PG&E emerged from their most recent bankruptcy with more debt than they entered with! This was largely because of the wildfire liabilities - $30 billion. In more direct terms, the lucky Californians are paying the unlucky Californians, and it was financed by bonds which used PG&E's existing assets as collateral (which for some reason weren't already collateralized.)

The best case for Californians overall would have been PG&E's debt and equity to go as close to 0 as possible, and all that extra debt have been used to actually upgrade the aging electricity infrastructure. Instead you are paying interest on past fire damage claims.

In 2018 PG&E had about $18b of long term debt, they now have just under $59b. Their outstanding shares also quadrupled. The bankruptcy didn't wipe out the equity, but investors got f'd hard if they thought they were acting conservatively. Would you accept a 1.25%ish dividend with the prospects of the stock going to 0 higher than it doubling in the next 10 years?

For all of the whiners about how utility investors shouldn't make any money, and possibly earn below their cost of capital, -- I spent some time looking at the utility industry over the last few years (including PG&E.) These are basically money pits which more money goes in than comes out over decades.

The other layer here is if the billions of dollars being borrowed are to build new infrastructure results in billions more in future liabilities to maintain everything. The first layer looked so bad I didn't go any further.

The petty dividend payouts utilities make just keep the equity investors from examining what they really own. Higher equity valuations let utilities borrow money cheaper than they really should be able to.

Functionally the whole thing looks like a ponzi scheme that perhaps could only happen with the 40 year run of ever shrinking interest rates. If the bond bull market is over then this utility ponzi scheme is going to blow too.

Bottom line, if investors were paying attention, your utility bills would be a lot higher. If utilities ever have a big problem getting Wall Street to keep funding their debt ponzi, they will be.

The alternative is the state owns the utility. Given how ugly the math is for utilities right now, I doubt it would be cheaper.

On the other hand, if the US is going 100% EV (AI datacenters or not), then there trillions of federal dollars are inbound and maybe utilities will be ok. One thing is for certain, the utilities, their investors (debt & equity) their customers, and the US states don't have the money to pay for all that has to be built.