Marketing Power

Engineers, Economists Join to Explore Impact of Electricity Deregulation
Across the nation, electric power providers, regulators and consumers are about to enter the "Brave New World" of deregulation. Under a multidisciplinary grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Divisions of Electrical and Communications Systems (ECS) and Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research (SBER), Cornell University engineers and economists are working together to explore the possible effects of competitive markets for electricity generation. Investigator Richard Schuler, professor of economics and civil and environmental engineering, says, "The electricity market is unique -- the epitome of a 'just in-time' delivery system."    More...

NSF Teams with DOE to Fund Environmental Molecular Science Institutes
The National Science Foundation (NSF) together with the Department of Energy (DOE) has awarded a total of $21.4 million over five years to establish three Environmental Molecular Science Institutes (EMSIs). Grants made to Columbia, Northwestern and Princeton Universities in this one-time competition will allow these institutes to be national models for collaborative research in chemistry aimed at understanding the natural environment and solving environmental problems. Awards to each EMSI site will average $1.4 million per year for five years with the NSF contributing a total of $15.4 million and the DOE contributing $6 million. More...

Summer Ends, Summer Begins as NSF Sends Teachers to the Poles
Four teachers have returned from the Arctic, and ten more are preparing to go to the Antarctic as part of the Teachers Experiencing the Arctic/Antarctic (TEA) program funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). Through the program, elementary and secondary school teachers participate in ongoing field research with NSF-funded scientists, and then bring back what they have learned to share with students and other teachers. "What better way is there to teach through life experience than with the experience of a lifetime," said Tim Conner, a teacher from Chenango Forks Central School, Chenango Forks, New York, and TEArctic program participant.    More...

Drilling into Earth's Past, Present ... and Future
"Core on deck!" With that summons, crew, technicians and scientists rush to the drilling deck of the 469-foot-long research vessel JOIDES Resolution, the world's largest scientific drillship. JOIDES Resolution is the flagship of the international Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), which explores the evolution and structure of Earth. With this ship, scientists can drill cores -- long cylinders of sediment and rock extracted from beneath the seafloor -- in water depths of more than five miles. More...