All,

The following is my reply to Jon Huntress' recent mailing to the Year2000.com Announcement List (from year2000.com) regarding the recent World Energy Conference. Jon's entire report is not reproduced here, but you can view it on the CBN Y2k website at: http://www.cbn.org/y2k/insights.asp?file=981016d.htm

---

Jon,

Given the subject of your recent mailing, I was obviously interested in your personal take on the World Energy Conference. After reading your report, I was somewhat dismayed.

I was dismayed by two things: the inaccuracies in the report, and your apparent acceptance of the information given to you verbatim. My comments follow.

On Fri, 16 Oct 1998 08:35:37 -0500 (CDT), you wrote:

>Year2000.com Announcement List, Special Mailing, 
>October 16, 1998

>After the questions, the meeting ended and the panel went to 
>the pressroom for a briefing. Almost immediately, writers for 
>the news bureaus posted several articles on the report. Since 
>the report was released, several authors have criticized it 
>for being too optimistic and not detailing the reasons for 
>optimism. But the reasons were there. 

You make the statement, "But the reasons were there", and then present a couple of very weak arguments. I provided some very strong arguments for viewing the report as whitewash bullshit, which is exactly what it was. If you haven't seen my rebuttal to the NERC report at y2ktoday.com, I'm attaching a copy of it to this email.

>The NERC has responses 
>from 75% of the industry, has measured their progress for two 
>months and based on this can make a prognosis of the speed 
>of the fix.  

75%, Jon. You've been dealing with Y2k for quite awhile. Let that number roll off of your tongue. It's October, 1998.

>They have concluded that there is enough time 
>left for all utilities to be Y2K ready by June 30, 1999.

The report did NOT conclude this. The report reiterated NERC's deadline, and said it was and aggressive goal. "Aggressive" is an understatement.

>"Y2K Ready" the report defines as, "...a system or component 
>(that) has been determined to be suitable for continued use 
>into the year 2000."  As of now, 28% of the testing of 
>components has been completed. What they have found is that 
>only 1% to 2% of the devices or components exhibit year 2000 
>anomalies and few of those devices or components will shut 
>down their system. Also, there aren't thousands or even 
>hundreds of industry operating systems but only dozens.

First, I didn't find this anywhere in the report (other than the 28% figure). Second, if the industry is only finding 1 to 2 percent of the devices having "Year 2000 anomalies", why does my company's database, with over 50K discrete components and control systems cataloged, find an "anomaly" rate of 15 to 20%, with about 5% being showstoppers? Third, while you (or NERC) are probably right about "dozens of operating systems", consider that there are only a few dozen major operating systems - Windows 95/98, Unix, MVS, DOS, VMS, etc. etc. This paragraph belies a fundamental misunderstanding, on your part, of the nature of the problem. The O/S's for mainframes, networks, and desktops are not necessarily the issue (but in some cases are, for older versions). It's the programs behind the operating systems!

>The NERC did conclude that progress needs to be accelerated, 
>and there was also concern for the 25% of the industry that 
>had not yet responded. In many cases, we were told, this is 
>because their lawyers told them not to respond due to fear of 
>litigation. 

And you believed this?

>When they release their next report in December, the NERC 
>will list the companies that have responded. If you don't see 
>your utility there, it might be a good idea to call them up 
>and ask them why, and mention that you read the NERC report. 
>But the industry is more than a quarter finished, the 
>susceptible chip count is low and the failure rate for the 
>systems they are part of is even lower. 

Read this paragraph again. "the industry is more than a quarter finished..."

Jon, again, it's October, 1998. Not October, 1996.

I'm a 'glass half full' type of guy, Jon, but in this case, the glass is 3/4 empty.

>The nuclear plants were in even better shape than the 
>industry as a whole, according to the NERC, taking its 
>information from The Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the 
>Nuclear Energy Institute.  The nuclear power industry has 
>been working at the fix longer and they are much more highly 
>regulated.  It is also harder to change anything in a nuclear 
>plant when it comes to upgrading it.  I confirmed this down 
>on the display floor.

>I talked to people at the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and 
>Framatome Technologies, which make and operate the French 
>nuclear reactors. 

The A.E.C. was replaced in the 1970's by the NRC. There is no A.E.C. There is a Canadian AECL - perhaps that's what you were alluding to.

