Heat on this Forum and Connecting the Dots

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The heat between individuals and Rick seems to be rising. This may escalate as time gets shorter and frustration grows due to information/misinformation/testing/compliant/ready/almost ready/almost compliant/vendor letters issues. To Rick I would offer this truism, "No good deed goes unpunished." I believe MB would be happier writing to Writer's Digest than this forum. Can't see how critique of writing style is appropriate here. Connecting the dots for me (I believe each of us has to do this on a personal level): My co-op's SCADA was deemed compliant several months ago, now it isn't and must be replaced, they are relying heavily on compliant letters from vendors, their supplier of either passed on power or generated power (don't know which yet) is relying on vendor letters. This is my local situation, add to that, globally: UN y2k conference report, Dec., 1998, middle east oil producers production lines aren't compliant and won't be, ports aren't compliant and won't be, foreign shippers' tanker ships transporting 95% of that oil to our country (we get 50% of our oil from there) aren't compliant and won't be; FEMA's statement that if there are oil transmission problems, FEMA will take control of oil stores and give oil first to government, then to large cities. President's y2k man's latest statement on trains that he has no confidence that trains will run. Texas utilities use oil first as fuel, gas next, coal usage is small. A posting from y2k Director for Galveston County (Texas City is in Galveston County, major oil refineries) that there are thousands of SCADA systems in those pipelines (he worked in the industry for over 20 yrs. in communications and production) that report to central SCADA systems. Says they have to be checked individually, hasn't been done or completed. Do I need any more information to come to my conclusion that we are going to have a major break-down? I am preparing for that major break-down in every way possible to protect my family. There is a verse in the Bible that says the wise will understand and prepare but the foolish will not. The foolish are those that have access to the information but choose not to prepare; I just feel sorry for the people that aren't foolish but don't know what may be coming, millions of elderly people are in this category. As for me, I have connected enough dots. Marcella

-- Anonymous, January 30, 1999

Answers

Marcella,

No heat - just good, spirited debate! ;-) That's why I started this discussion group. There are no absolutes in Y2k, and arriving at sound personal conclusions requires input from every angle on this issue.

As you know, there's only two requirements for posting in this discussion group:

1. Remain on topic (or as close as possible...)

2. Play nice. As a society, we're rapidly losing the ability to engage in civil discourse of opposing views.

No one person has the ultimate answers on Y2k. But my opinion is that it takes civil discourse to at least get closer to the truth. It matters not one whit to me whether that truth is closer to Gary North's predictions (I hope not) or NERC's take on Y2k (very little noticable impact to the average power consumer).

It's almost universally acknowledged that electric power is the primary public infrastructure industry which *must* hang together post-Y2k for any other Y2k remediation to be meaningful. I'm very pleased that some power industry folks participate in this forum - one person's opinion (in this case, mine) does not make for much of a debate, and also, gets all of us no closer to understanding the true nature and extent of the problem.

-- Anonymous, January 30, 1999


* Since we're all in this complex predicament together, and since there is no place to run, we need to remain open to the moment and present with each other-especially when we don't see eye to eye.

Imagine what would happen if we made it a practice to clear our minds and seek counsel from within before making decisions regarding Y2K. What if we pooled the gleanings of that inner quest? Would one aha trigger another? Would your perception dovetail with mine?

Before reading on, would you take a few minutes to dust off your memories of marvelous synchronicity, faith that moved mountains, intuition that saved the day, spontaneous collaboration, community resilience, healing and grace? By telling and retelling those amazing stories, our concept of what's possible begins to expand. We realize that we are adept at coping with adverse conditions. We're good at finding our way in the dark. And we are not alone.

Please read on: http://www.berkana. org/articles/sarah2.html

If you have a comment on issues unrelated to the Electric Utilities and Y2K, please contribute your answer here.

*Snipped paragraphs

~C~


-- Anonymous, January 30, 1999

Namaste Critt.

Steve

-- Anonymous, January 30, 1999


Marcella,

I had not previously heard about the FEMA statement about what FEMA would do if there are oil transmission problems. Do you remember a link to it?

Jerry

-- Anonymous, January 31, 1999


Jerry B, go to http://wwwworldnetdaily.com/ Go to "Search", type "FEMA", scroll down to "Bad News On Power Grid." I made a small error. Electricity will be routed to cities first, then to rural areas. Oil stores will go first to federal govn., then to state govns., THEN to the rest of us. That puts us down one more notch for oil products than I remembered (electricity that uses oil for fuel, heating oil, diesel, gasoline, etc.). Any way you slice it leaves most of us out. Marcella

-- Anonymous, February 01, 1999


Marcella,

About the Bible and the wise: You have to be prepared everyday with your heart and soul, not with enough oil in the lamp in case the lights go out.

