I've a question for all of you out in the hinterlands... Whats the status of your local electric company? Whats the status of the elect generating companies that supply your location? Any hard facts? --- Locally, in my rural part of Florida our electric company is a small coop. This coop doesn't produce it's electric, but buys it as a member of a buying coop composed of all the small cooperatives. That way the get the electric off the grid from who ever contracts with them for the best price. --- Even though the production of the electric is out of their hands (power mostly comes from Tampa & Palatka (coal / oil)or from crystal river (nuke and coal/oil), they do have some local scada issues they had to resolve. One of my oldest friends is the person responisble for maintaining the local grid and scada systems (coop level of distribution). I started talking with him about what they were doing around a year ago and also how things were set up to handle distribution. First thing he told me was that it was H*** getting any information about compliance or non-compliance from suppliers. They simply got the silence treatment. Secondly they knew that their local SCADA system was in need of replacement. They started that process about 12 months ago and yesterday he brought me up to date on the status. The new system is now installed (late delivery problems) along with a new computer. At the same time everything was switched to monitoring via 800 mhz radio links so as to reduce the cost of phone lines to the sub stations. -- This works fine except during very foggy days or during sunspots (remember! they are suppose to be big during Jan). --Anyway he is working through the bugs now and thinks they are pretty much ready. The local scada doesn't actually monitor the lines to determine how much power to supply. That is done by the larger "suppliers" scada system, connecting to the various substations of the local coop via PHONE lines. So in effect the local coop has absolutely little control over the supply of the electric. He has even mentioned how last summer because of the midwest power problem, FPL sold them (midwest area) a lot of power at big profitable costs. But not without problems. My friend says the power voltage here flutuated very bad during that period, because FPL couldn't both sell lots of power (they supposely burned up a line with the overload) and provide the same reliable steady voltage to a long term coop customer. So you ask what does the local coop use scada for? Simply to save manpower when line problems or storms cause a problem. They can send out one person to clear the line, radio the base and have them retrip the substation breakers using the radio controlled scada system by remote control. Also the scada system gives them a monitor for each of their stations and local problems. But here we have a coop who's scada is basically not needed. In fact my friend says they can actually do it all manually. NOT THOUGH THE BIG ELECTRIC SUPPLIER. The big company has to have that phone wire transmitting data of power being used, and has to have an operational scada system that is compliant. Now i ask you this. Why is it in all of the PR releases from Kosky and company.... is it always said that all the little "small" electric companies are the problem? Aren't quite a lot of these small ones the very same ones like my local coop who do not produce any electricity????????? How many of these small companies produce enough power to matter as concerns the grid? It is the big guys who are the problem, has always been and will always be. The local companies are very much more public aware and concious of their jobs. The big companies are driven now days by profit motives, much more than the smaller coop types who are still basically monopolies. And in everything I have read from over 15 months of serious research, the big electric companies do not like supplying information on what problems they incurred with y2k bugs and what corrective actions they took and even more so, what the current status is. Think about it, their industry organization told DOE (Department of Energy) with 100 days left that they had complete their contractual obligations of overseeing y2k compliance of the industry. In other words, they were saying everything was fixed as far as they were concerned and don't bother us again. What kind of pressure was then left to encourage companies to continue y2k remediation and testing in the remaining 100 days? Not much I would say. DOE (and federal gov) passed the buck on the one most critical and important issue that must be fixed and working if we are going to survive y2k with minimum problems. There have been "rumors and rumors" of problems concerning y2k issues with both nuke and modern generating plants located in Florida. None of those rumors sound good of course. LOL! I had a friend that went on an electronic school tour of JEA (Jacksonville Electric). At the end the guide asked any questions? My friend, who is a young kid a little on the outspoken side, asked if they were y2k complaint (this was before the ready word was invented). The JEA person got mad and told him that he could not reveal that status information. This happened over 12 months ago. Think how little has changed. It is pretty simple; electric & phone works... we live -- electric and/or phone goes out too long; some or perhaps lots die. I'm angry that DOE and the Federal Gov didn't move more aggressivily on the elect companies concerning y2k. They certainly targeted the banks, but the banks and everything else don't matter without electic. Ok... I've rambled enough, back to my question... Do you have any hard facts on your electric company as to y2k? not the pr report, but facts? Is it fixed? Especially are the generating plants fixed? Or will you be the unlucky one who lives in one of those "scattered" outage problem areas that Kosky likes to reference? I'm hoping my electric is on, but prepared for it to be off.

-- One Guy (waiting@y2kgi.com), November 25, 1999

Answers

I am on Seco, South Lake Co. know anything about us? I am prepared with a genset and fuel but we have outages under normal circumstances.

Thanks for the post

-- Watching Goodman (ITgoodmanHK@juno.com), November 25, 1999.

sitting here at the puter reading about y2k issues and contemplating next thanksgiving...

those "scattered" outages hopefully will be just that but, after seeing the amazing progress made by these companies in such short time and knowing the myriads of problems we have encountered in my own organization... it would not surprise me in the least if those initial, scattered outages encompassed a "small" geographic region ranging from the mississippi river on the west to the maine/florida line on the east. i frankly have no real idea what the end result will be and am extremely suspicious of glowing success reports from all over the country which appear to be written from the same script and are all ended with the same caveat. when uncle sam is adamant that everything is under control, nothing of real impact will happen, y2k will be a non-event and spends $50+million to build a command center to monitor these "non-events" my eyebrows tend to raise.

