I Told You Sogreenspun.com : LUSENET : Electric Utilities and Y2K : One Thread |
Pipelines down, refineries down, explosions, compounding accidents, oil, heating oil, kerosene, diesel, gasoline. How long can this go without resulting in: Fuel = Electricity, Electricity = Fuel, Not enough/no oil = No Electricity.I could take my stored kerosene, head north, and make big bucks.
Diesel in very short supply, trains needs diesel to deliver food to points where trucks pick up the food for delivery to warehouses and stores. Independent truckers, that can, have parked their trucks and are staying home.
THE DOTS HAVE DISCONNECTED. If this keeps up, I expect rationing from FEMA to keep the electric grid up.
I told you so, I told you so, I told you so....
-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000
Hi Marcella. To whom you are directing your "I told you so"?The stories regarding the oil industry are rampant on TB2000, but I've yet to see a link that definitively shows a correlation to the year 2000 problem. Do you have any that demonstrate that these issues are Y2k caused problems?
Also, I've heard that the US utilities only use about 10% oil- generation. At the power company I work for, and in the surrounding metropolis (about 3 million customers), there is exactly zero oil-dependent generation. Therefore I question your "Not enough/no oil = No electricity" hypothesis.
-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000
no oil = no train ; no train = no coal ; no coal = no electricityHope not, but possible.
-- Anonymous, January 26, 2000
Dan, what type of fuel do you use at your plant? No oil, you say. How about gas, oil related. How about coal, can't get that without oil to bring it to you. Need parts, oil delivers them. A nuclear plant will not keep going without oil, need outside generated electricity, need supplies, need, need, supplied by oil. Trucks need diesel.There are so many outages that it is not "normal" outages. We will not hear it is y2k, isn't going to happen, but if explosions keep happening, we go in the dumper. Do you need gasoline to get to work?
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
My, my....very interesting! For all of my fellow preparers, and folks with a more "rational" bent, keep an eye on the sun's activity. Now might be a good time to consider a small investment in electricity futures for those so inclined. A month ago was a pretty good time to be long in heating oil (if you had enough courage to stay in).Marcella, you sure make things more interesting! Missed you when you didn't post for several days!
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Marcella,Calm down. I think your "I told you so" about the fuel shortage is correct, to a point, y2k is hitting the oil business, but I also think the worst is over and the crisis in quite managable. Enough production has stayed up to pull through the crunch.
I just got off looking at the petro futures markets in crude, heating oil and gasoline. After rising sharply in mid-January, they have leveled off in the past few days.
The professionals who bet their monies there are generally pretty good forcasters of what is going on and seem to run ahead of the news, particularly the major media, but also the general industry news. So, I wish I had had bought some petroleum related calls a month ago and followed my own advice, I would be rich. Too bad. But right now, it seems the problems are being handled and while there are shortages in some areas and markets, they are cutting production in other areas.
Biggest problem, weather forecasters screwed up, long term, figured another warm winter, and didn't have enough heating oil stocked up, and a very major cracker for the east coast US, in venezuela crunched (personally I feel y2k) along with some others all at the same time.
However, enough others stayed up. Here in east texas gas prices have gone back up to $1.15 per gallon, about what they were last summer. No great emergency, just hurts your pocket book. February/March heating oil on the new york exchange has temporarily stabilized at about $1.00 and those $1.80 per gallon for gasoline are only up in the North East and perhaps California. The many power plants which burn oil also burn natural gas, and many have switched to gas. The pipelines have pretty much stayed up with few problems.
So, I feel that there will be some juggling for a while, and higher prices than normal, but no crash.
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Bill, thanks for your post. You get it.James, are the solar flares making their presence known? I haven't been posting because I have been searching. reading, oil producers and refinery news from their original sources - not TimeBomb 2000, too many people with opinion not fact, too much personal attack, too much bad language.
xBob, you are incorrect about natural gas. According to producers and pipeline managers, natural gas is cut back in winter, every winter, due to winter temps, natural gas does not flow well in winter. That was an authoritative source. I probably can't find that again. Trust me.
I am calm, totally calm and totally prepared for any disruption.
My "I told you so" is to all the people that hammered me for two years on this forum because I knew crude oil was our weak link, too many dots that had to work. There are many, many people in the northeast that heat their homes with kerosene heaters. These heaters can only burn kerosene, no other fuel. I have three top of the line kerosene heaters and I asked the company when I bought them if they could burn any other fuel and they can't. xBob, tell the people who can't get kerosene for their heaters that oil futures (whatever) indicate these people are fine. Oil futures (whatever) are just that - in the future. People are freezing now. They may or may not freeze in the future.
