Latest news with #PG&E
E&E News
2 days ago
- Business
- E&E News
EPA touts first-ever deal under accidental toxic release rule
The Trump administration is touting a first-ever enforcement action aimed at ensuring that major industries promptly report accidental releases of toxic air pollution to the Chemical Safety Board. The announcement, though, comes on the heels of the administration seeking to abolish the board. As part of the White House's budget request for next year, the investigative agency would be 'permanently canceled' at the end of September 2026.. Under the settlement announced Monday, Pacific Gas and Electric, one of the nation's largest utilities, agreed to a $45,273 penalty for failing to report a June 2023 mishap at a San Jose, California, natural gas distribution facility that sent an employee to the hospital. Advertisement While PG&E notified EPA's National Response Center and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the utility 'did not submit a report directly to CSB within eight hours of the accidental release' as required by 2020 regulations, according to the settlement, which federal regulators hope will set a precedent for the future.
Los Angeles Times
5 days ago
- General
- Los Angeles Times
Months after the Jan. 7 fires, L.A.'s evacuation plans remain untested
Just before sunrise on Nov. 8, 2018, a power line fell from a wind-worn Pacific Gas & Electric transmission tower and whipped into the structure nestled in the Sierra foothills. An electric arc sent molten metal into the dry vegetation below. It ignited. Five minutes later, a PG&E employee spotted the fire while driving on a nearby highway and reported it. Within two hours of the sighting, the town of Paradise, seven miles away, sent its first evacuation order, but it was already too late. Within two minutes, flames were reported at the town's edge. Landing embers quickly ignited dozens of spot fires in town. With only four major roads out of town, the streets quickly gridlocked. Paradise burned. Sixty-four people died in Paradise during the agonizing seven-hour evacuation. Six of them were found in or next to their cars as they tried to evacuate. Marc Levine, a state legislator at the time, listened over radio to the horrific scenes of people, stuck in traffic, abandoning their cars to flee on foot. 'It made me think of the people falling from the World Trade Centers on 9/11,' he said. 'They were going to be incinerated or they were going to jump. … They knew they would die either way.' So, Levine wrote legislation requiring California cities and counties to analyze whether their roads could support a quick evacuation during emergencies such as fires, floods and tsunamis. Assembly Bill 747 passed in 2019. Yet, to date, the city of Los Angeles has failed to publicly report such an analysis, while fire safety advocates say L.A. County's evacuation analysis fails to meet the law's requirements. The Times reached out to nearly a dozen city, county and state agencies involved with evacuation planning. All either did not respond to requests for comment, could not to point to an evacuation analysis in line with the state's guidelines for AB 747 or indicated the responsibility for doing the work lie with other agencies. 'The fact that local government leaders would not do as much as they can to protect human life and safety is just shocking to me,' Levine said. In January, the streets of Pacific Palisades mirrored the scene that distressed Levine in 2018. Traffic was at a standstill on Sunset Boulevard and Palisades Drive — two of the only routes out of the burning landscape. When a spot fire exploded next to the route, police ran down the street, shouting at evacuees to run for their lives. Every year, dozens of evacuations are ordered in California, organized and completed without any casualties — or even a news story. In these cases, public safety officials have all the lead time that they need to organize a safe and orderly evacuation before a fire reaches a community. But it's the much more dire evacuation scenarios — when the lead time is shorter than the time it takes to evacuate, like in the Palisades — where emergency planning is both most important and often ignored. 'There's no incentive to ever present an evacuation plan that isn't very positive,' said Thomas Cova, a professor at the University of Utah who studies wildfire evacuation analysis. 'Why would an emergency planner — say some young upstart in an emergency operation center — ever want to present a plan to their colleagues that involves some people burning?' The chaos of these worst-case scenario evacuations often look nothing like the orderly phased evacuations cities often focus on. Unlike in 'blue sky' evacuations, smoke can hinder visibility and cause crashes. Often whole towns must leave at once. Power outages can prevent public safety officials from communicating with residents. It's why Marylee Guinon — president of the State Alliance for Firesafe Road Regulations, an advocacy group aimed at protecting and expanding the state's community fire safety requirements — suspects AB 747 is facing pushback from local governments. 