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In Massachusetts, Lost and Unaccounted for Gas (LAUG) is estimated per mile of pipe, rather than evaluated by regulators or even industry. It is a simple multip

In Massachusetts, Lost and Unaccounted for Gas (LAUG) is estimated per mile of pipe, rather than evaluated by regulators or even industry. It is a simple multiplication problem with little bearing on reality. Consumers bear the cost of LAUG while the utilities are guaranteed a 10% profit on their infrastructure expenses. This, along with subsidies for leak prone pipe replacement, leads to needless investment in outmoded fossil fuel infrastructure (i.e., pipe replacement) being prioritized over leak repair.

skybrian 2y ago
Meanwhile in California, PG&E underfunded maintenance, perhaps because regulators squeezed too hard? Eventually we had things like the San Bruno gas explosion and wildfires so bad that PG&E went bankrupt. Finding the optimal amount of regulation seems difficult. It seems like too blunt an instrument. Incentives are no substitute for technical people who want to do what's right.
- downWidOutaFite 2y ago
  Government owning the utility would be the answer. But politicians like to have a 3rd party to blame for price hikes and poor service .
  - skybrian 2y ago
    I’m unconvinced that a change to new management, government-run or not, would automatically get technically competent people hired and give them the decision-making power to do things right. Sure, it might, but it’s hardly guaranteed.
    - ericd 2y ago
      I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that you can make large multiples of the amount you'd make working on this kind of thing by working on something relatively non-productive like finance, consulting, adtech, etc. A large percentage of my engineering class went into one of those. One of the smartest guys I knew there, who studied nuclear engineering, now does healthcare private equity. The incentives are all messed up. We should do some combination of making these jobs more attractive and making those relatively extractive jobs less attractive.
  - tiahura 2y ago
    If only our energy infrastructure could be run like the DMV.
- conception 2y ago
  Where on this chart do you see PG&E needing to cut maintenance costs before the wildfires? https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PCG/pacific-gas-electric/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PCG/pacific-gas-el...
  - skybrian 2y ago
    I don’t think that chart has enough detail to understand what happened.
- dylan604 2y ago
  How many fires were started by PG&E gas explosions vs power lines?
- katbyte 2y ago
  Thank you for pointing out why it should be a public utility that does the right thing rather then a private company who was willing to burn the state down for profit.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Public utilities can also face perverse incentives, and be run poorly. Commercial enterprises at least can face some competition! But with infrastructure like last-mile gas pipelines, it's tricky, and the companies end up being local monopolies. Hence the trouble: a monopoly has very different incentives than a company actually competing on the market.
- lazide 2y ago
  lol. PG&E has had a culture of malfeasance since at least the 60’s - which is why all the records on those buried pipelines and power lines were missing or never recorded at all. Despite it being a regulatory requirement. It just got worse as they passed more and more of it into investor pockets.
gruez 2y ago
>In Massachusetts, Lost and Unaccounted for Gas (LAUG) is estimated per mile of pipe, rather than evaluated by regulators or even industry. It is a simple multiplication problem with little bearing on reality Isn't both ends of a pipe metered? Even if not every pope is metered, at the very least there should be metering at the point of bulk purchase (eg. from a LNG ship) to the end user (gas meter at a home). How hard is it to compare how much is put into the pipe vs how much comes out?
- closewith 2y ago
  Measurement error in gas networks can be 15% of volume, so not precise enough for this work.
  - szundi 2y ago
    omg this is real?
  - idiotsecant 2y ago
    When accurate metering is called for we have the tech to do it just fine to far less than <1% error. This is a classic case where regulation is required. Rational capitalist enterprise is not going to fix this on their own. They don't currently have the right incentives.
    - closewith 2y ago
      To 1% volume, like rotary meters, but not 1% mass. At least not at reasonable cost. But you are right that regulation is the answer, although personally I think direct leak detection is more realistic than measuring gas flows accurately in a system that's already built around low accuracy metering.
      - idiotsecant 2y ago
        Coriolis flow meters in natural gas have been accurate and pretty inexpensive since the 1990s with accuracies better than 99% on the extreme low end and 99.5% on the high end. Its easy to say that anything is 'too expensive' when the regulatory bar is set so low that it doesn't exist.

