I just started reading Time Bomb 2000 by the Yourdons. I realize they were putting out various fallback plans based on possible timeframes of failure and degree of severity. What I'm wondering now is, since it's publication, if there is a better sense of what actually will happen relating to the grid. Ed? Anyone?

I know that all of this is basically speculation. What anyone actually thinks won't have one bit of impact on what actually happens. But I am interested in what people here think will/won't happen to the grid as a result of y2k-- including the _basis_ for your position.

Thanks.

-- winter wondering (winterwondering@yahoo.com), August 10, 1999

Answers

As far as I can tell, the utilities are about where Ed expected them to be. With all the disinformation and spin going around, as well as the many unknowns, its still a matter of "Nobody knows".

-- me (@ .), August 10, 1999.

The grid could fail instantly due to hardware, or software. Or, they could slowly grind to a halt if fuel deliveries are disrupted. Or, they could be under cyberattack as some intelligence officers fear.

The utilities can't do live end-to-end testing and they're spending a lot of time doing coordinated press releases and fake drills.

I don't think we'll have any better feel for the grid on December 31 than we do right now.

-- Dog Gone (layinglow@rollover.now), August 10, 1999.

The risk timetable for power outages actually commences around 6ish 12/31, due to some sort of (GMT?) synchronization.

If you're fated to lose power in your locale, you may not have to wait for midnight.

-- PSA (public@service.announcement), August 10, 1999.

Winter;

Rick Cowles has posted his assesment of the latest NERC report and the status of the grid. It does require you to be able to read pdf files.

http://www.euy2k.com/deadline.pdf

I found it to be quite "enlightening"...

-- helium (heliumavid@yahoo.com), August 10, 1999.

Winter stated: "I know that all of this is basically speculation."

Truer words have never seen the light of day on this forum!

On that note I give you my speculation (as applies to U.S.A.) as of today:

1. I expect there will be problems within the industry come December. Confusion, last-minute rushing around, too many cooks (not you Robert) spoil the pot - that sort of thing.

2. Will the nukes be ready (read compliant)? Will the Dept. of Energy know the status of all nukes with total confidence? Damn I hope that's the case! I somewhat doubt Bill Richardson is on the ball. Is the NRC?

3. Post-rollover I expect problems. Billing hassles are nearly a given IMO. Localized blackouts (pick a number, any number) also are likely. Regional grid problems? Maybe. My confidence is bolstered by the (apparent) fact that winter usage of electricity is in the neighborhood of 45% of capacity. Or so I'm led to believe. Generation of power won't be under stress as it is in the summer.

4. My one true black cloud of a scenario is this. If problems with power generation, for example, if supplies of coal, petroleum, water (just kidding) are interrupted through February/March - look out below! I know that stockpiling of fuel is taking place. My concern is that their houses be in order well prior to May.

Best Wishes,

-- Bingo1 (howe9@pop.shentel.net), August 10, 1999.

At the time Ed wrote the book and put it on the net, there was virtually nothing being done to fix production and distribution of electricity. Then there started to be talk about "the Iron Triangle" (electricity, finance and telecommunications). TREMENDOUS PRESSURE was brought to bear on these industries in North America and England. It came from all sides - customers, regulators, risk managers, insurance companies, the stock market, etc. No other sector of the economy has experienced this kind of pressure. These three sectors have made tremendous progress, as a result IMHO.

NERC admits that some have made insufficient progress - just don't say who. there are outages going on all the time, without Y2K, there'll be some with Y2K. It appears that sufficient progress has been made, so that if you are in an area that isn't isolated from the grid by some failure, the worst you will experience is scheduled blackouts and brownouts (except for those 30 nuke plants that aren't fixed or currently planned to shutdown).

Look for big problems outside the "Iron Triangle", say chemical and petroleum.

-- ng (cantprovideemail@none.com), August 10, 1999.

Drew Parkhill has posted some HTML extracts from Cowle's PDF file.

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), August 10, 1999.

Look for big problems outside the "Iron Triangle", say chemical and petroleum.

And just how much does the "Iron Triangle" depend on chemicals and petroleum?

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), August 10, 1999.

