see Tacoma News tribune August 26 1999. "Will northwest Lights go out?" http:www.tribnet.com/

-- Ann Fisher (zyax55b@prodigy.com), August 26, 1999

Answers

I'll tell you this much. As a LIFELONG (until 4 years ago) Oregon resident, we've NEVER lost power for more than an HOUR in the winter, and always VERY locally.

You heard it here first....

-- Dennis (djolson@pressenter.com), August 26, 1999.

Dennis -

You obviously haven't lived on the northern coast much. The power lines in that neck of the woods used to go down nearly every winter for days at a time.

Now Puddle City and environs, that's a different story. BPA is very sensitive about annoying any folks in the city...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 26, 1999.

Response to Bonneville Power ("y2k ready") TODAY warns us to prepare and expect loss of power this winter from "other causes".

Dennis, then,if you then lose power for more than an hour it is probably from some other cause than those that have occured in your lifetime, agree? Like Y2K maybe? Did BP warn you in August before that you were going to lose power in mid winter for that hour? I think not.

-- Ann Fisher (zyax55b@prodigy.com), August 26, 1999.

Link to Tribune story: Could Northwest lights go out?

...Tacoma buys about 60 percent of its electricity from a combination of Bonneville and private companies that own generating plants.

At the same time, Puget Sound Energy is selling many of its generating assets, notably its share of the giant Colstrip plants in Montana and the Centralia steam plant.

Meanwhile, Johansen acknowledges that there is no organization in the Northwest whose sole role is to ensure the region's electricity supply meets demand.

Bonneville has even lost some of its available power, about 1,000 megawatts of hydro generation capacity given up to provide more water flow for endangered salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

"We're seeing a decline in resources and (an increased) load growth," Johansen said.

What once was a power surplus in California - electricity sent to the Northwest when California residents and businesses didn't need it - is disappearing. And Canada, which once sold its surplus energy mostly to the Northwest, is beginning to sell to California at higher prices.

It is part of the industry's restructuring under wholesale deregulation, and it has left many questions unanswered...

-- Mac (sneak@lurk.hid), August 26, 1999.

This reminds me of the power company in Florida that warned of outages over the rollover... not from y2k, but from New Years Eve revelers clipping power poles.

-- a (a@a.a), August 27, 1999.

[ Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only ]

Could Northwest lights go out?

Power shortages in next decade possible without new sources, BPA says

Al Gibbs; The News Tribune

The Northwest is running out of electrical power and may not be able to keep the lights on all the time in the first decade of the 21st century.

Blackouts could strike as early as this winter.

A study by the Bonneville Power Administration suggests that unless new sources of electricity can be found, the region could face winter shortages of as much as 3,400 megawatts - 3 1/2 times what Seattle uses at any given moment - by 2008-2009.

"It's real. The regional deficit is real," said Judy Johansen, head of the Bonneville Power Administration. "The West Coast (power) surplus is dwindling. That's real."

A theoretical supply problem doesn't necessarily mean that blackouts will actually occur.

A variety of special circumstances would have to align for the region to be plunged into darkness on a freezing night.

BPA's projection is based on drought conditions reducing water for the hydroelectric dams in the Columbia Basin. Add to that constraints on the amount of power being imported from the Southwest.

The scenario also would require freezing temperatures in normally mild Western Washington and Oregon, and, perhaps, a winter avalanche knocking out one or more of the transmission lines that bring power from dams and coal plants east of the Cascades to consumers west of the mountains.

However unlikely the coincidence of all those factors may seem, some utility executives are watching the situation closely.

"I don't know if 'worried' would be the right word," said Bill Gaines, Puget Sound Energy's vice president for energy supply. "We recognize that under some scenarios there would be a deficit. Some (new generation) needs to be developed in the region."

In a positive vein, Gaines noted that a new natural gas-fueled combustion turbine is under construction in the Everett area, and "there are 10 or a dozen others in various stages of being proposed" in the region.

A different study being conducted by the Northwest Power Planning Council is turning up supply concerns similar to Bonneville's, said Mark Walker, the agency's director of public affairs. "I wouldn't take issue with anything Bonneville shows," he said. "It's fair to say we show a probability of a problem."

There is some room for optimism.

Energy deregulation at the wholesale level has meant that utilities from across the United States - not solely the ones that have traditionally supplied the Northwest with power - have started generating and selling electricity in this region's energy markets.

They have filled part of the region's increasing needs, and could fill even more. "We have developed a pretty healthy respect for the ability of the (energy) markets to supply the power we need," said Tacoma Power director Mark Crisson.

"It's a very robust mechanism to meet demand in a very reliable fashion."

Tacoma buys about 60 percent of its electricity from a combination of Bonneville and private companies that own generating plants.

At the same time, Puget Sound Energy is selling many of its generating assets, notably its share of the giant Colstrip plants in Montana and the Centralia steam plant.

Meanwhile, Johansen acknowledges that there is no organization in the Northwest whose sole role is to ensure the region's electricity supply meets demand.

Bonneville has even lost some of its available power, about 1,000 megawatts of hydro generation capacity given up to provide more water flow for endangered salmon in the Columbia and Snake rivers.

"We're seeing a decline in resources and (an increased) load growth," Johansen said.

What once was a power surplus in California - electricity sent to the Northwest when California residents and businesses didn't need it - is disappearing. And Canada, which once sold its surplus energy mostly to the Northwest, is beginning to sell to California at higher prices.

It is part of the industry's restructuring under wholesale deregulation, and it has left many questions unanswered.

"Until they're resolved, we'll be stuck in the muddle," Johansen said.

And even if they are resolved, Johansen will probably keep a portable electric generator handy at her home.

Not to supply power in the event of a major regional blackout, she said.

"I want to be prepared for a winter storm," she said, where the greatest chance of losing electricity isn't a powerful regional economic shift, but a tree limb falling on a power line.
- - -
* Staff writer Al Gibbs covers regional energy issues. Reach him at 253-597-8650 or al.gibbs@mail.tribnet.com
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Not to mention that it was just sold to Scotland ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), August 27, 1999.

A&L: do you mean the Montana assests were sold to Scotland? I just passed on the article to my brother in Kalispell...seemed to me kind of a bad time for the folks in Montana to be cut loose. What now?

-- Shelia (Shelia@active-stream.com), August 27, 1999.

And then there was the power company in a major midwest city that explained outages this past winter as due to spontaneous pole fires, caused by road salt used to melt ice. It seems dozens and dozens of power poles burst into flames after road salt hit them, and all at the same time.

No one I knew, or heard of, had seen such flames. No one I knew, or heard of, had ever heard of such a thing happening before, despite decades of road salt use.

I expect to hear lots more reports this winter of road salt as a spontaneous incendiary device, causing widespread invisible blasts as it selectively targets telephone and power poles, in the same merciless way it used to attack American cars from the 70s.

-- Spanky (nospam@spamfree.net), August 27, 1999.

As I showed in post http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001JJI

This is hype, nothing to do with Y2k, just a possible sotuation if this happens, AND that happens WITH the other happening.

Ju st more hype without substance to try to create the idea of problems that would take a lot of "if's" "ands" and "buts" to cause a problem. But go ahead and blindly jump in and agree that this is proof... of what, I can't tell, but it SOUNDS" "bad". Too bad there isn't any "real" reason to worry.

When something has to be twisted and hyped to further the belief of a Y2K problem, then it looks like there few real reasons around to post about.

Next there will be stories of low water supplies around here. You know... the area that had rain in August...

-- Cherri (sams@brigadoon.com), August 27, 1999.