January 2001 - Test - lists.nanog.org

RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by Roeland Meyer 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

> From: Kavi, Prabhu [mailto:prabhu_kavi@tenornetworks.com] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 2:25 PM > To: 'Sean Donelan'; nanog(a)merit.edu > Subject: RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts > > From: Sean Donelan [mailto:sean@donelan.com] > > > The US and Canada are still divided into essentially three > electrical > > grids: East, West and Texas. Texas choose not to join the national > > grids because they objected to some policies of the Federal Energy > > Regulatory Commission. > > And since some Texans think they live in a separate country, > this makes sense. > > Prabhu (who once spent a lot of time in Texas) Texas *is* a separate country... Roeland (who spent a lifetime, in TX, one year)

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RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by Kavi, Prabhu 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

> -----Original Message----- > From: Sean Donelan [mailto:sean@donelan.com] > The US and Canada are still divided into essentially three electrical > grids: East, West and Texas. Texas choose not to join the national > grids because they objected to some policies of the Federal Energy > Regulatory Commission. And since some Texans think they live in a separate country, this makes sense. Prabhu (who once spent a lot of time in Texas) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Prabhu Kavi Phone: 1-978-264-4900 x125 Director, Adv. Prod. Planning Fax: 1-978-264-0671 Tenor Networks Email: prabhu_kavi(a)tenornetworks.com 100 Nagog Park WWW: www.tenornetworks.com Acton, MA 01720

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RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by mdevney＠teamsphere.com 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote: > > What's wrong with this picture? I see the generators, holding a shotgun at > PG&E's neck, and telling the state that they'll pull the triggers if the > state doesn't come up with the dough. They're not even wearing a mask! Yet, > no one is seeing anything wrong with this and they're acting like it's > PG&E's fault. > Also note that: Half of these generators used to be owned and operated by PG&E; they were spun off quickly after deregulation in an effort to boost profits. Had I been out of diapers at the time, I would have seen this day coming back then. Root cause, then: PG&E can't get us electricity because they decided profit was more important than assured service. As usual, I blame capitalism. (Yes I am a pinko.) Matthew Devney Teamsphere Interactive

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Re: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by Steven M. Bellovin 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

In message <9DC8BBAD4FF100408FC7D18D1F092286039B05(a)condor.mhsc.com>, Roeland Me yer writes: > >The "gamble", as you put it, was changed significantly when deregulation >moved the goal-posts. It was dependent on the utilities retaining control of >generator costs. The de-regulators were supposed to cover that scenario. >They didn't. If an indivudual tried this, with another individual, they call >it extortion and the individual in queston would be rotting in jail. The >salient fact is that the generators are threatening to bankrupt PG&E unless >the state pays the extortion amount, by midnight. > >Does anyone have a clue what would happen if the state doesn't pay? Would >the state have to step in and start operating PG&E? IMHO, if this isn't >corrected, todays rolling blackouts will be trivial, compared to a total >PG&E collapse of services. If PG&E files for bankruptcy, control of the company passes to a federal judge. If you subscribe to the NY Times site, see http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/national/18ENER.html Here's the first paragraph: LOS ANGELES, Jan. 17 - Politicians and power company executives have bickered for months about how best to solve California's energy problems, but ultimately it may come down to this: a bankruptcy court judge may be the only person with the authority to ask for the rate increases and cost cuts that a growing chorus of analysts say are necessary, but that nobody in the state has been able to agree upon. --Steve Bellovin, http://www.research.att.com/~smb

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RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by Richard A. Steenbergen 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

On Thu, Jan 18, 2001 at 02:11:35PM -0500, Miles Fidelman wrote: > > On Thu, 18 Jan 2001, Roeland Meyer wrote: > > > What's wrong with this picture? I see the generators, holding a shotgun at > > PG&E's neck, and telling the state that they'll pull the triggers if the > > state doesn't come up with the dough. They're not even wearing a mask! Yet, > > no one is seeing anything wrong with this and they're acting like it's > > PG&E's fault. > > Is the situation any different in the LA area, where Los Angelas Water > and Power is city-owned, and they own a big chunk of their own hydro > capacity (or were they forced to divest that)> The city of LA DWP currently has extra power and is selling their reserves to the rest of the state. -- Richard A Steenbergen <ras(a)e-gerbil.net> http://www.e-gerbil.net/humble PGP Key ID: 0x138EA177 (67 29 D7 BC E8 18 3E DA B2 46 B3 D8 14 36 FE B6)

