From http://www.eei.org/issues/news/releases/990803.htm

Washington (August 3) — With assessment and testing of critical systems for Y2K problems more than 99% complete, the electric utility industry is ready to operate into the year 2000. That is the conclusion of a report presented to the Department of Energy by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC). NERC is charged with reporting to DOE and the Presidents Council on Y2K Readiness the results of work by the electric utility industry to quell the Millennium Bug.

"This report demonstrates the seriousness with which the nations shareholder-owned electric utilities have led the electric utility industry charge to come to grips with the Y2K problem," said Thomas R. Kuhn, president of Edison Electric Institute. EEI member shareholder-owned electric utilities generate and deliver more than 75 percent of the nations electricity.

The NERC report states that if January 1, 2000 were to arrive tomorrow, the nations electric system would remain reliable. The report stops short of predicting no outages, due to the daily occurrence of local mishaps such as downed power lines due to storms, fallen tree limbs, auto accidents, etc.

According to the NERC report, nearly all bulk electric suppliers are Y2K ready now, but a few companies will not be fully ready until late summer or autumn because some individual facilities were previously scheduled to be out of service for maintenance late this year. According to NERC, electric system reliability continent-wide would be unaffected even if these facilities remained unavailable into 2000.

"This report proves that the electric utility industry has been thorough and systematic in its work to identify and fix the relatively few Y2k-affected components of the electric system," Kuhn said. "It is heartening to know that of the thousands of tests of critical components, none has triggered a condition that would have interrupted the flow of electricity to customers."

NERC stresses, as it did in earlier reports on electric industry Y2K readiness, that Y2K errors have been limited in almost all instances to nuisance errors such as incorrect dates in logs.

EEI stated that it is ready, if called on, to assist NERC and other entities with remaining Y2K-related steps in 1999, including industry-wide drills scheduled for September 8-9.

NERCs report is the last in its series of quarterly reports on Y2K readiness in 1999, but NERC expects to continue to follow, and report on, electric utility industry progress on Y2K issues into 2000.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999

Answers

I just love it, another 99%er, just like the banking post today, just like the FAA, 99%. That last 1% must be a real bitch.

We're almost done, any day now, really, we promise! <:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Yea! Right!!

And if you believe that one, I have some stock to sell you in a whaling venture...they'll get tons of whale oil for our lamps. Why is it that several utlities are still trying to install the old manual switches in their grid lines....Why did Houston and Beaumont, Texas suffer brown outs two days ago...because and I quote. "The power was needed for the North and North East"! quote unquote! So much for the Texas grid not being connected to the national grid...Which was stated in an earlier posting some days ago.

Whistling past the grave yard in the dark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Shakey~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

-- Shakey (in_abunker@forty.feet), August 03, 1999.

Very nice, happy reporting; thanks, Hoff.

The NERC report states that if January 1, 2000 were to arrive tomorrow, the nations electric system would remain reliable.

This statement, however, leaves me no choice but to assume that every generating unit (that will be in service at rollover) has been tested by having applicable clocks set forward to 2000. (Remember how some but not all units were set forward?)

Same with every SCADA, DCS, etc. system.

Don't gimme wrong; I love good news.

If you go to NERC's site, the wording is a tad bit different:

August 3 - In its final quarterly report to DOE, NERC concludes that the electric utility industry is Y2k ready. "If New Years Day was tomorrow," says Mike Gent, NERC President, "We believe the lights would remain on in North America."

This version leaves some wiggle room, no?

-- Lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

FAA 99%? Where? Seems like their site says 100%.

From the actual report:

NERC believes that the electric power industry will operate reliably into the Year 2000 with the resources that are Y2k Ready today.

ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/August%20DOE%20Re port.pdf

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Gawd, I hate to nit-pick, but:

Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) supplies hydro to my area. Here's what they told NERC on June 30, yet NERC designated them as Ready [R] as opposed to Ready w/Exceptions [RE].

[snip]

The goal of these efforts is to ensure that the Year 2000 issue will not impact our ability to provide services. While we do not expect any interruptions in our services, if we do experience any problems associated with the Year 2000, we will be prepared to respond. The inventory and assessment phases of the project are complete, and the corrective action and testing phases are nearing completion. On June 30, 1999, the LCRA reported on the Year 2000 readiness of our electric system to the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC). We believe our mission-critical systems used to produce and deliver electricity are ready for date changes associated with the Year 2000 according to LCRA and NERC criteria. In the coming months, we will focus on testing contingency plans and on planning for the rollover event itself.

