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Fuel industry needs to step on the gas By Erik J. Martin Back in the 1970s, when the economy was in a sputter and the political climate was more chaotic than the underground punk rock movement, Americans were getting used to waiting in lines. Not just for Star Wars tickets, but for turns at the gas pumps. The country was in the midst of a terrible oil shortage, and the cost of a gallon of gas was enough to make you ditch your Chevy for a Schwinn. Fast forward to 1999 and you'll see that the more things change, the more they stay the same. True, the economy is no longer in a tailspin; citizens actually have a reasonable level of confidence in their President, and Star Wars tickets are now a snap to come by, thanks to multiplexes, MovieFone and the Internet. But send me back to the future and call me Marty McFly if I don't see what looks like more long lines at the gas pumps looming over the century-turning horizon. This time the potential culprit isn't inflation or OPEC. It's Y2K. Congress' General Accounting Office recently issued a report criticizing the oil and gas industry about its Year 2000 compliance status. Their main complaint: there is no countrywide approach to address potential shortages or disruptions that may be caused by the millennium bug. With the oil and gas industries’ heavy reliance on highly automated and embedded computer systems powered by Y2K-vulnerable microchips, fears of cold furnaces and empty gas tanks come next January and beyond are growing. The GAO raised red flags by citing an industry survey that indicated more than 25 percent of the industry isn't expected to be Y2K-compliant until the second half of this year -- stats that just aren't acceptable to a country perpetually thirsty for fuel and an industrial nation that's used to running like, well, a well-oiled machine. These percentages are especially alarming when you consider that oil and gas account for about 65 percent of our nation's energy consumed, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory commission's 1997 figures. Of particular concern is the fact that more than half of all U.S. oil is imported. With all of the reports flying in the press circulating in the past few months about the lagging Y2K compliance efforts of other nations, our dependence on oil shipped in from the Middle East and other foreign regions is not a comforting thought. To help allay fears, the GAO report said that if the flow of black gold from far-away nations is interrupted, Uncle Sam can fall back on the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, currently stocked with some 600 or so million barrels of oil -- enough to last about 90 days on a ration. The scenarios are frightening when you ponder the proliferation of microchips across the industry. One onshore gas plant may use as many as 100 embedded systems, each containing up to 10,000 individual microchips. Trying to find and replace the glitch chip could be like trying to find a needle in a haystack -- a particularly dangerous haystack if, for instance, an underwater pipe succumbs to the Y2K bug and deep-sea divers are needed to fix the fiasco. What's really mind-boggling is that there are 220,000 miles of oil and gas pipeline in the States. One bad chip or faulty date-error information from the chip could shut down a certain stretch of pipe and disrupt fuel flow to a larger region. Aspirin, anyone? The good news is that individual oil and gas companies are doing their part to avert Y2K chaos, according to the GAO. The Associated Press reported that American Petroleum Institute spokesman Juan Palomo rebutted the GAO report by saying that the gas and oil industry has a strategy in place to get computers up to Y2K speed and prepare for contingencies. And if some computerized systems fail, many utility companies can turn to backups and other manual controls. But while contingency plans have been devised at many corporations to make wells, drilling operations, shipping, refineries and other systems Y2K compliant, concerns are festering that some programming glitches in these and other systems may be overlooked. And who's to say that their vendors and suppliers will be compliant? Not to be too crude, but let's just hope that oil's well that ends well in 1999. If not, we can always look forward to the much-ballyhooed electric car of tomorrow, which should take us from point A to point B very capably -- provided we recharge the batteries every 30 minutes. Here's an early New Year's toast -- to fossil fuels everywhere. 1999 Thomson Target Media Erik J. Martin is a freelance journalist who has penned a regular multimedia column for Screen Magazine and has written for a variety of other publications, including the Chicago Tribune, Coverstory and The X-Files Official Magazine. He lives in Oak Lawn, Illinois, with his wife, son, and the Millennium Bug, which he is still trying to exterminate from his PC. Certainly no self-proclaimed technowhiz, Erik prides himself on being "an average guy with the same concerns and questions about Y2K as everyone else. My job? To get answers to those questions, and pass them along to you." Techno file index Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA