Senate Y2K Committee
       Steven Horton
       Vice President, Duke Energy
       Representing the Interstate Natural Gas Assoc. of America (INGAA)

Steve Horton in his testimony to the US Senate has survey results  for the Natural Gas industry. Well it seems that the completion date is Sept. 30 to fix their systems.

The survey info is not clear as to the standing of the industry.

What makes me wonder is that survey results are often released at least a month later and often more. Well that means the information from the September 30 survey will be released in November. If we are lucky to even see it. This seems to me a problem that has not been mentioned yet.

To look at this another way, in the testimony above it is mentioned the biggest consern of the Gas Industry is the compliance of industries they depend on (power, telco, suppliers). This is like the dog chasing its tail. Everyone seems to thinks Sept is the final date.

This seems to be a very fine time line to have all the industries to confirm to each other that they can rely on each other. If confidence in each other is suspect then why should we be so complaicent and trusting?

Any of the optimists like to try this little challange?

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 05, 1999

Answers

It seems to me that Gary North and Paul Milne predicted over a year ago that the deadlines would slip from 12/98 to 3/99 to 6/99 to 9/99 and finally 12/99. Guess they were full of shit, huh?

-- (@ .), August 05, 1999.

Actually they may be right but I don't care what Scary Gary or Paul thinks. If an institution of the most powerful nation on the earth posts information it should be considered as relevant.

And the information I am looking at gives me a pause.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 05, 1999.

Horton didn't mention it, but I have some difficulty with the notion of gas (or oil) delivery throught a pipeline a coupla thousand miles long with pumping stations every fifty miles or so. For any gas tansmission, ALL of the pumps in this serial system must be working. Any rolling blackouts or outages in this vast area, and transmission ends. It appears that for this system to work, the electrical delivery system post y2k must be a reliable as it is now.

This does not seem likely.

-- dave (wootendave@hotmail.com), August 05, 1999.

Whether or not you feel it suits the appropriate propaganda purposes, the idea of slipped deadlines has become irrelevant (if indeed it was ever relevant at all). What we're dealing with now is monitoring the status of various industries.

I personally don't care whether or not some industry declared themselves to have reached some mythical "full compliance" by some arbitrary date. I'm much more interested in where they stand, what issues they still face, and how serious these issues are. In other words, I'd like to know whether we'll have gas, not whether the gas industry's PR is effective.

If the single largest issue the gas industry faces *really is* the status of those they depend on (rather than something within their own control), then we have another case of "We're OK, but we don't know about the other guy." Yet both power generation/distrubution and telecommunications give every appearance of being as reliable as can be measured with respect to date errors. Yes, we can continue to proclaim our dissatisfaction with ANY amount of testing or verification if it makes us feel better, but the fact is these things are fixed and will work as far as anyone with the hard data can determine.

Maybe I'm not reading this right, but it always seems that when someone writes about, say, a September 30 deadline to "fix their systems", this implies that no systems are fixed today. But that's not what the testimony says. The important systems are all fixed, most of the less important systems are also fixed, or else the problems and fixes are known and are awaiting the best time for implementation. If some critical components can neither be replaced nor repaired this year, then outside systems (power, telco) would hardly be the most pressing concerns.

Dave's worry needs some common sense applied. If gas deliveries through the pipeline only happened when there were NO power problems anywhere along the line, then such deliveries would be rare events indeed! Power problems are very common, and the gas distribution system of course takes this into account (or else it would NEVER work).

Yes, there's probably some minimum set of requirements for the pipelines to work -- a worst case (which is what those pipelines were designed to meet). Considering their importance, that worst case is pretty grim -- grim enough so that if gas or oil cannot be piped, conditions will be so bad that this failure will be *way* down on our list of immediate priorities.

Bottom line: gas is in adequate shape today, and will be in better shape when it needs to be. Perfection has never been required nor possible.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint mentioned: "Bottom line: gas is in adequate shape today, and will be in better shape when it needs to be. Perfection has never been required nor possible."

While much of what you say is reasonable, and in the testimony it was pointed out that manual operation is available what mystifies me is the blanket statement that gas is in adequate shape today. It would seem to me to be a bold statement (and you have mentioned I should not make such statements). They have posted the stats. and your statement doesn't match the stats. If you don't like bold "doomer" statements then you should not make them yourself unless you have some reason to feel this way that can be backed up. This is not to say that I feel that gas will fail but it would be nice to see the rational behind the statement you provided.

Really we are never going to know one way or the other untill the rollover. I have been very carefull to not claim that "any" industry hasn't a chance. It would also expect that the opposite is true that the optimists don't claim that everything is OK.

Other than that thanks for the reply Flint. You are the only one that would speak their mind on a serious issue (and that is the way I see it).

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 05, 1999.

Brian:

Yes, you're correct. Both the testimony and the survey results leave any conclusion wide open. About a quarter of them don't have any problems right now, and 1% apparently are aware today that they won't be ready on time (though that's debatable as well).

I think we can conclude that there were issues with both business and embedded systems, without any clue what these issues may be (especially in the embedded area). I personally tend to discount generic "other guy" problems, unless the other guy is the vendor who won't be able to deliver necessary equipment/upgrades on time. Because time is so short, and they expect that 99% of all issues will be completely handled for 99% of the gas pipelines, I can either assume that this is all hot air, or take their numbers mostly at face value and assume that most of what remains is to take delivery of compliant systems and install them.

To me, this condition (if true, of course. I can't read minds) qualifies as "adequate", since it essentially gives these operations three months of slack to account for late deliveries or failures in testing (which should NOT happen in the embedded area, anyway). The business systems can usually be worked around if necessary (give everyone last month's bills, negotiate longer payment schedules for supplies, whatever it takes).

Taken all together, these numbers don't look bad -- they look like gas will be available (with possible limited and local exceptions, as is always the case). I don't see any pressing cause for concern here at this time (again, unless these are all fabrications).

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), August 05, 1999.

Flint mentions

"I don't see any pressing cause for concern here at this time (again, unless these are all fabrications)."

At this time. And this is what can worry a person. The whole problem is about time and how people comprehend it. Time is running out.

Thank you Flint for clearifying your position.

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 05, 1999.

The "most powerful nation on earth"? I disagree. The most powerful nation on earth is Rome. Or Egypt. Or Mongolia. Sorry, I forgot.

-- A. Hambley (a.hambley@usa.net), August 05, 1999.

A.

As a Canadian, raised by the border, it was clear who is the elephant and who is the mouse. Notice I didn't say the smartest :o)

-- Brian (imager@home.com), August 05, 1999.