[more snip]

Here's the link, if anyone's interested.

Again, hate to nitpick, but Sir, "ready" is either "ready" or it's not "ready".

In fact Hoff, we ought to look at all the "[R]" utilities and make sure we can corroborate via their readiness disclosure statements.

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

Thanks, Hoffmeister, I needed a "tickler" to buy up more diesel fuel for my generator. I've been holding off, hoping the prices would go down a tad, but what the heck.

And you know, its just amazing reading through these things on where the Y2K fix-it process is. Its always Close But Not Quiiiittte There Yet. And this new happy-face report even makes Dick Mills, well re-knowned power expert and Y2K optimist, look like a "doomer", since he fully believes that there will indeed be significant power failures, though short-lived.

Now, if we could only figure out why all those foreign countries are expected to to have major power problems, and not us, even though the technology is virtually the same, and the only problems that we have found are minor....

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), August 03, 1999.

Don't really see a discrepancy here, Lisa.

The NERC reporting is based on systems required to produce and deliver power, which LCRA reported as ready.

They may still be working on business systems, etc. But they reported to NERC as ready, and that's how they are listed.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Thanks for the effort, Hoffmeister. I enjoyed this read and have no insecurities about such a report. It seems crystal clear to me that camp mentalities will never be satisfied. That utilities would even post a 99% is somewhat amazing to me, in that even before (italicize that) y2k, they have been prone to exhibit meely-mouthed diatribes regarding power capabilities (read, storms, heat, etc).

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), August 03, 1999.

Hoff, you must concur that any city which declares that

"Austin Energy (AE), the City of Austin's municipality owned electric utility, announced on June 30th that all mission-critical systems necessary for the generation and delivery of electricity are ready for the date transition into Year 2000 (Y2K)."

but then mentions, as an aside:

"Austin Energy's Y2K process will remain ongoing to address lower priority items. Austin Energy will also continue to assess and test its critical systems and make necessary changes should new information become available."

and then turns around and

Buys 25 generators for Y2K, anyway.

either is trying to burn up a too-fat Y2K budget, or has the same risk vs. stakes concerns that I do.

Again, not trying to pick nits, but if you follow the money....

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), August 03, 1999.

I'm surprised that the Doomer cult didn't just go off into a "DON'T FEED THE TROLLS" / "DELETE DELETE DELETE" rant over this.

How can they be expected to prepare for the end of the world as we know it when people keep throwing the truth at them??? It's JUST NOT FAIR!! wahhhhhaaaaaaa....

LOL!

-- (trolls@R.us), August 03, 1999.

Hey, what happened to all those "exceptions" for things that were going to be taken care of in the Fall?

Hey, what about all those little countries out there that aren't and never will be ready? India comes to mind.

Hey, what happens if the supply of coal, oil, and gas gets disrupted in a big way, later next year?

I'm truly glad that the vast bulk of this country will have power on Jan. 1 and afterwards (and I'm willing to believe that this will be the case), but I am nervous about the rest of the world...

-- pshannon (pshannon@inch.com), August 03, 1999.

pshannon, you should be worried about THIS PART of the world too. This latest crap is a perfect example of the "Not Me" syndrome -- THEY will have problems, but not US. Because THEY are THEM but WE are US.

I would have way more respect for happy-face electric power predictions HERE if they could explain why there are expected to be such terrible failures OVER THERE. It just doesn't make sense.

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.com), August 03, 1999.

pshannon

As for the exceptions, see Appendix B (lists all utilities with exceptions) and Appendix C (listing of the exceptions).

Regarding dependancies on oil and gas, some useful information on Inter-Dependancies and Contingencies can be found here:

ftp://ftp.nerc.com/pub/sys/all_updl/docs/y2k/Techn ical-Group-Report-Final-6-21.pdf

Lisa

Actually, I think you give far too much credit to the government. My guess is they are buying the generators without any specific assessment from the local power supplier. I have some anecdotal evidence that this has happened elsewhere, as well.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Hmmmn. Ok. Good news.

Now, just what distribution systems have they tested? They ran one (optional) "phone call the emergency center operators" drill on one shift by only a portion of the utilities on one day - but claimed that "tested everything" and "proves they will be ready".

But have scheduled a second test - supposedly more rigorous - in September, but that test (scope and extent ot released yet) is definitely NOT complete.

And what about those 50% of the Florida utilities that were scheduled (as late as May) NOT to finish until October and November?

Are they suddenly "done" and "tested"?

