 MW capacity that the Champlain Hudson Power Express will carry. When a transmission project to simply carry electricity is twice as expensive as a nuclear station that could produce it, you know that something’s gone wrong.
It is super right for Blackstone! And their army of consultants. Just like all of the PE and non-regulated utility renewable projects.
I heard that the cost for trenching power (coastal California, through undeveloped land) to a planned development of ~15 houses was around $3 million for two or so miles. My pitch was gaining traction with the developer that solar and batteries were a better (for cost and other reasons) option. Then, the bank property financing fell through.
Heck, 20 years ago I paid $15000 for 30 feet to redo my sewer line . I just don’t see this kind of costs can successfully be shoved onto a populace where a majority cannot find $400 bucks for a medical emergency. And if for some reason the money was just printed for a social good (Hah!), you can bet the already ridiculously high construction costs would explode.
While 3 million is kinda nuts, if they contracted with PGE that was the problem.
It works out to about $200 k per house. Sounds like a lot but all depends on what the expectations and loads are. Are these small efficient houses or big with everything? Solar can get expensive depending on the weather and loads. Impossible to know if the $3 mil was totally outrageous or in the ballpark vs solar
One thing we have to add into the mix is more extreme weather.
Higher winds, heavier snow falls, rain events, cold, heat etc.
All of which have effects on the physical infrastructure of wires and poles especially in combination with poor maintenance.
In our part of northeastern Italy, the distribution system is badly in need of an upgrade. Much of the distribution system dates from the boom years of the 1950s/60s. Some goes as far back as the 1930s. We live in a semi-rural area about 1.5kms outside of a rural town of about 2000 souls. The voltage swings regularly exceed the mandated ±10% (nominally 230V: variation from 207-253V). This is a problem for our grid-tied solar inverter, which goes into fault mode when the voltage exceeds 253V. Moreover, when the voltage dips below 207V, our heat pump system complains of insufficient line voltage and temporarily shuts down. These are headaches that have been reduced since I added a 12kWh battery pack to the system that soaks up power during peak sunshine hours to keep the voltage below 253V. We have tried to contact the distribution company, but they give us the bureaucratic runaround referring us to other entities – who refer us back to the distribution company. We also regularly have short blackouts that typically last 1-5 minutes and occur a few times a month. Other annoyances include external surges that trip the differential circuit breakers, cutting off power supply to the house.
The point is that the government has been pushing conversion to renewables without considering the full system requirements needed to make renewables work properly. If the archaic distribution system craps out during the sunniest days, what good is all that rooftop solar?! The now privatized electrical production and distribution system has provided us with a blizzard of fake choice. Everyone and their dog is setting up retail power companies that in reality are nothing but a layer of sales agents that offer no real value to the system. Those that manage the production and distribution side of things seem to have little incentive to improve the physical plant of the electrical energy system. Only after some devastating fires caused by trees falling on wires have we seen some installation of underground cables in forested areas.
“A Wood Mackenzie analysis has estimated it would cost a staggering $4.5 trillion for the U.S. to fully decarbonize”
Has anybody been able to access this report? I went to the web page, where I discovered that I had to provide my my name and email address to obtain the report. Even though this annoyed me, I really wanted to see it, so I provided the information and was sent to a “thank you” page that provided a link to the report. A link that didn’t work. “Server not found”.
If you are a Racket News subscriber – Tiabbi’s substack – you will get a jolt of recognition when listening to the most recent ATW. Apparently, before the 2024 election the EPA sent 20 billion dollars to JP Morgan bank as trustee for various ‘good climate’ programs that do not yet exist beyond a recently created web page used to solicit some of that money. Even Stacey Abrams set up a new climate NGO site and received 2 billion dollars of that money. For what? We don’t know. It’s all very mysterious. This story from (yes, I know) the Washington Examiner.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy-and-environment/3324539/two-billion-dollars-gold-bars-sent-from-epa-to-abrams-linked-climate-organization/
Reading your comment makes me wonder if said Wood Mackenzie is another recently created P.O. box… er … web page designed to solicit EPA money transferred to JP Morgan bank. Solicit for what purpose? We don’t know. Inquiring minds…. / ;)
adding: Recent statement from the EPA.
https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/administrator-zeldin-announces-billions-dollars-worth-gold-bars-have-been-located
noting: the ‘gold bars’ term is a metaphor first used by a young EPA employee recorded on a hidden camera.
correction: the bank in question is CitiBank, not JPMorgan. My mistake.
I am usually happy to join an author in decrying poor regulation and shortsighted business practices, and that’s totally warranted… but it’s also mind boggling that Americans could go only 92 minutes per year without electricity! And that this is considered unacceptable is even more amazing. That’s .0175% downtime. I know it’s not evenly distributed (by geography and class), but still if this causes huge problems it speaks to a lack of resilience as much as poor regulation and greed.
You must not need insulin or a CPAP or be at risk of being stuck on or needing to get to a very high floor without an elevator (however, I do give the building I am in now credit for having emergency power for elevators when the power is out).
In NYC, the nearly 40 years I was there, we had all of one blackout (if you exclude the lower Manhattan dark zone after Hurricane Sandy), the 13 hour ish one in 2003. I missed it, I was in Sydney then.
The current iteration of neoliberalism appears to be based on looting rather than investment.
It’s caused by the reality of population-driven climate collapse that our elites apparently understand all too well, even as they deny it publicly — as shared last month in the Daily Mail by Davos WEF escort-extraordinaire Hanna Lakomy, who works under the nom-de-coucher Salome Balthus. Why invest in a collapsing civilization when you can party like it’s the End of Days?
It’s quite unfair to pick on poor PG&E, when it was a bunch of Southern California pot-head conservatives led by Gov. Pete Wilson and State Senators Jim Brulte (R) and Steve “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” Peace (D) who crammed “deregulation” down the throats of California’s vertically integrated investor-owned utilities in the mid-1990’s and forced divestment of their power plants that had funded distribution infrastructure to Duke Energy and Enron. PG&E has been forced into bankruptcy twice since — why would any prudent investor invest with them long-term?
The U.S. was a banana republic long before Trump and Musk…
@David in Friday Harbor at 11:49 am
Interesting observation re Hanna Lakomy. Thanks.
An article discussing her revelations is at: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14314191/global-elite-Davos-high-class-escort-spills-beans.html
Doomberg and EnergyBadBoys both on substack are recommended reading for anyone wishing to be educated on the problems facing the US electricity network.