Mayor Rudolph Giuliani accused Con Ed of not being prepared.

"We're in an age of high technology. We're a city that has predictably high usage of electricity in warm weather. I mean everybody can figure that out, right?" the frustrated mayor said.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/ap/ap_us/story.html?s=v/ap/19990707/us/heat_wave_15.html

i wonder what he will have to say in january?

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999

Answers

I thought exactly the same thing. Think this will get the mayor's office to pay more attention to Y2K? What are the odds...

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999

Umm...it does make you wonder doesn't it Rudy? I mean these guys are the "masters of the grid" they oughta be able to anticipate some hot weather right? Hmmm..or maybe the systems are tightly bound after all. Maybe, just maybe things aren't as simple as we previously thought here.

I think old Rudy knows that things are gonna get pretty hairy in the apple this new years. I wouldn't be caught there for all the nuclear secrets in china!

But on the good news front, at least there will be a little less demand on the system as the Post reported today that Broadway will close completely. No shows, no bright lights, big city for New Years Eve. Traditionally a night that draws 600k theatre goers.

Oh well more juice to go around!

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999

I think Giuliani is totally aware of the Y2k situation and is doing everything he can to have contingency plans ready. I have seen a number of acticle stating this, though none were very optimistic. They have a really big nut (or apple) to crack there. If the mayor cancels the Times Square ball dropping event, due to concerns about Y2k related power outages, then we will know exactly how serious they are taking this. (I added that last part in order to try to squeak thru on-topic):-)

-- Anonymous, July 07, 1999

Gordon:

"Giuliani is totally aware of the Y2k situation and is doing everything he can..."???

How about having "everything" include alerting the people in a forceful enough manner that they hear it through the noise so they can make their own contingency plans?

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

NYC announced that its own agency's mission critical systems are only 69 percent ready. This is not a good number.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

The load in January will not be anywhere near the load in the Summer. Summer loads, due to AC, are much much higher then Winter loads. You can't compare apples and oranges.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

Engineer:

Well, that is true in most of the US, it is not true in Alberta, Canada. The loads in Alberta peak in January, due to heating loads. Very few (relative to the US) up here bother having AC in their houses.

Fortunately, Alberta's main power provider, TransAlta, is done their critical stuff, and we have no nukes in the province.

Jon

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

Within these circumstances, comparing apples to oranges is unfortunately most valid, Engineer.

The peak-load demands of AC in a hot summer MERELY serves to demonstrate the extreme vulnerability of overall system.

What is the real difference between too much need (for) - AND - not enough dependable supply (of) electricity???

hello? perhaps this heat wave is a saving grace.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

Can anyone (please) explain why NY/NJ/etc had to experience loss of power - when it is a part of the one huge Grid that supposedly shares electricity over the entire Eastern part of the USA?

Isn't that the reason for the design? To distribute the excess electricity available... to other areas that need more?

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

It might help to think of the electric grid like a drinking water distribution network in a city. In the grid, there are many different pipe size diameters and pipe lengths, locations of water treatment plants, etc. Think of the water plant as a power generation plant. Think of the diameter of pipe sizes as diameters of wire. First of all, you would think that anyone connected to the water grid would have the same amount of water pressure available to them and the same amount of flow (gallons per minute) as well. This is not the case. The pipe sizes will only allow so much water through them and it makes a difference if you live near a big water user or near the water treatment plants. Sometimes, the fire department opens a fire hydrant and causes a pipe near it to start leaking. The electrical grid will protect itself against sudden attemts to get too much out of it at a singular point or region. Hope this helps. Overly simplistic, I know.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

Sally,

Well, perhaps what I should have said is that Giuliani is doing everything that "politics will allow." Is that a better way to phrase it? I don't see *any* politicians stepping up and telling the full truth. I had a Smith Barney sales person telling me that it would be no big deal just a few days ago, and asked me why the government wasn't making more serious anouncements if it was indeed so important? I told her it was the fear of bank runs and massive stock market selloffs. She just said Hmmmmm. She was either clueless or unethically hiding a lot of facts in order to keep her sales up. As far as NYC though, they *are* making extensive contingency plans for disruptions, including electric power, generator backups, and police reaction scenarios. Very much the same as DeeCee is doing. So that is why I say Giuliani is entirely aware of it all, including the fact that they are very far behind in many areas of remediation.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

I donno. I wonder what will happen to electricity demand in the winter if people had to shift to electric heat in the event that heating fuel was suddenly in short supply and had to be rationed...