>The United States gets about a quarter of 
>its power from nuclear plants, but the French use nuclear 
>power for 70% of their energy needs and have been building 
>reactors all along.  
>
>At the AEC booth I was told that our reactors were safe and 
>the French reactors should be safe, too, because they were 
>based on an older, well proven Westinghouse design.  

This might be just a poorly worded paragraph. 50% or so of U.S. plants are Westinghouse design (PWR's). 40% are General Electric BWR's. The remaining 10% are B&W or CE PWR design. Frammatome is a quasi-governmental architectural / engineering design agency in France that used the basic 2 and 4 loop Westinghouse PWR designs in all of their plants. French plants are standardized, to a large degree. Not so in the U.S. Every plant in the U.S. is like a fingerprint - no two are alike. This is because of two things: the demographics of the age of the U.S. nuclear plant fleet, and the number of architectural / engineering firms that implemented the aforementioned designs. The above paragraph gives the impression that all U.S. reactors are safe because they are based on an older, well proven Westinghouse design.

So was Three Mile Island.

Design of the plants, plant operating characteristics, or 'safe shutdown systems' have nothing to do with the Y2k problem. And that seems to be what everyone in the industry is to be blindly focusing on. Process monitoring and control, and event logging have *everything* to do with the Y2k problem in the nuclear industry. You, of all people, should know this, Jon.

Last word on nuclear power: The NRC just released the results of its first Y2k audit of a nuclear facility, the Monticello plant in Minnesota. Monticello just kicked off a formal Y2k program in July, 1998. But the NRC, again, is "cautiously optimistic" that Monticello can make the NRC's deadline of June, 1999. Again, I'll let you figure this one out.

>But later that morning at the luncheon, Patrick Wood, the 
>head of the Public Utilities Commission in Texas, told me he 
>thought the report was a whitewash, although he said he 
>didn't know if it was a deep whitewash or just a coat of
>paint.  The situation in Texas is a little different. Most 
>people know we have an Eastern and a Western power grid. But 
>there is also a third grid, called the ERCOT Interconnection, 
>that actually covers most of Texas.  Mr. Wood doesn't like 
>what he is hearing from the disparate parts of his grid and 
>is worried about getting them all working together.  
>
>Who do you believe, the government, the people in the 
>industry or the consultants? 

I'll ask two simple questions and let you ponder the answers: who has more expertise at working with the problem? Which group is focusing specifically on what the problem is all about about? You said it best in a previous paragraph: this is merely another business issue to this industry (and a business issue that they, for the most part, haven't got much of a clue on how to deal with).

>What I found was that the NERC report is probably right on 
>the money for most of the country. There is enough time left, 
>and what they are finding is not that disturbing. The people 
>I talked to just aren't finding any problems in chips where 
>the clock function isn't used, and they are finding very few
>problems with the systems that do use dates.  Very soon now 
>someone is going to say out loud that you don't really have 
>to check every chip or system if a hundred others just like 
>it have been checked and nothing has turned up. 
>
>Electric people have a lot of experience dealing with 
>outages.  A former engineer for Pacificorp told me that when 
>there are five generators in a plant, all are independent of 
>each other so that one or more can be down at any time. If 
>they have identical systems and the first two-test fine, do 
>you really have to test the other three?  If time is pressing 
>and if your consultant budget is a little thin and your plant 
>people tell you they have a work-around, you might just put 
>checking those three units on the back burner. 
>
>Electric plants are like the railroads.  They are old 
>technology.  I have checked the RR switches on the main line 
>near me and none of them have chips, just big bronze padlocks, 
>probably the same ones they used when my father was a boy.  
>I could, all by myself, switch a train on a manual or 
>computer-controlled switch in 15 minutes with a sledge hammer. 
>(The switch would continue to be operational, too.)   Give me 
>an hour and I could figure out a way to do it without using 
>the hammer.  To make a rail switch work you only have to move 
>two rails (designed to be movable) three inches.  
>
>Peter de Jager used a similar example at the SPG conference 
>in San Francisco. He asked, "what would you do if you owned a 
>small business and all your mainframe programs died?"  Do you 
>just lock the doors?  No, you run down to the computer store 
>and buy 50 copies of Quicken and you set up your core 
>functions again.  You can be up and taking money in a few 
>hours.  
>
>This is why buying a year's worth of food is probably a bad 
>investment unless you're really into camping.  The findings 
>that are starting to come out now just don't warrant that 
>level of anxiety. The December report from the NERC and the 
>January look-forward failures will give us a much better 
>picture of where we really stand.

