Energy Policy Seminar: Katherine Blunt on "California Burning"

Name: Energy Policy Seminar: Katherine Blunt on "California Burning"
Start: 2023-02-27T12:00:00-0500
End: 2023-02-27T13:15:00-0500

Open to the Public

Join us for an Energy Policy Seminar featuring Katherine Blunt, energy reporter for The Wall Street Journal. Blunt will discuss her recent book, California Burning: The Fall of Pacific Gas and Electric–and What It Means for America's Power Grid, in a fireside chat with Catherine Wolfram, Visiting Raymond Plank Professor at Harvard Kennedy School. Q&A to follow. Buffet-style lunch will be served.

Registration: No RSVP is required. Room capacity is limited and seating will be on a first come, first served basis. The seminar will also be streamed via Zoom. Virtual attendees should register using the button below; upon registering, attendees will receive a confirmation email with a Zoom link.

Recording: The seminar will be recorded and available to watch on this page (typically one week later). Those who register for this event will automatically receive a link to the recording as soon as it becomes available.

Accessibility: Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Liz Hanlon (ehanlon@hks.harvard.edu) in advance of the session.

Sponsors: The Belfer Center's Environment and Natural Resources Program, the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, the Harvard University Center for the Environment, the Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability

Date: Mon, Feb 27, 2023 Time: 12:00pm - 01:15pm Location: Rubenstein Building - David T. Ellwood Democracy Lab, Room 414AB

Speaker

Katherine Blunt writes about renewable energy and utilities for The Wall Street Journal. Her coverage of Pacific Gas and Electric was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting and earned a Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. The series, reported in close collaboration with two colleagues, also received a Thomas L. Stokes Award for energy and environmental writing and other recognition. She lives in San Francisco.

About the Book

About California Burning

A revelatory, urgent narrative with national implications, exploring the decline of California’s largest utility company that led to countless wildfires — including the one that destroyed the town of Paradise — and the human cost of infrastructure failure

Pacific Gas and Electric was a legacy company built by innovators and visionaries, establishing California as a desirable home and economic powerhouse. In California Burning, Wall Street Journal reporter and Pulitzer finalist Katherine Blunt examines how that legacy fell apart—unraveling a long history of deadly failures in which Pacific Gas and Electric endangered millions of Northern Californians, through criminal neglect of its infrastructure. As PG&E prioritized profits and politics, power lines went unchecked—until a rusted hook purchased for 56 cents in 1921 split in two, sparking the deadliest wildfire in California history.

Beginning with PG&E’s public reckoning after the Paradise fire, Blunt chronicles the evolution of PG&E’s shareholder base, from innovators who built some of California’s first long-distance power lines to aggressive investors keen on reaping dividends. Following key players through pivotal decisions and legal battles, California Burning reveals the forces that shaped the plight of PG&E: deregulation and market-gaming led by Enron Corp., an unyielding push for renewable energy, and a swift increase in wildfire risk throughout the West, while regulators and lawmakers pushed their own agendas.

California Burning is a deeply reported, character-driven narrative, the story of a disaster expanding into a much bigger exploration of accountability. It’s an American tragedy that serves as a cautionary tale for utilities across the nation—especially as climate change makes aging infrastructure more vulnerable, with potentially fatal consequences.