Other threads have linked to the CNET news regarding the summary of the GAO's report on utilities. Although I can't yet get the full report (it's not available on the web yet), I have a few observations:

The summary said in part, "The agency pointed out that in response to a survey last November, the nation's electric power utilities said they were only 44 percent complete in testing and fixing their computers."

Dan says: I'm not criticizing the text of the report summary itself, I just note that the report is using OLD NEWS. The 44 percent number comes from the 49 page NERC report, "Preparing the Electric power systems of North America for Transition to the Year 2000," dated January 11, 1999. On page 13 of the NERC report, it states that the "Average percent complete 4th quarter 1998" is 44%. This means that AS OF NOVEMBER 30, 1998, the average utility was mostly done with inventory and assessment, and was 44% complete with testing and remediation. That is NEARLY 5 MONTHS AGO! And I think 5 months in Y2K work is like an eternity (remember, we didn't even start testing embedded systems until early 1998). And of course, the GAO summary didn't mention the other column in the same table on page 13: CURRENT PROJECTED AVERAGE COMPLETION DATE: JUNE, 1999. We've come a long way since last November. In the April 14, 1999 "Electric Utility Week," on page 16, Southern California Edison reports that "the program is 80% complete." My company is 85% complete.

What is my point here? CHILL AND WAIT FOR THE NEXT NERC REPORT DUE OUT SOON. If the average is still 44%, then I would be very concerned as well. The GAO summary is not the latest news, it is just the latest AVAILABLE news from the January NERC report.

I also reviewed the Army presentation document that has been referred to on other threads. The document appears to be focusing on contingency planning, which would be why it appears to be so negative...in order to write a contingency plan, you must assume failures, in anticipation of problems, even if you don't EXPECT problems. Some comments by slide number...slide 5: NERC was formed in 1968 "to prevent blackouts". Now, if NERC is in some kind of conspiracy to fool the public about Y2K, and a blackout occurs, that place will be swept clean...it is in NERC's interest to honestly assess readiness of power companies...the good, bad and the ugly. Slides 6 and 7: This is a good quote from the report....emphasize "MINIMAL IMPACT", and "The industry will still be able to provide reliable, sustained service in the Year 2000." Slide 9: This is a replica of the chart in the NERC report (except that the ordinate goes to 120%!). Again, this is based on old reports, so it's not really "The problem" that the slide notes. Slide 10: End to end tests really are suggested as a requirement to find out if a transmission system is Y2K ready. This is generally not true. The equipment does not pass date information back and forth, and the relays and controls at each end have their own separate clock, if they even have clock functions. Slide 17: Note the 2 characteristics cited as helping cause the Western Grid failure (NOT A BLACKOUT; to my knowledge the Western system has never completely collapsed). Anyway, both characteristics (high market competition or transactions and stressed transmission lines) WILL NOT BE PRESENT DURING THE ROLLOVER. Transactions will be minimized, and the west is typically lightly loaded in January. Slide 20: The quoted Gartner assessment is way off, in my opinion...we haven't found hardly any devices that fail, and the non-ready devices are known in the industry and are being remediated. Finally, Slide 23 says it's unlikely we'll know what will happen...again, I disagree. We've forwarded the clocks of thousands of devices and simulated operating conditions, and found next to nothing that has problems. The on-line tests of generators demonstrates our readiness.

And finally, to my fellow poster "A". You've called me a simpleton, a hot shot and recently an a**hole (I won't spell it just like you did). If you want to have meaningful dialogue with me, please do not resort to vulgarity. The most heated discussions I've had were with Robert Cook, and he's a decent enough guy to "keep it clean". I will continue to ignore you if you persist in this behavior.

