CHATTANOOGA ENGINEERS CLUB

http://www.chattanooga.net/engineer/CEC

NEXT MEETING _________________________________________________________

Monday, February 26: The Impact of Deregulation in the Electric Utility Industry –

By Greg Vincent, Sr. VP of TVA’s Power Resources & Operations Planning

“Deregulation” had been a politically correct buzzword until recently. But with such disconcerting news coming from California – a state in the midst of deregulating its electric utility industry, you have to wonder what that process really means, and what effect it will eventually have on our own electric bill.

Greg Vincent, the speaker for our luncheon meeting this coming Monday, will explain what deregulation means to the electric utility industry and describe some of the circumstances that has brought California much of its woes. Mr. Vincent is Senior Vice President of TVA’s Power Resources and Operations Planning. He will provide a historical perspective of how the utility industry has been regulated over the past hundred years and the events that helped establish the current mood for deregulation. Mr. Vincent will discuss how TVA is planning to meet the challenges of deregulation. He will also describe TVA’s power generation plans, the influences of fuel costs, the importance of flexibility, reliability and pricing and the options TVA will be considering to ensure it will maintain its competitiveness.

LAST TWO MEETINGS__________________________________________________________

Monday, January 19:

Engineers Week Luncheon (UTC Student Center)

Guest speaker: Dr. Bill Stacy, Chancellor, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Dr. Bill Stacy spoke about the contributions of engineering and engineers to the community. He
also provided us with an update on the status of the new UTC School of Engineering, Math and Computer Science Building. This project was originally started, and was thought to be approved, in 1971.

He was pleased to report that there are currently more capital building projects that have been approved for UTC than all such projects combined over the past 30 years. For example, in addition to the Engineering and Computer Science Building, there is a major expansion of the student residents program. There is also the planned construction of an elementary magnet school adjacent to the campus. This a joint project of UTC an the UC Foundation will be living laboratory for UTC’s education department and will provide the Hamilton county school system with a significant elementary school.

Monday, January 12 (Cellar Restaurant):

Our program speaker, Eli Witter, provided us with an overview of a key component of Positron Emission Tomography (PET). He spoke on the Radiological Delivery System (RDS) which produces radiopharmaceutical markers that are injected into a patient so that a PET imaging system can trace its flow and behavior. The uniqueness of the RDS is its ability to produce markers that allow physicians to not only spot a tumor, but also to determine whether it’s malignant and if so, its metabolic rate. The RDS can also produce markers can be used to test for myocardial viability (heart blood flow) and to conduct neurological studies to determine, for example, the oxygen distribution in the brain. Mr. Witter described how the radiation used in the imaging system is produced how and how essential computer programming is for analyzing the scanning results. Mr. Witter is manager of software engineering for the RDS division of CTI Cyclotron Systems, Inc., a Knoxville-based company that designs and manufactures PET imaging systems. You can find more information about PET and related technologies at: www.cti-pet.com. While at the site, be sure to look up the Time Magazine Report "Medical Invention of the Year" (December 4, 2000).

FUTURE MEETING______________________________________________________

Monday, March 5 Topic: “Hamilton County – The Center of Geographical Information Development in Tennessee” – by Alan Voss, Manager for Special Projects, Geographic Information and Engineering, TVA.