(taking Robert Cook's advice (despite his cookie fetish!), and saying where I'm at...good idea methinks)

The NERC report sounded "cautiously optimistic", huh. And I want to believe it, and mostly do. BUT...the nuclear power plant issue still is a fly in the ointment.

NERC said in yesterday's report, "Nuclear generating facilities are expected to be available to supply their share of energy needs and all their safety systems are expected to be fully ready for Y2K."

That echoes what Hugh Thompson, a deputy director of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said during during Dr. Ed Yardeni's Y2k Action Day Conference on August 19. (http://www.yardeni.com/y2kconf1.html)

But...(BIG but...)...NERC also said yesterday, "Availability of voice and data communications, not the loss of electrical facilities, is expected to be the greatest operating challenge."

That echoes what Federal Communications Commission Commissioner Michael Powell said during the same Yardeni conference on August 19th. Mr. Powell voiced specific concerns over rural telephone carriers in particular, and their ability to provide service after 1-1-2000.

Well lookie here -- most nuclear power plants are located in -- woops -- rural locations. Later in that same Yardeni conference, Gary Beach, publisher of CIO Magazine, and a member of the Board of Advisors at www.y2ktoday.com, noted that by law, if any nuclear power plant goes without telephone service for more than 3 hours, it must shut down. Emergency services calls and all that. Stands to reason. Connect the dots.....

Why haven't the 'powers that be' addressed this issue directly???

-- John Howard, Greenville, NC (pcdir@prodigy.net), September 18, 1998

Answers

let's try that www.y2ktoday.com link again...

-- John Howard (pcdir@prodigy.net), September 18, 1998.

Also, did you notice in the report that inventory/assessment/remediation/testing were all charted for their progress in fossil fuel plants, telecommunications, energy distribution, etc. BUT NOT FOR NUCLEAR POWER. In the nuclear category, ONLY inventory/assessment were reported. There was a very short explanation about this:

"Relatively few digital components have been identified as having Year 2000 deficiencies. Those that are found are quickly remediated. At each facility there are a few components that are challenging to test or require extensive and costly remediation programs. Thus, a small percentage of the items drive most of the effort."

So why didn't they just report a percentage complete on remediation/testing like every other category in the document? Well, if you look, assessment is only at 40% overall in nuclear plants, that's why. You can't fix what you haven't assessed.

-- James Chancellor (publicworks1@bluebonnet.net), September 18, 1998.

I think everyone should indeed be antsy, with the nuclear plants just one part of the worries. Look, it is today September 18, 1998. If it were 1994, I would consider the NERC report to be encouraging; given today's date, I consider it to be the most official announcement ("reading between the lines") of how the electric utilities will not be ready. Did anyone else notice the reference to even the GPS rollover problem even potentially affecting power grids? Thats in August 1999, folks!

-- Joe (shar@pei.com), September 18, 1998.

I am withholding comments on nukes temporarily, but will address the distribution network (electrons are the same once they leave the generators).

Only fundamental thing I see positive about this report that it was written at all.

They (the industry) are not remotely close to being finished (arguably, not even out of analysis phase yet) , but at least they (the power companies and distribution utilites) are aknowledging they have a problem, and "currrent" efforts aren't magically going to fix it.

As more "fixes" get into testing, they (collectively) will find more problems they never expected (happens in every case study I've ever read about this problem), then they (collectively) will begin panicking at the "corporate" level.

Then we will start seeing the underlaying attitudes start changing.

It's more than I see governments, at any level in the US, doing.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), September 18, 1998.

I have to agree with Robert about the Fed. Gov. They're the ones who requested the NERC reporting and member coordination. Thinking about this, I just checked the latest report card from Rep. Stephen Horn. The DOE got an "F"

-- Mike (gaartner@execpc.com), September 18, 1998.

Great points, all you guys. That's what I like about the interaction in this forum -- dealing with folks who are 'smarter than the average bear' (and this ain't gonna be no pickanick)

-- John Howard, Greentown (pcdir@prodigy.net), September 18, 1998.

Having worked in power production thru the coal mines (a much closer working relationship with power plants than you might think, esp. if you are in quality control) I worry most about two component sets. The first is the Allen-Bradley PLC5. This little gadget is just about everywhere. If you see a metal box on a pole near a traffic light its even money it has an Allen-Bradley in it. If you see a box near a railroad crossing it probably has an Allen-Bradley. If these things all quit at once, you could kiss American infrastructure goodbye. The same thing goes for Opto20 brain boards. I have programmed these things, and they are all over in all kinds of motor controls and special one-off equipment designs. I don't know if the Opto20 or the Allen-Bradley have Y2K problems, but I must admit I am almost afraid to find out. They both certainly have real time clocks.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), September 19, 1998.

Paul:

You're right about the A-B PLC 5. My company does product handling (beverage, paper products, small automotive, etc.) We used those things everywhere in system controls. I think they're using a PLC 500 now instead, but I don't know for sure. I asked one of our Controls Engineers a week or so ago about Y2K compliance in controllers, and he said he hadn't heard anything from their suppliers. He seemed pretty unconcerned... He did tell me that everything they requisition from vendors is spec'd out as Y2K compliant. I guess they are just relying on the vendor to give them something that will work in the next century.

-- Mike (gartner@execpc.com), September 19, 1998.

For Allen Bradley PLCs, there was someting on the EUY2K website a few weeks back. It's the old "good news/bad news" thing. AB tested its products and found that 2/3s of its product line is compliant, The other third is bad news. But there was no identification of which two models are good and what model is the bad one. Maybe on the AB website?

-- Vern Moore (vtmldm@epix.net), September 19, 1998.

http://www.ragts.com/webstuff/y2k.nsf/Pages/Brands-Allen-Bradley-Programmable+Logic+Controllers+(PLC)?OpenDocument

http://www.opto22.com/reference/product/year2000.htm

-- anon (anon@nospam.com), September 21, 1998.

I just checked out that Rockwell Automation site. It looks just like the hard copy list I got from our top Controls Engineer today. I was asking him about the PLCs. He said none of our stuff calls any of the calendar functions, so there should be no problem. He did say that some PLCs use this function to keep track of events during processing, which are uploaded to a central computer at the end of a shift. This could cause a problem if the unit were powered down at the end of Feb. and brought up later. This is what they say about the PLC-5's:

"Note: The processors pass all the tests except leap year in powered down mode. The processor, if set to 2/28/2000 and powered down through the date change, will power up with 3/1/2000. The processor, if set to 2/29/2000 and powered down through the date change, will power up with 3/0/2000. If the power remains ON through the date change, the correct leap day is displayed. This is not unique to the Year 2000. Expanded tests shows the same results for 1988, 1992, and 1996. The important thing to remember is that this does not stop the processor from running unless the application code relies on the date for execution. There will be no fix for these processors."

I had to chuckle, wondering how many times the leap year thing had screwed something up.

-- Mike (gartner@execpc.com), September 21, 1998.