I am a layman, so please tell me in basic terms! Unless the Acme utility Company has its own in plant generators, how do they remediate code quickly in a blackout mode at the plant and in the field, and then TEST circuits, when they may not have been able to find hidden problems up to now under "ideal" conditions...? Niagara Mohawk ads here tell us they will have hundreds of repair people "in the field" if anything goes wrong in upstate N.Y. Would remediation be fixable in days, weeks, or....?

...churchorganist

-- churchorganist (swedemusic@webtv.net), December 15, 1999

Answers

I'm going to say generators, but then again, how long could they run those for?

-- Orson Wells (wells@whitebulb.com), December 16, 1999.

In ALL seriousness...if and when you discover the answers you seek, please be sure to share them with us and the rest of the world. Don't forget to CC: John Koskinen and the marketing magnates at NERC. They are in the dark already and don't have a clue.

-- Irving (irvingf@myremarq.com), December 16, 1999.

Gawd! Your questions are ... scary!!!

I'll betcha ... "nobody knows"....

-- King of Spain (madrid@aol.cum), December 16, 1999.

Your questions are good, but I too am a layman and can't answer them. The possibility of prolonged power loss is one reason why I am glad that the organ I play at my parish is a tracker pipe organ,100% mechanical operator except for the windchest. My small generator will provide enough power for it. I'll have to ask the tuner if it would still be possible to rig a hand pump.

Robert Waldrop, director of music and organist

-- robert waldrop (rmwj@soonernet.com), December 16, 1999.

Wow. That's dedication Robert. I truly admire your devotion to your vocation, in making Y2Kpreps to keep the music playing ...... Truly this will bring solace to many, if things get wacky. Ever read Browning's Abt Vogler? about a great improvistional organist? At the same time, reading your post, I have these visions about the band on the deck of the Titanic ... true to their calling to the end. Musaicians are an amazing breed, totally committed to their art. Kudos to you.

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), December 16, 1999.

churchorganist,

That can't happen, you see (smirk) we are being told by the bulk power producers that the US will have 55-60% of our power generating capacity in reserve on the roll over.

If a bulk power production facility were to trip off-line then another unit (already running and in stand-by mode) would immediately "take up the slack".

What that has to do with how many bulk power production outages occur due to Y2K glitches is beyond me. This doesn't pass the laugh test because the power companies will have their MOST RELIABLE (least automated) bulk power production units on-line and hooked into the grids at the roll over. Should these "primary" bulk power production units fail, they'll just switch to the secondary back-up unit(s) which we all know are so much more reliable than the primary units, that's why they are back-ups and not primary. (Eye roll.)

And if those fail, then they'll make a quick billion dollar deal for some of Canada's extra power.

And if that doesn't work, then they'll take a chance on running the nuclear facilities...

And if that doesn't work out too well, then they'll try the primary and back-up bulk production units again.

And if that doesn't work, then they'll install a huge wheel at each bulk production plant and ...

-- GoldReal (GoldReal@aol.com), December 16, 1999.

Each plant has a contingency plan.

They will build a large fire in the center of their auditorium and chant to the electrictity Gods. ;-)

-- cgbg jr (cgbgjr@webtv.net), December 16, 1999.

Vewwwwy cawwwwwfuwwwwy.

-- Elmer Fudd (wascawy@wabbit.com), December 16, 1999.

...a further observaton...as a twelve year old in 1965, I remember that about seven NE states went down in the power failure because of only ONE glitch (I think it was in western NY,) and it took two to twelve hours for the rest of the system to come back on line, and THAT was a non-computer problem-only manual turn-on problems!!! Ok, fellow organists, get those Mozart candles ready fo the choir stall-pews...

-- churchorganist (swedemusic@webtv.net), December 16, 1999.

Churchorganist,

Make sure you have extra fuses, incase you are fortunate to have dirty power rather than none at all.

-- Hokie (nn@va.com), December 16, 1999.

My Power Co says that they already have some of their equipment operating into the year 2000 by moving the clocks ahead.

-- franko (franko@home.com), December 16, 1999.

Franko:

And what does that mean? They are sure that "just some of their equipment" will operate in Jan. What about the rest of their equipment? Who knows? I guess it just depends.

Best wishes,,,,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), December 16, 1999.

Well, it's simple. They just fire up the flashlights, rip open a can of dinty moore, wrap up in a blanket, give their last bank statement the onceover, and start whippin' that code back into shape.

Right?

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), December 16, 1999.

Very few, even in the pessimist camp, are expecting both widespread and prolonged power outages at this point. Are they correct? In the final analysis, I don't really know, but I sure hope that they are.

We're personally prepared to go several weeks without electricity during the middle of winter if we absolutely have to. We will be warm, fed and patient - in our own home. The American Red Cross seems to believe that, in any event, "sheltering in place" is the ideal solution. We agree wholeheartedly with them on this philosophy.

Even if there are few isolated prolonged outages here and there, most folks have assumed that those outages will be "there" rather than "here". Often, this is a perfectly valid assumption. On occasion, it is not. As always, the question you've got to be asking yourself is, are you feeling lucky?

I can tell you that when it comes to hurricanes, we always feel extremely lucky to live here in Iowa. No one here remembers that last time a hurricane devastated our community.

The bottom line is this: The more isolated the problems are, the more assistance that will be available from 'outside' to help any affected area.

-- Arnie Rimmer (Arnie_Rimmer@usa.net), December 16, 1999.

As usual, Lady"logic" is full of BS. Ignore her idiotic lunatic ravings.

Gary North explains pretty clearly on his website that this is the exact problem we will face when the rollover hits. The computers shut down the power and there is no longer power to fix the computers. It's a Catch-22 with no escape. That is why you must prepare for the possibility that the power will never be restored.

