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Technology Stocks : Year 2000 (Y2K) Embedded Systems & Infrastructure Problem -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (407)	5/24/1998 3:44:00 PM
From: John Mansfield	Read Replies (7) \| Respond to of 618

[UTILITIES] From Yardeni's site '.... What About The Lights? Not mentioned in his e-mail message is the supply of electricity. The NRC won't know whether any nuclear plant must be shut down until the second half of 1999. If they do so, will there be enough surplus electrons in the power grid to avoid brownouts or blackouts in 2000? For some insights into this question, I turned to the web site of the North American Electric Reliability Council and found "Reliability Assessment: 1997-2006." ( nerc.com ) Amazingly, the assessment report makes no mention whatsoever of the Year 2000 Problem, even though it projects electricity supply and demand trends through 2006. The report does raise some concerns, even without a Y2K issue. More specifically, there are "areas of the system where near-term reliability concerns could materialize, notably the Illinois and Wisconsin areas of MAIN and the New England Subregion of NPCC, in which nuclear generation unavailability could cause potential capacity shortages during peak conditions." A Case Study Ontario Hydro recently removed several nuclear units from service for a period of two years or longer. That capacity has "historically been used to support substantial sales to others, and its absence will adversely impact the availability of capacity and energy, as well as modifying the predominant flows on the transmission systems in the Eastern Interconnection," observes the NERC report. According to the April 22, 1998 issue of Ottawa Citizen, Tom Clark, Ontario Hydro's Year 2000 Project leader, told a Canadian Parliamentary committee that "we have a lot of work to do." He said only approximately 40% of the utility's critical systems are Y2K compliant, with 618 days or roughly 20 months left to go before the century date change. He added that the company has a staff of 500 working on the remaining 60%. "Everyone wishes they had started sooner," he lamented before the committee. He noted that some of his suppliers provided Y2K compliance statements that proved to be "inaccurate" on closer inspection. "I can't make you feel 100% confident that everything is going to function," he concluded. Freezing In The Dark? In April 1998, after hearing this testimony, Eugene Bellemare, a member of the Canadian Parliament, said he was gravely concerned by the lack of solid assurances from industries that provide key services to Canadians, especially utilities and providers. He is worried that Y2K problems could make the ice storms that crippled Ontario and Quebec in early 1998 seem like a walk in the park and that pockets of his country will freeze in the dark. .... yardeni.com