Charlotte, NC, June 17 -- Duke Power announced today that it's three nuclear plants where ready for the Year 2000.

In a report filed Wednesday with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the company stated it has completed its nuclear Y2k readiness program, addressing systems and devices essential to safe, reliable plant operations. The NRC, which has federal regulatory oversight of the nation's nuclear power plants, is requiring all US nuclear utilities to confirm no later than July 1 that their units are Y2k ready.

Duke Power, a business unit of Duke Energy, operates the McGuire Nuclear Station in North Carolina and Catawba and Oconee nuclear stations in South Carolina. Oconee is one of the nation's larger nuclear power producers. All combined, the plants produce enough electricity to power over a million homes and businesses in North and South Carolina. Additionally, with eight coal-fired stations and 31 hydroelectric plants plus numerous combustion turbine units, Duke services nearly two million customers in the Carolinas.

In addition to reviewing readiness, the NRC conducted a special audit of the Y2k contigency plans at six nuclear facilities, including Duke's Oconee station. The audits examined in more detail backup measures the utilities have in place to deal with possible Y2k problems that might affect plant operations. The NRC plans to issue a report on its findings later this summer.

"The audit of Oconee's Y2k contigency plans indicate that we are in good shape," said Michael S. Tuckman, Duke's executive vice president for nuclear generation. "We expect business as usual on January 1. But if we do experience problems, we'll be ready to respond."

Other areas of Duke Power are on schedule to be Y2k ready by June 30, according to a company release Thursday.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990617/nc_duke_y2_1.html

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In one of his later columns for Westergaard Year 2000, Rick Cowles indentified Duke Energy as being one of the industry leaders on Y2k remediation. With Duke being one of the first, if not the first, to announce readiness at their nuclear facilities, this release offers evidence of Rick's understanding of the industry's status.

-- Anonymous, June 17, 1999

Answers

No comments? Anyone? Certainly the data is false, right? Since this cannot be true, it is therefore not true.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

nucpwr,

I'll await the official submittal from Duke to NRC prior to passing judgement. While their statement is consistent with my opinion (past and present) of Duke Energy, I, like many people, don't put a whole lot of faith in PR releases anymore.

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

Thanks for the post, Charlie.

However, it seems to me that it could be summed up as follows: "The leaders of the pack are the leaders of the pack."

Somebody make sure to let us know when the trailers in the pack are ready. :-)

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

It bears repeating that Required Response item (2) of NRC GL 98-01 is written as follows:

"Upon completing your Y2K program or, in any event, no later than July 1, 1999, submit a written response confirming that your facility is Y2K ready, or will be Y2K ready, by the year 2000 with regard to compliance with the terms and conditions of your license(s) and NRC regulations. If your program is incomplete as of that date, your response must contain a status report, including completion schedules, of work remaining to be done to confirm your facility is/will be Y2K ready by the year 2000."

************** BREAKING NEWS ********************************** At Lane's request, I issue the following Facts "for immediate release" ;) ****************************************************************

This will soon be a done deal for all nuclear plants, and preparation of response letters to the NRC are underway (to either GL 98-01 or Supplement 1). Based on industry feedback, I anticipate that most plants will state that they are Y2K Ready at that time, with a minority stating that Readiness will occur at a later date due to scheduling (outages, etc.). I am confident that all currently operating nuclear plants will state in their transmittals to the NRC that they are either Y2K Ready or will be Y2K Ready by the year 2000.

As usual, I stand on the facts. I will be here in after the July transmittals bear witness to the above facts. I will also be around January 1, 2000 when the sun comes up, the birds chirp, and I have my usual shave with my electric razor. Sorry Lane, no gloom, no doom. Just the facts.

Regards, FactFinder

-- Anonymous, June 18, 1999

FactFinder,

You are lucky. You live in an area where the birds chirp on New Year's Day. Where I live it's very cold, and the birds are real quiet. But, based on your response, I have to ask for further explanation. I was following you when you said you thought the nukes would all be reporting ready, or will be ready, for the July 1 replies to the NRC. I, too, believe that they will be so reporting. Yet, how does that correlate with actually getting the work done, to the point that you feel so confident about that electric razor of yours? Unless, you have one of those battery operated ones, or maybe a nice big wet cell and inverter. Is that what you have and why you feel so secure about having an electric shave on 1/1/00? The reason I ask is that up in Minnesota, Roleigh Martin country, quiet birds, they are preparing with backup generators all over the place. Perhaps it's just all those super cautious Norwegians and Swedes, I don't know.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 1999

As usual, I stand on the facts. I will be here in after the July transmittals bear witness to the above facts. I will also be around January 1, 2000 when the sun comes up, the birds chirp, and I have my usual shave with my electric razor. Sorry Lane, no gloom, no doom. Just the facts.

