Interesting crosspost from Cory Hamasaki's listserv ([dc-y2k-WRP] Digest Number 1119)

Message: 2

Date: Wed, 25 Apr 2001 07:08:46 -0000 From: frseraph@atdial.net

Subject: Oil, Gas, & Electric Outages in CA

From January to April of 2000 I followed the energy sector as closely as anyone could late at night at home on the internet. There was so much disconnected information only reported in local newspapers. One would have never known of these stories, they all had AP and Reuters by lines, if it weren't for the y2k boards where these stories were posted. Everyone was very good about posting the link to their local paper so you could verify that the story was real. Often I would check the news services for the same stories and there would never be any trace of them.

Refineries were breaking down or blowing up almost every day. Pipelines were popping every other day, oil, gasoline, and natural gas. Sometimes you would only hear about it by checking the spot markets when there was a price increase.The reports usually mentioned one of these mishaps as the cause of the price increase.

I learned that these pipelines were all over in places you would never expect, golf courses, parks, residential areas. A ice covered lake ina park in Philadelphia had an oil pipeline under it. The rupture was discovered after thousands of gallons had leaked by ice skaters when the oil started seeping out around the edges of the ice.

About March stories appeared about accidents with barges carrying oil and gasoline down rivers that was normally shipped in pipelines. A tug lost control of a barge loaded with 100,000 gallons of unleaded gas on a small tributary of the Acthafalaya in the bayou of Louisiana. The captain misjudged the current in a bend and the barge hit a bridge abutment and caught fire. They let it burn because any effort to put it out would cause the water to become polluted, this country is inaccessible to fire fighting equipment.

Another barge with 50,000 gallons of crude sunk in the middle of the Amazon. The official report said not to worry there is no danger to the environment crude oil solidifies at the cold temperatures at the bottom of the Amazon.

After all the reports of problems it was very hard to find a report of any of these facilities coming back on line.

By May The news had pretty much dried up. Out here in the Bay area we kept hearing rumors that the Chevron Refinery was still off line and the Tosco refinery blew up at regular intervals.

We waited for summer to see how the Electric Power Grid would hold up. California always has a large surplus of electricity in the winter. In California 50% of our power comes from natural gas fired plants, 25% is hydroelectric, 12% is geothermal and the other 12% is wind solar and nuclear. We have 2 nukes and one of them is dedicated to running a pump in the Sierras that pumps water up the mountain to a reservoir to be released at peak moments to run turbines that supply the extra punch when everyone gets home at 6:00 and turns on all their appliances. We don't use any petroleum or coal, the dirtiest power we have is geothermal (sulfur & arsenic). California had 51,000 megawatts ofpower available at the rollover. In the hot months of the summer we get surplus power from the hydro plants in the northwest. In the winter we sell them all of our surplus, which used to be a lot.

We had an exceptionally mild summer only two hot weeks, the end of July and beginning of August. This is when we first learned of stage 1, 2, & 3 power alerts. Our first rolling blackout happened the second week when our power usage approached 43,000 megawatts. That's 20% less power than we had six months before and there was very little available from the Northwest. They blamed it on a 17% population growth and a 20% increase in the economy but said nothing about the 20% decrease in power.

The next round of alerts and outages started in November when we usually are selling our 40% surplus to the Northwest. After two weeks of alerts the rolling blackouts started when we reached a demand of 32,000 megawatts. All the spokespersons and talking heads blamed it on the usual suspects. Every alert and blackout occurred on a day when it was reported somewhere else in the news unrelated to the power crisis that one or two power plants were unexpectedly taken off line for maintenance. The last blackout we had was when we reached a power demand of 28,000 megawatts.

What happened? Coincidence? Y2K? Politics? Greed, Price Gouging? All of the above?

The power Generators are spending 25 times more for maintenance than before the rollover.

Before the rollover one of the major concerns about Y2K was liability, litigation and lawyers? Everyone was studying how to protect themselves form litigation.

In most places an exceptionally mild winter and summer allowed energy suppliers to get by without a crisis.