True words -

<< Then there started to be talk about "the Iron Triangle" (electricity, finance and telecommunications). TREMENDOUS PRESSURE was brought to bear on these industries in North America and England. It came from all sides - customers, regulators, risk managers, insurance companies, the stock market, etc. No other sector of the economy has experienced this kind of pressure. These three sectors have made tremendous progress, as a result IMHO. >>

Now, the problem comes in trying to figure if they found and fixed "enough" of the problem - individually, regionally and nationally - to actually prevent the disruptions. If they did not (and some problems are almost certain to have "leaked through") will these leftovers be solveable in time to prevent long-term disuption?

We don't know - and THEY AREN'T TESTING to be sure one way or the other.

They are loudly claiming compliance - because of the pressure mentioned above - but have they actually solved the problem? Specifically - no - the NREC is refusing to release their exceptions report to Congress, to FEMA, to ourselves. We do know that whole utilities (much less individual plants and distribution centers are suddenly "complete" when previous schedules had the majority of the utilities in the WHOLE state scheduled to finish in Oct and Nov.

But suddenly these are "reported 99% complete" - which needless to say sounds fishy.

But even fish (which are good to eat) smell fishy - so maybe they are merely lying in the public schedules and actually simply continuing to work to meet their original date. Could be.

But then if there is only ONE integrated (how much) test scheduled in Sept 9, how are the "late" utilities going to test? What are they going to test? How thoroughly?

We don't know - and they are saying.

Utilities are - in general - in much better shape than the condition described in the original edition in January 1998. But they are finshed testing yet - we hope most are actually finshed with their actual remediation.

Gas transmission and oil are at much greater risk than that in the original edition - given the daly as things fail overseas. Nobody has found any good news in the North Sea fields (feeding Europe), the Russian fields (feeding Germany and Central Europe) or in the Libyain fields feeding Italy and France. Nor in the Mideast fields feeding Japan and the US.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 10, 1999.

winter wondering,

I assume that you've got the second edition of "Time Bomb," which Jennifer and I wrote/revised during the summer and fall of 1998, and which was published in Feb 1999. Hence, whatever we said is 6-12 months old, and you should be sure to get current updates from the various sourced provided to you on this thread.

But there's a far more significant point: either your question is "academic" or it's "real". If you are simply intellectually curious about whether or not the grid will experience problems, you'll find there's enough information/disinformation, and enough interesting points of view on the subject, to keep you busy for months.

On the other hand, if your question is "real" -- i.e., you're trying to decide whether to buy a generator, or a stock up on candles and blankets, or move out of the city -- then you don't have a lot of time left. It may already be too late to get a medium-sized generator, though the overall public apathy has extended the "window of opportunity" for some of us. In any case, what you need to do is give yourself a fixed period of time -- perhaps a week, perhaps two weeks, perhaps a month -- to get as much information as you can, and then ACT on that information. (And keep in mind that doing nothing is an act unto itself).

The incredibly frustrating thing about this is that you'll be making your decision in the face of uncertainty that may even be greater than whatever uncertainty you feel now. You won't find an absolute answer; you'll end up being just as frustrated as David Duchovyny in the "X Files." The truth may be out there somewhere, but you won't find it in a pristine form in the next two weeks.

Nevertheless, there is going to come a point in time where you'll have to say to yourself, "Okay, based on what I've read, based on what I know, based on what my head and my heart and my 'gut' tell me, I'm going to do X ... for better or worse."

You'll find lots of sympathetic listeners, a good sounding boards, and a few incredibly annoying idiots, on this forum as you go through this process.

Good luck in your travels through this process...

Ed

-- Ed Yourdon (HumptyDumptyY2K@yourdon.com), August 10, 1999.

The grid is at risk because.......

All oilwells have embedded chips and are at risk to fail. If they do, it could take six months or more to fix all oilwells all over the world. In the mean time the flow of oil may totally stop for a while. Trains will not get diesel oil to run their engines to deliver coal from coal mines to power plants. NO COAL, NO POWER!

-- smitty (smitty@sandiego.com), August 10, 1999.

Winter:

The true state of the system (the WHOLE system) is unknowable at this time, with the information available to us mortal drones. We here search for relevant data, but the level of "perception management" being practiced by TPTB makes this difficult, at best. With a high level of uncertainty, the prudent thing to do is "HOPE FOR THE BEST, BUT PREPARE FOR THE WORST," to the best of your ability. Any other course of action would be... unsound. (Observe what course Mr. Yourden has pursued).