'They don't want data that would tell them that it's going to be a nine-hour evacuation,' she said. All the while, the risk of fast-moving fires is growing. In a 2024 study, researchers from the University of Colorado in Boulder analyzed more than 60,000 fires documented by NASA satellites in the first two decades of the 21st century. By 2020, fires in California were growing, on average, four times faster than they were in 2001. AB 747 requires local governments to include their evacuation analyses in the safety element of their general plan — the long-term blueprint for future development of a city or county. The city of L.A.'s current safety element provides no such analysis. Instead, it simply lists evacuation planning as 'ongoing.' In a statement to The Times, the city's Planning Department, responsible for writing and revising the general plan, said details of evacuation routes are not made publicly available since 'large urban cities such as the City of Los Angeles are high profile targets for terrorist attacks.' The city did not immediately clarify what legal authority it has to keep the analysis private as California law generally requires safety elements to be public. 'It is a mystery how hiding evacuation route capacity and viability can save lives when community members are fleeing a natural disaster,' Levine said in an email to The Times. 'It is a dubious claim that terrorists could possibly be well positioned to take advantage of such a catastrophic situation.' Meanwhile, the county said it complied through an analysis it included in its 2025 safety element. However, fire safety advocates criticized the county's analysis as simplistic and failing to adequately determine whether quick and safe evacuations are feasible. The Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation, which provides guidance on state planning laws, recommended that local governments use traffic software to simulate different evacuations to estimate how long they might take. Instead, the county grabbed a list of all roads in unincorporated areas within its borders and listed them as 'evacuation routes' so long as they were paved, public and not a dead end. The intent of the law is 'not 'just list the roads you have,'' Levine said. 'So I'm super disappointed that L.A. County is dismissive in this way. You would expect, particularly post this year's fires, Palisades and Eaton, they would take this far more seriously.' When pressed on their deviations from the state's guidance, both the city and county planning departments passed the buck to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, which indicated in assessments that the two departments' safety elements were compliant. Cal Fire, however, said that its assessments were nonbinding and that complying with the law falls on the city and county. Yet, none of the local or state agencies directly responded to an inquiry from The Times asking them to explain the discrepancy between the guidance and the safety elements. The city and county both have detailed evacuation plans that coordinate how public safety officials in the emergency operations, police and fire departments would orchestrate a mass exodus. However, the analysis of roadway networks to estimate how long those evacuations — even if perfectly orchestrated — may take, is different. 'Historically, fire agencies put forth evacuation plans that are operationally driven,' said retired fire Battalion Chief Doug Flaherty. 'They talk about communications. They talk about unified command. … What is missing is an actual detailed, road-by-roadway capacity analysis of the time that it's going to take for people to safely evacuate the area.' For Guinon, the lack of follow-through from cities and counties across the state is indicative of a common trend in wildfire legislation. 'Virtually every piece of legislation that I dig into, I find out it was the result of a tragic catastrophe,' she said. 'This legislation comes out with really, really clear intent over and over, and then it gets forgotten.' Despite the complexity of simulating cars on a computerized network of roads to understand evacuation times, the scientific prowess exists — and the software to do it is widely accessible. When Flaherty, a Tahoe Basin resident, became frustrated with his area's lack of movement on the issue, he commissioned an evacuation study through his nonprofit, The retired fire battalion chief, with 50 years of emergency response planning experience under his belt, partnered with Leo Zlimen, fresh out of UC Berkeley and co-founder of the emergency management software startup Ladris. 'We fell into this wildfire space because everywhere we looked, people were [asking] 'draw a circle on the map and tell me how long it takes to get those people out,'' Zlimen said. 