____

Nice try, nice publicity - but they (NERC) are only repeating the "percent complete score cards" they have received (on order) from the utilities. They (the utilities) might be done, might not be done. (Most possibly) are complete - but NONE have completed testing their distribution systems.

And until each system is tested, it might operate, and it might not operate. So why don't they test the system tommorrow? The next day? Obviously, if they are this confident of success - they should be able to test immediately - right? Because everything is fixed - right?

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 03, 1999.

So, these guys can't even keep the lights on during a heat wave, but we're supposed to believe that the Y2K rollover and associated supply line disruptions won't have a serious effect on electric power? Duh... Tell me again how the April drill proved that everything would be OK?

-- a (a@a.a), August 03, 1999.

Must be tough, seeing this "leg of doom" dissappearing. BTW, thought some might get a chuckle out of this. Found it the East Kentucky Power Cooperative site, while researching the readiness reports prior to the official NERC report: http://www.ekpc.com/y2k.html

Mark Linsberg, the Team Leader of EKPC's Year 2000 Project Office, is a customer of Fleming-Mason RECC, a Touchstone Energy Partner, in Mason County. He lives in the country with his wife and children. For those who want to know what he is personally doing, Mark plans on buying a generator after the new year at a garage sale in order to get a bargain.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Hoffmeister,

Not once in what you posted are the words compliant or compliance used. I'm not asking for a guarantee that there will be power on January 1st--a guarantee like that can't be made for any day of the year. The use of the terms "ready" and "readiness," though, is not encouraging.

I'd like to think that the power companies are confident because their mission-critical systems are internally Y2K compliant. What's the NERC's official definition of "ready" and "readiness"? I hope it means more than just companies being confident that they can provide electricity because they have contingency plans for dealing with non-compliant systems.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 03, 1999.

Bold off.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 03, 1999.

Well, Kev, this is starting to get old. But, from the DOE report:

Y2k Ready  Y2k Ready means a system, component, or application has been determined to be suitable for continued use into the Year 2000. Note that Y2k Ready is not necessarily the same as Y2k Compliant, which requires fully correct date manipulations. The definition of Y2k Ready requires that the primary function(s) of the system, component, or application will continue to be provided reliably into the Year 2000. Although fixing or replacing a deficient system, component, or application to make it Y2k Compliant is one common solution, achieving Y2k Ready status may also be accomplished through remediation. Remediation may include, for example, a software patch to display a correct date to an operator. Remediation could also be procedural, such as providing a highly reliable alternative that allows continuation of the primary function of the system, component, or application. Being Y2k Ready requires verification that each function necessary to reliably produce and deliver electricity is very likely to:

1. Not be impaired by a Y2k failure;

2. Continue performing satisfactorily into the Year 2000; and

3. Be sustainable into the Year 2000.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

And I repeat, Sir Hoffmeister, there is NO testing yet to show that they can do this ....yet.

The utilities may be ready, they may even be compliant, (they (the utilities) certainly are telling the government (DOE) - who are desperately eager to tell the public that the utilities are compliant - have claimed they are finished.

But the utilities either lied before (when they issued scheduled finish dates that are clearly incompatible with this kind of publicity), or they are lying now - when they claim the utilities are finished. But to this administration - and specifically to this Dept of Energy - there is no penalty for lying when it advances the administration's agenda. There will be no penalty assigned to any utility if it is not ready - but the NERC and DOE HAVE explicitly said that they will "pressure" utilities to advance schedule dates if any are "still behind by July".

(This means - "We will punish you if you don't claim compliance by July; but we will praise you if do claim compliance. By the way, there will be no penalty if you are found incapable of delivering power in January. Instead - we (the government) will praise you as saviors when we (the government) work with you to provide heat and lights to selected, high visibility emergency centers and shelters in January.)

Now, guess where the TV crews will go in January?

____

"All" they need to do is test their distribution systems - fully and thoroughly through operations on all shifts. And - thus far - NONE have been able to do this. The closest are Ontario Hydro and the single Northwest hydro-powered system. NONE have tested their emergency systems on all shifts. NONE have drilled startup from black out conditions - except the nukes on restart training.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 03, 1999.

Sorry, Robert, just isn't an "either..or" situation.

Yes, NERC pressured some to move up dates. It is my impression that these were dates based on scheduled outages, which were changed to be done earlier. Does not mean they are either lying now, or lied then.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Hoffmeister,

Thanks for the quick response on the definition of "Y2K ready." The definition is what I guessed it would be, and does not raise confidence that all power companies will be Y2K compliant by January 1, 2000.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 03, 1999.