No, I won't tell you which power company I work for. I find it curious that you request that I divulge personal information when you won't share any of yours...heck, you even use a bogus e-mail address (Mr. Yourdon doesn't like that, by the way). I've shared enough about my professional credentials, and these forums were designed for people to discuss their viewpoints without fear of being harassed. I offer here an "insider's view" about power and Y2K. You don't have to agree with anything I say, but I think I have something meaningful to share on this forum. I bet that if we met under different circumstances that we could have a beer and share a few laughs. So I offer PEACE to you, "A".

-- Dan the Power Man (dgman19938@aol.com), April 20, 1999

Answers

If I remember correctly, you've written that nothing vital has been found during Y2K remediation (i.e. no systems that would cause a shutdown.) So what is all the money being spent on, may I ask? Just checking out equipment? Replacing things that will just have bad-format dates on report output? Seems like a lot of money is being spent. Is your bottom line that if a plant had not spent any of that money (which might be the case for comparable plants in other parts of the world), that nothing would have happened anyway?

-- Michael Goodfellow (mgoodfel@best.com), April 20, 1999.

Hi Dan,

I always post using my real name, so that shouldn't be a problem for you, now, which power company do you work for? if you refuse to say, why in the world should I believe you know anything about the utilities industry?

just wonderin' Arlin Adams

-- Arlin H. Adams (ahadams@ix.netcom.com), April 20, 1999.

Dan,

Are you talking to me? If so, you still don't understand that my name is @ not A. I'll promise to treat you with respect if you promise to get my name right. Since you were the one who initially asked for my e-mail address, I have to wonder what you would need that for... if you know much at all about the internet you should know that that can be a very dangerous thing to do. Disclosing the name of your company on the other hand, could do you absolutely no harm unless you have been lying to us. All we want to do is see what your 10-Q statement says about Y2K readiness. Perhaps you have been sugar-coating the truth a bit Dan? Or maybe you really are an impostor? How much is NERC paying you to spread the kind of news you announce with absolutely nothing to back it up?

-- @ (@@@.@), April 20, 1999.

Dan,

The report is available in PDF format. You will need the Acrobat plug-in, which you can download from www.adobe.com. <:)=

GAO report

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 20, 1999.

Dan: That wasn't me (BTW, its a lowercase "a") that called you a simpleton and a hot shot, but I did call you the other name after you failed to answer my question about naming your power company for the sixth time (and Flint had me pretty riled up too...can I blame him, like everyone else here blames Clinton? J)

I wanted to hear the reason why someone who is so confident that their company was y2k ready, and used the quote "we have nothing to hide" would remain anonymous. You still didn't give me a reason. My reason, on the other hand, is that I have a negative opinion of my industry's response to y2k, and I could get into a lot of hot water for publicly saying so. You on the other hand, should be encouraged by your employer to share the good news, as many firms that have successfully met the y2k challenge are now doing. Until you do so, I will continue to downplay the significance of your claims.

My gut feeling is that NERC is cooking the books, but what do I know. I do know that their comms drill last week was a farce, and that the power industry, being a late starter, is far behind in y2k remediation, and that it does not plan to thoroughly test most embedded systems.

Because of all this, we are now relying on a wish and a prayer that power stays up and the whole of western civilization doesn't go to hell in a handbasket. Although I agree that the chances are small, something this important should not be handled by crafty statements wordsmithed by lawyers that sound rosy but actually reveal little.

My concern over the GAO report is justified. CNNfn jumped on it, as did other media outlets. Rick Cowles gave it a precursory review and said that it contains new data, not just the OLD NEWS you claim. I defer this issue to him, as he's the expert (I also realize he sells a y2k book and tape, so one must be careful with his assessment) But to say lets wait until July...6 months from the rollover, sorry Dan, but that's not very reassuring.

As for the beer, I wish we could all meet at a pub tomorrow, I'd buy. But I'd make Flint leave the tip...

-- a (a@a.a), April 20, 1999.

Dan,

I have no doubt that many systems will be fixed. The question is will _enough_ of them (domestic and worldwide) make it to avoid serious problems (something over a 4). As a longtime programmer (not in the power industry) my vote is a loud NO!

