Subject:	When 'Ready" means NOT ready
Date:	1999/07/08
Author:	Paul Milne <fedinfo@halifax.com>
	Posting History

Last week, Y2KNEWSWIRE conducted an interview with a NERC spokesperson. Below is a small part of the conversation that took place. This will probably be the shortest story we'll ever post, and it needs no explanation:   =======     NERC spokesperson: So we came up with the concept of "Y2K ready with limited exceptions." [These are] specific, defined items that say we are waiting for the software or the hardware from the vendor... So we said, okay, you [the power utilities] can report you're Y2K Ready with Limited Exceptions if you tell us what these items are.         Y2KNEWSWIRE: But what happens then if those parts don't come in, is the plant then downgraded from Y2K Ready with Exceptions to something beneath that? How is that handled?         NERC spokesperson: Well, if it doesn't come in, the facility just isn't ready...         Y2KNEWSWIRE: Does the NERC have a deadline for those exceptions to be fulfilled or else the plant has to say, okay, we're not ready, is there some requirement along those lines?         NERC spokesperson: We don't anticipate that happening. We really don't anticipate that happening.   =============   The fact is that claiming 'readiness' of this type is no readiness at all except in the infantile minds of Polyannas.   In reality, when do you get to call something 'ready' when it is NOT ready?   "My term paper is 'ready' with the exception of the approprite footnotes".   F   That is the way it works in the real world. You get an "F".   But in a world where if you told the truth and called unreadiness unreadiness that would mean that people would have to get off their fat asses and do something. And that will never happen.   http://www.y2knewswire.com/19990708jog.htm   Paul Milne           http://www.y2knewswire.com/19990708jog.htm

-- a (a@a.a), July 09, 1999

Answers

Well let's go back to kindergarten, once again.

The NERC spokesman is an expert in things electrical. Or speaks for those who are.

Paul Milne and the Y2k Newswire folks know next to nothing about things electrical. But we're supposed to believe them, above those who have made careers out of things electrical.

Using the same logic, we'd take the opinion of PeeWee Herman above that of Albert Einstein in a discussion of the theory of relativity -- just because PeeWee happened to be a pessimist.

You folks have finally gone completely nuts.

NEXT ---

(see the flying pig?)

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), July 09, 1999.

Appropriate excuses make up for one's failure to remove one's fat ass from the chair, don't they? As an example, "I was unable to get down the fire pole in order to arrive at the firetruck in time, due to the hangnail I have". How about, "I couldn't complete my report because my Mother made me clean my room".

"We ignored the problem. We waited too long to address it. We underestimated it's complexity. We underestimated the amount of time required to fix it. We pray to God the embedded systems don't decapitate the industry. We can't guarantee anything, be prepared for that." I require this from my children. I require it in my marriage and every other meaningful relationship I participate in. I require it in my leaders and from my neighbors and coworkers. Milne's correct....it'll never happen!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), July 09, 1999.

MY car was recently "roadworthy with limited exceptions". It failed its MoT inspection with a blown licence plate illumination bulb.

Once the problems are known, one can make a rational decision about whether they are mission-critical or simply annoying. A captain won't put to sea in a vessel he doesn't think seaworthy, but I doubt if a ship ever left port without something somewhere broken!

And you get an F only in the sort of exam where the only other grade is P. Normally there's a range, from A* through B,C... to F. Just about anything more complex than a mousetrap can be in a state of less-than-perfect-but-better-than-broken functionality.

The big (unknown, probably unknowable, scary) question is of course just where we will be on the scale -- w.r.t. electricity or just about anything else.

-- Nigel Arnot (nra@maxwell.ph.kcl.ac.uk), July 09, 1999.

Nigel, do you really want to live next door to a nuclear power plant that is suddenly " in a state of less-than-perfect-but-better-than-broken functionality?" Especially when that state is undefined?

Think risk/reward. The risk from a burned out license lamp is very small. The risk from a burned out nuke is anything but small.

-- de (delewis@Xinetone.net), July 09, 1999.

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."

So, what it all comes down to is this, there is either deception going on here with the utilities or there is not. I vote with Milne.

-- Gordon (gpconnolly@aol.com), July 09, 1999.

Right Paul, right Gordon.

I have a couple of questions:

Where is the EPA ?

Where are the Ralph Naders of this world?

Where does the US Congress stand on this?

Take care

-- George (jvilches@sminter.com.ar), July 09, 1999.

In answer to Chicken little:

Well let's go back to kindergarten, once again. The NERC spokesman is an expert in things electrical. Or speaks for those who are.

( No the NERC is an organization comprised of utility executives. If ever there was a definition of a self serving body, this would be it.)

Paul Milne and the Y2k Newswire folks know next to nothing about things electrical.

( Really? I am now employed as an electrician. I just worked for a year on the construction of the coal fired Utility plant at Clover VA. Chicken, you are an ignoramus spouting off crap about which you have no idea.)

But we're supposed to believe them, above those who have made careers out of things electrical.

( Their carreers are NOT 'things' electrical. They are mostly businessmen. They could be in ANY industry. I'll bet not a one of them could wire a three way switch or a receptacle.)