Two days ago, I believe it was, a refinery in Helena, Montana, blew up during the night. Residents had to be evacuated. Unknown cause.
I'll keep watching and reading, maybe things will straighten out. That needs to happen soon. I still say if we lose more pipelines and/or refineries we will have serious problems. Those without kerosene now are in trouble, doubt they are calm. How many frozen people does it take to make us un-calm? Depends on if it is YOUR grandmother. Big un-calm if it is her.
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Hi Marcella,Of all the dire predictions about Y2k, yours is definitely the closest to coming true. I got a kick out of your "I told you so." But at first felt that you broke the unspoken rule of not saying that. As Factfinder and others could have said that to the rest of us earlier this month. But it's actually kind of cute, thinking back on it. You're usually so analytical, and to see that burst of emotion is refreshing. I have a deep respect for who you are and your research, and appreciate your sharing with us. I think I'm going to store some more gas. I used up part of my storage earlier this month, when I was a bit broke, after over spending in preparations last month.
Please keep up the posts, Marcella, and continue connecting the dots for us. Thanks for your work.
Victoria
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Marcella: Of course if utilities have no access to oil and their derivative products, then there would be impacts to the utility industry. One could use the same logic for these formulas:No copper => No cable => No new wire construction => No electricity
Circuit Breaker unavailability => Loss of proper protection of equipment => Electrical disturbance => No electricity
For the purposes of this forum, the real issue is whether the oil situation is having any real impact on electric utilities. So far, the effect is ZERO. Employees are getting to work, plants have plenty of supplies they need, etc. Right after the rollover, utilities polled their key suppliers, and ALL of them are still providing their materials and report no interrruption of service. And by the way, several coal plants are "mine to mouth", and don't require railroads.
So far, Y2k has had NO impact on customer outages. Physical equipment failures, bad weather, and animals cause outages every single day.
You mentioned that you do research on the subject of oil. The real "connecting the dots" would be to demonstrate this linkage:
Y2k caused problems => Oil production or delivery problems => Electricity shortages or outages
Marcella, please connect these dots for us...can you provide any web addresses that connect any of these (Y2k causing oil production problems, and that resulting in electric production problems)?
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Victoria, yeah, sometimes I have a burst of emotion and sometimes, even humor (I have a lot of that but not much on this forum - except for "storing air" and "porta-potties." I actually wanted a title that would grab people to punch in to the thread, figured that one would do it. Those of us who researched, called it as best we could. Certainly the whole y2k problem was not an "I'm right, you were wrong," thing. "I told you so" is different. I couldn't see how oil would get by, just too many dots there. "I told you so" that oil runs the country. "I told you so" that if oil fails, it all fails. That premise was not accepted by a number on this forum, they couldn't get down to the bedrock of the country, they were stuck on the upper layers.What is happening now illustrates what happens when oil supply/products become limited. That is the "I told you so." No matter the reason why, when oil/oil products are limited, there is wailing and knashing of teeth as we are seeing in the northeast with demands to the government to "do something."
I leave you with a bumper sticker sign on cars in Texas in the 1970's oil crunch, "Freeze a Yankee." Texans understand this concept, crude as it is.
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Dan, "resulting in electric production problems." We are not there yet, hopefully reductions in oil supply won't get worse, but better. If you can't see the connection of oil to electricity, fine, believe you are short-sighted, look at the big picture. You will be able to prove it to yourself if we get to that point. Point is, fuel is being affected now. Finger pointing as to cause will come later, except for the pipeline in the Texas gulf that was taken out a couple of days ago from an anchor accidently falling from a rig on the move. That pipeline moved oil from 11 rigs, 200,000 barrels a day gone, operators say it is a major task to fix it, so major no date is given for when it could become operational again. 93,000 barrels of oil dumpted in gulf at time of rupture.
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
200127 lmarcella Marcella,THERE IS NO OIL CRASH!!! There is a small product and distribution shortage, mostly due to the unanticipated blizzard and cold weather. That would have happened with or without y2k. I'm guessing, but I think we have somewhat over 800 refineris in the world. We have had serious problems at about a dozen. This is about 2/10ths of a percent. Trains don't run on Kerosene. Diesel trucks don't run on kerosene. Kerosene lanterns and kerosene heaters run on kerosene. Not much else. Home heating systems run on heating oil. Oil Power plants on heavy bunker type fuel which must be heated to 180 degrees just to flow and work properly.
