"The Commonwealth of Virginia's New Hybrid Regulatory Model (or How to pay for a new Nuclear Plant) "

The IEEE Richmond Section will be meeting jointly with the Virginia Section of the American Nuclear Society for our September meeting. The meeting will be held at Dominion's Innsbrook Technical Center at 5000 Dominion Blvd., Glen Allen, VA 23060 on Thursday, 20 September 2007. The Social starts at 5:30 PM, Dinner at 6:15 PM and Talk at 7:00 PM. Mr. J. Clayton Crouch Dominion Virginia Power Manager - Regulatory Data Management & Analysis will present "The Commonwealth of Virginia's New Hybrid Regulatory Model (or How to pay for a new Nuclear Plant) ". Reservations for the Meeting must be made by noon, Tuesday September 18, 2007 at http://local.ans.org/virginia/meetings/2007/crouch.html. Please note your IEEE affiliation when registering. Please indicate if you are a student.

This presentation will provide an overview of Senate Bill 1416 that passed in the Virginia Legislative session earlier this year. The Bill was a landmark shift in the de-regulation direction that many states including Virginia had embarked on over the past decade. The new law has been called a "Hybrid Regulatory Model" because it combines the best of Traditional Cost of Service Ratemaking with Performance Based Rates to ensure the added efficiency gains made recently are maintained and will be monitored by the VA SCC.

In addition to performance incentives, an adjustment clause or "rider" allows for cost recovery of new baseload generation plant costs in the Commonwealth. This rider is filed with the VA SCC and will provide an added return on equity associated with the construction of North Anna 3.

Tour of VCU Microelectronics Center

The IEEE Richmond Section will be touring the VCU Microelectronics Center and its clean room on Thursday, 24 May 2007. Registration starts at 5:15 PM at the VCU School of Engineering Building One, 601 West Main Street, Richmond, VA. Please register for the meeting at www.ieee.org/richmond.

IEEE Richmond Section News

Our April Section meeting will be held on Monday, 30 April at the VCU School of Engineering starting at 5:30 PM. The topic of our meeting will be a Student Poster Contest. The contest is open to IEEE student members who attend school in the Richmond Section area. Cash prizes will be awarded in the under-graduate and graduate student categories.

The IEEE Richmond Section mourns the death of Barton B. Cregger, Associate Dean of the VCU School of Engineering, who died Tuesday, 27 March 2007. He was 49. Bart had reached 30 years of active IEEE service this year. He joined IEEE in 1978 as a student member, and became a "full" member of the IEEE in 1982 after completing graduate studies at the University of Virginia. A memorial service for Dean Cregger will be held at 4:00 p.m. Monday, 9 April in the VCU School of Engineering auditorium. Bart is survived by his wife, Norma, his stepdaughter, Julia Atalla, and her husband, Michael Atalla. A scholarship has been established in Bart's memory. Contributions can be sent to Barton B. Cregger Scholarship Fund, P.O. Box 843068, Richmond, Virginia 23284.

"Semiconductor Thermal Packaging - the Moving Frontier"

Revolutionary and evolutionary advances in thermal packaging technology have underpinned the continuous improvement in the performance, packaging density, and reliability achieved in solid state electronic products. Rising chip heat fluxes and packaging density, driven by Moore’s Law, have necessitated ever more aggressive cooling techniques, capable of reducing the junction-to-ambient thermal resistance, while meeting the cost, volume, and weight constraints appropriate to each class of electronic equipment. As these needs have escalated, attention has shifted from the external packaging levels towards the module and board level, then the package level, and is today focused on heat removal at the chip level. Current trends suggest that on-chip hot spots will drive the choice of future thermal packaging technology. Applicable thermal management techniques and their potential for hot spot remediation, including thermoelectric microcoolers, anisotropic spreaders/TIMs, and direct cooling with dielectric liquids through thin film evaporation or pool boiling, will be considered.The meeting will be held at Qimonda at 6000 Technology Blvd., Sandston, VA at 5:30 PM. Guests should register at www.ieee.org/richmond.

EWeek 2007 Just Around the Corner (18-24 Feb.)

IEEE-USA will again play a key role in activities surrounding Engineers Week 2007, 18-24 Feb. Festivities get underway in Washington, D.C., with Discover Engineering Family Day at the National Building Museum on 17 Feb. And IEEE-USA is sponsoring the Best Communications System Award and the essay question for the 15th anniversary of the EWeek Future City Competition in Washington. IEEE-USA also helped with the proposal that led to the IEEE becoming a major sponsor of the new engineering-based PBS television show, Design Squad, which launches during EWeek. Check with your local IEEE Section to see how you can participate in EWeek 2007.

The IEEE Richmond Section will be celebrating Engineers Week 2007at the Richmond Joint Engineers' Council (RJEC) banquet 22 February at the Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, VA. The guest speaker at the banquet will be LTG Carl A. Strock, Chief of Engineers and Commanding General U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The IEEE Richmond Section will also be participating in "Career Day" at the Science Museum of Virginia in Richmond.

Helicopters and Power

Dominion Virginia Power has partnered with Chesapeake Bay Helicopters to develop one of the most sophisticated electronic surveillance helicopters in the world. By combining the highest
quality sensors available to detect potential problems with high-voltage transmission lines, Dominion has greatly improved the efficiency of inspecting lines to further increase the reliability of service to electric customers. The helicopter can also perform extremely acurate aerial surveying with the onboard LIDAR system and GPS system. One of the most challenging aspects of the project has been handling the terabytes of data gathered in the imagery and survey data.

