The author:

Assistant Professor and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Global Communications at the International University of Japan.

His conclusions (it's a longer paper):

**In summary, the prospects for safe and dependable electricity service in the United States in the year 2000 remain uncertain, but assuming that NERC's survey data are reliable it appears that industry-wide Y2K activities are increasing. However, despite endorsement of their efforts from the DOE, there is not much evidence to support NERC's conclusion that Y2K will have "minimal impact" on power production and consumption in the United States, particularly when NERC has not defined operationally what "minimal" means in this context. In addition, as Mills has pointed out, it is not possible to meaningfully predict a physical outcome like Y2K impact on electric utilities by asking a trade association such as NERC to survey utilities about their Y2K readiness. There also are some important figures cited in NERC's January 1999 status report that reveal an industry in potential trouble. According to NERC, approximately 46 percent of survey respondents reported that they likely will miss the industry-imposed Y2K readiness deadline of June 1999. Sixteen percent of this 46 percent do not expect to be Y2K-ready until the 4th quarter of 1999. These figures do not include 20 nuclear power facilities that reported that they expect not to meet the June 1999 target date.

**There are perhaps better grounds, based on power engineering principles, for concluding not that "minimal impact" is likely, but rather that long-term electricity blackouts due to Y2K alone are unlikely. Finally, with much yet unknown about the potential difficulties utilities will encounter in the year 2000, one of the most important questions concerns a fundamental dilemma that the electric utility industry has been facing for the past decade--the ability of utilities to maintain sufficient, long-term electricity production margins despite increasing consumption demands and occasional unpredictable stresses to the grid. Whatever the magnitude of impact Y2K eventually has on electricity service in the United States, it surely will contribute negatively to this critical equation.

The URL:

http://www.year2000.com/y2kcurrent2.html

-- Anonymous, July 31, 1999

Answers

Hi Drew. I read the article too. Much of the questions raised will be answered with updated information from the next NERC report, due out next week.

-- Anonymous, July 31, 1999

http://www.year2000.com/y2kcurrent2.html

That does not appear to be the right URL.

-- Anonymous, August 01, 1999

Lane: The updated URL is: http://www.year2000.com/archive/dolan- 2.html. I highly recommend the article to anyone who is interested in the possible impact of y2k on electric utilities.

Drew: I know you are extremely busy but I wanted to remind you of your idea of doing an in depth interview with Cameron Dailey of Tava/Beck. It seems to me that he is one of the few people in the country who is in a position to actually know something about the likely outcomes of y2k and electric utilities, who is a person of integrity and might be willing to talk about it. I'm sure that any information you could elicit from him would be helpful to your CBN audience and the participants in this forum. Perhaps after the release of the upcoming happy face NERC report would be a good time to obtain his input. Thank you for considering this unsolicited request. Sincerely,

-- Anonymous, August 01, 1999

Lane,

That URL is still working for me (at least through the link using that URL on the CBN page)... Don't know why it wouldn't work otherwise. Jeff,

I haven't forgotten about that possibility. I still may do it- it will depend on the volume of my other duties and another thing or two. Stay tuned. But if I can, I will.

-- Anonymous, August 01, 1999

Dan,

Can you give us any specifics- ie, questions raised in that paper that NERC will answer?

-- Anonymous, August 01, 1999