Don't think this has been posted here; certainly worth reading. The study says electrical utilities have the highest risk of problems, but:

>>Electric power, because of the complexity of its systems, is often the most vulnerable of the utilities. On a global basis, there is a 13 percent to 14 percent chance of interruptions in service, although outages are expected to last only a few hours on average.

URL:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=105&STORY=/www/story/11-08-1999/0001070159

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

Answers

Interesting that for water and sewage they find only a 3 percent to 4 percent probability of interruptions.

And my biggest concern for utilities is addressed regarding transportation and fuel distribution to utilities.

Among transportation services, trucking has the lowest Y2K vulnerability (4 percent) chance of delays in shipments, while rail (24 percent) and water shipping (33 percent) are more exposed to delays. The expected increase in shipment time when delays occur ranges from 14 percent for trucking to 17 percent for rail and 29 percent for shipping

At least they qualify the potential fuel problem with this:

"For any given site, Y2K vulnerability depends on many factors, some beyond the control of the utilities themselves, such as fuel supplies." Yep, I sure do like a/c for the long, hot and humid days we have here in the south.

-- Anonymous, November 15, 1999

Norm,

You have hit on the real problem for the long haul, fuel. But they don't factor that into these estimates any more than Wall Street is factoring in Y2k for investments next year. Will the coal still move the same? Will fuel oil? Will natural gas? I guess the water will still move through the hydro plants, so that's a plus. As far as the others, I think there will be shortages and shutdowns. The amount of fuel an average fossil plant uses per day is staggering. If the nukes can stay up it will help. If they start running away due to any number of issues, it won't help. That's about it.

-- Anonymous, November 17, 1999

Drew, Thanks for the article and continuing excellent coverage of Y2K. The article is most interesting in my mind for the acknowledgmet of of a significant percentage of possible difficulties in basic services. Considering the unprecedented nature of Y2K disruptions and the comlpex systems involved, my gut feeling is that anything other than an acknowledgement of the severity of the problem is a guess. But, undoubtedly we see in this reference and have heard elsewhere a great deal of expert aknowledgement of the problem. Thanks again.

-- Anonymous, November 19, 1999

The relatively small risk reported in freight systems, and the short average delays, suggests that it may have been derived solely from the predicted effects of utility outages on these systems, without factoring in vulnerabilities of the transport companies' IT systems. I plan to send for a copy of the study.

-- Anonymous, November 20, 1999