I talked with a friend who works for a major electric utility in the southeastern U.S. He gave me the most positive information on y2k I've ever heard. While we have been told that the nuclear power plants will probably be shut down because of year 2000 noncompliance, the cost of running the particular power plant in southeast U.S. is not worth running if it is not at 100% capacity. This is due to the amount of labor and government regulations involved to run them.

New alternative power generated plants other than nuclear are planned to open in the next month to add more power to the amount produced now. Some large companies are putting in their own power plants, since their studies have shown them that by opening their own power generating plants, they can save money by producing their own electricity, then sell the surplus back to the state power company, which, by law the utility must buy back. My friend told me that they will be losing a large customer from this, and more are to follow. All these new power plants will be year 2000 compliant, and the private ones won't be part of the national grid. The nuclear power may not be missed with the excess power being produced.

But all these power plants must get their fossil fuel from someplace. This could be the problem. Will the transportation system be able to deliver the necessary supplies?

-- Alan Mostert (alanmos@yahoo.com), September 20, 1998

Answers

Quoting: But all these power plants must get their fossil fuel from someplace. This could be the problem. Will the transportation system be able to deliver the necessary supplies?

And then they need to remove themselves from the North American grid in order to insure being able to provide service to their immediate area customers, yes? Why aren't they all talking about removing themselves from the grid? It's frankly a mystery to me. Is this possible? Some power-wise person please elucidate?

-- Donna Barthuley (moment@pacbell.net), September 20, 1998.

Most of the private plants your friend speaks of are for manufacturing plants which in the past have been gouged by the local electric co. Now with deregulation and economical small scale natural gas generating systems, they have said "screw you" to the local power co. Problem is they rely on natural gas to be supplied and when they "sell back" to the local electric co., the electricity flows into their distributions system which may not be compliant. Nukes still supply 0-40% of your electricity depending on where you live, and the grid relies on nuclear capacity to provide power during peaks in non-nuclear areas.

-- Bill (bill@microsoft.com), September 20, 1998.

I have a friend who works for a nuclear plant is the D.C. area, who was told ber her supervisor that a big problem occurs if companies start removing from the grid. Apparently it causes a "surge" or something on the grid, which can then negatively impact the whole grid. (Can you tell technology is not my forte?) Then again there is the issue of smaller companies who actually produce some power but buy a lot of it from bigger companies. If THAT supply is disrupted, doesn't matter if the little guy is compliant.

Forgive my technological illiteracy. Trying to understand this whole mess.

-- Melissa (financed@forbin.com), September 20, 1998.

Yes, you can get a runaway cascade of disconnections starting with an unexpected event that takes one large plant or interconnect down. It's happened a few times in the USA that I've read about: most recently(?) a large chunk of the West coast was without power for a few hours.

Under normal circumstances it's bearable as a rare event; things can be got back together again in hours, critical facilities have backup generators. However, if the problem is that a lot of plants are down and a lot of remote switching equipment isn't working, then the picture isn't nearly as pretty. In that circumstance, I suspect that the first phase of fixing the troble will entail a drastic reduction of demand ... by disconnecting low-priority load, which means residential.

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), September 21, 1998.

"Now, watch the birdeee!!!" as the proverbial magician would say. Folks, it is now FALL 1998. There is not much time left. All these Great Ideas on yet new energy sources, and upcoming new plants that "will be" Y2K compliant, etc., just don't cut it at this late date. This is the kind of talk one would have hoped to have heard in early 1994, not (too) late 1998.

-- Joe (shar@pei.com), September 21, 1998.

when i talk to people about the possibility of the power plants going down in year 2000, they come back with the reply 'they can always just switch to manual mode'.

where can i find proof that the plants either can or can not run in 'manual mode'?

how come the testimony i read that was given before Sen. Bennet mentions nothing about running in 'manual mode'? this would go a long way towards settling peoples doubts and fears.

-- areseejay (areseejay@aol.com), September 21, 1998.

Nigel: that's why I think rolling blackouts and recurring but intermittent power outages are most likely. This rather than prolonged (weeks and weeks) of outages.

Of course, try fixing other programs when the power keeps tripping off for unpredictable time periods. Try runing production machinery that way, too. That's why I think the stock market wil REALLY be hit: people can't make a profit if they are shutdown for 1/2 or 1/4 of a whole quarter 's business days.

So many other workers are going to be laid off until things are predictable again to run machinery, and process bills, and send mail, and write (government) checks, etc.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 21, 1998.

I am certainly no expert, but my understanding of what it would take to have cooperating electric utility companies operate in manual mode (assuming for the moment that they really can and have the people who remember how to do it) is working communications -- this is supposed to be crucial, since computers will not longer be able to do the interfacing, the operators must be able to communicate in their place. Of course, for working communications you need electricity ....

-- Joe (shar@pei.com), September 22, 1998.

i called the DOE here in montana today. talked to someone there who said that they could run in manual mode for a short time but that it was not sustainable. did not say whether all plants had manual capability.

they also said that 'not getting the fix done for y2k is not an option'.

am calling a local hydro plant tomorrow for info. have a letter put together for the local power company.

-- areseejay (areseejay@aol.com), September 22, 1998.

There is a new posting on Gary North's web site (http://www.garynorth.com under "Power_Grid") that suggests that the entire question of whether a plant can be run manually or not for a reasonable period out to be proofed out. Best way would simply to do it for a two-week period just so that we know whether it can be done or not. (I highly suspect that this will not be done, because in fact this cannot be done, at least not with any degree of reliabilty.)

-- Joe (shar@pei.com), September 23, 1998.