Using the same logic, we'd take the opinion of PeeWee Herman above that of Albert Einstein in a discussion of the theory of relativity -- just because PeeWee happened to be a pessimist.

You folks have finally gone completely nuts.

NEXT ---

(see the flying pig?)

-- Chicken Little (panic@forthebirds.net), July 09, 1999.

(I am glad that rubes like you post here. it only exposes to the lurkers how ignorant you are.)

-- Paul Milne (fedinfo@halifax.com), July 09, 1999.

Here's a kindergarden lesson for Chicken:

Dec 97 "We'll be 100% COMPLIANT in ALL systems, with a YEAR for testing"

Jul 98 "We'll be 100% COMPLIANT in MISSION CRITICAL systems, with a YEAR for testing"

Jan 99 "We'll be y2k READY in mission critical systems, with 6 MONTHS for testing"

Jul 99 "We hope to be y2k ready by Dec 99. May even have a few days for testing."

-- a (a@a.a), July 09, 1999.

Dear Mr. Little..I think that I have to respond to your last post. Sir, I to, have had a little time in the construction of coal-fired co-generation complexes.( and a couple of nukes also) A little over thirty years worth now. I truely loved those plants and their swiss-like precision construction. A year, did you say...were you on wire pulling,or conduit & wire tray installation..I know that you were not with the start-up engineering. Not enough time put in. At least not with Bechtel Corp. or Fish Bach and Moore, nor Sterns and Rodgers..But these are just little outfits LOL.

I to, am an electrican; but there is a whole lot more to building a power house than a three way switch, I think you would agree.

And yes, I to know of the secondary clock syndrome. And it does exhist, But. As I told Mr. Milne some time back, I do not want to get into a pissing contest with people about the ends and outs of the complexities of power production.

Lets see..there are only two companies which make turbines, if I remember correctly. One Is General Electric, and the other is Westinghouse.( I helped install one of each..The first at the Navaho power complex at Page az. back in 74' the other at St. Johns, Az. in 79')

Might I inquire as to who the General was on the one power house you worked on? I am aware of the possibility of two such complexes being built below the Dallas/Ft. Worth complex in the near future. But no, I don't believe that I will be on one of them. Quite simply because I am of a firm conviction that the embeded systems will do it and us all in. Every thing is too interconnected for it all to stay up.

Not possible you say!...Check Huntington power house. In Huntington Utah. On or about 1975/76. I think that you will find that it's turbine was blown out of the deck when it's hydrogen cooling envelope was broached. How did that happen?

Well it seems that the controls preventing the generator from being switched into a hot switch yard failed. But let me back track and elaborate some what.

The generator had been down for twenty-four hours on a routeen maintance. Then the operator brought the turbine back on line. At 80% of sync. He checked his controlls and saw that the switch yard was cold. (it was not cold! There was 13,800 volts in it). He next began to switch the generator to the switch yard (a feat thought impossible! The new analog/ditigial controls were designed to prevent such a thing!) But they failed.....When the hook up was compleated, the 13,800 volts in the switch yard stormed in over powering the approximately 9,000 volts being generated.... The turbine stopped and turned in reverse.. Being an electrican, you of course know that this is called MOTORING. This in turn ruptured the hydrogen envelope!!! And I, an a operating engineer spent the next two days with a cherry picker hunting down generator casing shards at up to a mile away from the plant...

The next two weeks the general cont. played show and tell to every big wig in just about every large utility in America and Canada. You see...what happened, was impossible! It could not have happened! But it did....The embeds, when they fail cause damage my friend.

My respondse when I found out last year that the problem (the secondary clock in the various embeded chips) had not been corrected...I bailed out, bought my year or more of food! And baby, I am not going any where close to a power generation complex. Untill it is all over. Shakey

-- Shaky_in_a (Bunker@forty.feet), July 09, 1999.

I think everyone is missing a large, pervasive issue here - the software and/or hardware is not available yet!

The utilities have to schedule their maintenance and repair outages during times of lower demand, being spring and fall. If the software/hardware is further delayed, we will be heading into the winter with plants offline for repairs at a time when the load capacity may not be able to handle it. (The same reason Greater Boston experienced a y2K brownout a couple weeks ago when.)

Would someone PLEASE explain to me why I should have any faith whatsoever in the predictions of when any of the major companies will be ready when they are based on backordered materials?? And how many contingency plans are based on equipment like large generators that will never become available this year?

-- Brooks (brooksbie@hotmail.com), July 09, 1999.

Wow Shaky, thanks for sharing! By all means feel free to jump in on any of the other NERC spin-cycle threads. Personally, I wouldn't mind observing one of your 'pissing contests'.......go for it!

Where the heck is Danno the Power Man when you *want* him to appear from the depths of Y2K blackout? Shucks...I'd even settle for Engineer right now. "Paging the clueless......clueless, please call the Op-eraTOR".

BTW...please pick up all singed feathers before leaving....OK chicken? We need some Citra-Scent in this thread, Diane! Wheeeeeewww

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), July 09, 1999.