Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Strategies & Market Trends : Gorilla and King Portfolio Candidates -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mmbw who wrote (38122)	1/18/2001 3:29:57 PM
From: Thomas Mercer-Hursh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

I would be curious to find out how many of our readers in Ca are experiencing blackouts. So far in Pasadena no problems. Rolling blackouts are managed by rotating outage blocks. Blocks are made up of circuits, not necessarily contiguous areas, with each block supposedly balanced to be approximately equal in power consumption, but any one block may be spread over a large part of the state. Some circuits are exempt, e.g., those serving police stations and hospitals and a customer lucky enough to also be served by an exempt circuit will not get blacked out.

To: mmbw who wrote (38122)	1/18/2001 3:56:25 PM
From: arjan bok	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

My power was off for a little over an hour in San Francisco, I was out in the field so no big deal. I heard on the radio a few days ago that some towns in California are replacing traffic signal lights with more efficient models. That may be good for CREE since they make green LED's for traffic lights. Arjan

To: mmbw who wrote (38122)	1/18/2001 4:04:57 PM
From: BirdDog	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

I don't know that temporary power problems would affect any of our companies. Reasons? One) Agreed that many have backup. This is because they live in earthquake country. They needed the backup before this occured. Two) Even if they are scrambling for backup now. There is alot of it out there. There are generators mounted on 18 wheel tractor trailers that are readily available for rent. Three) The electric companies are going to hit residences harder than companies in this. Have you already seen that pg&e chose to blackout northern cal cities; not silicon valley recently? They look out for their big customers. Four) How much actual manufacturing is done in Cal? Five) I don't think energy costs are but a tiny bit of many of our companies overhead. I admit, I haven't checked to see it in any of their books though. I wouldn't think energy costs would significantly cut into margins. Also would like to add. My father called my two evenings ago. He is in Orange County. He said they were expecting a blackout at any moment. Don't know if it occured though. BirdDog

To: mmbw who wrote (38122)	1/18/2001 9:20:45 PM
From: BDR	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 54805

<<Also I would be curious to find out how many of our readers in Ca are experiencing blackouts.>> My brother sent me the following from a reliable poster on a thread elsewhere (Yahoo!?) on the blackouts in California. Smart way to save power- cut off electricity to the oil and gas wells. "There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza. There's a hole in the bucket, dear Liza a hole..." <<<<<<<<<<<< California Electricity Bomb Exploding by: Petroeng 01/18/01 12:06 am EST Msg: 8795 of 8811 I'm not sure what the ramifications are going to be, and I will be curious about the board's thoughts. Tonight nearly every oilfield in California that is on interruptible electricity supply is shutting in . I consult on two platforms off of Santa Barbara which are on the SoCal Edison Grid and for us to stay on line, we would need to pay a penalty that is 1.5 times the value of the platform oil production. There is no firm idea of when the interruptible power would be restored, so we may be offline indefinitely. A Reliant powerplant in Ventura county was built next to a gas processing plant - the gas processing plant has no gas coming in and no gas to send to the power plant, which is going offline, aggravating the electrical situation. No one wants to sell power to the both utilities in California so a lot of oil and associated gas production is in jeopardy. Politically, it is horrible to have rolling blackouts on voters, so the interruptible power customers are bearing the brunt of the electrical power reductions, but now the power squeeze is so great that the voters in general are getting a taste of how bad this is. It is difficult to imagine that there will be a quick fix, so the California may be in for some real trouble. At least we are doing our part to reduce oil production in support of the recent OPEC cuts.