I can't even bring myself to dissect the above five paragraphs.

Jon, I am really distressed by the last few paragraphs in your report. I'm distressed for a variety of reasons. This is the most non-critical and non-researched view of the Y2k issue I've ever read, and I am truly surprised that it made the cut with Cliff and Peter.

1. You apparently bought the industry party line, hook, line and sinker, with absolutely no critical analysis of the information presented to you.

2. It's very clear to me that you don't understand the Y2k issues in the electric industry, or in fact the industry itself, and so you reported the hook, line, and sinker. I've also come to the conclusion that, even with your background at Tenagra over the past year or so, that you fundamentally don't understand the Y2k problem (or you've been "Charlie Reubenized"). You were clearly out of your depth in reporting on this conference.

3. In the last paragraph in the report, you flippantly told people that personal advance Y2k preparations are a waste of time and money. Your article, posted on the year2000.com, and via the year2000.com mail list, reaches hundreds of thousands of decision makers, and individuals like myself. Now, I'm most assuredly not one of the 'apocalyptic' doomsayers - but I'm responsible enough to tell people that, given the nature of the issue, that some low cost, advance preparation for some lifestyle disruptions (no matter how remote the possibility), just makes sense.

Given the powerful podium that you speak from on the Y2k issue (year2000.com), I expect critical thinking and justification for significant optimism such as written in your report. If there's a reason for optimism, then support it with some independent verification of your own. Your report did a major disservice to the cause, as a whole.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 1998

Answers

Rick, I read Mr. Huntress' article. Just when I didn't think the level of reporting on Y2K could sink any further into the abyss of illogic, Mr. Huntress proved me wrong. Thank you for your forceful rebuttal and for standing up for intellectual honesty! That's something we aren't seeing much of lately.

In a previous answer to a question of mine, you addressed two possibilities for the disparities between optimistic media conclusions and pessimistic facts. They were the hedging of bets and/or deliberate misinformation. After thinking this over, I'd like to offer a third possibility. I guess I'd call it the "Amorphous THEY Syndrome".

During the last few months my husband and I have presented facts to others in an attempt to convince family, friends, and community of the very serious potential impact of Y2K. One response has occurred over and over. "Oh, THEY won't let that happen." The word "they" is never defined. I can only assume it applies equally to government, industry leaders, the military, Bill Gates and Microsoft, or anybody in any position of responsibility anywhere. The trust in "THEY", all facts to the contrary, seems to be more deeply rooted than a three year old's belief in Santa Claus.

One sentence in Mr. Huntress' report is very telling: "Surrounded by the opulence of the energy companies' technology and ability helped me to remember to keep Y2K in the proper context." My personal translation of this statement would be, "Just look at all this great technology!! All this richness!! Surely, THEY won't let anything really bad happen!"

Yep, the Amorphous THEY Syndrome bites again. Forget logic and facts, because...well, just because I can't believe it could get really bad as long as THEY are out there...

Anybody else feel like punching walls in frustration? Keep your wits on the facts, folks, and forget about the Y2K THEY fairy.

-- Anonymous, October 17, 1998

THEY understand how the world works and THEY keep it working because THEY have too much to lose if it stops working.

The problem is that there is no ME in the above.

-- Anonymous, October 18, 1998

http://www.puc.state.tx.us/projects/18491rpt.htm Here's a direct discussion of Texas Y2K power issues. While IOUs seem to be furthest along, the parts about who didn't respond, organizations whose plans are "informal" and "unwritten" cause me to believe that Texas may have a lot of places with power IF AND ONLY IF they decouple from the local grid in time... because some of the municipal power generation plants and rural electrification co-ops don't look to be in good shape. While this isn't my subject area. I automatically get VERY concerned when I see "informal" and "unwritten" in a Y2K remediation context.

http://www.dpsv.state.mn.us/docs/infocntr/year2000/survey.htm More of the same from Minnesota.

-- Anonymous, October 19, 1998

I personally was cheered when I first read Jon Huntress's viewpoint. Then I downloaded the NERC's September 17, 1998 report to the US Department of Energy and after quickly (~15 minutes) skimming it, I became somewhat less optimistic.

One specific example:

Jon writes in his "Good News..." article that: "On top of that, the NERC is making sure there is enough fuel to run the plants, plus a surplus."