Please, I didn't say the oil futures markets say everyone is fine, I said there were some problems but they have apparently peaked. We have no oil shortage in the world. It's just the machinations of the rich getting richer.
Kerosene is not produced much in this country any more. As far as I can tell, we don't even make it in Texas, at least I couldn't find it when I was stocking up for y2k. It had to imported from Lousiana, there is a small plant over there which makes it.
Not much uses kerosene in this country any more except kerosene lanters and small kerosene heaters. Large home size oil heaters use a slightly different version called heating oil, trucks run on a slightly different version, diesel fuel, jet aircraft run on a slightly different version - jp-4 or 5 or what ever the latest version is. Power plants run on a heavy thick type oil which needs to be heated to 180 degrees just to get it to flow properly and work. These are all separarately produced from the same base stock.
To produce Each of these fuels takes special adjustments and sometimes special plants. The usages must be forecast into the future and the production is their best guess at what demand will be.
They mis-jusged the amount cold weather, and perhaps the number of kerosene heaters people bought for y2k, perhaps all the hype about global warming or the fact that the last two winters have been warm. The worst blizzard in 100 years hit the east coast. This is the problem. The trains will run. The coal will get delivered. The lights will be on, just maybe not in North Carolina right now, as I have a friend there who is without power right now, because of the blizzard, not because of y2k. He is using his kerosene heater by the light of a kerosene lantern rather than his electric heat, and light which don't work - because of the blizzard. He never used kerosene before in his life.
Please read the following notes from some industry publications about oil supply and you will better understand what I am talking about. Y2k has hit, it has had minor impact on the systems as a whole, just like a meteor has small impact on the earth, but if you happen to be on the spot where it impacts, you are in deep kimshee. =================== Russia limits pipeline access to oil firms on tax debts Bridge News Moscow--Jan 27 The Russian Fuel and Energy Ministry has decided to limit 13 oil firms' access to oil export pipelines in February because of their tax arrears, a ministry's official said Thursday.
NYMEX Oil Review: Crude lower, shrugs off cold, inventory fall Bridge News New York--Jan 26 NYMEX Mar crude oil futures fell, shrugging off data showing US inventories declined last week and more cold weather, which has led to strong heating fuel consumption. Mar crude settled down 44c at $27.84 per barrel. Feb heating oil settled up 175 points at 92.13c per gallon, while Feb gasoline fell 180 points to 74.99c.
Norway, Saudi agree to stick to oil output cuts until March Bridge News London--Jan 26 Saudi Arabia and Norway, the world's 2 biggest oil exporters, said they will stick to agreed oil production curbs until their end-March expiry, but provided no indication of output policy after that date, a Norwegian oil ministry spokeswoman said.
Kuwait oil minister says price, stocks to set OPEC cut duration Bridge News Kuwait--Jan 25 Kuwait Oil Minister Sheikh Saud Al-Sabah said on Tuesday that OPEC will decide after a Mar-27 meeting how long to extend its reduced- output regime after studying reports on inventory levels and prices. The minister said "all options are open" when asked if Kuwait considers it feasible to continue with the cuts until the end of 2000.
Venezuela: Speculation behind oil price rise Bridge News Caracas--Jan 24 Venezuela's Minister of Energy & Mines Ali Rodriguez said Monday that the current high oil prices are mainly due to market speculation. He also said that OPEC would not consider raising oil output until the cartel's next meeting on Mar 27 and that any OPEC decision on extending oil cuts would depend on market fundamentals at that time.
Venezuela eyes resumption of gasoline exports next week Bridge News Caracas--Jan 24 Venezuela's state-owned PDVSA will inform its major gasoline clients about the possibility of restarting exports, maybe as early as next week, a company source said. PDVSA declared force majeure Jan 18 after a catcracker failure at its 635,000-bpd Amuay refinery.
NYMEX Oil Review: Lower as heating oil slumps in profit-taking Bridge News New York--Jan 24 NYMEX heating oil futures slumped 7.75% as traders took profits following a recent surge, also sending crude oil lower. Mar crude ended down 37c at $27.83 per barrel. Feb heating oil settled down 715 points to 86.35c per gallon, while Feb gasoline fell 148 points at 75.48c a gallon.
