As much as the power industry wants to believe all the power plants are A-OK, when push comes to shove in the next week or so, some of these plants will probably be deemed to risky to be allowed to run through the date change and will be shut down.

Has anyone seen or heard of a plan in which those plants will have to be shut down some days or so before the roll over? My gut tells me that Joe Citizen is going to get several surprize anouncements between Dec 26th and the 31st.

-- Keith Taylor (KTaylorOre@webtv.net), December 12, 1999

Answers

Keith:

I think you may be out by about 2 days for plant shutdowns.

For some reason or another Dec 25th and 26th are often periods of extremely low electrical demand. (I believe there is some sort of holiday just then). A lot of plant will be shut down over this festive season, and if any generation companies do have concerns that some of their plant may not be Y2K ready, then it would be a safe bet that will be the plant that is shut down.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), December 12, 1999.

Your guess is as good as anybody else's. I have not heard of any such plans and doubt they exist. If they leaked, it would trigger panic and so the wall of silence remains.

Not to be flip or dismissive, I suspect your first indicator of electric utility problems will be when the lights simply go out.

BTW...I agree about Joe Citizen. Old Joe is NOT going to be a happy camper when TSHTF...especially in the dark.

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 12, 1999.

Old Joe Camel ALWAYS lights up!

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 12, 1999.

What NO CABLE TV? People will go wacko

-- wacko (gonewackie@aol.com), December 12, 1999.

Uploading of remediated software will take 48 hrs prior to cdc. Expect small towns to be pulled down first then brought back up after checking critical path distribution hub sensors. The Goal will be to get as many small regional areas back on line before having to tranisition the large cities. If it is done well enough and the software fix works the big cities may not even notice the rollover. These are big if's. Many embedededs and potential unknowns may not electronical handshake well. Working Telecommunications is an absolute must to ensure smooth tranisition. Hope for the best but take precautions, it is not easy what they are trying to do. It's never been done before on such a large scale. The evidence so far doesnt point to a smooth tranisition I hope I am wrong in my accessment. Be ready for 3 days before Cdc and 4 days after min. A lot of sensors to be check. Affluent areas and uninterruptables will get priority power the rest as work permits. Dont worry, y2k will be what ever it will be.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike @ conservation . com), December 12, 1999.

Mike makes a VERY GOOD POINT here, most of the remediated software that has been tested, has been done in labs, or on spare systems. This software will have to be downloaded to the REAL thing between now and the CDC. Remember, the power and telco's SAID, they couldn't test in real time because it may crash their systems. In 3 weeks they have NO choice. I wonder how NEW software and OLD chippies are going to get along?

-- FLAME AWAY (BLehman202@aol.com), December 12, 1999.

Hold on there partner.. I thought remediated code done for the power plants was already on-line, with the big test being the actual roll- over. What you are saying makes for a major potential problem. Give me threads to verify what you are claiming.

-- richard shockwave (vission441@aol.com), December 12, 1999.