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Pacific Gas and Electric Company
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For the 1970s rock music band, see Pacific Gas & Electric (band).
"PG&E" redirects here. For the Portland, Oregon electric utility, see Portland General Electric.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company

Type
Public (NYSE: PCG)
Founded
1905
Headquarters
San Francisco, California, USA
Industry
ElectricityNatural Gas
Products
ElectricityNatural Gas
Market cap
US$ 14.92 Billion (As of Sep 12, 2008)
Revenue
▲ US$13.237 Billion (2007)
Operating income
▲ US$2.114 Billion (2007)
Net income
▲ US$1.006 Billion (2007)
Employees
20,000 (2007)
Websit
www.pge.com
The Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), (NYSE: PCG) is the utility that provides natural gas and electricity to most of Northern California. The southern part of the state is generally served by Southern California Edison for power and natural gas from Southern California Gas. PG&E was founded in 1905 and is currently headquartered in the Pacific Gas & Electric Building in San Francisco.
Contents
1 History
1.1 San Francisco Gas
1.2 San Francisco Gas Light
1.3 San Francisco Gas and Electric
1.4 Pacific Gas and Electric company 1905
1.5 Streetcars
1.6 North American Company
1.7 Postwar era
1.8 Bankruptcy
2 Generation Portfolio
2.1 Hydroelectric facilities
2.2 Nuclear facilities
2.3 Fossil facilities
2.4 Solar Facilities
3 PG&E Power Content
4 Management
5 PG&E and the Environment
6 The legal case in Hinkley (1993-1996)
7 Diversity
8 Fortune 500 2008
9 References and footnotes
10 See also
11 External links
//

History

San Francisco Gas
In the 1850s, manufactured gas was being introduced as means of lighting for the first time and coal gasification works were being built in the larger eastern American cities. San Francisco pioneer foundryman and blacksmith Peter Donahue and his brothers established a foundry below North Beach, and later in the south of Market area. The foundry would become the Union Iron Works, the greatest industrial concern in 19th century San Francisco. Donahue learned all he could about gas manufacturing and with his brother James and a young engineer named Joseph G. Eastland incorporated the San Francisco Gas Company on August 31, 1852. The original location for the gas works was bounded by First, Fremont, Howard and Natoma streets south of Market, on the then shore of the San Francisco Bay. On the night of February 11, 1854, the streets of San Francisco were for the first time lighted by gas, and a banquet was held at the Oriental hotel. In a year, the company had 12 miles (19 km) of street mains, thousands of gas streetlights, two gas holders at First and Howard with a combined capacity of 160,000 cubic feet (4,500 m3) and a monopoly of city gasification contracts. The cost of gas was billed at 15 dollars per thousand cubic feet, where no meters were installed, the price was estimated from the size of the burners. Shortly thereafter, the Citizens Gas Company was given a fifty year franchise by the state legislature but when the company was built and ready to deliver gas, it sold out to the San Francisco Gas Company.
In April 1870, the City Gas Company was organized and built its works on the Potrero Point shoreline. Another company, the Metropolitan Gas Company, was established but was not a success, and it was quickly purchased by the San Francisco Gas Company.

San Francisco Gas Light
All these companies were merged with larger infusions of capital into the San Francisco Gas Light company in 1873. A rival company, the Central Gas Company, came into existence in 1882 and the rate for gas went as low 0.90 cents a thousand cubic feet. The Central and the Pacific Gas Improvement Company were merged into the San Francisco Gas and Electric Company, (SFG&E Co.) September 1, 1903.
Rapid technological improvements in the processes of manufacturing gas were immediately adopted by the company. When petroleum was produced in California, the manufacture of water gas, then in general use in eastern and midwest states, began in San Francisco.
Water gas was first made from anthracite coal brought around Cape Horn from Swansea in Wales and enriched with California petroleum. The first water gas works, a thoroughly modern plant, was established at Potrero Point and the manufacture of water gas was a success due to the increased amount of petroleum available that reduced costs. The company then acquired land in North Beach at Bay, Laguna and Webster streets, and in 1891, the North Beach Gas Works was built. For many years this facility, with its 2 million cubic feet (57,000 m3) gas holder, was considered the finest gas works in the world. The original plant at Howard Street was dismantled.
Circa 1890 they also built a small electrical generator at the Potrero Point site, a first in California. This site would later become the Potrero Generating Station.

San Francisco Gas and Electric
In December, 1896, the San Francisco Gas Light Company merged with the Edison Light and Power Company under the new title San Francisco Gas and Electric Company and this company existed until 1903 and then dissolved.
Other companies that started in the business in active competition but eventually merged into the SFG&E co. were the Equitable Gas Light Company and the Independent Electric Light and Power and the Independent Gas and Power company, founded by Claus Spreckels, the king of California sugar.

Pacific Gas and Electric company 1905
The company known as Pacific Gas and Electric incorporated on October 10, 1905, as a consolidation of more than two dozen power and water concerns around the state. PG&E went on to consolidate power in northern California and by 1952 represented 520 companies merged.
By 1906, the exclusive use of petroleum for manufactured gas was catching on and a 4,000,000 cubic feet gas-oil unit was built at the Potrero Gas Works. A similar unit had been built at the Martin Station in Visiticion Valley on the San Mateo border and was connected to the Potrero works by a 12-inch (300 mm) high pressure pipe for use in San Francisco. At around the same time, hydroelectric power was established in California at the Colgate power plant on the Yuba River which began to deliver power for agriculture. In 1905, Pacific Gas and Electric Company was formed by a merger of the SFG&E Co. and the California Gas and Electric Corporation. The 1906 earthquake destroyed the North Beach Gas Works but the Potrero works were unaffected and along with the Martin Station, supplied the city after the Great fire. In 1912 PG&E began installing meters to free itself from the previous flat rate billing scheme.
PG&E began delivering natural gas to San Francisco and northern California in 1930 through the longest pipeline in the world, connecting the Texas gas fields to northern California with compressor stations that included cooling towers every 300 miles (480 km), at Topock on the state line, and near the town of Hinkley, California. With the introduction of natural gas, the company began retiring its polluting gas manufacturing facilities, though it kept some plants on standby.

Streetcars
1906 also marked the year that PG&E purchased the Sacramento Electric, Gas & Railway Company. The history of the PG&E streetcar lines in Sacramento goes back to the Sacramento City Street Railway, a 5-foot (1.5 m) gauge horsecar railway that operated 9 miles (14 km) of street railway in Sacramenato in the late 1800s. The Sacramento Street Railway was purchased by the Sacramento Electric, Power and Light Company Electric Railway. In 1896, the Sacramento Electric, Power & Light Company Electric Railway was purchased by the Sacramento Electric, Gas & Railway Company. In 1906, PG&E acquired the line and in 1915 PG&E operated the line under the PG&E name. PG&E's streetcars had lines such as the "#6 - Oak Park Line". In 1943, PG&E sold the lines to Sacramento City Lines which ended up in the hands of the National City Lines. National City Lines converted several streetcar lines in that era to bus service and the track was abandoned on January 4, 1947.