The heat will be rising this year, but I'm glad that the eldery people you mentioned stay out of this. There is no need for panic, there is need for good information to solve this y2k-bug. So you are not finished with connecting the dots.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 1999


Here is a part of the Bible that addresses both the foolish and the naive:

"For the waywardness of the naive shall kill them, And the complacency of fools shall destroy them. But he who listens to me shall live securely, And shall be at ease from the dread of evil." - Proverbs 1:32,33

Take Care,

-- Anonymous, February 01, 1999


Marcella,

Thanks for that pointer to the FEMA and oil statement. Let me qoute it here and then comment on it.

"We're looking at the strategic oil depots around the country, and we're going to make plans to commandeer them. This is going to be a joint FEMA, U.S. Government type thing," explained one of the officers who has participated in the planning.

Comments: the phrase "strategic oil depots" is ambiguous. It may be a way of referring to the places where the "strategic oil reserves" are kept. If so, they are already "owned" by the feds, and are not part of the usual supply of oil products that you and I might purchase.

Getting a clarification of the statement may be difficult under the circumstances, but at least we may have hope that the local heating oil companies and gas stations will not get commandeered. :-)

Jerry

-- Anonymous, February 01, 1999


Jerry, the Strategic Oil Reserves are stored as crude oil and still need to be refined for use. This is from the Department of Energy site at:

http://www.fe.doe.gov/spr/spr.html

"The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is an emergency supply of crude oil stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coastline of the Gulf of Mexico. It is the United States' first line of defense against an interruption in oil supplies. Crude oil is stored in huge underground salt caverns along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Emergency oil can be supplied quickly to the Nation's refineries if commercial supplies are shut off."

As you can see, use of the Strategic Oil Reserve is dependent upon oil refineries not having any Year 2000 problems which would disrupt their operations. Also, using the Strategic Reserves would necessitate commandeering the refineries to do the processing.

There is more information about the U.S. Oil Reserves at the above URL including: "Decisions to withdraw crude oil from the SPR during an energy emergency are made by the President. In the event of an energy emergency, SPR oil would be distributed by competitive sale. Although used for emergency purposes only once to date (during Operation Desert Storm in 1991), the SPR's current size - more than 560 million barrels - and the U.S. government's stated policy to withdraw oil early in a potential supply emergency make the SPR a significant deterrent to oil import cutoffs and a key tool of foreign policy."

Now, if you search out the statistics on how many barrels of crude oil the U.S. imports per day, the latest stats DOE has are for 1998, when the average was 8586. That number represents "Thousand Barrels Per Day" so the total average of barrels of crude oil imported per day is 8,586,000. There is 563 million barrels of crude now in the Strategic Oil Reserves. Divide that 563 million by the 8,586,000 and you come up with 65 which is the number of days that Oil Reserve would equate to our present consumption - about two months.

According to the Gartner Group survey, the chemical processing, natural gas, and oil industries are at a level 3 preparedness out of 4 levels with 1 being the level furthest ahead. Gartner predicts a 50% chance that those companies in level three will experience at least one mission critical failure.

On Gartner's survey of countries, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which we import oil from, are rated at Level 3 out of 4 also. I remember the gas rationing in the 70's, and it didn't take all that much supply disruption to create that situation. Contrary to both warnings and government promises at that time about decreasing the amount of oil imports we depend upon, instead the amount has increased ever since. Considering the data, I don't think a decrease in oil supply because of Year 2000 disruptions is a far out scenario, but instead is a realistic probability. Therefore, I'm not surprised that FEMA and the government are making plans, or that Marcella is concerned.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 1999


Bonnie,

I am of the opinion that some of the feds would like to grab the whole petroleum business if they thought they could get away with it. However, I cannot base that opinion, or any subset of that opinion, on a statement by someone, the unnamed source in the Bresnahan article, who may or may not know much about the oil business, and who uses a phrase "strategic oil depots" that could very easily be a misinterpretation of the phrase "strategic oil reserves". I got on to altavista.digital.com and did a search for "strategic oil reserves" and got about 90 hits. But when I searched for "strategic oil depots", I got only one: the Bresnahan article!

My point is not that the feds are not interested in grabbing; it is that that quote in that article is not sufficiently clear to know just what it was that the person quoted actually meant. So, even if we assume that that person was being as honest as could be, I feel uncomfortable using that quote as a basis for specific conclusions.

Over the years I have come to the conclusion that I need to question the data that seems to support my opinions just as much as I question the data that seems to oppose my opinions. And that has something to do with why my email address includes the word skeptic. :-)

To explain a bit more, I am working on a paper for some DGI and DWGI friends and relatives, so I am continually on to lookout for waker uppers. When I first read Marcella's statement "FEMA will take control of oil stores", I thought that perhaps she had found a good waker upper, even for a DWGI. However, since the source was not a FEMA or other "official" publication, the statement would not serve that purpose, but it might still have been useful for my personal collection of "possibly pertinent stuff" if it was less ambiguous.

So, like many others, I keep looking and connecting.

Jerry

-- Anonymous, February 01, 1999



"But when I searched for "strategic oil depots", I got only one: the Bresnahan article!"

There are a number of classified .gov web sites which search engines can't access. Even so, a healthy skepticism in this business is recommended to all. WorldNetDaily obviously has its own axe to grind.

-- Anonymous, February 05, 1999


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