May be good news. Problems are as follows:

1. Credibility of all sources (including this forum) is now so much in question that only the experiment will convince me.

2. With >30% of the nukes not ready yet (see previous posts), it's hard to believe the 99% number.

3. As always, the devil may be in the details. Let's not forget, they all have to talk to each other.

My conclusion is that I still have to prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

-- Dave (aaa@aaa.com), August 03, 1999.

Well, Kev, get hung up on definitions if you want.

My concern has always been whether or not I'll have power after the rollover. I'm satisfied I will.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Hoffmeister,

I think I'll have power locally after the rollover...but I can't say that with any kind of certainty. I'll feel more comfortable when I see reports that use the word compliance.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 03, 1999.

This is from WORLDNETDAILY (Aug. 3).

* * * * * * * * * *

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Power companies have purposely kept federal officials in the dark about their Y2K computer bug troubles, and one government official has expressed serious concern upon learning of the deception.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency is concerned that federal agencies and private industry are not anxious to admit their Y2K problems. When agency heads and private sector executives report to FEMA at Y2K planning sessions, they most often state that "all is well," according to one FEMA official.

"We've been trying to put together exercises here, and it's been somewhat difficult because you can't get too many federal agencies to admit anything's going to go wrong -- especially (the Department of) Energy," said Jerry Connolly, assistant to the director for FEMA's office of Response and Recovery.

He expressed concern to learn that power companies have purposefully covered up information about their Y2K preparations. FEMA has no oversight of privately owned power companies, which would enable it to shut them down if they are not ready for the Y2K rollover.

WorldNetDaily uncovered plans by the North American Electric Reliability Council to hide the truth about power companies and their true Y2K readiness. A spokesman for that organization confirmed the problems and the plans to hide the truth from the Department of Energy. . . .

A recent memorandum from NERC to the nation's power suppliers was provided to WorldNetDaily by a concerned NERC employee. That memorandum tells power companies to cover up information about their Y2K problems and to keep the facts from the Department of Energy.

"All identified (Y2K) exceptions will be held in strict confidence and will not be reported to DOE or the public. The exceptions will be reviewed by NERC Y2K project staff for reasonableness and reliability impact on operations into the Year 2000," the memo said in part.

"It's perfectly true what it says," NERC spokesman Gene Gorzelnik confirmed to WorldNetDaily in an exclusive recorded phone interview. He defended that plan by saying the information being kept from the public and the government would only complicate rather than help the process.

"When we were working on the January report (required each quarter detailing Y2K progress), one of the things that we realized was that there were a number of utilities that weren't going to be making the June 30 target date we had established (to be Y2K ready)," Gorzelnik explained.

NERC decided to let power companies list themselves as Y2K ready in time for the June 30 deadline, even though they were not. They justified this action by permitting the utilities involved to list certain Y2K "exceptions" on a separate report which was not made public or given to the Department of Energy. . . .

Gorzelnik also admitted that power companies will be permitted to claim Y2K readiness if their mission critical systems are ready even though other systems are not ready. Such exceptions are not considered necessary to report to the Department of Energy or to the public he said.

"We felt that to put out raw data, it could very easily be misunderstood," he explained of the need to keep the details from view. NERC does not believe the Department of Energy can understand the information it is hiding about Y2K exceptions.

"One of the concerns was that if it went in to DOE it would become public knowledge and the whole process that we have been working with is one where we want the utilities to be frank with us to tell us exactly what is going on so we can work back and forth and get the problem solved," said Gorzelnik.

"If information was made public then we and the utilities were concerned that the utility itself would be spending so much time answering questions from reporters and their customers that it would divert from the actual job of getting the facility ready for Y2K. That's all that was behind that. They are taking a statement out of context and blowing it up without looking at all of the factors that went into that statement being there in the first place," he complained.

A copy of the memorandum and the admission by Gorzelnik was requested by the Senate Committee on the Year 2000 and by FEMA. Those officials said they would forward a copy to the President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion. All involved say they plan to look into the admitted deception further to determine a course of action.

Link: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_bresnahan/19990803...

-- Big Toe (nowhere@dddd.com), August 03, 1999.

To da Toe:

NER C Coverup: REVEALED!!!

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

Howdy Hoff,

I'm not going to address the FAA at 100% in this thread, I'm sure THAT will come up later...

