reconbot reviewed California Burning by Katherine Blunt
A fascinating dive into a wild history of private owned utilities
5 stars
I recently finished the book California Burning by Katherine Blunt, it’s a fascinating history of the aging electrical and gas infrastructure in California, and how PG&E made KTLO trade-offs to fund capital projects, while climate change completely changed their operating environment. If you remember the rolling blackouts from the early 2000s. The pipeline explosions in people’s front yards. The massive wildfires caused by 100+ year-old transmission lines. And you wanna know how we got there? This book is for you.
There are a lot of lessons in here about Infrastructure operations too. I think my favorite anecdote is that transmission lines and transmission towers were maintained by two different teams. Both of them believing that the hooks, the wires sat on were maintained by the other team. Engineers doing inspections would often catch issues before they were a problem, but inspections were reduced so significantly that they became nothing more …
I recently finished the book California Burning by Katherine Blunt, it’s a fascinating history of the aging electrical and gas infrastructure in California, and how PG&E made KTLO trade-offs to fund capital projects, while climate change completely changed their operating environment. If you remember the rolling blackouts from the early 2000s. The pipeline explosions in people’s front yards. The massive wildfires caused by 100+ year-old transmission lines. And you wanna know how we got there? This book is for you.
There are a lot of lessons in here about Infrastructure operations too. I think my favorite anecdote is that transmission lines and transmission towers were maintained by two different teams. Both of them believing that the hooks, the wires sat on were maintained by the other team. Engineers doing inspections would often catch issues before they were a problem, but inspections were reduced so significantly that they became nothing more than helicopter flybys. Recordkeeping was so poor that nobody who was empowered realized how old some of these towers were. (or that they even existed)
Eventually when the hooks failed, the sparks from the lines caused massive fires and destroyed entire towns and caused loss of life, both of which PG&E was liable for.
Everyone did their job, nobody was silent about the operational gaps, and yet the impact was devastating. Business priorities prevented people from digging deep. PG&E is investor owned and used to return a steady dividend for pension funds and the like, and despite the changing conditions this profit margin was to be maintained.
The kicker was the organization didn’t learn. And massive problems like this continued to happen over the years destroying those profits, and much of the California countryside. The book ends with a glimmer of Hope.
The audiobook is well done too.