Mark wrote:

>I think John and Andres are correct.  As a US citizen, I very much enjoy the
>banter but I know this is an International list.

As to the "California mess" posts, while it may seem as if it's a local 
topic, it's much more global than it may initially appear. The deregulation 
of the energy market in the western states was based on the British 
experience with National Grid, an initially UK-only organization but now 
rapidly becoming world-wide. See:

     http://www.nationalgrid.com/

On their web page, they write: "The National Grid Company plc was formed in 
1990 in the UK, the world's first privatised transmission company to operate 
in a fully privatised competitive electricity market. Since then, National 
Grid has been offering a range of services to electricity industries 
worldwide, drawing on the sometimes hard lessons learned in the home UK 
market."

In general, the British experience with a free-market, internet-based energy 
brokerage organization running in parallel with a governmentally regulated 
energy distribution system has worked far better than it has in the United 
States. However, the California problems stand as a stark warning for anyone, 
anywhere considering full market deregulation.

Perhaps -- and only perhaps -- more ominously, National Grid has come to the 
United States, not as a brokerage firm, but as an outright purchaser of 
electric companies. Again, on their web page, they write: "In March 2000, 
National Grid acquired New England Electric System (NEES) in the USA for 
US$3.2 billion (approximately £2 billion) and renamed it National Grid USA. 
Eastern Utility Associates (EUA), a neighbouring utility, was acquired in 
April for US$643 million (approximately £400 million). National Grid now owns 
and operates transmission and distribution systems in Massachusetts, New 
Hampshire and Rhode Island serving approximately 1.7 million customers. In 
total it has over 35,000 miles of overhead and underground cables within the 
New England region."

National Grid is also in the process at the moment of purchasing an even 
larger electric distribution company, Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation. NIMO 
is the company that serves all of the upper-half of New York State. (They are 
also one of my favorite customers, and as in every one of these kinds of 
transactions, they're being mandated to move off of the HP3000 and I'm going 
to miss them.)

It is my understanding that National Grid will also soon acquire an Ohio 
electrical distribution company, leaving a sizeable portion of the 
northeastern part of the US under the control of one company. This is being 
allowed because the western states-form of deregulation has been scheduled to 
come to the northeastern states for some time now, and the same problems and 
same "solutions" that faced California are being suggested there as well. 
See, e.g., the comments the Attorney General of New York:

     http://www.pulpny.org/html/spitzer_criticizes_nimo_plan.html

Parts of Sweden, India and Australia are all on this same deregulatory track 
as well. Globalization and the internet have changed the world. Don't think 
of the California experience as a local problem.

Wirt Atmar

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