I have a friend who has finished managing Y2K remediation for an insurance company in the UK (took them 2 years BTW and a lot of the stuff was just tossed out and replaced de nouveau).

He said he spoke to someone working for one of the electrical companies here who told him to expect power rationing next year - my friend has now decided not to seal up his coal fireplace for the time being ...

Is this TEOTWAWKI? Not quite, it sounds like a rerun of the miners strike in Britain in the 1970s when lack of coal supplies to the power stations led to enforced power cuts in non-essential areas and the imposition of a 3-day working week. Twenty years later hardly anyone talks about it now let alone remembers it.

Regards,

Shuggy.

-- Shuggy (shimei123@yahoo.co.uk), October 19, 1999

Answers

I remember it - and it nailed the economy. This time round though, it will have a greater impact on business, Less companies in the 70's were dependant on IT for mission critical applications.

Depression here we come ....

-- Rob Somerville (merville@globalnet.co.uk), October 19, 1999.

It did nail the economy but all it brought down was the Tory government (which some think is good).

Sure, businesses are more IT dependent now than then but I can't see how planned power outages affects us any more. An office without any power in 1973 as oppossed to 2000 is the same thing with or without computers - empty.

Anyway, I suggest you find alternate sources of heat and power but I don't think you have to go as far as installing a huge propane tank in your back gardwn, this is a largely American forum, their land is cheaper and they have more money to do these things.

The rumour I heard does have one difference now. The power companies are now part of the free market (almost). In the 1970s, they were state owned and therefore the government set the tariff - now what will happen? A more scarce commodity implies a higher price if demand does not go down. Hard to say, since the UK government still has a say in the setting of electricity prices.

The other thing is I am serioulsy considering buying some put options in this company!

regards,

Roland.

-- Shuggy (shimei123@yahoo.co.uk), October 19, 1999.

Shuggy, I think it comes down to reliability.

The US has exceptionally reliable utilities such as power, telecom, water, sewage, etc. The US has a very strong economy, or at least the perception of one.

These systems in the US support just-in-time inventory systems for everything from new parts to spare parts to food and vital goods on supermarket shelves.

If even just the power becomes unreliable, rationed from one area to the next in scheduled blackouts, these system will be impacted. The sustainability of not only business and commerce but also life will be impacted to some degree. Some of the questions left are; To what degree? How will people here react?

I'm not familiar with the miners strike in Britain but I would tend to conclude that the trains were operational, the power could easily be brought back on-line because the systems were not automated like they are now, etc. As Rob stated, Britain then was less dependent on IT.

Both Britain and the US are highly dependent now on automated systems and though the human element is part of the "system" it's only one part. The interesting and ironic thing is that both humans and IT systems are dependent on eachother in a kind of symbiotic relationship. If the IT systems end then human lives may end and with each of those lives a well of knowledge is lost.

Depression will come and the carrying capacity of what ever systems still exist will become painfully obvious.

Of course, this is all speculation and thinking out loud.

Mike

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-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), October 19, 1999.

Michael,

I have followed Dick Mills and other far more familiar than me with electrical utilities and I feel obliged to accept their conclusions on the plausibility of manual override.

UK plants are more dependent on foreign oil/coal imports than 25 years ago but we also have our own North Sea reserves plus 300 years of coal under own soil which was abandoned in favour of cheaper foreign coal. Y2K could be the reviving of the British coal industry.

We also had to cope with the OPEC oil price hike in 1973, it was a tough time for oil and coal in Britain but we came through (in fact according to a relative who managed a factory during the 3-day week; productivity hardly changed from the 5-day week! Shows how people buckle down in the face of adversity).

Regards,

Shuggy.

-- Shuggy (shimei123@yahoo.co.uk), October 20, 1999.

Mike--

It's my understanding that the mechanism that switches tracks for the railroad are pretty much computer controlled. Have you heard whether any of the railways have reinstalled manual switches as a contingency plan...OR...have the manual switches remained in place alongside the electronic switches so it's simply a matter of manning the switches.

beej

-- beej (beej@ppbbs.com), October 20, 1999.

Shuggy.

Yes, this problem you describe with UK's electricity is -by itself - probably only bad enough to cause something on a par with the 70's miner strike. Now couple and compound this effect with the effects from about 10 or 15 other UK problems of equal magnitude, plus thousands of lesser problems, plus maybe one or two much bigger problems, Plus very serious international problems, all at the same time ...and what do you got?

-- number six (Iam_not_a_number@hotmail.com), October 20, 1999.

Number six,

What you say is hard to quantify for good or bad consequences. How many broken strands does it take to collapse the system and how quickly can it be repaired?

If the utilities came under such pressure the government would renationalise them and install a program of measures which would divert resources to the most critical operations. One may posit various "spanners in the works" to hinder power generation; I think people just roll their eyes and say "It's too big!".

For example, if rail signalling failed. This isn't the end of the world, the fuels would just be delivered by truck instead (and get priority on fuel rationing to drive them).

I don't think people have sat down and thought how things could be solved in a different way and with the full force of government behind them.

Lack of spare parts for power stations, delivery vehicles? Just how often are spare parts replaced n a power station? Why can't the supplier provide the parts if the government or whoever targets them as a priority business and give them the reosurces they need?

How many delivery vehicles are there in Britain? Why can't spare parts be cannibalised from other vehicles? Look at the World War II in Britain under a Nazi U2 boat blockade to see how necessity is indeed the mother of invention.

regards,

Shuggy.

-- Shuggy (shimei123@yahoo.co.uk), October 21, 1999.