Deregulation allowed PG&E to sell off all of its old worn out and defective generation facilities to out of state power co's. Natural gas suppliers who I believe suffered a major Y2K hit had contracts to supply gas for power generation, 50% of our power. PG&E got rid o its generation equipment that was a liability but the politicians stuck it with responsibility for supplying affordable power.

Power generators and gas suppliers need to raise capitol to pay for acquisitions and to rebuild their infrastructure, new power plants, new wells & pipe lines. PG&E is paying for trying to duck out on its responsibility for not having updated any of the generation equipment it sold. The politicians are trying to save their asses from ignoring Y2K and their bizarre form of deregulation.

Remember all these have a board of directors and stockholders and legions of lawyers for and against. The politicians have disgruntled voters. Everyone is blaming everyone else.

Why do we all of a sudden need all this new infrastructure? Did it all fall apart at once, everything was fine Dec. 99.

Just like the big batch systems that went haywire but the problems didn't surface for nine months. I think something similar happened to oil, gas and electricity but we will never know.

No one will be able to prove whether it was Y2K or not and no one will be sued for negligence or breach of contract. Instead they all blame everyone else and then pass the buck to us.

Last night as I started writing this the news said that a Tosco refinery had another explosion, this time in Southern CA. This refinery produced 7% of the gasoline used in CA. Today we went to a stage 2 power alert, two generating plants in Southern CA "unexpectedly" wentoff line.

Stephen Rodier Santa Rosa Rolling blackout block # 6

End of post by Stephen Rodier from dc-y2k-WRP

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), April 26, 2001

Answers

Here is a previous posting of mine that addresses some of the questions raised regarding what officials know about the possible sources of current problems.

Posting to GICC http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl? msg_id=004T3M ..The following is a 1/26/2001 cross-posting of mine posted at http://pub5.ezboard.com/fyourdontimebomb2000.showMessage? topicID=21122.topic&index=55

It is addressed to "Senses On" who had written the following:

"One thing is for sure, no one in “authority” will *ever* use the term Y2K in explaining difficulties."

What you say may well prove true over time. But I think that you and I probably differ concerning the reasons why this might or might not turn out to be the case.

Earlier today I had an e-mail exchange concerning what the highest level officials in the Executive Branch understood (or currently understand) about Y2K-related embedded systems and complex embedded systems problems.

I was saying in that e-mail exchange that in my view the highest level officials did not understand the nature and scope of these problems. The other person involved in this discussion took issue saying that they were certain that these officials had the necessary intelligence to understand the technical issues and their implications. They thought that the failure of top level officials to address these problems had to do with "a lack of motivation to put the picture together for the common good of all."

The following is based on my response:

I know full well that it is difficult to believe that those in the highest roles of public responsibility failed to understand the technical issues involved with Y2K-related embedded systems and complex integrated systems problems. There were moments in the last two months of 1999 when it seemed that Mr. Koskinen had begun to gain a deeper understanding of embedded systems-related concerns. What he learned, however, did not seem to have sticking power and he abandoned his new understanding in the first days after the rollover. By March 2000 (as per his statements in the Q&A piece on my website), he referred to the "fabled" existence of such problems.

Note: The Questions & Answers piece includes Mr. Koskinen's responses to many questions that I posed to him in March of 2000. The piece includes an extensive set of appendices and can be found at http://www.gwu.edu/~y2k/keypeople/gordon

Mr. Koskinen's views and change in views are also chronicled in the transcripts of the press conferences held just before and during the first week following the rollover. They have been archived at http://www.y2k.gov

Some very intelligent persons have not understood the nature and scope of Y2K-related embedded systems and complex integrated systems problems. One can have a genius IQ and still not have a rudimentary understanding of highly technical subject areas. Even individuals who have extensive technical training and professional experience in a technical field may reach different conclusions about the same issues and challenges. When it comes to Y2K-related embedded systems and complex integrated systems problems, I have found that differences in perspective can even be found amongst software engineers and others with embedded systems expertise. The basis for such differences can often be identified. For instance, the understanding of those whose specialty is in aeronautical engineering can be quite different from those whose area of specialty is oil refineries or gas or oil pipelines.

An emphasis on specialization has left society with few generalists and few who have broad ranging expertise that spans a range of sectors. Few specialists seem to be inclined or equipped to try to see the larger picture that includes many different sectors.

