From the Monday October 25, 1999 edition of Sanger's Review, http://sangersreview.com

As noted in the REVIEW before, NBC will air a movie called "Y2K" on Sunday, Nov.21 (which happens to be sweeps week). Not everybody is happy about it. John Castagna, spokesman for the Edison Electric Institute in Washington, said, "It's akin to yelling fire in a crowded theater. . .It's absolutely the wrong thing to do. . .some audiences will not be able to separate fact and fiction." (What if the theater happens to be on fire?) Apparently, Edison Electric has launched a letter-writing campaign to NBC affiliates "urging them to either rethink airing the movie or provide free rebuttal time." NERC spokesman Eugene Gorzelnick said, "We hope NBC will be a good corporate citizen and recognize the dangers involved in hyping a negative situation that could feed people's concerns.". . .John Hall of the American Bankers Association said, "Of course, we would prefer the movie not be shown, but we're confident that people will see this as strictly entertainment." ______________________________________________________________________

Jeff's Editorial Comments:

I can understand bankers not wanting to have runs on banks but what is the Edison Electric Institute afraid of, a run on electricity? I really do not understand the logic behind the Edison Electric Institute's going to the trouble of organizing a letter-writing campaign to stop this movie from being shown. Perhaps they are concerned that the American people might actually start asking some questions about the Y2K preparedness of the electric industry and the post Y2K safety of our nuclear plants? Well, the obvious answer to the problem is to carefully control (shall we say censor?) what the American people are allowed to see and hear about Y2K. Anything that does not conform to the (as Drew Parkhill so aptly put it) "let's tell everyone not to panic and roll the dice and hope things really are under control" policy of our government should be strictly VERBOTEN. And we're supposed to trust these people when they tell us they're Y2K ready?

-- Anonymous, October 26, 1999

Answers

As the result of being on my community's Y2k Taskforce I had a very interesting conversation with someone from a large utility, and the person who is quoted on its website as saying they found "no" Y2k rollover problems in their nukes. (It was subsequently listed by the NRC as having remaining remediation to do.) He said that technically his statement was correct. However, they did find stuff that "would not restart once it was shut off" after the rollover. In talking about it with them, it appeared he didn't disclose that on the company's website because of his fear of causing panic. (???) Interestingly, they seem to have adopted the banking industry's standard of not wanting to scare people and start a banking run. I suggested to them that approach was inappropriate for utilities from the viewpoint that if the banks soothe people and are wrong and close for a couple of weeks, people's money will presumably still be there when they reopen. If a northern utility soothes people and is wrong and there is a few day power outage during bitterly cold weather, the consequences would be worse. It didn't appear to me they had really considered that. The conversation was somewhat sobering for me. I hope the widespread effort to prevent people from withdrawing money doesn't have unintended consequences.

This incident does seem to be consistent with the Edison Institute's actions. Anyone else?

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Snyder - I have quit trying to figure this out.

If Y2k is a nonissue, why would EEI even care to comment?? In this particular case, a more appropriate reaction IMHO would have been no public reaction at all, or worst case a "It's only a movie..." statement, with a caveat that "our electric system has always been there for you, and will be after 1/1/2000."

So why all the fuss?

Could it be...shades of IBM? Don't forget: EEI is the CEO's club of the electric industry.

Jeff, I don't think the attitude has ever had anything to do with concern over "public panic", and what reasonable people might or might not do in the face of uncertainty and heightened risk. It's all about money, pure and simple. Stock prices and quarterly dividends. Very little else captures the undivided attention of EEI's general memebership.

IMHO, Y2k was not even on EEI's radar screen until some high powered corporate exec's got involved early last year, because they'd been receiving Y2k inquiries from financial ratings institutions and consumers.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999

Thanks Rick,

I always appreciate your insider gems. And I expect you are quite right about the EEI. Groan. Drew was saying some similar things about Wall Street movers and shakers until just recently. Now, about that NBC movie, does anyone think it will be really alarming? From NBC? I can't imagine it will be anything more than exciting, with a happy ending. All's well that ends well. It wasn't written by Steven King, was it???? No, of course not. Bet it get's Koskinen's stamp of approval. Better yet, if it doesn't have Koskinen's stamp of approval by the time it is due to air, it won't go on. Count on it.

-- Anonymous, October 27, 1999