-- clayton (ratchetass@hotmail.com), November 25, 1999.

Have you ever seen a coal-fired power plant? Every few days a whole trainload of coal had better arrive, or the plant goed down. If the plant goes down, all the ultra-pure water in the turbine systems has to be replaced. That means more tanker cars or trucks. There is much more to this than just SCADA.

-- ivan (ivan1776@ivnet.net), November 25, 1999.

Sorry Goodman, don't know about TECO. Have generator too, but how long will i (and you) run "precious fuel" (valuable for farming) in the generator if things do go to H***? --- Hey Clayton... Youre actually seeing through the PR-BS.... do you know what that means? it means you "Get It" . LOL. They sure didn't make it an easy research project to understand the threat of y2k. I was ALMOST one of those people who said "why keep on, its fixed" back in April and May.

-- One Guy (waiting@y2kgi.com), November 25, 1999.

Do you have any hard facts on your electric company as to y2k?

Hard facts? From those turkeys? Not likely.

My small rural co-op is in South Dakota. The manager, in last month's newsletter, said he was TIRED of answering Y2K questions. To my knowledge, he has answered no questions about compliance, at least not in the newsletter. In answer to a letter I wrote to him a year and a half ago on Y2K, he replied in his column that they were working on the office computers to make sure payments are processed. Not a word on whether we will have juice in 2000.

Oh well, his office is in the middle of an Indian reservation -- his principal client. His karma may catch up with him soon.

nojuice

-- nojuice (nojuice@all.com), November 25, 1999.

FPL? Florida Progress has NUKE power. Near you?

-- maid upname (noid@ihope.com), November 25, 1999.

we are on Clay Electric Co op in Eastern Marion County. I "feel" pretty good about our co op. I honeslty think they have their end under control. HOWEVER.... they produce no power, buying from another company whom I understand is not really a "net" producer. IOW, they too have to purchase some of their power. Because we figure we are at the end of the line, figuratively and literally, (our farm is the last on on the line before it goes to Florida Power and LIght) we have gone the generator route. We have also bought gas logs and loaded up on propane and had another well dug which has a hand pump on it. While our well is hooked to the generator, we figured the neighbors might need some water too. Don't want to have to turn the generator just to get some water and just soon the neighbors didn't even know we had the generator. If everyone in the area is using candles or oil lamps, we will be doing the same. But during the day we can turn on the generator and wash and dry clothes, cook, shower and cool off the freezer. We plan on running our generator about two hours every two days. While not luxury, it beats the heck out of no power. Been there and done that and could do it again. But you know the hardest thing about not having power?? At least from this woman's view point...laundry. Do you know how hard it is to wring out a pair of jeans?? I know, I know...get a wringer.

Taz

-- Taz (Tassie123@aol.com), November 25, 1999.

Don't worry about FPL. They wouldn't lie to you....just like they told you a couple of years ago that the 'brownouts' wouldn't last long enough to damage the motors in the air conditioners. Then they were sued for about 8 million and settled out of court.

TECO? Humph! They can't even run a coal fired plant (Big Bend) and do regular maintenence. Last time they tried they blew up #6 and killed three employees. That one is still not back on line and won't be for a long time to come. Pretty much wiped that section of the plant.

Me? Why, I depend on Duke Power who is known for it's farsightedness. They have been proclaiming their 'readiness' since 1998 (June). Then last month we hear (unsubstantiated rumor but from a friend that works there) that 'someone' just got canned for releasing a copy of a confidential memo that says it ain't so. Supposedly, the memo was suppressed very hurriedly and the local editor is very chummy now with his new good friends at Duke. Who the heck knows what is true and what is spin?

Doublechecking my backups.

-- Lobo (atthelair@yahoo.com), November 25, 1999.

One guy et al, I'm in N. GA. also on a small EMC which only distributes power. With our last bill came a full color brochure with a snowy scene advising us to prepare several days of supplies in case of a "severe winter storm". ROFL! We have'nt had a severe winter storm in six years and I have NEVER seen anything like this from them in the twenty years I've been living here. Also anecdotally I was going into town to the bank last week and I have to pass a big electric substation with high towers and big lines running through it. One of the towers was surrounded by power trucks with buckets-about five trucks- and several men were up high on the tower working on something. My guess is trying to replace a defective controller of some kind. Pretty damn late in the game huh?

I'm just so sick of the arrogance and lies from all these companies and the government and their toadies in the media. I believe they'll soon be exposed for the decieving bastards that they really are.

Meanwhile, we're all just rowing our little GI boats on the sea of dis-information and CYA hoping we've made adequate preps. I've heard it said many times that the biggie is the grid. I think the real biggie is the oil industry myself. Happy Thanksgiving all.

-- doktorbob (downsouth@dixie.com), November 25, 1999.