To: C.K. Houston who wrote (22807 ) 11/10/1998 5:23:00 PM From: John Mansfield Respond to of 116762
'Whistle Blower Rpt on Y2kToday Forum re: Nukes By Roleigh Martin @tc.umn.edu Sunday November 08, 1998 01:39 PM PST I reposted this earlier, but it had UNIX or MAC linefeeds in the text and it looked horrible. I went to the web to delete the original posting and am reposting it now. In the future, I'm going to be more careful to make sure this does not happen again. Sorry. - Roleigh ------------------------------------------------------------------ This was posted awhile back on the Y2k Today forum. I can not vouch for the truthfulness of the statement, nevertheless the poster was brave, providing his name, the company's name, etc. The shocker paragraph is this one: "Another area to consider is a communique the NRC delivered to regional utility power management companies regarding nuclear power plants. A contact in administration with Savanna Power, a Southern Company utility, revealed to me info on a confidential communique to utility power companies by the NRC. The NRC plans to shutdown all nuclear power plants coast to coast for fear of the unknown regarding internal Y2K failures. That means a 20% to 25% hit on the grid before any other failures. Add to that the restriction of offline backup generation due to deregulation & you have a worrisome scenario." -Roleigh ------------------------------------------------------------------y2ktoday.com Re: Will we have power on Jan. 1, 2000 ? 1 response(s) Bob Andrews 9/17/98 1:51:38 PM PDT Relating to ones own contingency plans regarding loss of utilities, it is always best to plan for the worst & hope for the best. Unfortunately, getting your neighbors to do the same makes them look at you like you=92re whacked out. There are a few issues to consider regarding this question that I have not seen much consideration for. First, deregulation - I have learned from a Georgia Power substation engineer that where normally 15% of generation capacity is kept powered up but offline to switch into the grid when brownouts, significant drops in cycles per second because of high loads, occur to maintain grid stability. The state PSC normally allows a cost rate that factors in the cost of offline power to maintain generation capacity. That offline capacity has been severely cut back from 15% to 2-3% to provide new generation capacity to be sold at a very low wholesale rate by third party companies that resell this capacity against the generating companies for a profit. The US government is behind this effort as they are in suing Microsoft, attempting to break up utility power monopolies using deregulation to startup smaller power cooperatives to bring competition into the utilities industry. Where it may be a good idea conceptually, the timing couldn=92t be any worse because of Y2K! Another area to consider is a communique the NRC delivered to regional utility power management companies regarding nuclear power plants. A contact in administration with Savanna Power, a Southern Company utility, revealed to me info on a confidential communique to utility power companies by the NRC. The NRC plans to shutdown all nuclear power plants coast to coast for fear of the unknown regarding internal Y2K failures. That means a 20% to 25% hit on the grid before any other failures. Add to that the restriction of offline backup generation due to deregulation & you have a worrisome scenario. The national power grid is broken up into three regional grids. The East Coast grid is the largest interconnected power grid running from Texas to North Dakota to New England states to Florida, one contiguous grid. If the some of the coop producers & other small companies are not compliant, it doesn=92t matter how good the Southern Company & other major producers do with Y2K efforts, the regional grids as a whole may suffer. As Senator Bennett said himself, there is a 40% chance of a widespread grid failure, down from 50% earlier. There is no longer any question of whether regional brownouts or blackouts could occur; the question today is how bad & how long will it last. In a speech made by Bennett to the National Press Club in August 1998 he stated that if 2000 were to come tomorrow, western civilization as we know it would end! What we accomplish today & tomorrow with Y2K repairs & other efforts will change that outcome. It is up to us today to ensure that the worst won't happen. I am afraid however that these other factors I have stated here may not be included in Senator Bennett's predictions. I believe there is still alot of big decisions & additional factors that are present now that we will not be privy to till 2000. The government is obviously concerned about a panic & wants to take every step to avoid or at least delay that panic. There is alot about Y2K that the government is not telling us. Just look at the CIO web site & look up testimony by the GAO, especially by Joel Williamson. Previous testimony by Joel revealed severe flaws within federal Y2K projects that his agency has audited. Usually, it is grayed out or not allowed for public access, a big red flag for me! Those in the know can tell you that for the most accurate info on federal Y2K progress, read the GAO reports, if they are not censored! I would like to see more of that panic now or today so that more companies & government agencies can be motivated to act now, not wait & see. I'd like to see our president address the nation & make it our #1 priority, course that today might have the opposite effect these days. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Category: Scenarios : The Electric Power Grid Moderator: Y2K Admin Re: Will we have power on Jan. 1, 2000 ? daniel mauerhofer 9/19/98 7:53:54 PM PDT How do we know that the information is credible? Who is the author and what does he do for work, ???? what it the persons interest. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Re: Will we have power on Jan. 1, 2000 ? Bob Andrews 9/24/98 8:01:49 PM PDT I am a network engineer & a Y2K consultant for network systems & infrastructure plus embedded systems. The material I referred to with deregulation or nuke shutdowns I got from plant managers. Info of that nature needs to be verified, which may be difficult. The info from NRC was never meant for the public ear so a URL will likely not be easy to find. Deregulation however could be found under your state PSC site for regulation changes. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Roleigh Martinourworld.compuserve.com ( easy to remember alias is: webalias.com ) (A Web Site that focuses on Y2k threat to Utilities, Banks & more!) Subscribe to my email list--visit this page at my web site: myegroup.htm