CHATTANOOGA ENGINEERS CLUB

www.ChattanoogaEngineersClub.org

NEXT WEEK (AT THE CELLAR)_________________________________

Monday, March 1, noon, The Cellar at the Tallan Building, Downtown

Topic: "The Utila System" - Rick Ector, Tennessee Valley Infrastructure Group (TVIG)

You’re probably aware of wind farms and other new innovative power technologies, but have you wondered who is actually taking the initiative to make these technologies a reality and what’s coming next?  To answer that, Rick Ector of TVIG will give an overview of TVIG's activities and future plans.  Tennessee Valley Infrastructure Group (TVIG) of Chattanooga has developed and built power and utility projects around the world.  In the US, TVIG recently completed a 40 MW wind farm in Highmore, South Dakota, for FPL Energy, and is currently under contract to provide balance of plant completion for the Buffalo Mountain wind farm that will provide green power to the TVA system.  TVIG has also built a small Caribbean island-based utility from the ground up.  TVIG owns and operates the utility on Utila, off the north coast of Honduras.  The Utila project is innovative in several ways.  It is the first western-hemisphere utility to be completely dependent on prepaid metering technology.  Utila has no meter readers, no billing department and no delinquent customers.  Additionally, Utila will have the largest high-penetration wind-diesel hybrid system after wind turbines are added later in 2004.  The Utila system will be capable of wind-turbine only operation under some situations.  TVIG's work with prepaid meters has led to installation of prepaid metering systems and wind projects for several other Caribbean island utilities. 

OUR PREVIOUS MEETING____________________________________

Topic: "The Future of the Tennessee Valley Technology Corridor" - Congressman Zack Wamp

Our meeting was the kick-off for our E-Week activities and was held in conjunction with the Chattanooga Technology Council’s special event at the Chattanooga Trade Center.  Highlights of Congressman Wamp’s speech include:

1. Energy freedom is an important policy for America to pursue. Research on energy from hydrogen should be accelerated. The evolution of energy research has reduced the amount of carbon put into the atmosphere. From wood to coal, coal to oil, oil to natural gas, and natural gas to hydrogen, the result has been reduced carbon and this process needs to continue to improve the quality of air worldwide.

2. The cleanest form of energy production is nuclear. The French obtain 70% of their power from nuclear energy. TVA needs to bring nuclear energy to the forefront. America needs to support nuclear energy research but there are still fears in the minds of Americans about nuclear energy.

3. Manufacturing is one of the most important aspects of our economy but the number of jobs continues to dwindle with only 15 million jobs, about 10% of the American workforce. Manufacturing produces wealth and we need to save our manufacturing jobs. Technology is the way to compete.

4. We are fast becoming a nation of consumers. Wal-Mart is the largest employer in America with 1.3 million employees. McDonald’s is the second largest employer with more than 430,000 employees. More than half of our durable goods come from China where they have a 20 to 1 labor cost savings compared with America.

5. The regional assets of the Technology Corridor are going to make it the region for manufacturing. Outside of Michigan, Tennessee is the state with the most automotive related jobs. Technology is the key to making these companies sustainable and competitive. We need to attract more of these jobs to the region.

Our thanks to Jim Barrott for the meeting summary.

FUTURE MONDAY MEETINGS_________________________________

March 8:  TBD

March 15:  NASA’s X-37 Advanced Technology Flight  Demonstrator, David Jacobson, Marshall Space Flight Center

EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS___________________________________

The Chattanooga Engineers Club would like to begin allowing recipients of this email newsletter to have control over their account.  What this means is that you will be in charge of changing information about your email address as you see fit.  If you would like to start using another email address for these bulletins, you will need to subscribe a new email address and unsubscribe your old one.  The email server will be instructed to send out a password reminder email to each recipient.  We will send out monthly password reminders for approximately three months.  This email will contain instructions on how to log on and change your password (if you want).  This allows you to administer your own email account, and allows you to set a few preferences as well.

WHERE WE MEET __________________________________________

In March, we will be meeting at The Cellar Restaurant at the Tallan Building in downtown Chattanooga. We may continue to park at the Days Inn on Carter Street (being sure to leave a notice on your dashboard that indicates you are attending the Chattanooga Engineers Club meeting).

QUESTIONS, SUGGESTIONS? ______________________________

If you have any questions or suggestions about program items please call Tiffany Gibby at 423-751-3168 or email her at tjgibby@tva.gov. You can find references to other Chattanooga Engineers Club members at our web site: www.ChattanoogaEngineersClub.org.