This is the posting that got me thinking about compliancy.If the due dates are top-down management instead of a bottom-up engineering review due date,how can we have confidence that critical vs. non-critical was not also arbitrary?"On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 19:26:02 -0500, "Jeff Schwartz" <schwartz@bitstorm.net>
wrote:
>So, the way I'm readin this is they managed to get all assesment for all
>plants done in , plus some of the embedded controller fixes done in, oh, 8
>months or so?
>
>Does this not seem to be a little hard to believe?
Now where have I seen that June 1999 date before?...
Let's take a look at the NRC Audits for selected Nuclear Power plants:
Listed are the start dates,expected completion dates, # of software items
needing repair and # of embedded systems needing repair.
(See entire reports at nrc.gov
--Monticello--
Start Date June 1998
Finish Date June 1999
Software Items 290
Embedded Systems 500
--Brunswick--
Start Date Sept 1997
Finish Date June 1999
Software Items 252
Embedded Systems 484
--Seabrook--
Start Date 1st Quarter 1997
Finish Date June 1999
Software Items 745
Embedded Systems 559
--Watts Bar--
Start Date Dec 1997
Finish Date June 1999
Software Items 154
Embedded Systems 451
--Davis Besse--
Start Date Sept 1997
Finish Date July 1999
Software Items 285
Embedded Systems 106
--Hope Creek--
Start Date Aug 1997
Finish Date Sept 1999
Software Items 733
Embedded Systems 2377
Interesting. Note that no matter when the plants got started on Y2k remediation,
no matter how many software and/or embedded systems need repairs(not to mention
how much budgeted and spent, how many people working on it), almost all of them
project that they will be "y2k-ready" in June 1999. Why June 1999? Because the
NRC imposed deadline(with threat of shutdown) is July 1999. Any chance that the
plants may have set their timelines by working backwards from the July 1999
deadline? Nah.
As for your second question - Is the public being lied to? We are fortunate in
the case of the NRC Audits to have access to the data, not just the
"conclusions". The data is what you should form your y2k conclusions from.
Unfortunately, most of the time we are not privy to it. That's why the
newsgroup, when its not arguing about how big of an idiot Don Scott is, is
arguing over what may appear to be nitpicky details of every scrap of
information we can get our hands on. You're going to have to do your homework
and prepare yourself accordingly.
I saw an interesting program last night on public TV about the nuclear arms race
between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. They talked about the Civil Defense
simulations and plans for the citizenry in event of nuclear attack(duck and
cover!). The Civil Defense officials quickly came to the conclusion that there
was no effective answer for people caught in or around ground zero. They then
changed their approach from saving lives to preventing panic. Sound familiar?
I'm not going to tell you what you need to do, but I think common sense dictates
a couple of things:
1. Reduce your reliance on the systems that are at risk.
2. Don't be at ground zero."
Sounds like good advice to me.
J.L.T.
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