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Due Diligence for Y2K

By Frank Greenhalgh

I saw in the news about a week ago a story about a power failure in San Francisco. A good part of the entire city was without power for about four hours. The people of San Francisco should be congratulated for not having any looting, riots or other calamities that could occur when the environment is so vulnerable. In any case the utility workers found a trunk line that had been broken by some construction people and repaired it. The repair time of four hours shows how fast we can repair physical equipment. I thought to myself "What about responding to digital problems?" Will the news report that "power is out on a grid but a team of programmers should have it repaired in a couple of hours." I don't think so.

This started me thinking about Y2K again. The talking heads on TV are all shouting about Y2K. It seems that as usual they pick two opposing views.

One view is that we will be facing disaster in the year two thousand. Airplanes will be grounded because the air controller's computers will go down. ATM machines will eat our credit card. Banks will be unable to transfer money. Power outages will occur due to computers on the grid not functioning properly. Companies will be unable to ship products because a vendor's computer failed, and last but not least, the government with the IRS, Social Security, FAA and the Pentagon will be go down. "A 20% downturn in the global economy could occur" states one talking head.

Another view is that this is all overrated. One columnist said "If they can put a man on the moon, they can fix the Y2K problem." A French politico was quoted as saying that "The Y2K problem was created by the British and the US as a way to sell software and hardware."

Well it took ten years to put a man on the moon and it involved keeping a computer that was no more powerful that a Commodore 64 operating in space. The Y2K problem involves just about every mainframe computer in the world and requires large quantities of programming man-hours to fix. It also requires testing, which can cost as much or more than the programming does. The utility companies are working feverishly to guarantee that they will be Y2K compliant. But will they? The electrical distribution grids in this country are joined together by about 13,000 computers. Maybe my utility company's computer is Y2K compliant, but what about the rest? If a malfunction occurs we could have an entire grid go out. Even without a glitch the entire Northeast grid went down once. Two times in the last years grids in the west have gone down due to magnetic storms. A grid going down due to a computer glitch may take days even weeks to correct and restart. That is where the problem is.

You can prepare for Y2K by stocking up on cash, food and water and obtaining your latest financial records as close to December 31, as possible. These preparations are all short lead items that can be done in December. What about preparing for a five day power outage? If the grid servicing your house goes down and it takes a week or two before service is restored it will really be tough. What if this can occur frequently? This would probably start to happen early in January. A power outage of any duration over a large area can cause real problems, especially if you live in a cold climate. Gasoline pumps are electric, water pumps also. Your heating system requires power to heat your home.

That last thought is really where it becomes personal. Living in a cold house, with water pipes bursting and your refrigerator and freezer not operating. No lights, no stove, no TV. This might happen.

Due diligence requires that one prepares for this possibility. I started doing due diligence. My first inquiry was to see what my utility the Long Island Power Authority (Keyspan) was doing about it. They have a web page discussing their Y2K plans assuring us that all is well (http://www.keyspanenergy.com/about/y2k.htm) I went through it skeptically. The page lists seven different areas that the company is addressing. There are no actual dates given as to when any of these problems will be solved. The most the company will say is that they do not anticipate any Y2K problems. I am not too sure that they believe it themselves. Now this might seem a bit paranoid but Keyspan is a brand new name. It used to be called the Long Island Lighting Company or LILCO. LILCO had the highest electric rates in the country. LILCO built the Shoreham nuclear power station for a cost of about 6 billion dollars and couldn't obtain a permit to operate it. The State of New York had to buy LILCO for $1 and assume its debts. The re-formed company now called LIPA (Long Island Power Authority a division of Keyspan) issued bonds to pay back the debt. The executives that had been running LILCO were released from their LILCO jobs and given severance packages totaling 69 million dollars. The President alone received about $42 million. Surprise, these guys weren't out of jobs. LIPA hired them to run its old LILCO operations. What a rip off! You lose your job due to incompetence and receive 42 million dollars and then get your old job back. The people insisted that these rascals not run the new LIPA and a few were let go leaving the top management of the company with a void. Watching this drama unfold also leads on to ask; Was LILCO management worried about Y2K over the last years? I don't think so.

Concluding that power is a definite concern, my next step was to see what is required to provide an emergency source of power. I estimated that a minimum of 1KW was required to run a TV, refrigerator and freezer. Add an oil burner or gas furnace and 3KW would probably be required to allow a bit of a cushion when all these devices were running at once. Another problem would be fuel. Generators are available that run on gasoline, diesel, propane or natural gas. Gasoline is generally the easiest but requires filling the generator's fuel tank every 5 to 10 hours. This means that you must store about 50 gallons for a week's operation. I have natural gas but will it be available if we have a large scale power outage? This must be looked into. I found a source for generators on the Internet. Northern-online (http://www.northern-online.com/) has a good selection of generators and information regarding them. Prices range from about $500 for a 1KW unit to $3,000 for a 5KW unit. Prices vary significantly for the same power depending on such improvements as an electric starter and lower noise. Noise levels vary from about a high of 85 dB to a low of 67 dB. What amount is tolerable if it is running 24 hours a day in your house? So many questions. What to do?

Well it's only January and I have some time yet. I have to check and see how long a generator will last running off propane tanks in case my natural gas source isn't available (some generators can use propane or natural gas). I am not sure if I am willing to spend the money for this whole operation, but maybe its better than the possibility that I will be sitting in a dark freezing cold house with the batteries on my portable radio dying and my water pipes bursting.

He co-founded CEAG Electric Corporation (now ABB CEAG) and developed the first mainframe power system using the droop paralleling concept. He has written numerous articles and columns, presented papers at the milestone PowerCon convention and consulted for ABB CEAG and other companies. Recently his accomplishments include the development of two Web sites, www.fgl.com with the Power Corner and www.amityville.com. Frank is presently functioning as "Director of Technical Sales" for Toritsu Tsushin Kogoyo Corp.

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