'And it turns out, that's actually a really complicated problem.' Ladris' software simulates realistic fire evacuations. It starts by taking a map of roads in a community and plopping little purple dots at virtually every home. Each one represents a vehicle. A fire starts on the map. It spreads. The purple dots get orders to flee, and the evacuation starts. The computer can play out a multihour evacuation in mere seconds, and it can account for an excruciating amount of detail. A roadblock, representing a falling tree or car crash, can stop purple dots from using a portion of the road. Some purple dots, not realizing how dire the situation is, wait an extra few minutes — or hours — to evacuate. The dots even wait their turn at stop signs, crosswalks and traffic lights. Ladris' program almost looks like a video game. Officials can test evacuation scenarios far in advance or in real time during an emergency. The company is also working to use artificial intelligence to help quickly configure scenarios so users can almost literally 'draw a circle on the map' and get an evacuation time. Flaherty said his detailed Tahoe Basin study, a comprehensive analysis based on Ladris' simulations, had a price tag just shy of $100,000 — roughly equivalent to the cost of installing one traffic light in town. 'In the scheme of things, it's very cost effective and reasonably priced,' he said. Another piece of software from Old Dominion University — simpler than Ladris' — is available to the public for free. It takes less than half an hour to set up a simulation in the program, called FLEET (for 'Fast Local Emergency Evacuation Times'). Consequently, it's been used not only by local governments making fire evacuation plans, but also by Scouting America troops interested in flood hazards and event planners wondering how bad the postgame traffic may be. Among those using FLEET simulations for evacuation planning: the town of Paradise. After the Camp fire, Paradise became an inadvertent experiment in how towns can better prepare for evacuations. After the disaster, it won a $199-million federal grant for infrastructure projects designed to rebuild Paradise into a more fire-safe town. Before the fire, the town's entire yearly budget was around $12 million. After the Camp fire, Paradise hired a traffic consulting firm that used FLEET. It found an evacuation would take over five hours under perfect conditions while utilizing all traffic lanes. It then used the modeling to understand what could be done to alter traffic flow to reduce that time. For Paradise — as is the case for many towns — a big problem is traffic bottlenecks: To evacuate, virtually the entire town has to use one of four main roads. The seemingly most straight-forward solution? Build more roads. However, these projects get complicated fast, said Marc Mattox, Paradise's public works director and town engineer. Often the roads that a municipality needs to improve evacuation would have to go through private property — a nonstarter for residents in the proposed path. Or, it's simply too costly. Although Paradise has received funds to widen two evacuation routes and connect three dead ends with the rest of town, a new evacuation route out of town would be prohibitively expensive. Mattox estimated such a route, navigating Paradise's steep ridges and canyons, would cost in excess of half a billion dollars. So, Paradise has also invested in a much cheaper, yet still effective tool to speed up evacuations: clear communication. Paradise installed signs all over town that proclaim when residents enter and exit different evacuation zones. The town is also looking into using a different color sign for private or dead-end roads that warn drivers to avoid them, as well as digital signs above key roadways that can display real-time evacuation information. In Southern California, Malibu — which completed an evacuation analysis after it suffered the Woolsey fire the same day as the Camp fire — has similar plans. Malibu is adding reflective markers to roadways to reduce the chances of crashes amid thick smoke. For neighborhoods with few evacuation routes and individuals with limited mobility, the city encourages evacuating whenever the National Weather Service warns of dangerous fire weather — well before a possible ignition. Los Angeles is much bigger than Malibu and Paradise — L.A. has a population of 3.9 million; Paradise's is just over 9,100. But evacuation experts said it's no excuse for letting California's rural towns take the lead on evacuation planning. Asked whether the sprawling labyrinth of L.A. roads would make doing these analyses more difficult, Zlimen smiled. 'Not really — no,' he said, noting Ladris has completed analyses in the San Francisco Bay Area. 'It's totally possible.' Guinon hopes the results of evacuation analyses can also help — or force — cities to make more responsible residential development plans in the first place. 'It's not rocket science,' she said. 'Let's just take on protection of our existing communities and let the chips fall where they may with new development: If it's unsafe, don't build it.'
