[EPRI] Swirbul again on the recent EPRI conference
'It was interesting to see all the comments concerning my
report from the Electric Utility Y2K Conference (aka the EPRI
Y2K workshop in Dallas Texas), and my opinion that most of the
lights will be on when 1/1/2000 arrives.
Many were valid. It was not a random sample. And everyone who
needed to be there wasn't. The 60 or so US Utilities that were
present out of 9000 total appears small.
Some were significantly more off the mark. It does not follow
that just because it was a small sample that the results must
be invalid. Here is why.
(before I start, just for you fear mongers, just one question.
Do you like apples?)
I compared the list of companies represented at the EPRI Y2K
conference with the list of all US Civilian Nuclear Reactors
(source www.nrc.gov/NRC/NUREGS/SR1350/V9/part12.html).
110 nuclear units total on the NRC list.
86 were represented at the EPRI Y2K conference.
That's 78.2%
(How 'bout them apples)
The 78.2% might be low, since if the NRC listed a company as
Virginia Electric & Power Company, and the conference listed
the company as Virginia Power, I was conservative and did not
include it as represented at the conference.
Yes, this comparison only included the nukes. I haven't yet
found a list of generation capacity by utility for the non-nukes.
But almost every company that operates nuclear plants operates a
heck of a lot of non-nuke capacity, also. So I am guessing there
is a high level of exposure on the non-nuke side.
Yes, this still doesn't address the smaller utilities that just do
distribution. That is still an important issue.
And yes, nothing I am saying should be construed that everything is
all right, and Y2K is not a problem. It should be construed, however,
IMO, that there is a good chance that things can turn out with
disruptions to the electric grid no worse than we have previously
seen in other events.
Fred Swirbul
Utility Engineer - Not necessarily representing my employeer.
__
Subject:
Electric Utilities vs Fear Mongers
Date:
Mon, 11 May 1998 17:55:31 GMT
From:
Fred Swirbul <fswirbul@ix.netcom.com>
Organization:
Netcom
Newsgroups:
comp.software.year-2000 |