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California controlled service interruptions suspended for now
by Sean Donelan 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

Cal-ISO has suspended the rolling blackouts, but may begin again around 4pm PST. The www.caiso.com web site served by Pacific Bell Internet Services has been very congested throughout the day. It has been difficult to reach, but I understand it has been up all the time. I can't reach it right now. PBI is reporting a few DSL problems (surprise!) but nothing out of the ordinary. So far it appears most of the Internet Service providers made it through this wave of rolling blackouts in California. I received only one report of some customer racks being affected at a hosting provider. Its not clear if it was related to the rolling blackouts, or due to an internal issue. Overall, the Internet operators seem to be doing a good job. The only FCC major outage reported was in Idlewood, Texas. A service technician accidently disconnected an OC-3 circuit carrying the SS7 control circuits, resulting in 43,000 customers being isolated for 42 minutes. There have been no FCC major outage reports due to the rolling blackouts in California.

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RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by Sean Donelan 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

On Thu, 18 January 2001, Eric Germann wrote: > The main issue, which may or may not still be one, is that the > East half of the US couldn't help because their gird is totally > separate and out of phase with the Western grid. The US and Canada are still divided into essentially three electrical grids: East, West and Texas. Texas choose not to join the national grids because they objected to some policies of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. You can find details about the national grids on the NERC web site. http://www.nerc.com/

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Power and Heat Analysis for Equipment
by Kevin Facinelli 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

The supplier of your equipment should be able to provide detailed information in this area. Here at Crystal Group (www.crystalpc.com) we rollup both power requirements and heat generation information for our rack mount computer systems. We can perform an analysis of a single piece of equipment containing diverse "cards/hard drive/processor" combinations as well as provide a complete roll up for an enclosure/rack of equipment. If anyone would be interested in seeing examples of the tools we utilize to perform this analysis please request via email. Thanks, Kevin Facinelli ksfacinelli(a)crystalpc.com www.crystalpc.com ===== Kevin Facinelli www.colosource.com webmaster(a)colosource.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/

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Second, make that Third day of rolling blackouts
by matthew＠tycho.net 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

CAISO has announced that today's Stage 3 emergency will be extended to 23:59 on January 19th, and that they expect load reduction programs, including involuntary load reduction (otherwise known as rolling blackouts) to take place tomorrow. -matthew kaufman Tycho Networks/DSL.net matthew(a)tycho.net

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RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts
by Roeland Meyer 18 Jan '01

18 Jan '01

The "gamble", as you put it, was changed significantly when deregulation moved the goal-posts. It was dependent on the utilities retaining control of generator costs. The de-regulators were supposed to cover that scenario. They didn't. If an indivudual tried this, with another individual, they call it extortion and the individual in queston would be rotting in jail. The salient fact is that the generators are threatening to bankrupt PG&E unless the state pays the extortion amount, by midnight. Does anyone have a clue what would happen if the state doesn't pay? Would the state have to step in and start operating PG&E? IMHO, if this isn't corrected, todays rolling blackouts will be trivial, compared to a total PG&E collapse of services. > -----Original Message----- > From: matthew(a)tycho.net [mailto:matthew@tycho.net] > Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 3:00 AM > To: Roeland Meyer; 'Sean Donelan'; nanog(a)merit.edu > Cc: matthew(a)admin.tycho.net > Subject: RE: Second day of rolling blackouts starts > > > > You're skipping the part where... > > > PG&E is prevented from passing on their cost by law. > Generator charges > > currently exceed allowed end-user rates by two orders of magnitude. > > is because PG&E made a deal with the legislature and the CPUC > in which they > accepted frozen consumer rates in trade for other concessions > that resulted > in large profits and other transition charges which have been > passed on to, > and are still in the pockets of, the parent holding company. > > at the time, the frozen rates were *above* their cost, and > they were betting > on a future cost structure that would result in huge profits > for them and > their parent. > > this, in my opinion, is no different from *any other* gamble > one makes in > business management. sometimes big bets pay off... and other > times, you're > so wrong that you're forced into bankruptcy. > > perhaps the state should step in and bail out Northpoint, who > bet on the > Verizon deal going through. or any number of other dot com > businesses that > gambled and lost. > > -matthew kaufman > Tycho Networks/DSL.net > matthew(a)tycho.net > >

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