The Science council for Global Initiatives

Eugene Preston has had a long career as a power system engineer, performing generation planning, transmission planning, and distribution planning for Austin Energy. He is currently doing transmission studies for wind developers. He wrote all his own modeling software including the current network model used to perform his consulting studies. His PhD dissertation was in power system reliability, a composite generation and transmission probabilistic model, and is posted on his web page.

by Eugene Preston

Locals usually become a lot more friendly toward nuclear power when they learn how it will reduce their local property taxes. I recall reading survey results for Duke and Southern Company getting favorable survey results for more nuclear power in their regions. Also, the mountain top chopping AEP is doing these days looking for coal is generating a lot of opposition from the locals. Nuclear is looking better all the time when it comes to generating local jobs, local tax incomes, and minimizing environmental damages. Coal power's days are numbered according to Dr.Tad Patzek, Chair of Petroleum & Geosystems Engineering, The University of Texas, who recently predicted that the annual coal burned world wide would max out in about 5 years and then begin a decline, primarily due to localized environmental problems and a need to have Green House Gas reductions.

Demise of Coal