The Y2K problem is, as Gary North keeps writing, "systemic". Like an organism, a system can take considerable stress but beyond a certain point it simply dies. North also emphasizes that the big systems-- power, telecom, rail, etc-- depend on one another, so a failure of one causes all to fail. In principle this allows a few local failures to bring our civilization down. My question is whether there's any salvation from this. What if, say, 10% or 50% of the power plants, oil refineries, phone switches, rail lines, and so forth are compliant by D-Day. Can these be made to work as a system with lower capacity? ("Graceful degradation" as we say in the computer industry.) Or does this all live or die like an organism? (If half my heart is destroyed, I'm dead.) Would like to see others' thoughts on this.

Christopher Brewster

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

Answers

Christopher,

The figure which I have read in several sources, Cowles' site is one, and I read it on the Senate Committee's transcripts as well, is that if 70% of the generation goes down (and I think this is averaged to account for seasonal variation), that it all goes.

Better informed souls, is that accurate?

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

Seems like I always heard that a simultaneous 30% loss of capacity would take the grid down. If the grid could truly withstand a 70% loss, I've got some rice & beans to return.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

Sean - you didn't find any figures like that on euy2k.com, but I have seen them thrown around elsewhere; at this particular moment, I just can't remember where. Quite honestly, I don't know *what* percentage of failure would cause a total systemic failure. Neither does the industry. It depends, in large part, on failure mechanisms, system load at the time, system alignments...many, many variables that change on, quite literally, an hourly basis.

The electric transmission system in the U.S. is designed to be quite fault tolerant, at least on a large scale. Exceptions to that tolerance occur occasionally (ex: Western U.S. power outage, 1996) due to previously unanalyzed variables, as described above. Certainly, simultaneous widespread Y2k failures would fall into that category. The challenge for the industry over the next 12 months is to i.d. as many of those variables as possible, and develop contingency plans to deal with those things. I am not encouraged that this is going to happen on the large scale that's necessary, for a variety of reasons. That being said, I still haven't seen a credible scenario that takes out power to the entire U.S., east coast to west, even in the total absence of contingency planning. My worst case scenario still stands as described in the CBN News interview.

Again, I have never assigned a percentage value to how much has to be lost for the whole system to be lost.

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

Chris, when the winter of 1999/2000 arrives will we have an ice storm incapacitating the whole northeast? Combined with flooding in the south from a hurricane? Will there be a Richter 10 earthquake in California? Maybe all of this in conjuction with Y2K problems? We don't know. We can't know.

The only thing for SURE we can deduce about the Year 2000 problem is that there is reason to believe there WILL be detrimental effects here, and around the globe. This is enough to enable us to take what precautions are within our ability. Can we prepare for our whole civilization to collapse? I say no. Regardless of the extent of preparations, even Gary North cannot be assured of any success if things get that bad. None of us can, I don't care if you've got a bomb shelter with two years supply of food, or whatever. All bets are off in the case of a collapse.

My grandma used to say, "Don't get your knickers in a twist" when she was trying to tell me not to worry about something in the future. When we get to the year 2000, then we'll know if we can endure a "graceful degradation", a recovery from moderate disruptions, an economic depression, or worse. But not until then. Hug somebody and live happily in today - it's all we ever really have!

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

The only WAY to deal with a collapse of the power grid in 00:00 hre January 2000 is to have a voluntary or mandatory reduction of at least repeat...at least: 50% of all the demand for electricity by absolutly everyone even the hospitals for at least a full DAY. Otherwise everyone could get freezing in the dark for a long while....

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

And more to the subject I am convinced that all the Electricity providers will induce and provoque and plan a controlled blackout in their own island of power just to stay alive and try to not get Fryed...minutes before the Rollover.! Than later they could push drop by drop power in small part of their networth...at lest TRY.....

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999

And more to the subject I am convinced that all the Electricity providers will induce and provoque and plan a controlled blackout in their own island of power just to stay alive and try to not get Fryed...minutes before the Rollover.! Than later they could push drop by drop power in small part of their networth...at least TRY.....

-- Anonymous, January 08, 1999