1. You still didn't answer my question of how many of these inaccesible, irremediable and mission critical systems/chips there are in the world let alone the oil industry. Is it two? Two hundred? Two million? I suspect you and nobody else on this planet knows in which case a rating on the Y2Kometer is not easy to deduce.

My response: They are virtually uncountable. Many are hidden, and previously unknown chips keep popping up. When you reach the magnitude that is reported, you begin to realizethat quibbling in the millions becomes completely "immaterial" and a moot issue. A typical large well will have nearly a thousand systems with embeddeds connected to a typical well. Some cannot be reached, and others can be reached but are sealed and when a box goes out, all one can do is replace it depending on the problem and the reason.

My response: Sometimes items can be worked around by re-designing the system's software configurations...this can take a long time (weeks or months) depending on the severity and complexity of the unit. Not just any old engineer is qualified to do so.

The problem here is... quantity, numbers and the limited qualified personnel capable of solving the problems in the short amount of time given after the problem was first recognized about a year ago. That's right, the magnitude was extremely underestimated and of no real concern by most companies until it was too late to get the job done correctly.

========= You said:

3. I don't pretend to have a clue about the oil remediation business. People were asking questions about whether embedded systems in general would cause America (and the UK) to seize up with no power, no heat and no light. It appears even you do not believe that scenario. I don't believe it either, it may be bad news for oil companies somewhere but that doesn't readily translate to Mad Maxdom here in the UK (with 300 years worth of coal underground) or on your side of the pond.

My Response:

The issue of electricity embeddeds is a far different and far less complex matter than the systems used in the Oil industry. I have chosen to focus rather on the oil industry than the others because I have far more contacts in the oil industry who are on the scene. Coal? How are you going to get it out of the ground? If you use fossil fuel based systems to retrieve the coal, that means there is still an interlinked dependency. Are you guys prepared to get it out of the ground by hand in the quantities needed to replace the missing oil? And if not, how long to get new infrastructure in place? Here in the U.S. where I live, I've not met anyone in 40 years still using coal except for industrial usage such as power plants, and even many of those have been mothballed by our Environmental Protection Agency and the "Clean Air Act." Coal is not a viable alternative for the USA in the short run as a temporary solution to USA energy needsshould the USA lose significant amounts of oil supply.

---------------- You Said:

4. You give a scenario from http://www.iea.org/ieay2k/homepage.htm on underwater pipeline emdedded chips. This is what gets me, you place a mission critical chip miles below on the ocean floor and have no contingency to replace it easily. Couldn't they design a system which could be automatically hauled up and remediated on dry land? Why is it that important? Suppose the device polls between 31/12/99 23:59:30 and 01/01/00 00:00:30. The time elapsed comes out as negative (unless it takes the absolute in which case everything is okay) or a very large number and then this forms the divisor for some crazy flow number. The crucial question is what does it do with this number?

If it subtracts the new oil parameter from the pre-2000 one and divides by the huge erroneous time number then the apparent oil flow is near zero. If it just reports the wrong number to the station on the surface - big deal - we know it a Y2Kism and ignore it for get this - when it does the next elapsed time calculation it will be 01/01/00 00:00:30 to 01/01/00 00:01:00 in other words back in sync and no more problems!

By the way, using century/year/month/day/hour/minutes/seconds is a damn expensive way of calculating elapsed time. A lot of chip just count clock ticks - Y2K immune. Do you know how many of these chips count ticks or count centuries (you say some don't even have the source code now so I bet they don't know either!)?

Of course, if the chip decides a zero oil flow rate is a bad thing it may take things into its own hands and shut something down. That of course is not recommended and a workaround such as a manual override or temporarily snipping its failsafe comms link would do this and then reconnect after 01/01/00.

If the chip simply dies forever at least it won't be shutting down things.

--------------------------

My Response:

Garbage! Things don't work that way in the embeddeds applications in the oil industry.

