Could someone please clarify something about the GAO report that just came out about power. I understand that nearly 44 percent of all power stations are unprepared.

Is this really true?

If so, why haven't the newspapers made note of it?

This seems really serious. Does anyone know if this was based on old news, or is it recent news?

In other words, WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON? This seems so serious that it's incredible there is no news today about it!

-- Concerned (concerned@geog.alot), April 17, 1999

Answers

Slippage!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

-- Candles (lightsout@nite.nite), April 17, 1999.

Concerned,

Take a deep breath. Some of the info is apparently old. Some--perhaps is not.

Go to this URL and keep monitoring. Sooner or later, what's what may wash out.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000jOn

:)

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 17, 1999.

Its still to early to expect coverage, especially with the war, or confrontation, or whatever it is. Sure seems for real, but it didn't exactly say 44% weren't "ready".

Hopefully covered in detail by Monday, ALTHOUGH --- It has long been a trick of Bill and his Ad. to release negative or contoversial news item late on Friday --- they are usually largely forgotten by Monday.

We'll just have to wait and see, while we read and digest the whole thing ourselves.

I agree its very serious though --- can the press really ignore this?

-- Jon Johnson (narnia4@usa.net), April 17, 1999.

Concerned: My view on this is what others have already said...this is based on October 1998 assessments. Much, much progress has been made since then. I encourage you to wait about 2 weeks, when the new NERC report comes out (for us who submitted to them at the end of March, they said a new report is coming out in April). This should give you a more up to date report on the status of power companies. As soon as the report is released, I plan to read it and share excerpts of it on this forum.

Dan the power man.

-- Dan (dgman19938@aol.com), April 17, 1999.

Y2K - Only 44% Power Utilites Are Prepared - Widespread Outages Feared

cnnfn.com

General Accounting Office www.gao.gov 4-17-99 NEW YORK (CNNfn) - The nation's electric power utilities have completed only 44 percent of Year 2000-related preparedness and testing, giving rise to concerns about the possibility of widespread power failures as the new year approaches, according to a government report.

The General Accounting Office (GAO) also reported that 46 of the participating organizations said they don't expect to be Y2K ready by the industry's June target date.

Furthermore, 16 percent of those organizations said they don't expect to be Y2K-compliant until the fourth quarter of 1999.

The Y2K problem refers to problems computers may face during the transition from 1999 to 2000 because many computers are programmed to recognize only the last two digits of the year. Computers may recognize 2000 as 1900 or may cease to function altogether.

Among the concerns is that many people may face outages in key services, such as electricity and water supply. Noting that the U.S. electric power supply industry is comprised of about 3,200 electric utilities, the GAO expressed concern about the industry's efforts to make their systems Y2K ready. "While the electric power industry has reported that it has made substantial progress in making its equipment and systems ready to continue operations in the year 2000, significant risks remain," the report said.

Because power utilities are dependent on embedded computer control systems -- that is, chips that are built into a computer's architecture and can't be replaced with different chips - the industry is particularly susceptible to Y2K-related failures.

"All phases of operations in the electric power industry, from generation to distribution, use control systems and equipment that are subject to Year 2000 failures," the GAO report said. "The industry's analysis of its embedded systems has shown that the Year 2000 problem places the nation's electric power systems at risk."

Last month, a special committee established by the Clinton administration found that 11 of the 24 major federal agencies, including the Energy Department, missed the government's March 31 deadline for making their mission-critical systems Y2K compliant.

Link at

http://www.sightings.com/politics2/y2kouttages.htm

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), April 18, 1999.

go to this URL and read Rick Cowles take on this. I believe him over and above anyone else when it comes to the grid.

-- Taz (Tassie@aol.com), April 18, 1999.

And that URL is:

http://www.euy2k.com/newsroom.htm

-- FM (vidprof@aol.com), April 18, 1999.

In link form: http:// www.euy2k.com/newsroom.htm

-- PJ Gaenir (fire@firedocs.com), April 18, 1999.