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Comment by anm89 | Hacker News Reader

This could almost be a good thing. If they shut this plant down and immediately start experiencing grid reliability issues it could get some press coverage and be a wakeup call

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Negative press coverage doesn't seem to phase PG&E

or the california government

This entire recall election for the governor seemed to stem from press coverage that sparked a limited movement. Considering the result seemed too close for comfort throughout much of the campaign process, I wouldn’t exactly consider the government immune to negative press.

Maybe not, but PG&E sure seems to be immune. It's not a great look when you both have very high electricity prices [0] and you're also frequently starting fires and killing people. But good news, shareholders, it turns out that actually being convicted of crimes [1] as a corporation is no big deal, so much so that they're pleading guilty to manslaughter ten years later [2]. And even better, there's regulatory capture that makes it extremely hard for municipalities to stand up their own services to provide safer and cheaper power to residents [3].

[0] 0.26/KWh if you're a saint and use almost nothing to $0.41/KWh if you use a normal-or-more amount of electricity. See https://www.pge.com/tariffs/assets/pdf/tariffbook/ELEC_SCHED...

[1] https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/pge-ordered-develop-com...

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/pg-e-pleads-guilty-manslaughter...

[3] https://www.desertsun.com/story/tech/science/energy/2018/10/...

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