The long, sordid (ongoing) tale of California's biggest utility
In this episode, Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Blunt discusses her new book, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas & Electric — and What It Means for America's Power Grid, in which she details PG&E’s decades of setbacks and missteps.
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Text transcript:
David Roberts
Reporter Katherine Blunt was still new to The Wall Street Journal when 2018’s devastating Camp Fire broke out in California and she was swept into the biggest story of her career. Alongside colleagues Russell Gold and Rebecca Smith, she wrote a series of pieces on the ongoing travails of Pacific Gas & Electric, or PG&E, the utility whose power lines had started at the Camp Fire.
The Journal's coverage was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize, and Blunt has now expanded it into a new book: California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas & Electric — and What It Means for America's Power Grid. It is a rollicking tour through PG&E’s decades-long series of disasters and their roots in the early 20th century.
I am a longtime critic of utilities, but even I was stunned to see all of PG&E’s incompetence and malfeasance gathered together in one place, alongside its well-meaning but serially failed attempts to put things right. It’s a story of failure and redemption, except the redemption keeps being interrupted by more failure.
I couldn't put the book down, so I am eager to talk to Blunt about how the utility’s travails began, why is has struggled so mightily to take control of its fate, and what might come next for the electricity sector’s favorite punching bag.
So, without further ado, Katherine Blunt. Welcome to Volts. Thanks so much for coming.
Katherine Blunt
Thank you so much for having me.
David Roberts
This book, Katherine, is a bit of a mindblower. I mean, I probably, because of my job, followed this stuff as it was happening, closer than the average Joe or Jane, but it is still stunning to see it all put in one place. As far as I can tell, for the entirety of the 21st century, PG&E has been in one of three states: either a) causing some disaster that kills a bunch of people, b) dealing with the blowback and lawsuits that come as a result of the disaster that killed a bunch of people, or c) implementing an ultimately failed and useless attempt to mitigate the disasters that killed a bunch of people and prevent future disasters.
There has not been a period of just normal operation of PG&E for decades now. It's all its perpetual crisis. How how much of that did you appreciate going into this story? How much of that? I mean, it's just such a dumpster fire. I can't believe I wasn't more aware of it. And I can't believe, like, the public's not more aware of it. How aware were you going in?
Katherine Blunt
Yeah, it's totally true. These last 20 years have been just exceptionally bad for the company. I had some idea of this going into it because of my coverage at the "Journal" that, as you say, I had collaborated on with two close colleagues. And one of the final stories that we did together was a really big picture narrative that tried to take readers through the last 20 years and what that's meant for PG&E. But as I got more into the details, I, too, was really surprised at some things and how bad it was.
David Roberts
Well, let's go back into the recesses of history. One of the most sort of telling tales from the beginning is that the original merger of PG&E with Great Western, another utility. This is the merger that ended up sort of saddling PG&E with all these power lines, that it never really understood. And that, to me, is kind of like the original sin, like the seed of everything that came after us. To tell us a little b