Kinda busy, just got a quick NERC related question. What are your comments on this thread, dated July 31 (please answer there)? I don't have a copy of the documents used, but I do understand that at least a half dozen regular forum members do... <:)=

NERC results

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), August 03, 1999.

Well, Sysman, taking lessons from Cory? Throw out statements about the FAA, then just ignore when called on it?

Anyway, just what about the NERC documents are you concerned about? I have most already downloaded on my hard-drive.

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 03, 1999.

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_franke_news/19990804_xndfr_coveru p_la.shtml

Cover-up of laggards continues

Is electric industry's report intentionally confusing?

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

By David Franke

) 1999 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "If New Year's Day 2000 was tomorrow, we believe the lights would remain on in North America," said Michehl R. Gent, president of the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), yesterday at the National Press Club.

NERC is the trade group responsible for getting the electric utilities ready for Y2K, and Gent presented the council's final report to U.S. Secretary of Energy Bill Richardson at the press conference.

Actually, the report is not truly NERC's "final" account, as it was billed. It seems there still is some work to do; so at least one "follow-up progress report" will be presented to Secretary Richardson at some unspecified future date.

The electric industry officials were beaming like first-time fathers as they rolled out the statistics they say indicate that U.S. and Canadian electric utilities are "more than 99%" ready for Y2K. Indeed, it is doubtful that utilities anywhere else on the planet are better prepared -- or provide as much public disclosure, in such excruciating detail.

Still, being first in class doesn't guarantee that you're going to pass the real test without problems, and NERC invites some measure of public nervousness by its refusal to identify the laggards among the hundreds of utilities. After all, it's of limited comfort to know that 99 percent of all the utilities are going to work -- if you're being served by one of the other 1 percent. NERC's message to the public seems to be, "You have to get that information from your local utility, and you have to interpret it -- we're not going to do that for you."

In his talk, Secretary Richardson did say that the Department of Energy will release the names of the laggard utilities that are not ready. But he left immediately after his speech, and when asked, "when -- on what date -- will the names be made public," nobody from the Department of Energy was present and the utility spokesmen were not about to fondle that hot potato.

"The NERC process has not disclosed names," said the group's Y2K program coordinator. "We will work with the Department of Energy to provide information on who's not ready, but ultimately it will be their decision when to make that public."

Another reporter asked what measures NERC might take to get the laggards ready.

"Peer pressure," came the response.

"Is there anything beyond peer pressure?" the reporter asked.

"I'd say no," the NERC spokesman answered. "I don't think we need anything beyond that."

Apparently public pressure -- customer pressure -- is not an option NERC wants to consider. Peer pressure -- just us guys around the poker table -- will be enough.

Weighted down with statistics, there are numerous places in the NERC report where questions are raised rather than answered.

To begin with, there is mention of "the more than 200 bulk electric systems of North America," "the 268 entities reporting monthly to NERC," and "the approximately 2,900 distribution systems in North America," plus Appendix B, "List of [251] Organizations Y2K Ready or Y2K Ready with Limited Exceptions." Yet nowhere is the overlap between these lists made clear.

Then you have the three different kinds of electric utilities -- investor-owned companies, public power companies, and cooperatives. And there's no attempt to relate these distinctions to the lists mentioned above.

According to NERC, in another example of confusion, "3.2% of distribution systems (based on MW load served) are not Y2K Ready and another 0.5% did not provide reports in the most recent quarter. Of the public power distribution systems, 8% reported not yet being Y2K Ready and another 2.5% did not participate in the surveys in the second quarter. In the cooperative area, 13% of systems are not yet Y2K Ready and another 1% did not respond in the second quarter."

So, how many investor-owned utilities are not Y2K Ready? There are figures for the other two types of utilities, but not that one. Upon first glance, it appears the 3.2 percent figure referred to investor- owned utilities, but no, it's not identified that way, and instead NERC seems to be saying that systems representing 3.2 percent of total megawattage in the U.S. are not ready. In which case the report is mixing categories in one paragraph -- starting with references to size, then shifting to structural types, but not including one of the three structural types.

A skeptic might say that this confusion could be intentional, so we give up trying to interpret the whole thing and instead concentrate on that sound bite: "99 percent ready."

There are other caveats: On page 10 there is a table about the 17 "entities that have yet to complete the Remediation and Testing phase." Presumably these 17 "entities" represent the difference between "the 268 entities reporting monthly to NERC" (page iv) and the "list of 251 organizations" in Appendix B that are Y2K ready (268 - 251 = 17).