Go back to the DD thread, and you'll find a lot of your questions already answered. As Cheryl has just posted above you should check out all of the various threads that have already been posted that answers these questions. You question the placement of embedded systems on the ocean floor but there are various aspects to the issue not the least of which is that the oil well is not expected to produce oil forever. It all depends on a given well as to what the lifespan of that well will be. There are other issues and applications besides those involved down the hole. There are also systems involved in stabilizing the platforms that are also not easily accessable.

You also must realize that there were a lot of applications NOT needing a date specificchips but the manufacturer substituted with date chips because they were out of stock and had to get the order out. Seeing how the cost differences were minimal, the bottom line was put it in and finish it, and ship it so we can get our money now andnot wait til next month or next quarter. Hence there are a lot more of these 'animals' out there that are waiting 'ticking' potential time-bomb problems, all unknown to the owner because its in a sealed system that cannot be physically examined for a variety of reasons... including, the fact that to make the examination will recquire an extended unit shutdown that the company cannot afford.

Frankly, you don't understand nor have a clue as to how the oil biz works as is evidenced by your comments and questions now and in the past. At least not the way USA oil companies operate.

====================You said:

5. You may go on about how many myriads of critical chips there are out there. Okay, what I want to know is how many are being fixed or worked around and what the critical mass of failure is. If you don't reach the critical mass then you'll get through. What is the critical mass, R.C.?

My response:

Critical mass can be 1.

I've heard that perhaps less than 5% of the systems have been examined, let alone fixed or tested. There has been no end to end testing done or reported by any oil company (at least that I've seen) or heard. There was one company that had made such a claim but one of my insiders at that company said it was baloney because he did a bunch ofthe work on it and there was NO end to end testing. I don't think that company still has that claim posted on its website. The last time or two I was there, I couldn't find it and the website had been thoroughly revamped.

============ You said:

6. Regarding your story of guys having to replace whole units which are no longer supported or manufactured. So why can't they shut part of the system down for a few hours to take out the Y2K rollover or reset the date back a few years to give them time? I really need the manuals for these machines to give you a cogent answer.

My Response:

These issues have been hashed over repeatedly... "Chad" over on the new DD thread just a few threads below this has posted a succinct explanation. I don't have time to go hunt for my where my comments on this are within the forum. Wells can't be turned on and off and on like a light switch. Shutting down a well to remediate, will usually meana dead well. You lose pressure, you have to drill another well.

=========You said:

7. Regarding the Centrilift Downhole monitoring system. Just what does "potential data integrity concern" mean? Is this a mission critical piece of equipment? Will the oil rig or whatever close down if this monitor gets it wrong? Did Centrilift not rate it highly important and just let it slip of the end of their priority fix list in September? Why does it say "potential data integrity concern"? Don't they know whether it will fail or not - or is it this small time window problem I mentioned in point 4 above. Will the downhole monitor automatically shut down the hole? If not, ignore the rollover blip it produces.

The bottom line here is they probably have a new upmarket Y2K compliant hole monitor and they want all you guys to buy it instead. Nothing to do with running out of time I bet.

My Response:

They are all inter-related and interconnected. You have to also understand there are a lot of failsafes for environmental regulations that are not really 'necessary' except in the political sense. Same is true for OSHA (safety) requirements. These are 2 federal agencies that are out of control at times with needless regulatory restrictions that ham-string the oil industry. So yes, a system may not seem essential but due to gov't regulations, it would be a violation to jerry-rig around it.

========= You said:

8. What is the problem with these field acquisition devices, didn't they say they would rollout in August? The rest is all contingency and no panic to me.

My response:

Problem is that they did NOT roll out in August. The site updates almost daily if not weekly.

=========== You said:

9. Non-critical date using chips. Since when were flow documentation for payment transactions critical? Will the refinery shutdown if it gets a payment wrong? Safety - indeed critical - so shut it down over rollover or bar the embedded system's access to the failsafe mechanism (cut the wire over rollover). I say these without knowing the internals of refinery systems - it just sounds like common sense to me having looked at other non-oil systems.