OPEC oil-cut compliance fell to 79.8% in December, MEES reports Bridge News London--Jan 24 OPEC crude oil output fell by a hefty 790,000 barrels per day in December, while production by the 10 countries (excluding Iraq) which participate in the OPEC output cutback program posted a small rise of 190,000 bpd, the Middle East Economic Survey reported on Monday. Compliance with the output cuts slipped to 79.8% in December, MEES found.
We have oil - ergo we have power. The y2k problems seem small enough that we will continue to have oil, lots of oil, just not quite the right mix, and at somewhat higher price. The trains will run. The trucks will run. The power plants will run. The kerosene lanterns and kerosene heaters may be a problem, so go get an electric heater.
xBob
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Marcella,I absolutely agree with this which you wrote:
". I couldn't see how oil would get by, just too many dots there. "I told you so" that oil runs the country. "I told you so" that if oil fails, it all fails. That premise was not accepted by a number on this forum, they couldn't get down to the bedrock of the country, they were stuck on the upper layers. "
But the fact is, y2k has struck, it hardly touched electric power, it is now hitting oil, and has a visible impact, but percentage wise, it is so small as to be little more than a speculator's money machine, and a few people freezing their tails off because of a blizzard, not because of y2k. The ones I know at least got some auxiliary heat, at my urging for y2k, and some food, so are far better off than they would have been without preping for y2k, even a little.
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
I really appreciate the insight and knowledge displayed in this thread. xBob's analysis appears right on. My comment on solar activity refers to solar flare activity which may be increasing this week causing disruptions in earth's magnetic field. These disruptions can induce large currents in distribution systems especially at high latitudes. The NASA space weather station is fun to monitor if you are interested in watching the sun's activity. xBob do you feel that the sun's peak sunspot cycle will affect the grid?
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
Thanks, JimYou are right on Sun Spots, but I am only of one outage during the last peak cycle 20+ years ago. There are probably others on this forum who know more. So, likewise with y2k, unless there have been some drastic changes in the way power is made and transmitted, I seriously doubt there will be more than a few minor burbles from the sun spots.
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
sorry that should have read "but I am AWARE of only one outage "
-- Anonymous, January 27, 2000
ROFLMAO...again :) Marcella, you have the audacity to say I TOLD YOU SO? You were so wrong about Y2K, it isn't even funny. Place links to CREDIBLE newstories by the mainstream media of Y2K bugs causing oil or gas problems below:
-- Anonymous, January 28, 2000
A word of advice to Marcella and xBob. Try some news "sources" that are more reliable than Gary North, Roleigh Martin, and TB2000. These are the same sources that were so wrong about what Y2K would bring. You can expect the same accuracy regarding "oil problems", that is, nothing but rumors and nonsense. Do you really believe that mainstream journalist wouldn't be all over any serious problems caused by Y2K? People aren't as good at keeping secrets as conspirarcy theorist have to make themselves believe....And about the "government" not being trustworthy...Koskinen's Y2K team was pretty accurate, compare that to your "sources" above.
Try the New York Times, your cities newspaper, cable news, etc. and take a break from the silly doomspinners. You may find reality refreshing .... I do.
Or choose to continue to follow those who blow smoke like the Wizard of Oz, the choice is yours Dorothy...
Best Wishes,
-- Anonymous, January 29, 2000
FactFinder,Once again you demonstrate your myopic vision. In the middle of this thread I quoted a dozen industry reports, unrelated and unreported by Gary North. I have been reading and following industry and other reports for years now. Gary North was a compiler of reorts and commenter on them. Not always right, but often on the button, though not always, as demonstrated by his last, and humiliating Montana Refinery post.
There was and is a y2k problem. However, it didn't have the magnitude to do any serious damage to our society.
Read latest Kosikinens report. In addition it has just come out that the National Security Agency computer systems were down for 3 days from 24 to 27 Jan.
As far as "And about the "government" not being trustworthy...Koskinen's Y2K team was pretty accurate, compare that to your "sources" above", why did they spend $50 million for a control center for y2k? Please tell me. I want my money back. Are you going to pay me?
So FactFinder - How many y2k systems did you and your group test, how many problems did you find and how many did you fix? Now that it's over, you should be able to divulge that information.
-- Anonymous, January 29, 2000
FactFinder,Marcella and I have been reading the industry news. That is why we have been concerned. there have been major problems in the Petro industry, but not enough to be disruptive. The problem again, is determining the magnitude which you were unable to quantify in your own industry for our edification.
None of this information is getting publiced in your apparent sources of managed news. Sorry. Why don't you ask Peter Jennings of ABC to report on them, perhaps then you might have an idea what is going on.