"Making sure" to me means one thing: storing adequate supplies of fuel at power plants so that relatively short-lived dislocations in other industries, which result in interruptions in the production and/or transportion of fuels, won't adversely impact electricity production. Fostering inter-industry coordination is a necessary second step toward this end, but is not in itself sufficient.

My understanding is that NERC doesn't have regulatory (read coercive/punitive) powers to compel utilities to store fuel. If that should in fact be the case, could it be that the NERC will be proposing some standard for fuel storage sufficiency and will be seeking some measure of voluntary compliance? For example, will the NERC strongly and incessently ;-) encourage electricity producers to follow the lead of PEPCO (a Washington, DC-area utility highly dependent on coal which, if memory serves, has declared its intention to store three months supply of that fuel)? Or will the NERC be recommending (via the DOE) that state utilities commissions and other regulatory bodies compel their member utilities to meet some level of fuel stockpiling?

If so, that's not at all what appears in the NERC's report itself.

I didn't have access to the press briefing during the World Energy Conference that Jon mentions, and he doesn't state if he came away with this impression from this briefing, rather than the report. However, based solely on the NERC's September 1998 report, it is not clear at all that the NERC is "making sure" there will be an adequate (or surplus) supply of fossil fuels available.

Here are the statements on this subject that I found in the NERC's report:

p. ii-iii [Executive Summary]

>Interdependence of electrical system operations on external >communications providers, natural gas supplies, oil supplies, and rail >transportation of coal supplies is also identified as a key priority in >the report. Coordination efforts need to be stepped up at the industry >and individual organization levels to provide mutual assurances of >resources and capabilities.

p. iii [Executive Summary]

>Specific recommendations include: [...] > >5. Coordination should be established at the industry and organizational >levels to address interdependencies with communications providers, >natural gas and oil suppliers, and coal transportation providers.

p. 4 [Challenges to archieving success]

>5. Interdependence of electrical systems with telecommunications, >natural gas and oil supplies, and rail transportation for coal supplies >requires close coordination with related industries. Initial steps are >being taken to identify and work with counterpart organizations in those >industries.

p. 5 [Recommendations to the electric industry]

>5. Coordination should be established at the industry and organizational >levels to address interdependencies with communications providers, >natural gas and oil suppliers, and coal transportation providers.

p. 31: [Non-nuclear generation]

>Fuel supply is a critical part of the power production chain and needs >to be considered in the Y2K effort. The importance of the dependence on >fuel supplies from other entities cannot be overstated. The Federal >Energy Regulatory Commission is coordinating a similar effort to NERCs >in the natural gas industry to assure the readiness of natural gas >supply systems. Coal and oil delivery systems are equally important. >Because of these dependencies, the Y2K efforts in the electric industry >must be closely coordinated with these related industries.

p. 38 [Telecommunications]

>Coordination at the industry level is also appropriate. Meetings and >conferences have been scheduled for the electric industry to coordinate >with the communications industry (and others such as natural gas, oil, >and rail transportation).

What does this mean?

First, the fuel supply issue is clearly important. As noted in one of the excerpts from the NERC's report, above:

>Fuel supply is a critical part of the power production chain and needs >to be considered in the Y2K effort. The importance of the dependence on >fuel supplies from other entities cannot be overstated.

The critical importance of the fuel supply issue is also summarized on Rick Cowles' Web site at .

Second, progress in this area appears to be mostly in the future tense. Here are the key phrases that stand out from the segments of NERC's September 1998 report excerpted above:

- "Coordination should be established ..." - "Initial steps are being taken ..." - "Coordination efforts need to be stepped up ..." - "Efforts ... must be closely coordinated ..." and - "Meetings and conferences have been scheduled ..."

Now this doesn't in itself mean that inter-industry coordination issues won't be worked out in time, or that production of, and pipeline transmission and distribution or rail transportation of, non-nuclear fuels won't be reliable when the year 2000 rolls around.

However, these excerpts from the NERC's report unequivocally mean that: 1) The NERC is *not* recommending that electricity producers store fuel in order to be adequately prepared for the possiblity of temporary supply interruptions; 2) the NERC is planning to address this problem solely through inter-industry coordination; and 3) little of this coodination work has been done to date; nearly all of it still lies ahead.

These phrases to me imply a conclusion much weaker -- and perhaps altogether different -- than Jon's: "The NERC is making su

-- Anonymous, October 19, 1998