But wait! It turns out that 64 of those 251 "organizations" or "entities," whatever, really are not Y2K ready. Rather, they are "Y2K Ready With Limited Exceptions." That's a handy category created by NERC for good-guys-who-are-a-bit-slow. NERC says they are mostly ready, that there are good excuses for their systems that aren't ready yet, and asserts that those systems will be ready very soon. The only really bad guys are those elusive 17, and we're not telling you who they are.

Bottom line: 81 of the 268 entities reporting to NERC (64 + 17) were not Y2K ready at the end of the second quarter of 1999. That's 30 percent of the total. For some reason, though, NERC decided against a headline saying "70 percent of utilities reporting to us are Y2K ready." Instead we are told that "More than 99 percent of all the critical elements of the U.S. and Canadian electricity supply systems are ready for Y2K."

That does sound a lot better -- even if no one really knows what it means.

---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------

David Franke is a new Washington-based WorldNetDaily contributing editor for technology and Y2K issues. He can be reached by email.

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), August 04, 1999.

Here is a small snip from the Drudge Report @www.drudgereport.com:

"All sockets now turn to a giant nationwide test of America's electrical grids, now scheduled for 9/9/99."

DOES ANYONE ELSE THINK it is fishy that they are picking THAT day of all days to test? The day that is supposed to be a problem anyway?? Am I being paranoid? Let me know what you think. Thanks.

-- Diane (DiR9290343@aol.com), August 04, 1999.

SEEMS??? They stated flatly they would continue to issue reports well into 2000. WorldNetDaily is the tabloid spin master of the web. Clinton should have hired them to spin his problems.

-- Paul Davis (davisp1953@yahoo.com), August 04, 1999.

I make no apology about taking my news and analysis on the grid from people like Cowles, Camp and Mills (with all of whom I have disagreed at times, btw). Compared to NERC's arrogant, self-reported PR, they are Einstein's.

What is THEIR provisional bottom line?

1. The U.S. has probably escaped grid collapse.

2. There will be outages of varying intensity and duration, some at rollover and some for months afterward with summer of 2000 at least as risky as rollover.

3. The nukes will probably operate safely, but uncertainties remain.

4. Back-up systems (generators), fuel stockpiles and potential fuel unavailability raise the uncertainty level with respect to coping with outages that do occur.

5. We are entering a period of years during which there will be higher energy prices (especially electricity) and ongoing problems with outages.

Robert Cook and others, does this match your understanding of their position well enough? I'm not asking whether you agree but whether I've been reasonably accurate.

I don't personally consider them to be doomers at all, just realists, given the incomplete data and spin we have been subject to for the past two years by NERC.

Their analysis says to me that my worst fears are unlikely to be realized IN U.S. (agree with pshannon's concerns about int'l), happily. It also says to me that my expensive energy preps will probably prove to be a very valuable short- and long-term investment and that family ability to live part off-grid when WE choose to will prove a very wise decision.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), August 04, 1999.

Bottom line perhaps, is simple: Do you trust their press release? Expressed differently, was it more important for the federal government to tell Bill Richardson at DOE to have a "sound bite" ready for issue from NERC (unaudited, self-reported, non-tested) "99 % ready" just in time to meet the 30 June deadline, or is it more important to have power next January and February.

Which is easier to do?

After this administration decides what "IS" is, and after the Dept of Energy decides that the US Congress and US population can actually read the same reports that the Communistic Chinese already stole - then perhaps I can begin trusting the DOE's self-proclaimed conclusions. (Sometime this fall, I'd like somebody to give me a list of public policy and status statements that Clinton has said publically that actually are true....off hand, I know of none.)

Regardless, perhaps they are speaking the truth now. But all the NERC has to do to create a report showing everybody everywhere is suddenly compliant is simple to "let" every utility enter its descrepancies onto a separate "hidden" list. Then, issue a statement "Every utility is compliant "with a few minor exceptions." "

Quoting a critical passage from above: <<...one of the things that we realized was that there were a number of utilities that weren't going to be making the June 30 target date we had established (to be Y2K ready)," Gorzelnik explained.

NERC decided to let power companies list themselves as Y2K ready in time for the June 30 deadline, even though they were not. They justified this action by permitting the utilities involved to list certain Y2K "exceptions" on a separate report which was not made public or given to the Department of Energy. . . . >>

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), August 04, 1999.

Wait a second, Robert.

Did or did not NERC specifically identify each utility that reported exceptions?

Did or did not NERC list those exceptions?

-- Hoffmeister (hoff_meister@my-deja.com), August 04, 1999.