My response:

There are far more issues involved than just payment transactions, maintaining correct pressures, etc. Again, many date-chips were substituted ... (or at least this has been found to be the case in various limited assessments done in refineries) but were not called for in the schematics. The manufacturer simply subbed them in to avoid creating a lengthy backorder problem.

========== You said:

10. Lying PR men. Proof of this to me is: a. In the know oil executives exercising stock options. b. In the know oil people dumping their oil shares. c. In the know oil people taking massive long positions in the crude oil futures market on a hike in oil prices due to reduced productivity.

My response:

This is a TOTAL NON-STARTER! You really don't know much about America do you???? Have you ever heard of the SEC??? The Securities and Exchange Commission? This would be considered "insider trading" and forbidden by law.

Remember the last oil crisis. The Federal gov't and (I believe some state gov'ts personally "crucified" some oil executives personally. I don't know if they went to jail, but they spent years in the courts in extensive lawsuits. There is now a real fear of a repeat performance...as the oil industry knows that they will be the "whipping boy" for the public and the gov't. They're not about to blatantly break the law in such a manner. They might try to do it under the table but the SEC has been doing a pretty good job of quickly catching folks that do it... too great a risk.

Regarding Oil futures... same situation applies in a matter such as this. The hedging aspect is also heavily regulated. The major oil companies again were hit with very heavy fines and jail time back in the last oil crisis. Nobody wants to do jail time, Shuggy.

+++++=+++ You went on to state:

I presume you predict this too. Is it happening? As for 10% remediation and taking a risk, they must have prioritised the remediation process and done the show stoppers first - logical if they thought time was against them?

All they've been doing is window-dressing Shuggy. Period.

======= You stated:

Tell me, when a unit in a refinery has a "blow-out" does it render the refinery inoperable for good or is it worked around as in so many accidents in the past?

My response:

It depends on the severity. I've seen refineries out for a couple of years or more or back up in about 90 days. Now this, as opposed to a simple fire or a non blow-out.

Multiply that times multiples of refineries and you've got a problem. Shoot, we see situations all the time where if just one refinery goes down at the wrong time it can "spike" the prices dramatically... as much as 20% in a weekend. Imagine just a dozen going down, combined with a LOT of oil wells domestically and massive chunks shut down inside Opec. We're talking significant here. I'm not saying

ALL refineries or ALL large oil wells will go down...but I've had guys in the field tell me that ALL of THEIRS will go down. THEY KNOW IT. The odds are overwhelming or theyknow that the diagrams show bad ones in critical places that when the go, it's a permanent shut down to the well.

=========== You said:

12. I agree it won't be a Mad Max scenario. You are holding out for a 5 - 6 scenario, I am more in the 3 - 4 I think, not quite Pollyanna or doomer. I think there will also be disruptions and the gov't oil reserves will be important and no doubt allocated where it is most needed. I think things will be bad in third world countries and the economic implications could be severely recessional. I could lose my job but I don't expect to lose my life or limbs. Prepare accordingly.

My Response:

IF we get only 24% oil supplies for 6 months... we will run the risk, substantial risk of a Mad Max scenario developing. Especially IF the lights go out... IF the grid goes down, and the phones go down, ... somebody just blow out the candles, 'cause "the party's over."

IF you're a 4 then what are you doing acting like a Pollyanna in your posts?

Frankly, you don't understand the oil business in America, nor understand the processes at all. Which is no big deal if you admit you don't really know. The tone of your prior posts indicates that you think you do know the oil business. You ask nitpicking questions that show only your naivete regarding oil and at times functionon the level of a troll. IMO.

Another point: Cheryl, in her above post refers to Ron from Shell and API... I did see a quote from him in this regard, as well as some others who confirmed this very issue. Maybe the Linkmeister can find it... I don't know if it was on a Shell website or API or in an interview... I'm thinking an interview somewhere.