In my apartment, for example, I don't have gas heat. I just use a li'l space heater. Just to keep things at a toasty 68F, it costs me twice what I pay in midsummer from AC and so on. And I live in central Virginia, where the summer heat index is pretty suffocating at times.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

I am not sure I buy the apples and oranges analogy either.

To steal a line from Dick Mills

If your Dancing too close to the rim .....Your Dancing too close to the rim !!

(http://y2ktimebomb.com/PP/RC/dm9833.htm)

Summer, winter, fall, or spring.

And with Y2K coming we need a lot of dancing room, lest we fall into this giant canyon.

As Giuliani said they should have been prepared for this heat-wave, but they continue to roll the dice since they have not much to loose and lot to save.

The utilities seem to take some mighty big chances, which the customers end up paying for, sometimes with their lives.

I think its about time they where taken to task by someone. And it needs to be much harsher than Giulianis' snide little remarks.

If people die during Y2K because of power problems I believe criminal investigations would be in order.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 1999

Stand by William, I have a feeling you are about to get "educated" by a couple of our resident expert posters. I can't imagine they will let your comments stand unchallenged.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 1999

Ill give it a shot.

1) Jon, yes you are correct. Loads in Alberta, BC, and the Pacific Northwest in the US are larger in Winter then in Summer due to the heating load. You dont have nukes and you can import power where you are from both BC and the part of the states where they have a lot of Hydro. I also believe that a lot of the newer places in Alberta have heating supplied by Natural Gas. Let me know if that is wrong.

2) Logician: No its not quite the same thing. The way I understand it the failure in New York was caused by cable failures. The cables supplying the power run under the streets and are (mineral) oil filled. When they repaired the cables and reenergized them one failed again and started a fire. The oil is not as flammable as the petroleum based oil you put in your car but it will burn very well when it gets started. In order to prevent the fire from getting out of control they shut down all the power in all the cables in the area.

This is more akin to the problem they had in New Zealand a year or so ago. The prediction for this New Years Eve is excess generation over load of anywhere from 25 to 50%. One problem is confusing the physical problems of a system with the theoretical computer problems. No one is saying that if there is another ice storm in New England or Virginia like they had in the past couple of years that there wont be any problems. But that is a far cry from having generation go below load due to Y2K.

3) All of the lines have impedance (resistance to AC current). There is no way a plant in Florida for example can supply power to a load in Maine. Just because the grid is all interconnected doesnt mean you can start a generator in Alabama and keep New York City lit up if all the power plants around it were down. The total impedances in the lines and transformers between the two points would kill you. The problem is also, as James has said of the grid self protecting itself from overload.

4) William I think you are confusing problems due to reality with what ifs. The East does have problems with a lack of generation reserve (Summer loads) and with transmission capacity. Especially in the New York area. That is quite different from Y2K what ifs that no one can quite put a finger on. I have to somewhat disagree with Dick Mills. The point wasnt only that the models werent quiet accurate but once you get past single or double contingencies it gets iffy to predict what will happen . The blackout that he refers to in the Western US for example was not caused by a tree branch but by 1) a line sagging into a tree 2) a relay operation on another line 3) a relay failure on a parallel line 4) the internee lines between the Pacific Northwest and California being loaded to the maximum at the same time.

http://www.wscc.com/distnews.htm

Try the above link for more information.

Y2K, shorn of all the mysticism, is actually a lot simpler.

-- Anonymous, July 09, 1999

engineer, i am very interested in reading your source document... the one that contributes the nyc blackouts to cable failures.

i am entertaining considerable difficulty in swallowing that information. why? 'uptown' in washington heights on wednesday... and then miraculously, the same problem 'downtown' in the east village on thursday?

nyc evolved from downtown to uptown over a long period of time. how the hell can the reason you cited be applicable? if you are attempting to assert that these two problems are somehow connected by failure to cables... i am not buying it.

this from engineer in response to logician: 2) Logician: No its not quite the same thing. The way I understand it the failure in New York was caused by cable failures. The cables supplying the power run under the streets and are (mineral) oil filled When they repaired the cables and reenergized them one failed again and started a fire. The oil is not as flammable as the petroleum based oil you put in your car but it will burn very well when it gets started. In order to prevent the fire from getting out of control they shut down all the power in all the cables in the area.

_never in human history have so many humans blindly trusted that so many other humans won't screw up._ dr ed yardeni

-- Anonymous, July 09, 1999