skybrian 2y ago

Meanwhile in California, PG&E underfunded maintenance, perhaps because regulators squeezed too hard? Eventually we had things like the San Bruno gas explosion and wildfires so bad that PG&E went bankrupt. Finding the optimal amount of regulation seems difficult. It seems like too blunt an instrument. Incentives are no substitute for technical people who want to do what's right.

downWidOutaFite 2y ago
Government owning the utility would be the answer. But politicians like to have a 3rd party to blame for price hikes and poor service .
- skybrian 2y ago
  I’m unconvinced that a change to new management, government-run or not, would automatically get technically competent people hired and give them the decision-making power to do things right. Sure, it might, but it’s hardly guaranteed.
  - ericd 2y ago
    I think a lot of this boils down to the fact that you can make large multiples of the amount you'd make working on this kind of thing by working on something relatively non-productive like finance, consulting, adtech, etc. A large percentage of my engineering class went into one of those. One of the smartest guys I knew there, who studied nuclear engineering, now does healthcare private equity. The incentives are all messed up. We should do some combination of making these jobs more attractive and making those relatively extractive jobs less attractive.
- tiahura 2y ago
  If only our energy infrastructure could be run like the DMV.
conception 2y ago
Where on this chart do you see PG&E needing to cut maintenance costs before the wildfires? https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PCG/pacific-gas-electric/net-income https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PCG/pacific-gas-el...
- skybrian 2y ago
  I don’t think that chart has enough detail to understand what happened.
dylan604 2y ago
How many fires were started by PG&E gas explosions vs power lines?
katbyte 2y ago
Thank you for pointing out why it should be a public utility that does the right thing rather then a private company who was willing to burn the state down for profit.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Public utilities can also face perverse incentives, and be run poorly. Commercial enterprises at least can face some competition! But with infrastructure like last-mile gas pipelines, it's tricky, and the companies end up being local monopolies. Hence the trouble: a monopoly has very different incentives than a company actually competing on the market.
lazide 2y ago
lol. PG&E has had a culture of malfeasance since at least the 60’s - which is why all the records on those buried pipelines and power lines were missing or never recorded at all. Despite it being a regulatory requirement. It just got worse as they passed more and more of it into investor pockets.

gruez 2y ago

>In Massachusetts, Lost and Unaccounted for Gas (LAUG) is estimated per mile of pipe, rather than evaluated by regulators or even industry. It is a simple multiplication problem with little bearing on reality Isn't both ends of a pipe metered? Even if not every pope is metered, at the very least there should be metering at the point of bulk purchase (eg. from a LNG ship) to the end user (gas meter at a home). How hard is it to compare how much is put into the pipe vs how much comes out?

closewith 2y ago
Measurement error in gas networks can be 15% of volume, so not precise enough for this work.
- szundi 2y ago
  omg this is real?
- idiotsecant 2y ago
  When accurate metering is called for we have the tech to do it just fine to far less than <1% error. This is a classic case where regulation is required. Rational capitalist enterprise is not going to fix this on their own. They don't currently have the right incentives.
  - closewith 2y ago
    To 1% volume, like rotary meters, but not 1% mass. At least not at reasonable cost. But you are right that regulation is the answer, although personally I think direct leak detection is more realistic than measuring gas flows accurately in a system that's already built around low accuracy metering.
    - idiotsecant 2y ago
      Coriolis flow meters in natural gas have been accurate and pretty inexpensive since the 1990s with accuracies better than 99% on the extreme low end and 99.5% on the high end. Its easy to say that anything is 'too expensive' when the regulatory bar is set so low that it doesn't exist.