-- R.C. ([7]racambab@mailcity.com), November 02, 1999.

---

Hi Cheryl,

Great post, and glad you could take a moment to contribute. Hope things are going well for you in beautiful Oregon. Too bad you haven't had any further contacts in the Oil biz. -- R.C. ([8]racambab@mailcity.com), November 02, 1999.

R.C., the legend in his own mind, demonstrating some of the "flawless" doomer "logic" of the typical "GI."

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), June 12, 2000

Answers

PS - I promise to skip over this "Quotably Quoted" when it is reached in the natural order (ie, I will post #130, then #132).

Vindicated Regards,
Andy Ray

-- Andy Ray (andyman633@hotmail.com), June 12, 2000.

You also must realize that there were a lot of applications NOT needing a date specificchips but the manufacturer substituted with date chips because they were out of stock and had to get the order out.

This was one of the funnier RC statements, clearly demonstrating that he wouldn't know the difference between an IC and an RTC if it smacked him in the head and left a part number imprint. RC was clearly a non-techie, as his website and background demonstrated.

But he was a hero at TB2000, along with DD1light and "Mr. CEO."

-- FactFinder (FactFinder@bzn.com), June 12, 2000.

The Tai sticks are on the coffee table in the foyuer,the designer martini's are located inthe cold box at the gazeabo ; )

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 12, 2000.

132?

-- Oh (God@help.us), June 12, 2000.

Forgiven Andy Ray. Nobody but you and perhaps my friend FactFinder would wallow through this anyway.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), June 13, 2000.

132?

No problem. I figure by about #91, we'll be down to KOS asking people if they mudwrestle -- and various sightings of militant squirrels and sadomasochistic ferrets.

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), June 13, 2000.

Andy Ray:

These are my favourite Tinfoil power prognostications...

Well that lie will only fly until dec 31 then an angry giant republic will awaken once the utilities go down and the intentional deception is made very clear. To all those politicans that are standing behind the lie that y2k wont shut off the utilities hard, come clean now for the record while you still have time.

-- y2k aware mike (y2k aware mike@ conservation . com), September 10, 1999

Electricity: Kiss It GoodBye For A Long Time

Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 09, 1999.

I think the power will go off on Dec 31. I'm expecting weeks of power outages...

-- Crono (Crono@timesend.com), November 11, 1999.

Since my power company is PSE&G the answer is NO! They started late and haven't caught up. I expect 2-3 weeks of black with 6-8 months of 'dirty' juice.

TECH32 (TECH32@NOMAIL.COM), November 10, 1999.

All in all, I expect to be without electrical power for AT LEAST 10 days. That's my definition of a "BITR".

GoldReal (GoldReal@aol.com), November 10, 1999. Klinton's plan is simple. He will turn out the power in NYC when the ball drops. Then declare martial law to stop the riots. Special UN troops will spread across the country burning and looting in each time zone as the hour passes and the lights are turned off. By Saturday noon, it will all be over.

Better be ready for the resistance movement.

NOWAY TOO MANY SPIES (AIN"TNOWAY@TODAY.COM), November 25, 1999.

Too little and too late. The collapse is coming. If you live anywhere near a large city, you're history. You're toast. You're sucker bait. GET OUT NOW. There isn't much time left.

You people are the REAL Americans. Hang on, ride it out, and we'll build a better world in the future! 

 Germanus (germanus@fakeemail.net), November 25, 1999.

-- Y2K Pro (y2kpro1@hotmail.com), June 13, 2000.

Cap my good fellow, its thai sticks and when was the last time you saw or smelled) one? Kinda dating ourselves are we not?

-- Ra (tion@l.1), June 13, 2000.

Ra,

Damn,I did miss the 'h'!,my bad.Oddly enough about 2 yrs ago but none sinse : (

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 13, 2000.

Thai stick? Man, I ain't seen any of thst stuff since the war. Got any?