You would have succeded at your chosen job for y2k if you had done that, instead you gave out a lot of undocumented and unbcked up 'I'm OK, therefore your'e OK' info and microscopic minutia, and little or no analysis and quantification.
-- Anonymous, January 29, 2000
FactFinder,one last comment,
Sometimes it takes me a while - FactFinder - you have finally identified the news sources you trust -
"Try the New York Times, your cities newspaper, cable news, etc. and take a break from the silly doomspinners. You may find reality refreshing .... I do. "
No wonder you are a polly, if you think these places are accurate sources of news on a subject like y2k. I guess you better go play the stock market on stories in your newspaper and cable news network.
I'll shut up now before I get really aggrivated about your post and say some even more accurate things.
-- Anonymous, January 29, 2000
xBob, I do appreciate that you did post credible information concerning oil, and the market, I just haven't seen the evidence to attribute the y2k "meteor" you speak of. Let me make this perfectly clear - I have yet to see a credible report of a SINGLE pertrolium refinery shutdown caused by a Y2K bug, not here, not at TB2000, nowhere except in rumors, exagerations, and fantasies...just like Y2K in electric power....As far as my previous posts, I gave facts, I gave examples, and I gave numbers as to why Y2K would not cause any signficant problems in the generation of electric power. Perhaps you missed them, perhaps you ignored them, but they were there.
David
-- Anonymous, January 30, 2000
xBob, A clarification - no, I did not post details of my y2k project, and still will not do that. I did give some relative percentages and mentioned the types of minor problems we found, but the details were the business of the client. But I posted much information concerning industry findings, and posted the BC Hydro reponse to my email from them showing NO problems would have caused a loss of genration at ANY of their plants. I posted at least 10 different industry statements that y2k in embedded systems problems were not as significant as first thought, that the problems were ususally minor. Wasn't that a clue? We could go back and see your response to some of my posts, that would be interesting...;)
-- Anonymous, January 30, 2000
Prior to the rollover, here is how power industry information was highly regarded, James Prosser's introduction to "if it's good news were gonna shoot you" by the forum: http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0019MpAnd xBob, I took a look at some BC Hydro threads....and saw your name lambast me quite a bit...until I posted the email directly from BC Hydro ....need the links? lol...
-- Anonymous, January 30, 2000
David,I seriously doubt that you will find any public admission of y2k problems anaywhere about much of anything. That would be to admit that they screwed up.
However Marcia Peter's has collected and organized information on refinery problems, and while by no means comprehensive, it is an excellent endeavour on her part to track the problems.You will find a list of planned and 'unplanned' refinery outages, with some dates and explanations at her site:.
http://www.nckodokan.com/charts/refineries.html
For soas you said you don't know of any petro-chem outages attributed to y2k, you are right, the mass media doesn't cover them at all, unless they are truely spectacular, however, since the first of the year there have been a bunch of 'unplanned' outages, including numerous refinery and pipeline explosions. There are, however, just not enough to wreck the system, just enough to cause some problems..
PS - I rarely ever have gone to TB2000 - I went a few times last year and found too much ignorance, a surfiet of opinion, and too few facts. Too much trouble to sort the wheat from the chaff. But buried in the massive amounts of sludge are a few diamonds, just as there were on this thread burried in the massive amounts of minutia. However, Rick's forum was far more professional.
xBob
-- Anonymous, January 31, 2000
Factfinder,What if I told you that your answers are less useful than I first though?
Would that give you enough to work with?
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You said:
"xBob, A clarification - no, I did not post details of my y2k project, and still will not do that. I did give some relative percentages and mentioned the types of minor problems we found, but the details were the business of the client."
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FactFinder - You ought to go into politics - you can't seem to answer a question? I asked how many systems did you check, how many problems did you find, how many did you fix? 10, 1000, 1,000,000? Are you really an engineer who can't quantify and at least give some specifics to get a handle on the scale of the problems? I have worked with hundreds of engineers over the years, building many plants. I found a good answer engineering you wrote, once. Tell me what I think of your performance from that statement. How about reporting now what percentages you reported. Certainly you should remember that rather than just stating you gove some percentages.
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"But I posted much information concerning industry findings, and posted the BC Hydro reponse to my email from them showing NO problems would have caused a loss of genration at ANY of their plants."
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FactFinder - there are somewhere between 7000 and 10000 electric power entities in North America. You state ONE out of all those, had found no problems, and that particular one is hydro-electric - where we would expect far fewer problems to begin with. Did I tell you that I saw a baseball player hit a home run last year on TV? I did. How was the baseball season? Please tell me..