Why? Because even if _every_ bad chip is found and fixed (possible but very unlikely) you still have to get all your internal software up to speed. Without being able to bill customers, cut paychecks, or pay suppliers you're out of business. Period. Focusing on preventing rollover failures is great, but it's only a small part of what needs dealing with.

I've looked at the PSE&G 10-Q report to the SEC and in it they say that instead of remediating existing code they are replacing all of their major systems with SAP. Since SAP 'represents to be Y2K compliant', they claim, they will be too.

Now, just so you know, a medium to large SAP installation takes 2-3 years (that's right, years) to complete properly. SAP is extremely nice once it's all working, but getting there is a very rocky road that's historicaly been littered with abandonded projects that ran over schedule and/or budget (I think it was Atlanta that recently ditched a Y2K SAP install and is now scrambling to fix their old systems). PSE&G plans to replace ALL of their major systems (I believe there were seven) with their SAP equivalents in UNDER 18 MONTHS. It just ain't gonna happen.

So the question is, even if the power stays on January 1st, will it still be on April 1st?

-TECH32-

-- TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), April 20, 1999.

Dan

I, for one, am tired of your constant unsubstantiated postings.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), April 20, 1999.

Dan --- Just who did you say you are? I agree with fellow posters here. There is really no reason so far not to conclude you are a PR plant for the utils. As distinct from our resident pollys who actually have some credentials (Davis, Maria, Flint). And who do you work for?

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), April 20, 1999.

Dan,

As you are probably becoming aware, most of the people on this forum take Y2K pretty seriously, because we perceive it to be a potentially life-threatening situation. In other words, when you start making unsubstantiated claims, you had better be prepared to play hardball. Now you may think we are rude, insensitive, and paranoid, but every time we discover the truth about something which is presented by the media in a totally misleading fashion, it only makes us more so. I can certainly understand that perhaps some of the managers of utilities are under a great deal of pressure, and often they are not even sure themselves of what the hell is going to happen. But is it fair for them to sugar-coat the facts presented to the public, just so that they won't have to reveal themselves as vulnerable and imperfect humans? We are talking about survival issues here, and most people are willing to prepare for the worst, if only the media would quit lying to them.

-- @ (@@@.@), April 20, 1999.

@

Let me get this right.

The media slugs, which are always looking to dig up any dirt or find a sensationalistic story (of which they often use their own poetic license to exaggerate), the same media that pronounced Joe DiMaggio dead two months before he died, is in a concerted cover-up of Y2K.

Of course, you can prove this.

-- CJS (CJS@CJS.com), April 21, 1999.

CJS,

The media prints what it is told to print by the people with the money. This is a capitalistic system, remember?

-- @ (@@@.@), April 21, 1999.

Dan Have you ever had to fix complex circuit boards down to the component level. I have for many years. I worked on Gov R&D projects, Aerospace projects you name it. I have seen broken code in embedded systems. You will need to run your y2k complient components a min of 3 months on line, rolled over past jan 1 2000 to shake out the bad code problems. Bruce is right about the processors having secondary clocks that can cause problems. I have seen it. I call it hidden code that the vendors install into the firmware. They do it for propeitary reasons so they can retain an edge over there competitors. The problem with the hidden code in the processors is that vendors dont want to share that info with anyone so it makes t/s them very difficult. They have just downsized to much that the source knowledge is may be gone with the designers they canned. Anyhow alot of these components will have to be redesigned. Were running out of time. The question is not weather things will break,but how much can we salvage. Im not a doomer, I hope things will turn out O.K.,But I see us in for a dangerous rough patch ahead. The evidence that we are facing a serious challenge in the news daily. The military is positioning in kosovo and Iraq to take out the most serious challenge now as a warning to others, the G8 is prepared to use all the force necessary to maintain our way of life. They know y2k is going to tank our major infrastures in a big way and that it poses a clear and present danger to the national security of the G8 nations. This is why we are seeing a ramping up of the violence over there. The message is that they won't hesitate to get militarily nasty. This show of force is to remind the Russians and the Chinese that they never want to challenge the G8 or it would not be nice. I hope the war thing goes away and everone decides it's not fair to our children to play that game. But the reality is that there is a war over there, and if the power goes down and major systems tank from y2k were in for a rough ride. They (the government knows it) that is why they are positioning now. they don't know if governments will honor treaties if they see were having problems with the y2k. My prayer is that they will do everything in there power to keep world peace alive after the world wide blackout. God bless you dan I wish you the best. But please don't tell anyone not to prepare there families. It is better to prepare in whatever way you can and be pleasently surprised if it turns out to be better than we expect, than to not prepare and pose a tremendous burden on those who prepared with the limited resources they had. y2k aware mike. I will not put my real e-mail on here for good reason, y2k is ugly and the govt is already handling it ugly. I have no beef with our govt, I believe they are doing the best they can with a very undesireable situation brewing.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware @ conservation.com), April 21, 1999.