Mr. E.L. Core is exactly right... ENERGY is the ultimate currency of our society. The effects of this problem will be measured in terms of how much energy we will be able to continue to produce and command.

-- Pinkrock (aphotonboy@aol.com), August 11, 1999.

Thanks much to all and for the pointers to Rick Cowles report, too.

Ed-- Thanks for your response and also for all the info you have on the net, too. Actually the edition I'm reading is the first, I believe, so the information is 'older' still. Part of why I was asking here to try to get a more up-to-date picture.

In a way the question is _both_ real and academic. Since we can't know what will really happen until it happens, I guess much of these type of discussions are academic. But I was asking more from the "real" standpoint.

I was hoping for a bit of good news, even though that wouldn't necessarily change what my 'heart and gut' tell me. I only understood the y2k potential ramifications at the end of June. Before that I had heard of it but thought of it as 'merely and accounting' problem. Wondered if the microwave would work. That sort of thing. Trivial. Then I heard on the local news to 'plan for y2k as if you would a winter storm' and the idea of a power outage possible for 2-3 days to a couple of weeks.

Well, quite frankly, we are somewhat rural and usually do have enough food on hand for a week or two, anyway. The recently new furnace, while running on LP, requires electricity to run. But I digress. After hearing that, I thought, "hmm, they went from 'no problemo' to 'prepare for a winter storm'. Maybe there's more to this y2k thing..." So I started to look around the net. I've felt like a deer in headlights ever since.

A deer in headlights trying to make contingency plans. I know time is really short. I know I have probably spent too much time gathering information and not acting on it-- I know you said to 'get as much information as you can, and then ACT on that information.' And I know, too, that doing nothing is still and act-- no decision is still a decision-- we can do things by commission and by ommission. But right now, acting on that information is painstakingly slow because I have to wait between paychecks.

There are even some decisions I have had to make that have already been dictated by finances. Certain contingencies I've had to summarily dismiss because they're just too expensive. At the same time I am painfully aware that there will be a higher price to be paid for not having them. Like heat. Heat would be a good thing, especially in a northern state.

As I wait between paychecks that are already almost spent for current living expenses, I find myself hoping that the "window of opportunity" you mention remains open a little longer. And hate the realization of selfishness that implies. I'd much prefer that everyone was preparing.

I've been having a lot of circuitous thoughts and questions that I don't know the answers to. Including those alluded to above. I also worry about two members of my family who work on New Year's eve-- one will be heading home from work just before midnight, probably on the road at midnight (I told her about the midnight road concerns mentioned in your book). I wonder how much of anything (food, medication, ...) is enough? I wonder if I should cancel my direct deposit to my 10 mile out of the way bank-- yet feel a bit fatalistic at times as though, ultimately, if things get screwed up that bad, then what difference will it make? And from there, the spiral continues downward-- my skills are not in the realm of survival or homesteading or ... Nor are my family's. If the grid stays up, or if we have limited interruption of power/rolling blackouts/etc-- well then we might have a chance. If it goes down and stays down-- well, then we won't.

Rambled on quite a bit here. Thanks again to everyone for your posts. And best to you all,

-- winter wondering (winterwondering@yahoo.com), August 11, 1999.

ng suggested that, "if you are in an area that isn't isolated from the grid by some failure, the worst you will experience is scheduled blackouts and brownouts". I see the *best* case scenario as one with otherwise non-life-threatening, but sufficiently unstable brownouts and power that some very expensive equipment in your home could be ruined, such as the motor in your new furnace. You could unplug everything, but that would just annoy the utility company, because you will have created an atypical energy use which will further destabilize the grid.

In other words, it isn't just an extended blackout that you may need to prepare for. (My prediction is that, again best case, if Y2K merely reaches extreme levels of incessant whining, some of that will relate to the expense of replacing a household's worth of electronic toys which imploded from electrical burnout, but the avoidable cost will never be acknowledged by the DWGI whiner to have anything to do with Y2K.)

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), August 11, 1999.

Forget about the grid, it's as good as gone. You can only rely on yourself and a select few who you can trust. That may or may not include family. Prepare for the worst, because that's what's coming folks!

-- EdMcC (ermccracken@hotmail.com), August 11, 1999.