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I posted at least 10 different industry statements that y2k in embedded systems problems were not as significant as first thought, that the problems were ususally minor. Wasn't that a clue?
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FactFinder - what would you do if a you were preparing for a long trip, took your car to a mechanic and he said that the problems "were not as significant as first thought, that the problems [added by me]: [on trips] were ususally minor."
How would you feel about starting out on your trip across Canada in the winter with your wife and family in that car? Would that give you a clue?
Sorry - this is rather disorganized and dis-jointed. I am tired, but you should get the general idea.
-- Anonymous, January 31, 2000
Factfinder/David,I'm not anything close to an engineer, so you may be able to help me understand post-accident investigations. In looking at the refinery situation, why would we expect to know that Y2K has been the cause of any single refinery incident? Besides the issue of embarrasment and stock price pressure creating an incentive not to disclose such information, is it clear that anyone would necessarily know that Y2K is the root cause of a given event. Imagine that some system (or systems) fail and operators try to maintain control of the plant. They lose the battle and an explosion occurs. This has happened before, it will happen in the future. When it happens in January, 2000 would some forensic investigation determine that it was a Y2K bug that precipitated some or all of the problems (if that is indeed the case)? I think that the best we we be able to do is see if more of these events than normal took place around the rollover period. If this is consistent with data from other industries (nuclear plant shutdowns, gas pipeline explosions, train derailments, etc.) it would indicate that an anomoly exists that needs explaining.
Will it be possible to gather valid data covering events in several industries? I don't know yet. Will the data show something unusual taking place? I don't know yet. But I don't expect to ever learn that an outage in refinery X or train derailment Y were caused by Y2K faults. Should I demand that final measure of proof before believing that Y2K is playing a part?
-- Anonymous, January 31, 2000
Just wait. Give it more time.In a previous career I worked for a company that produced a realtime Unix operating system that was -- and still is -- used in a lot of different embedded systems. One particular version of the operating system had a date roll-over problem at the beginning of 1996. The clock would revert to 01/01/1980 instead of 01/01/1996. Pretty much identical to the Y2K bug but four years earlier.
We sent out notices, we issued bug fixes and patches and made a fully compliant version of the OS. Still, we knew many companies had not upgraded and we were prepared for an onslaught of tech support and field calls in the first couple of months of 1996. It never happened. For whatever reason, and I could speculate on a few, the calls didn't start ramping up until a good six months into the year. The same thing is going to happen with Y2K. Nothing catastrophic but the bugs are going to start piling into each other and in some instances all the frantic activity trying to implement work-arounds isn't going to be enough.
It's only been four weeks.
On the other hand I doubt these problems are going to affect the electric utilities directly. We'll see.
-- Anonymous, February 02, 2000
xBob, Do you remember my posts saying I couldn't find anything in our plants or industry reports that would have caused a single plant to go offline due to y2k? Just curious....To reply to both you and Jay about whether failures could go unreported in the oil industry (or any industry for that matter), I would certainly expect that that occurred, but not for anything that would be as significant as causing a plant shutdown. But even if that DID happen at a few plants, there would be no significant effects for just a few plants.
To "speculate" that y2k bugs are causing oil problems and higher prices is pretty easy to do, and so it was with y2k....pure speculations, little facts.
1. For impact in oil, dozens of plant shutdowns would have had to occur due to y2k, do you seriously believe that those working at all of these facilities could keep this quiet? lol....I have a bridge for sale if you do. (Well, after all, many DID "buy" whole y2k doom pACKAGE).
2. Oil industry reports (some of which I had access too) had the same findings as the electric industry, the y2k bugs in embedded systems were by far predominantly minor. NO COMMON Y2K FAILURES THAT WOULD CAUSE SUCH PROBLEMS, SO NO WAY FOR THIS TO EVEN OCCUR TO A SIGNIFICANT DEGREE.
3. Some people just don't like to admit that they were/are/will always be....gullible.
4. Its over, in the power industry, in the oil industry, Y2K has come with no significant problems due to Y2K bugs. Its time for a new hobby :)
-- Anonymous, February 03, 2000
FactFinder"4. Its over, in the power industry, in the oil industry, Y2K has come with no significant problems due to Y2K bugs. Its time for a new hobby :) "
I concur, however, for many of us, it was not a hobby, but a matter of potential life and death.
-- Anonymous, February 04, 2000