My apologies to both posters "a" and "@", for getting confused between the two of you. I shall try to be careful about this in the future. Did I get both of your names correct?

I did read the GAO report today (thanks for the link, Sysman). I did find it to be a comprehensive document and accurate as well. I agree that there is cause for concern about some power companies being Y2K ready by the self-imposed June 30, 1999 deadline. I just think that all major ones will make the deadline.

Finally, I give two reasons why I will not at this time reveal what company I work for. First, I have seen on other forums that once someone's personal information starts getting out, that harrassment starts with calling a person's home or business, then both sides threaten lawsuits and the police get involved. I don't need that in my life. Second, if there is an outage anywhere between December 1999 and April 2000, and it can be linked to Y2K, the lawyers will feast on whoever they can get, and I could get dragged into it. I propose a compromise...I would be willing to "prove" to a trusted poster (Drew Parkhill comes to mind, or perhaps even Ed Y. himself) that I indeed do work for a power company, and that person would state so on this forum. What do you think, "a" and "@"?

Dan.

-- Dan the Power Man (dgman19938@aol.com), April 21, 1999.

I can't speak for the 'a' team, but I would certainly accept that and think it's a great idea. How about Drew? That way, you can also be useful to him as a confidential source, perhaps.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), April 21, 1999.

Sounds like a plan, Dan.

-- a (a@a.a), April 21, 1999.

OK, I'll accept it too. I find it curious that so many write in to dismiss or downplay what you say because you don't name your employer. I had the temerity to doubt Hamasaki for the same reason. Was Hamasaki dinged for not doing so? On the contrary, I was criticized for asking! As usual, standards of acceptance are very flexible here -- any anonymous and unsupported claim of bad news is fine, and the most obviously detailed and knowledgeable claims of success are rejected.

In either case, hard data independently verified is what we want, whether the news is good or bad. And keep up your efforts!

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), April 21, 1999.

Dan, thank you for your input. I do read what you have to say and feel my previous question was not ignored, but perhaps overlooked on an older thread. I respect that you cannot divulge your employer. Can you tell us what your company's y2k budget was each year for the past 4 years and do you have any of that budget left to spend for this year and will your company be spending it? Thank you for your input.

-- (orwelliator@biosys.net), April 22, 1999.

Dan,

You are quite welcome for the link.

As you know, I have been following your posts very carefully, and want to thank you again for your time and effort here. I really hate to admit this, because I'm not like this in normal life, but I have also questioned your credibility. It's just that the whole Y2K issue is so important, and power is one of the most critical parts, that I feel that we do need verifyable information. If Drew or Ed could confirm that you are who you say you are, I for one would accept it without further question.

I do have a favor to ask. Rick Cowles just posted his analysis of the GAO report on his forum. Would you take a look at this, and give us your comments? Thanks again. <:)=

Rick's analysis of GAO report

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), April 23, 1999.