Some thought I meant to shut down and structure a phase-in of companies. What I meant was a national phase-in that is by telephone company grid for example. Would it not be better to localize and isolate our problems rather than not have a clue as to where the biggies are?

-- Fred Weiersmueller (weiers@juno.com), March 08, 1999

Answers

Regarding "the grid", the official line is that the whole US grid will stay connected. During Art Bell's interview on Larry King, he indicated that a local insider at his utility company said that if the grid goes down, they will disconnect from the grid and re-start. Hopefully our fearless tyrants (leaders?) will enact legislation which will let electric companies escape legal problems with contracts in this area.

In my travels, I read that big manufacturing companies have a special contract with electric companies. In return for lower electricity prices, the electric companies have more flexibility in shutting off electricity to big manufacturers (who draw a LOT of power!). Since the end of the year tends to be slow for manufacturing anyway, I would expect that many big manufacturers will be shutdown in advance of New Year's Evil, although I have not heard this confirmed anywhere.

-- Anonymous99 (Anonymous99@anonymous.com), March 08, 1999.

Other problems may show up when the big industrial users (shut down for rollover) start coming back on line.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 08, 1999.

It's called "Interuptible" vs "Uninteruptable" contracts. And if you think that this means that the power gets shut off and on by the poewer companies, you neeed to look at the contracts. Often the iinteruptable contract has an uninteruptable back-up contract. had occasion to look at the contracts for my school one evening, and they are backed up. (and no i won't EVER say how I got into that particular office at midnight.....)

Chuck

-- Chuck, night driver (rienzoo@en.com), March 08, 1999.