Business Journals
6 days ago
- Business
- Business Journals
PG&E initiatives drive small business resilience and growth
As the Sacramento region continues to grow, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is doing more than just powering businesses -- it's helping them thrive. Through a variety of tailored programs, PG&E is helping small and medium businesses save energy, reduce costs and operate more efficiently from day one. PG&E serves more than 19,000 small and medium business customers in Sacramento, Yolo, Placer and El Dorado counties. In just the past three years, those businesses have collectively saved over 440,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of energy -- enough to power about 42 average homes for an entire year. These businesses have also received more than $544,00 in energy efficiency incentives through PG&E's rebate and financing programs. PG&E has a Small Business Engagement (SBE) Team that provides dedicated support to small businesses by making personalized calls, launching regional campaigns and working with local partners. Their goal is to ensure customers know about every available resource. Let's take a deeper dive into those programs and resources. Support starts early -- with PG&E's Welcome Series. As part of this new initiative, SBE representatives reach out to new business owners during the first six weeks of service to offer personalized guidance so they can take control of their energy use from the start. 'This early outreach is more than just connecting a business to the grid,' said Joe Wilson, vice president for PG&E's North Valley & Sierra region. 'It's about building trust and showing business owners we're here to help them succeed long-term.' For businesses facing financial challenges, PG&E offers Thrive, a no-cost operational assessment that identifies ways to cut costs, boost efficiency, and improve comfort for both employees and customers. You can contact your local representative for more details. PG&E also provides high-impact programs that help businesses continue growing and saving, even years after opening their doors. For example, PG&E's Rate Analysis Tool helps customers find the most cost-effective electric rate plan for their operations. The SBE team runs two targeted rate analysis campaigns each year—one focused on agricultural businesses and another for general business customers. In 2024 alone, this campaign effort saved small business customers across PG&E's service area a combined $5.4 million. PG&E's On-Bill Financing (OBF) program offers interest-free loans for energy-efficient upgrades, with payments made through the customer's monthly PG&E bill. In most cases, the energy savings offset the loan payments. Paired with Customer Energy Efficiency (CEE) rebates, these tools have had a measurable impact. Additional tools for long-term growth Simplified Savings Program – Free energy assessments and upgrades for businesses in disadvantaged communities. Rebates for food service equipment -- Rebate programs that will help you save money and improve productivity when you upgrade your food service equipment. Food Service Technology Center -- Access key training programs, design consultants and test kitchen plans to improve your operations and energy efficiency. Budget Billing -- The program averages out your monthly bill to determine your monthly payment, instead of having unpredictable summer bills. Economic Development Rate. This offers eligible business customers the opportunity to lower costs through one of three reduced electric rate options. PG&E developed this rate to help businesses grow or maintain jobs in California. The standard 12% rate is available throughout our service territory. Small businesses make up 99% of PG&E's commercial customer base, and the company is committed to serving them with local solutions and lasting support. 'Small businesses are the backbone of our communities, and we're proud to support them with tailored energy solutions, cost-saving programs, and local partnerships,' said Wilson. 'We're committed to helping small business owners thrive by making energy more affordable, reliable, and accessible.'
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
PG&E Achieves 42% Reduction in Methane Emissions, Surpassing 2025 Goal
OAKLAND, Calif., July 15, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) submitted a report to the California Public Utilities Commission reporting a 42 percent reduction of methane emissions in 2024 from its gas pipeline system compared to a 2015 baseline, surpassing its commitment to achieve a 20 percent reduction by 2025. In 2017, the CPUC and California Air Resources Board (CARB) directed PG&E to achieve a 20 percent emissions reduction below 2015 baseline levels by 2025. The company outpaced this goal and voluntarily set a target to achieve a 45 percent reduction by 2030. In June of this year, PG&E submitted its annual 2024 emissions data to the CPUC, which outlined the methodology and comprehensive approach the company took to achieve the 42 percent emission reduction, including: Enhancing the leak survey program that now assesses more than 42,000 miles of natural gas distribution pipeline every three years versus the previous five year rotation. Applying advanced leak detection technologies and utilizing an accelerated repair schedule for the largest emissions findings, also known as the PG&E Super Emitter Program. Continuing strategic implementation of gas mitigation technologies for planned ventings on transmission pipelines, compressor stations and underground storage. "Achieving and surpassing our methane emissions reduction goal is an important milestone that highlights our efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of our natural gas pipeline system. Coupled with our ongoing commitment to support the interconnection and delivery of California-produced renewable natural gas, we remain committed to achieving a net zero emissions energy system for our customers and hometowns," said Gas Engineering Vice President Austin Hastings. PG&E's Climate Strategy Report outlines the company's commitment to achieve a net zero emissions energy system by 2040 and a "climate positive" system by 2050. About PG&E Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of PG&E Corporation (NYSE:PCG), is a combined natural gas and electric utility serving more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit and View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
San Francisco Chronicle
12-07-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Does new S.F. skyscraper proposal signal a timeline for the city's comeback?