The facts are these: some (maybe most) are done, the rest are about to say that they will be done in time. Unfortunately, the latter kind are merely bald assertions until they are able to change the future tense ("we will be ready") into the present tense ("we are ready").

As I said on another thread, a project is always on schedule until it isn't. (Been there, done that, often.) It may very well be the case that engineers are more capable of project scheduling than are software types, but I never seen even an assertion to that effect let alone metrics.

Am I saying they won't get ready in time? No. I'm just saying tomorrow or next month is not today or this month. Effort is not necessarily progress, and it worries me that so many otherwise intelligent people confuse the two.

So, when the facts are that they're all DONE, please let us know. I, for one, am looking forward to it. If you need more help in distinguishing the future from the present, or expectations from accomplishments, or plans from achievements, let us know that too. There are others who post here who must be more capable of explaining such things than I am, since I don't seem to have been doing a very good job of it.

As to the sun coming up and the birds chirping, thinking that Y2K has anything to do with such things evidences a certain defect in thought processes that is quite outside my professional expertise to imagine let alone to diagnose.

And as to apologizing for no doom and gloom... well, I can hardly believe I'm reading such a thing. If that's what you're hoping for, we're in more trouble than I care to think about. (And somebody else has suggested that I engage in evil activities.)

But, hey, where's that sensible guy from New Zealand? You know, the one who actually uses a real name? I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't be thinking about moving.... :-)

-- Anonymous, June 19, 1999

i don't understand how factfinder can be so certain that he will be shaving with his electric razor on 1\1\2000. we are all capable of reading and interpreting data. how can anyone read what dick mills latest position piece deduces and come to the conclusion that factfinder has?

dik mills comments:

The most significant historical record is that of the software industry as explained by Capers Jones in his book, The Year 2000 Problem. Mr. Jones says that completely *finished,* *debugged* and *tested* applications have on the average, 15% of the bugs outstanding when they go into service. There is no good reason why utilities or embedded chips should have an average much different than this.

Therefore, the best we can hope for is that the overwhelming majority (85%) of the bugs get fixed. What does that mean in terms of keeping the lights on? I have two specific predictions that have remained unchanged since June of 1998.

It is prudent to expect a blackout with an extend and duration of a typical once in ten year event, to happen in January 2000. Include that contingency in your Y2K preparations. If nothing happens, you won't be embarassed because that degree of preparation is always prudent.

2.Generating margins are tight in the summer in many parts of the USA. Because direct Y2K problems, and indirect Y2K supply chain problems such as fuel, and maintenance problems and financial problems, I expect the margings to sink even lower in 2000. This can result in power shortages, curtailments and rationing. The utility industry has not acknowledged this problem, nor have they analyzed it to my knowledge.

For utilities, my primary recommendation at this date is to focus on operational contingency planning, training and drills. It is contingency planning, training and drills. It is not at all necessary that residiual Y2K bugs should lead to more than brief power outages.

end of text

now i disagree that a 15% error ratio is what we are to expect, but 15% is bad enough. casper jones was referring to industry averages, not the incredible push and testing necessary to meet a carved in granite deadline... that is not the 'norm' with software projects.

that aside... no one will know the extent of the errors/damages until we go live. this 'push the clock ahead and run a few tests mentality' that pervades most remediation projects, is, in my estimation, foolish and reckless.

-- Anonymous, June 19, 1999

Marianne, The 15% outstanding bug rate may be an appropriate figure for new and custom coded software applications or Microsoft products ;) From my experience with code FIXED for Y2K bugs only, we had nowhere close to this error rate. And for embedded systems which contain much less code (translate as "simpler" code), I saw only one instance where the new cards did not work (the cards contained the EPROMs that had the firmware code.

Regards,

-- Anonymous, June 20, 1999

Cute, Lane! Regards,

-- Anonymous, June 20, 1999

factfinder,

Marianne, The 15% outstanding bug rate may be an appropriate figure for new and custom coded software applications or Microsoft products

i do not believe that casper jones was referring to microsoft products and neither do you.

From my experience with code FIXED for Y2K bugs only, we had nowhere close to this error rate.

in my experience new changes to existing software, even when tested in a short term environment that indicated no problems, created failures in the processing of data in a live environment. have you run these changes with a year 2000 date for at least 30 days?

text from dick mills article:

The most significant historical record is that of the software industry as explained by Capers Jones in his book, The Year 2000 Problem. Mr. Jones says that completely *finished,* *debugged* and *tested* applications have on the average,*******15% of the bugs outstanding when they go into service.***** There is no good reason why utilities or embedded chips should have an average much different than this.

And for embedded systems which contain much less code (translate as "simpler" code), I saw only one instance where the new cards did not work (the cards contained the EPROMs that had the firmware code.

i must defer to mark frautschi on this one as it is beyond my ken.

marianne

Regards,

-- Anonymous, June 20, 1999