I attended Rick Cowles' presentation Friday evening, with about 60 or so other people, at a church in Arnold, MD. I suspect that there will be a good write-up in Cory Hamasaki's next D.C. Weather Report, since Cory was there and taking lots of notes.

A lot of what Rick covered is what is already on his Electric Utilities & Y2K website, http://www.euy2k.com, so I thought that I would just share what seemed to be to be New Things that I had not been aware was real common knowledge. NOTE: What follows is my impression, and I apologize for any omissions, mis-interpretations, etc., in advance. I am sure that Cory's treatment will do a better job of covering this, assuming he does a write-up.


Three Mile Island Lessons Learned

Again and again, Rick pointed out that the way that Y2K news and info is being disseminated to John Q. Public today is following the same kind of way that Three Mile Island news was handled by the industry, by the Government, and by the news media. A lot of it tends to be unreliable because it starts out as guesstimations at low worker bee levels, rises up after considerable filtering and second guessing, then branches out from there for yet more filtering and second guessing. For example, recent NERC reports tend to paint a pretty optimistic picture, yet this coming week a Senate report will state that you can expect to have power disruptions. John Q. is going to have a tough time knowing who to believe.

Rick was especially critical of the news media, hesitating at this point to even take calls from reporters anymore. He feels that they just want to get a one-liner from him so that they can represent "the other side" in an otherwise highly optimistic Y2K news story. He noted that a few days in advance of the release of the most recent NERC report, he went through the same data presented in the report, and composed a list of questions that he felt should be asked, and disseminated these questions to reporters. Needless to say, the questions never got asked. "Investigative reporting" isn't. (He did note the one and only one exception to this that has appeared in the mainstream press: the Y2K article that appeared in the January issue of Vanity Fair, which he said was well researched, and written over a couple of months.)

Y2K Plus Other Stuff is the Problem

Its not just Y2K that looms over our heads, its Y2K plus a number of other things that either will be independent events in their own rights, or have already set things up so that the reliability of being able to get clean electric power is in a fragile, weakened state.

Two events that are coming close to the same time as the righteous Year 2000 computer problem: GPS rollover in August of this year; and the "Solar Cycle 23" cosmic event that will occur early next, which is expected to play havoc with the power grid.

Events that are much more subtle, and have basically occured over a period of years within the Electric Power Industry, are the result of judicial, government, and business management decisions: De-regulation, Competition, and Re-structuring/Unbundling. The bottom line is that the industry has (like everyone else) managed to lay off all the older (higher salaried) employees that knew how to fall back to manual procedures in operating a power plant (or, for that matter, just knew how things really work). This is knowledge that cannot be replaced; going back to The Way We Were is not an option.

Embedded Controllers / Embedded Chips

The industry is heavily relying on a lot of "type testing" to determine where their embedded systems problems lie -- i.e., testing a particular component and then, on the basis of whether it is or is not Y2K compliant, conculding that all other such "identical" components are or are not. This is Wrong, Wrong, Wrong -- one has to test all of them, since "identical" components may be composed of non-identical micro-chips.

In practice, Rick has only encountered one single chip, per se, that would fail due to a Y2K problem. However, there are numerous sets of chips working together at the level of an embedded controller, that will fail if not found and fixed. Again, its a matter of "finding and fixing", and the utilities are at various stages in their progress.

Nuclear Worries

The recent event at the Penn "Peach Bottom" Unit nuclear power plant, where both secondary and primary safety monitoring systems locked up during Y2K testing (read all about it at www.euy2k.com), should serve as a big Wake Up Call. Heretofore, the Nuclear industry has assured everyone that Y2K was not an issue in terms of their safety shutdown procedures (not to be confused with day-to-day power generation, of course), yet we seemingly have a very sobering counter-example to this claim. Further, according to Rick, only a couple of days afterward, the Nuclear Industry was still going on record as claiming that Y2K was not a safety shutdown issue, as if the Peachbottom Incident had never happened! (Think: Three Mile Island Lessons Learned.)

So, Will The Lights Stay On or What?

OK, basically assuming that other things remain functional (e.g., telecommunications, which Rick confirms that the Electric Industry relies on heavily), Rick believes that there will indeed be short term power disruptions. The State of Texas, which besides having its "own" power grid, is also a model for the rest of the industry in terms of its aggressive Y2K remediation, presumably would be in the best of shape. In the case of outages anywhere, he is betting that cities will get power back sooner than rural areas. Now, understand that this might be limited power -- half of a city for 12 hours, the other half for the next 12 hours, that kind of scenario. Further, the power might be "dirty", and cause problems with devices burning out after time, etc.

Rick does not see this all starting with a bang at midnight on 1/1/2000. He believes that there is enough fault tolerance built in to the power generation systems that problems will be initially absorbed, and to an extent, perhaps even hidden from plant operator. But, as per complex systems theory, there will come a point -- by mid January, say -- when the unmistakable problems will surface. Rick expects -- again, under the premise that all else remains constant and functional, such as telecommunications -- for blackouts, "dirty" power, and the like to persist for about a year.