-- (brett@miklos.org), December 16, 1999.

Posted by (171.219.39.152) Laura on December 13, 1999 at 18:43:00:

Good Evening Associates,

I am Ladylogic; seeker of truth, justice, and the best chocolate for the least amount of money I can find. Some of you may have read my pedigree at TimeBomb in my thread, "This is why I think Y2K will not be the end of the world." but, if it is necessary, I will re-post it here.

I have been stuck in HELL over at TimeBomb for the last six weeks and I just "got it" about five days ago. I think I may have something to contribute to this noble forum because I associate with a member of Compuware, (the company assigned to perform Y2K remediations for the City of Phoenix, and a Y2K representative in Canada) and failing any information that is pertinent to you, I have a deep admiration for cpr (I just figured out who you are!) Cherri, Y2KPro, Andy Ray, YouKnowWho, and all the others who have come before me. (I just saluted you.)What can I do to help? What can I do to contribute? Can I just hang around an associate with you on a regular basis?

-- Lurker (GOAWAY@NDONT.COMEBACK), December 16, 1999.

Ill give explaining this a shot. But at this late date I dont think you will GI and come next year you still wont GI. But here it goes (In reverse order).

Brett: Gary North does not understand how the power system works. He believes that it is far more computerized and controlled then it really is. This is, unfortunately, a rather common belief among people expecting the worst. To make my point Gary once emailed me a question wondering if the Eastern Grid was run at 60 HZ and the Western Grid at 50 HZ. To day he doesnt GI is an understatement. If you base what you think will happen on incorrect assumptions then your entire train of logic is faulted.

GoldReal: Again you are making assumptions you cant back up. Please tell everyone how you KNOW that the most reliable plants (in your estimation the least automated) will be hooked into the grid with the others on standby. This is absolute nonsense. Plants are on the grid based on the cost of running them. Cheapest ones first, more expensive ones latter. What is going to happen is that ones that would normally be off line or have generators idle will be up and running as a Just in Case. Also backup units are not more reliable then primary units. (Eyes really rolling). Your logic is specious. The nuclear facilities are not going to be off line in the first place so your comment about them taking a chance by running them is spurious.

Chruchorganist: Actually the great black out of 1965 was not triggered by one event but by several things happening in succession. I suggest you do a web search. There are several good write ups on it. And while this may be hard to believe, people in the business actually learned something from it and took steps to prevent it from happening again.

To try and answer your original question. You are making two false assumptions. First they do have their own in plant generators. That was one of the lessons learned from 1965. Though it has more to do with keeping the batteries charged then code worries. One is that the code controls everything. The reason all those people are in the field is so they can put it back together manually if need be. And before anyone goes into a tirade about how this is not possible please let us all know first how much actual experience you have working on a power system.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), December 16, 1999.

In answer to the original question, the answer is simple! You do not need power to repunch the old holerith cards that the old enterprise systems work on (lol). You just need power to check the fixes you have made to the cards, and as we have seen testing is not required for Y2K remediated code, just slam it into production.

There probem solved, QED! Next problem please!

-- Helium (Heliumavid@yahoo.com), December 16, 1999.

Ill give explaining this a shot. But at this late date I dont think you will GI and come next year you still wont GI. But here it goes (In reverse order).

Nice try, but we can see through your obvious polly spin and lies. At least your posts don't come off quite as stupid as Lady"logic"s. Thankfully, she's being deleted on sight now, so we won't have to deal with her ravings any longer.

-- (brett@miklos.org), December 16, 1999.

Well, Brett. I guess we will find out in 15+ days.

That's the nice thing about the Y2K debate. Either the lights stay on and I'm correct. Or they don't and you are. Be sure and drop the forum a note next year and let me know. (Laughter)

Unless you subscribe to "the death by a thousand cuts scenario". Which to me sounds like every day life. Then you can keep saying "Any day now, any day..." for as long as you like.

-- The Engineer (The Engineer@tech.com), December 16, 1999.

Folks:

In general, my information agrees with the "engineer" {and always has}. But this goes beyond a technical question. If outages occur in western North Dakota; no real problem. If they occur in the city by the bay. Big problem. There is the rub. WE WON'T KNOW UNTIL NEXT JUNE AT THE EARLIEST. REMEMBER THAT DATE. Depending on the format that would be 06/01/1900.

Best wishes,

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), December 16, 1999.

I work for a power distributer in California. Just for the record, we maintain generators at all facilities where our work requires the use of computers. We will be able to remediate code if necessary but are being informed that this will not be necessary. Most of our Computer systems used to operate generation facilities have been replaced this year with new systems built this year. The vast majority of the software running on the computers has also been checked and approved for Y2K compatability. Off the record though, some of the new systems (not those required to maintain power within the system) have been failing at an alarming rate. One mapping plotter (Old) has failed this week and will need replacing. Another has been serviced 4 times this month. It has been breaking down on average 2-3 days after being serviced. and three of the ten "New computers" in my workgroup have malfunctioned and require replacing. We had received those new computers in October. At least my job function is not considered "Mission Critical" but I have to wonder about the rest of the systems.

-- PHone (POWERHOUSE@ELECO.COM), December 16, 1999.

churchorganist, I see that you have already had a number of responses, some of which do address the issue you ask, while others only cloud the subject even more.

how do they remediate code quickly in a blackout mode at the plant and in the field? Simply, they don't. The first step would be to restore power so it is no longer a blackout mode. If there was a complete grid failure involving generation, transmission and distribution, then a black start would be initiated (no computers required), and part of the grid would be restored manually.

Any hidden problems would obviously have shown themselves, and so would no longer be hidden. However at this late stage, there have still been no Y2K issues found that would cause a grid collapse.

-- Malcolm Taylor (taylorm@es.co.nz), December 17, 1999.