:)- ~~o~

-- Stoney (blowing@smoke.rings), June 13, 2000.

Thanks Y2K Pro, they are too funny :)

-- Maria (anon@ymous.com), June 13, 2000.

capnfun, you are too kind sir. Can I bring anything to the party? Just the say the word, folks will love my all-natural hangover remedies.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 13, 2000.

All-natural hangover remedies? I have one - don't drink alcohol! And this talk of Thai stick makes me wanna PUKE! Sinsemilla? Soft, fury critters never hurt nobody. Whatsamatta, reality not good enough for ya? Burnouts!

[Bingo is just pissed because his invite to the party has yet to arrive.]

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 13, 2000.

Bingo,

You have a standing invite to any and all parties my friend,the idea of having a get together in vegas has come up a time or two,whatya think?

BTW,I'm far from burnt but still likes my good times.The mention of furry sinsy brings back some very fond memories.

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 13, 2000.

Cap, all we need is ONE high roller & we're in on the cheap in Vegas. Your budget may have some wiggle room, mine doesn't. :^)

Course I've slept on many a floor in my time, not to mention backyards, frontyards, driveways, decks, closets (don't ask), pool tables...a roof...ok, more than one roof...beaches...cars seats (behind the wheel even)...and then there's the ones I don't remember - thankfully. Could be a new thread in this one.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 13, 2000.

Bingo,

LOL,I too have had an assortment of crashing places in my time,kinda odd though,roof's and beaches have allways been my fav's,still to this day.I don't really think we need a high roller to finance the thing though,as airfare to Vegas is usually quite affordable.If this thing does happen the digs are on moi,no floor this trip : )

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 13, 2000.

Hi Bingo, I was just being silly, I know nothing of parties except a virtual one on this thread :=) meant nothing more by it.

Occasional drinker. Have found that if I'm going to do some social drinking, it completely prevents a hangover to take plenty of B1, C, n-acetylcysteine, and water ahead of time, and/or some dark, hatcho miso broth. Doesn't work after the fact!

Peace.

-- Debbie (dbspence@usa.net), June 13, 2000.

Deb, two points.

1. I can be extremely silly at times. The bad part is often no one except myself & perhaps Bingo Jr. knows when I'm being facetious. Sorry if you were offended.

2. I never drank water prior to or during a drinking binge. I drank prodigious amounts upon going to sleep/collapse & during the night/morning. BTW, I love most any miso broth.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 13, 2000.

Green fur and designer martinis. Now this is my kinda thread!

Hey Bingo, aren't you also a NJ guy?

Hep cap, I've got family, and friends, in LV.

So, ya wanna party, huh...

<:)=

-- Sysman (y2kboard@yahoo.com), June 13, 2000.

Deb,

Welcome!!! to the virtual party,I think this is party #131? MAYHAPS? What is your specialty? We in the south have allways been partial to pot luck,you make the choice.

As far as I'm concerned I am a professional,no hangover meds needed : )

What do you think of LV? (fall)

BTW,evening tequila shots are being self served over on the west wing!!!

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 13, 2000.

Cap, my wife is a travel agent. She says air fares to Las Vegas are high flying out of our area right now but will drop during the Fall. When the time comes do I dare try Priceline.com and risk her wrath?

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 13, 2000.

Sysman,

Are the Kennedy's gun shy? LOL!!!

Bingo,

Come on dude!!! We may need help!!! Maybe you could be the DD?

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 13, 2000.

Bingo,

Ask your wife if say St.Louis/? is more reasonable? With the thought that we meet in the middle?

Arriving on Fri. night-departing on Sun. night?

-- capnfun (capnfun1@excite.com), June 13, 2000.

Hey Sysman. Ex-Jersyan, current Virginian. So, do the relatives in LV have a plush carpet to crash on? :^)

I have a sister in St. Louis, Cap. This is getting interesting.

-- Bingo1 (howe9@shentel.net), June 13, 2000.