After reading a couple posts on the power grid, and power plants disconnecting from the grid and generating on their own, I would like to know where is the best place to live to have electricity. And assuming that transportation is affected, how will these fossil fueled plants receive their oil, natural gas, coal, etc. to keep the plant going? If the utilities have problems with their billing, the loss of revenues will be a major setback. I know our electric company is just now identifying the critical systems that keep the company moving. They haven't even started any testing or replacing any embedded chips or software.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 11, 1999

Answers

You might want to consider areas that depend on hydro-electric power and that have utilities that are ahead in their embedded system remediation. Two areas come to mind. Oregon/Washington and Tennesee.

-- Tomcat (tomcat@tampabay.rr.com), January 11, 1999.

Bardou,

According to the rumor in the WorldNetDaily article, don't expect power in rural areas. All available power will be directed to cities.

Maybe the safest place to live would be near a hydroelectric plant. Small rural telephone companies will probably have the same problems that small rural electric companies will. Living in the country is still safest -- IF you have your own source of electricity.

-- Kevin (mixesmusic@worldnet.att.net), January 11, 1999.

According to Rick Cowles' article (online at http://www.cbn.org/y2k/cowles.asp) California is all hydro-electric, no fossil fuel.

Rick Cowles, Will Electricity Flow in 2000?

In the same breath he mentions that many of California's systems controls are very new. This means highly computerized (a percentage of embedded systems, I would assume). Until I learn more, I'd consider this a big wild card. "New" could mean they either work well, or fail on a wide scale. If anyone has looked further this, please post. (I wonder if the San Francisco outage is any indication.)

-- D B Spence (dbspence@usa.net), January 11, 1999.

I live near several different hydro dam water sources. Two are huge dams and the others on a river. Some are public utility owned and I believe one of the dams is government. I'm not banking on the power to be there, but I don't see how these power plants can drop from the grid and direct the power to certain cities. When the power went out recently in San Francisco, some areas still had power while other areas 40 miles away didn't. I feel like I'm in a Catch 22 situation.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 11, 1999.

Someone might want to verify the statement made in the Rick Cowles interview regarding "California having no coal-fired plants":

I understand that the Moapa Power Station near Moapa, Nevada (+/- 50 miles north of Las Vegas)

a) sends "all" its power to California, and it is.

b) a coal-fired plant.

I also understand that power generated at the big plant in Delta, Utah is coal-fired and that some of its output is also wheeled to Califorina.

[I'll stand corrected if in error.]

Additionally, the latest Jim Lord column has good things to say about Utah's natural gas supply.

-- Perry Arnett (pjarnett@pdqnet.net), January 11, 1999.

Go west, young man...all the way to New Zealand. Almost all hydro...

-- Chick (Chickadee@downunder.com), January 11, 1999.

Northern New York, near the Seaway. (Massena, Potsdam, Ogdensburg, Canton, etc. All Hydro, most have colleges (the Y2K Monasteries). cr

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), January 12, 1999.

If the government decides to direct all the available power to the cities and lets farm country go dark, I hope that they have an alternate food source available. No power on the modern farm, no food to the cities.

As William Jennings Bryan said, "If you remove a civilization's cities but leave the farms, eventually new cities will grow out of the countryside. But if you remove a civilization's farms and leave but the cities, there will soon be nothing but weeds growing in the streets of those cities."

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 12, 1999.

You could live next door to a hydro plant, but does that mean power will be available to YOU? The powers that be may have their own priorities as to where power, if available, goes.

BTW, Las Vegas is near Hoover/Boulder dam.

Any "Mother Earth" type plans where one could tap into (next to) megavolt transmission lines by induction?

-- Q (q@q.com), January 12, 1999.

We have a few lots for sale in Southern Idaho near "1000 Springs." There are also several big and small hydroelectric power plants and numerous trout farms in this valley.

Visit here.

-- Park Place (park@magiclink.com), January 13, 1999.

Sorry. Visit here.

-- Park Place (park@magiclink.com), January 13, 1999.