Howdy to all who are still checking in here.

I've been following all of the discussions, and I offer my sincere apologies for recent lack of overt participation on my part. To give you an idea of how busy I've been, it's 11:30PM, and I've still got a ways to go tonight.

There's been a lot of good discussions ongoing in the forum over the past few weeks, and a lot of it seems to now be focusing on events that could be classified as real or perceived electric system reliability issues (long and short term).

So, can I make a request? Can we move these discussions to the Energyland.com deregulation discussion forum? The deregulation discussion forum is wide open (no password required), and I'd love do draw a new audience into some of these discussions. We've created quite a little community here. I think that there's tremendous value in the knowledge we've all gained from the Y2k issue in the electric industry, not to mention the general interest we all seem to have in topics that are related to energy industries. (Plus, on a purely personal note, I'd like to be able to keep this wonderful community together.)

I can even move a few of the ongoing discussions over to the deregulation forum if there is sufficient interest and some suggestions of "threads of interest" from y'all.

My request is made because, in part, I think it's appropriate to retire this forum in the near future. It's been like a baby to me, but I think many of us have moved on at this point - or certainly, at least, understand that any remaining Y2k issues will be mostly transparent, and can be classed as ongoing reliability issues.

So, what say you? (Feel free to throw bricks and stones if you wish...)

-- Anonymous, January 31, 2000

Answers

Rick,

I think you are right about this. Kind of like moving the party to another room in order to consolidate it all. I was wondering how long you would keep this Y2k site going, since I see a lot of other sites closing down now, including Drew's baby, the CBN Y2k page. I'm OK with looking in on the Energyland forum. It should be obvious that we are going to be talking about glitch control now, at best, as you have noted with regard to Y2k issues.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2000

Rick,

It is winding down. Trying to figure out what happened is fun, and we do have a real problem in heating oil and/or kerosene, but why?

If you wish to keep the group together, why not give us a reason, other than it is an interesting group. Tell us how you feel that thie de-regulation of energy will impact our lives, and the good and bad things. I ran into a lot of comments, while researching y2k, that our electrical power infrastructure was more damaged by deregulation than anything else.

Most of us here, with a few exceptions are not electrical experts, but are keen observera and analysts. And enjoy the intellectual debate.

Give us a theme, a thesis, take the point, and maybe we will stay rather than drift away, as is happening now.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2000

Hi Rick. Although I still enjoy discussing some Y2k issues, I agree with your proposal. Perhaps you could keep this open until March 1, after the Leap Day? March is when most Y2k programs will completely shut down (there is one more EPRI Y2k conference in mid-February).

I haven't yet seen one documented Y2k power outage (though I am aware of many Y2k "glitches" that didn't affect power delivery in any significant way). If there are any, I'd like to hear about them. But since there appear to be none, there just isn't that much to talk about. TB2000 has devolved into a "they lost phone service to 500 people in Zimbabwe, and oil this, and oil that" kind of thing, and is almost completely off-topic now. Again, that's due to the lack of hard evidence of Y2k-caused serious problems anywhere.

Take care.

-- Anonymous, February 01, 2000

Marianne,

Please check in.

-- Anonymous, February 02, 2000

Well, I have to thank everyone for checking in on this thread...it gives me kind of an indication of where we're going from here (tongue firmly planted in cheek).

Gordon, Dan and Bob, thanks for the input.

xBob, I can't give you a reason to keep this community together, other than that there are bigger fish to fry (from a long range policy making standpoint), and that we all have a stake in the planet going forward. The lack of TEOTWAWKI on 1/1/2000 not withstanding, I think it's important that those of us with a bit deeper understanding of the "raison du jour" (with respect to energy, anyway) can in fact make a difference in the long run.

That's why I started energyland.com.

-- Anonymous, February 05, 2000