San Francisco was challenged. The city's weakened economy, still recovering from financial catastrophe and political uncertainty, was at a crossroads when developer Hines pitched what would be the city's tallest building. The year was 2012. Thirteen years later, the same company is looking to do it again, with a new skyscraper proposal on Friday at the former PG&E headquarters that would be even taller than Salesforce Tower. But times are so different than they were in 2012. San Francisco is now beset by an even deeper office market slump than the wake of the 2008 Great Recession. Pandemic-fueled remote work habits pushed the vacancy rate above 30%. And the city budget faces a record-high deficit that could reach $1 billion, with declines in property taxes and the threat of federal aid being choked off by President Donald Trump Hines is betting that the second half of the 2020s will echo the late 2010s tech boom, with office demand overcoming the post-COVID hangover. But there are many hurdles and a long path ahead: Hines' new proposal, if it moves forward, will require years of approval, financing and construction. Hines already paid PG&E $800 million for the property and construction costs of other supertall buildings have topped $1 billion. Salesforce Tower took about a decade to conceive and complete. And forecasts for when the city's core will reach a pre-pandemic sense of normalcy have been varied and without consensus. Stanford professor and remote work expert Nicholas Bloom last fall said San Francisco's recovery was five years away. Months earlier a report from real estate firm Avison Young suggested San Francisco won't fully recover until 2042. Real estate experts have said this year that the comeback has started, thanks to the surge in artificial intelligence companies leasing swaths of office space and the vacancy rate falling in the second quarter. But downtown will need more to recapture the heady days of 2018, when tech giants gobbled up almost every vacant listing, they said. 'First and foremost, San Francisco is notorious for being a boom and bust market and 2030 could look very different than today — especially if we can create a more mixed-use environment downtown,' said Robert Sammons, senior research director at real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield. Making downtown more attractive could mean more housing — Hines' plan calls for 120 new homes in what's now an office building at 25 Beale St. — as well as more events, restaurants and reasons to come outside the workday. City efforts like making Front Street an outdoor-drinking 'entertainment zone' and hosting parties on the Embarcadero are helping draw thousands to downtown and boosting bars and restaurants. Still, completing a skyscraper of any size has eluded almost every developer since the pandemic. The 395-foot 415 Natoma St., the city's tallest building completed since the pandemic, is 97% vacant. (The Brookfield-owned building is part of the 5M project and Brookfield's partner is Chronicle owner Hearst.) Some new office and residential buildings at Mission Rock have filled up, in one of the city's post-pandemic success stories. Hines' own Parcel F project has been stalled for years since its approval, after Salesforce cancelled a lease in 2021. And nearby Oceanwide Center, which began construction in 2017 with approval to be San Francisco's second-tallest tower, is frozen after its Chinese developer collapsed. One of Hines' best assets is location, real estate experts said. The PG&E site is on one of the only development sites on Market Street, adjacent to BART and a few blocks from the waterfront. 'You could call this arguably the best office development site in the city. It's just a fantastic location,' said Derek Daniels, Bay Area research director at real estate brokerage Colliers. And while the citywide office vacancy rate is around 30%, Daniels notes that the category of the highest-quality highrise space with great views has a rate that's under 10%. Rents in premium towers, like the Transamerica Pyramid, can exceed $200 per square foot annually, some of the highest rents in the country. It remains to be seen what form the proposed Hines tower will take, without a design firm attached to the project. But it will likely be built for top quality, or Class A, office space, similar to nearby Salesforce Tower and 181 Fremont. 'We are definitely seeing an interest for those (great) view, high-quality assets,' said Alexander Quinn, Northern California senior director of research at brokerage JLL. 'There is more scarcity.' In contrast, South of Market condo prices remain below 2020 levels, according to residential brokerage Compass. An earlier, shorter tower plan by Hines at the same PG&E site had called for more housing, but the current plan is primarily office, with a massive 1.6 million square feet that would be 200,000 square feet more than Salesforce Tower. Though the office market still has plenty of struggles, Daniels believes that vacancy has already peaked and the city is on the path to recovery. Colliers tracked 3.2 million square feet of new and renewed leases in the second quarter, the highest level in the city since mid-2019, he said. Notably, the crypto company Coinbase leased 150,000 square feet at Mission Rock, a reversal of its exit from San Francisco during the pandemic. Mayor Daniel Lurie was eager to highlight Hines' tower project. In an Instagram video, he stood in front of the former PG&E site. 'This is going to be a neighborhood that has got live, work and play opportunities,' he said. 'It is a signal to the world that San Francisco is on the rise.'