Thats my report. I'll post my own comments later.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 01, 1999

Answers

JACK'S COMMENTS

During General Questions, someone from the audience asked Rick about the possiblity of social unrest, since a city without juice for an extended period does sort of seem a bit unsettling. Rick stated that he wanted to only stick to the technical issues, since he did not feel qualified to talk in other areas, including telecommunications, banking, food supply, etc. At the same time, he offered what I think is probably the best "Y2K model" that I have ever heard -- consider Y2K to be a multi-faceted three-dimensional diamond, with so many faces that support each other. Some are obvious (where faces connect), others not so obvious, but all are needed to make up the diamond.

The point that I wanted to make here is that you can walk away from Rick's presentation and think, "Yeah, it will be rough for about a year, but we will muddle through it". Or, you can think about all those other faces on the diamond that will have their own serious problems at the same time and say, "Like a snowball's chance in Hell are we going to 'muddle through' this!"

And I noted that, by confining himself solely to the electric power issues of Y2K (i.e., one face of the diamond), I think that it is a fair statement that Rick's presentation cannot help but be an optimistic one (even though he is considered pessimistic about Y2K!). Note, however, if Rick had ventured into other areas that are outside of his established expertise, he would have now opened himself up to criticism that he is talking about things that he does not know anything about. (Like a lot of the criticism that is leveled at Gary North, or even Ed Yourdon for that matter.) Call it Y2K Catch-22.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 01, 1999.

Jack,

Thank you for an excellent and objective report that I would otherwise have had to do without. I found it enlightening in some aspects and confirmatory in others.

As to your comments, I found them to be equally valuable and quite insightful. And, I have to agree with what seems to be your perspective on considering all the facets of Rick's "diamond". Consideration of only a single one, (no matter which one) seems to me to be shortsighted to say the least.

While you pointed out that Rick's reluctance to discuss areas outside his own expertise was quite wise in terms of protecting him from critics, there is another aspect that I would like to add.

I absolutely do not trust someone who tells me that he has all the answers. Someone who says, "I don't know" is someone who is honest, in my book, and I tend to trust what they do say far more than I otherwise would. Rick Cowles has always come across to me as a trustworthy man, and his position here confirms that trust for me.

-- Hardliner (searcher@internet.com), March 01, 1999.

Thanks for the recap.

Any link to the "Peach Bottom" story? I think I missed that one.

-- Steve Hartsman (hartsman@ticon.net), March 01, 1999.

Jack - Thanks heaps for the report. From following the EUY forum, it has been my feeling that next year will feature periodic brownouts, rolling blackouts, dirty power, etc., and that the industry spin will spin this level of service as equivalent to the grid being "up". However, it could greatly contribute to the scenario (Yourdon and others?) that life post-2000 is like a third world country where nothing works very well. Consider that there is still electricity for the most part, but there is the added expense of replacing equipment damaged by the power disruptions. So maybe, personally, you didn't need to prepare for the 3-day or 3-month "storm", but life becomes a whole lot more expensive and obnoxious. (Paying FedEx rates because USPS is too unreliable; blowing tires because potholes aren't filled soon enough; settling for Reeboks at inflated prices cuz your favorite brand Nike isn't available this month...)

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), March 01, 1999.

Jack,

Thanks for providing your impression. Sounds like good news for Texans. I gather that he gave no overall impression for the D.C. metro area. Were no questions asked in regard to this?

Off topic somewhat. Did you get to meet any fellow forum members? I was really disappointed at being unable to attend -- due to unexpected car troubles. I was wondering if anyone from the forum managed to attend and sure enough you did and have reported back well.

My husband and I are off tonight to the Evening Panel Program at the Washington Post where Paula Gordon, Visiting Research Professor and Director of Special Projects, Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning (RPSOL), George Washington Uniersity, author of a White Paper on Y2K. There was an RSVP via email offered which I responded to last week, but never received a reply. I 'phoned this morning to check on attendance status. I really didn't want to take the trouble of getting there and possibly being turned away at the door. I spoke to a very nice person at George Washington University who assured me that they had not received a huge response and that he felt sure that we would have no problem in attending. Wouldn't it be a riot if my husband and I were the only 'John Q. Public' in attendance.

Thanks again for the report.

-- Suburb (an@metroarea.com), March 01, 1999.

Steve- Here is a hot link to the Peachbottom article as it appears on Rick Cowles' website: EUY2K Newsroom

Suburb- I was the only Yourdonite there. (Fortunately, I had the good sense to put my strip of duct tape over my company employee badge holder, so it looked to the casual observer like a wider than normal magnetic strip. At least, that is what I hoped it looked like.) Rick thought that D.C. would be one of the first places to get the juice back, because of All Those Important People In Capitol Hill.

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), March 01, 1999.

When referring to dirty power or brownouts and the damage it can cause, keep in mind that homeowners insurance will probably not cover the damage. Farm Bureau sent us a notice informing us they would not be liable for anything Y2k related.

How does one tell if the power is dirty. Is there a meter or gauge or something that can be bought?

We watched Three Mile Isle, the Meltdown recently. It is a documentary that you could probably find in your library. Filmed 20 years later with footage of the event and currant commentary from those involved at that time. It is a frightening story, not only about the meltdown but the cover up of the events as they were happening.

There is a striking resemblence between Three Mile Isle and Y2k disinformation.

-- Linda A. (adahi@muhlon.com), March 01, 1999.

Thanks Jack; Best thread I have followed in a week. I'll keep an eye out from now on for anything else you may post.

-- Jim P.E. (outstrip@hotmail.com), March 01, 1999.