I have been told by someone who works at LIPA - until recently LILCO (Long Island Lighting Co.) - that following the 1965 blackout measures were taken by the company to ensure that this would not happen again. According to him everything can be operated using gas and that the power company/ies have no problem with access to sufficient gas supplies. He didn't supply any real detail and I remain sceptical, but would appreciate learning more as I am not that knowledgeable in this area.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1998

Answers

I think that there are a number of electricity providers who could convert to gas -- and fairly quickly. I don't know what percentage these utilities are of the total or what their geographical distribution is. Nationally, this will require a great deal of planning (which I don't see a hint of yet). We gas producers need steady electrical power (and lots of it) to run most of our facilities. Natural gas processing requires compression.

-- Anonymous, July 02, 1998

I would think that even if the plant could run on gas or alternative fuel, that there other problems to overcome. How many plants have inventoried the machines ,that make these plants operate, to determine if they are y2k compliant. I would think that these plants have too many controls which are operated with embedded chips. There is no way to know if they will all work on January 1.

-- Anonymous, January 06, 1999