It is not surprising that any individual whose major training has been in law or business management or both, who does not have a technical background that includes expertise in engineering or a specialty in embedded systems and complex integrated systems would fail to comprehend the nature and scope of these problems. It is not surprising that a person who lacked a technical background would have difficulty in acquiring a working understanding of such a complicated subject in a short period of time especially if there were confusion over whose expertise to trust.

There is abundant evidence from the historical record that those in positions of greatest responsibility in the Federal government did not (and do not) comprehend the nature and scope of Y2K-related embedded systems and complex integrated systems problems. The Department of Energy, for instance, did not have and does not to my knowledge have even one person on staff who has embedded expertise AND who made or is able to make the connection between refinery problems that have become evident since the rollover. Incredible to be sure if only in light of the 1999 report and predictions of the International Energy Administration and the IEE's case studies prior to the rollover. This situation is the same in almost every Executive Branch agency and entity that I know of.

The failure of top Federal policymakers in the Executive Branch to comprehend the importance of Y2K-related embedded system and complex integrated systems problem seems to me to be owing to a complex of factors. These seem to me to include a lack of technical background and a lack of interest and motivation and the absence of a perceived mandate to focus more fully on these problems. There have certainly been disincentives for those few who do have some understanding of the problems to come forward or to act on their understanding. But the larger problem is that those at the top never understood the most daunting aspects of the problem.

My perspective concerning what key Executive Branch officials knew and what they know is based on the public record and on what I have been able to glean from the exchanges that I had with them and/or with those who consulted with them and those who worked in their offices.

I believe that we have reached a point in our history when technology has succeeded in "snookering" us. We have reached a point in our history when those in key roles of responsibility need to comprehend as fully as possible the technical aspects of the threats and challenges that we face. They need to know when it is necessary to call upon and rely on individuals with technical expertise. They need to be able to incorporate such technical understanding in the policies they evolve and implement.

A lesson of the Challenger Disaster is that it is possible for those at the top (in that case, NASA) to fail to know about the importance of certain technical aspects of a situation. In the case of the Challenger, those at the top did not even know that there were engineers from Morton Thiokol urging a delay of the launch owing to weather conditions and the effect that low temperatures would be apt to have on the O-rings. (Irving Janis' book Groupthink also includes a discussion of what went wrong in the group decisionmaking process that resulted in the Challenger disaster. There may also be something on MSNBC's website on the Challenger Disaster owing to a program aired on 1-25-2001.)

I don't blame anyone for being skeptical concerning the validity of my reading of embedded systems and related challenges. It is asking alot for people to believe that decisions about highly complex national and global challenges were made by people who did not place adequate reliance on the technical expertise of those who understood the technical aspects of the challenges and the threats.

I have long had a fascination with major debacles, fiascoes, and catastrophes that affect or threaten to affect the public. It seems to me that the approach that the Federal government has taken to Y2K- related embedded systems and complex integrated systems problems has been tantamount to public policy Russian Roulette. They never fully knew, nor do they seem to have any inkling now, of the role that Y2K- related embedded systems and complex integrated systems problems had and are having in any of a number of sectors, including most notably the energy sector. Most of those remaining in positions of Executive Branch responsibility have no basis for even raising basic questions. They believe as the media appears to believe that problem is over. Neither they or the media fully understood the problem. If the complexity of the problem could be explained in sound bites, there might be a chance of raising the level of understanding concerning the problems that we are seeing. However, because of the mind boggling dimensions of the subject, sound bites will not work. The truth in this case strains credulity. It may be that most people will have neither the patience not the interest to wade through longer explanations, explanations that they are disinclined to believe in the first place. Perhaps someone will eventually be successful in figuring out a way to simplify the explanations. Perhaps, eventually, some of those in the highest roles of public responsibility will have their eyes opened by such explanations.

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), January 30, 2001.

End of previous posting

-- Paula Gordon (pgordon@erols.com), April 26, 2001.

"Why do we all of a sudden need all this new infrastructure? Did it all fall apart at once, everything was fine Dec. 99. "

hmm, i wonder if that is true? seems a tad of an overgeneralization.

-- david moore (davidmoore01@excccite.com), May 05, 2001.