I've put OT: because my personal oppinion is this discussion is going its
way out of HP3000s.
   Wirt:

   You're right regarding power de-regulation (as well as I think there
should be a global freedom of market in any area you can think, but that's
a different story).

   Spain has same issues.

   But,

   Local politics, companies, names and the other references seem obscure
to us, foreigners.

   Thant's why an OT: is quite right for all this stuff. Reading other
people's oppinions and problems do help us to have a better vision of a
global world, but no one's house is the center of the universe.

   Best regards,

    -- Andres j. Ogayar
    -- I.T. Department
    -- Raytheon Microelectronics España (Malaga, Spain)
    -- +34.95.224.92.27






                                                                                             
                    Wirt Atmar                                                               
                    <WirtAtmar@AOL        Para:   [log in to unmask]                     
                    .COM>                 cc:                                                
                    Enviado por:          Asunto:      Re: Please think global               
                    HP-3000                                                                  
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                    Discussion                                                               
                    <HP3000-L@RAVE                                                           
                    N.UTC.EDU>                                                               
                                                                                             
                                                                                             
                    27/07/2001                                                               
                    14:39                                                                    
                    Por favor,                                                               
                    responda a                                                               
                    WirtAtmar                                                                
                                                                                             
                                                                                             



   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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