It is reported that the local electricity supplier will assist Ford until the new plant is operational (1-2 yr). The power supply of the Rouge Plant was equal to the city of Boston. If this is done without power limitation to other existing customers, will the implementation be helpful for planning rerouting power and testing conversion capabilities?

-- Anonymous, February 04, 1999

Answers

Gosh, this whole thing with the Ford power plant is pretty interesting. Like the recent UPS and GM strikes, the Ford power plant story kind of sums up a lot of things about our "just in time" society.

First - Ford had to shut down the assmebly plant for a few days until industrial strength temporary generators were brought in to get the lines running again. Because of the down time at the plant, other Ford plants had to slow down because of the lack of parts coming from the Rouge Plant. A couple were actually idled for a few days.

Second - The power plant can not be rebuilt. Ford has announced they will build a new power plant. Until then, a combination of the aforementioned "temporary generators" and replacement power (about 200 Megawatts) from Detroit Edison (DECo) will be used at the plant. Now, think about this. The midwest rides the hairy edge of capacity *every* summer. All of a sudden, DECo has to find another 200MW. I don't know what this means for the midwest this coming summer; hopefully not much.

The whole point of the above is to illustrate the impact that ONE power plant failing has on an entire economic system, and potential long term impact. Multiply this by whatever order of magnitude you wish, and you begin to see the economic concern with Y2k as it's related to power production and delivery.

-- Anonymous, February 06, 1999