Has anyone noticed local utilities stockpiling other fuel sources, such as coal, before rollover?

-- warren blim (mrlittles@yahoo.com), January 23, 2000

Answers

yes to answer your question on stocking coal: I know an electric company employee here in my city. he is a computer specialist at that company. when i raised the pre-rollover pessimistic scenario with him, he ridiculed me and emphatically stated "they" could do a "black start up" and they had stocked some extra coal and fuel. but he also was quite sure there would be no need for it. (Polly guy) After there was no midnight black-out this same fellow said to me, "I told you so". I just quietly told him I hoped "they" did not just set their computer clocks back to 1972. He said no, but rather sheepishly I thought. Hmmmm.

-- gl0ria (watkins@dtc.net), January 23, 2000.

Interesting. Our local utility stockpiled coal. From what I understand they normally burn oil. We noticed a LOT of trucks delivering something up the road from the local port. When we followed one of the trucks it turned off at the local power company. At the turn off was a hand painted sign on a sheet of plywood that directed 'coal trucks this way -->'. We immediately figured, hey y2k, this might be a good thing. Even if the oil tankers stop coming to the island, we'll still have the power on.

Now I wonder if they knew something back then about possible fuel price increases or possible shortages...

-- warren blim (mr_little@yahoo.com), January 23, 2000.

As I recall, there were a lot of *attempts* by the utilities to stockpile coal pre-rollover, but it met limited success in certain areas because of the snafus last year in railroad shipping.

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), January 23, 2000.

I checked pre-rollover with the local power company, called the power plant super. He said they were upping 90 day supply of coal to 120. He thought there might be train delivery problems. They are multi- fuel.

-- Surrounded (hiding@thefirstate.com), January 24, 2000.