Rachel O'Donnell, a Technical Specialist at Dominion, will present "Helicopters and Power" to the IEEE Richmond Section at their Thursday, 1 February 2007 meeting. The meeting will be held a the Hilton Garden Inn at Innsbrook in Glen Allen, VA at 5:30 PM. The meeting is open to the public. Guests should register at www.ieee.org/richmond.

NanoWires: The New Nanoelectronics

Professor Supriyo Bandyopadhyay, Virginia Commonwealth University, will be the speaker at the IEEE Richmond Section's Thursday, 4 January 2007 monthly meeting. The dinner meeting will start at 5:30 PM at the Hilton Garden Inn at Innsbrook. Reservations can be made at http://www.ieee.org/richmond/.

The workhorse of modern electronics is the celebrated “transistor” which serves as the building block of all digital and analog circuits. However, as transistor dimensions shrink, a host of complicating issues begins to emerge that detracts from the transistor’s performance. They can only be mitigated with mounting costs. It therefore behooves us to seek alternate paradigms for computing and signal processing that bypasses the transistor paradigm. In one example, the pixel intensities of a grey scale image are encoded in the voltage states of individual nanowires. The nanowires are then allowed to interact and the final steady state voltages are de-encoded into pixel intensities. The final pixel intensities represent edge enhancement detection. Thus, the array of nanowires can perform useful image processing functions. Many other such examples will be presented.

Dr. Supriyo Bandyopadhyay is a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of physics at Virginia Commonwealth University. He directs the Quantum Device Laboratory engaged in research on nanostructured devices and systems. Prof. Bandyopadhyay is the current chair of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council Technical Committee on Spintronics and the IEEE Electron Device Society Technical Committee on Compound Semiconductor Devices and Circuits. He is also the Chair of the Regional Interest Group of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council and Vice President (Conferences) Elect of the Nanotechnology Council of the IEEE. He is profiled in numerous Who ’s Who and is a Fellow of the IEEE, American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (UK),the Electrochemical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

IEEE Richmond Section to Honor It's Fellows & Long Term Members

The IEEE Richmond Section will be honoring it's Fellows and long term members at it's monthly meeting on Thursday, 7 December. There are ten IEEE Fellows and six members with 60 years or more of IEEE membership in the Richmond Section. IEEE Region 3 Director Elect Bill Ratcliff will be attending to help with the recognition ceremony. Members are invited to bring a guest as we honor these distinguished members who have contributed to IEEE and our profession. Please register for this meeting at www.ieee.org/richmond

Improving the State of Engineering in the USA

IEEE-USA President Ralph W. Wyndrum, Jr. will address the IEEE Richmond Section on how U.S. engineers can succeed in the new global environment, whether engineering is losing its value today, specific IEEE/IEEE-USA programs to maintain U.S. leadership in innovation, and how U.S. IEEE members can help foster the innovation process.

Meeting Date & Time:Thursday, 2 November 2006 5:30 PM: Registration, social time, and dinner 7:30 PM: Business meeting & program
Where: Hilton Garden Inn at Innsbrook
Location: It’s behind the restaurants at Innsbrook. Turn from Broad St. onto Dominion Blvd.There's a map link on the IEEE Richmond Section website.
Cost: $20 by the RSVP deadline, $25 after the deadline. Student members get in for $10 before or $13 after the deadline.
Menu: An all-you-can-eat buffet
Payment: By check payable to IEEE Richmond or cash, during Registration (5:30 PM - 6:30 PM).
RSVP & Deadline: By high-noon on Friday, 27 October. Go the the Web site www.ieee.org/richmond, click NextMeeting, and then the Online RSVP link.

Autonomic Grid Computing: Concepts, Infrastructure and Applications

Emerging pervasive wide-area Grid computing environments are enabling a new generation of applications that are based on seamless aggregation and interactions of resources, services and information. However the scale, dynamism and uncertainty of these environments and applications present significant development, configuration and management challenges.

Addressing these challenges has led researchers to consider alternative programming paradigms and management techniques that are based on strategies used by biological systems to deal with complexity, dynamism, heterogeneity and uncertainty. The approach, referred to as autonomic computing, aims at realizing computing systems and applications capable of managing themselves with minimal human intervention. In this talk Dr. Parashar will motivate and introduce autonomic Grid computing. He will then introduce solutions being developed at TASSL, Rutgers University as part of Project AutoMate for enabling autonomic computational science on the Grid.

Manish Parashar is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rutgers University, where he also is director of the Applied Software Systems Laboratory. He received a BE degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from Bombay University, India and MS and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Engineering from Syracuse University. He has received the Rutgers Board of Trustees Award for Excellence in Research (2004-2005), NSF CAREER Award (1999) and the Enrico Fermi Scholarship from Argonne National Laboratory (1996). His research interests include autonomic computing, parallel & distributed computing (including peer-to-peer and Grid computing), scientific computing, and software engineering. Manish is a senior member of IEEE, member of the executive committee of the IEEE Computer Society Technical Committee on Parallel Processing (TCPP), part of the IEEE Computer Society Distinguished Visitor Program (2004-2006), and a member of ACM. He is the co-founder of the IEEE International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC), serves on the editorial boards
of several journals, and on the steering and program committees of several international
workshops and conferences. For more information please visit http://www.caip.rutgers.edu/~parashar/. He is recommended to us by the Washington,
DC, IEEE Computer Society chapter.

Meeting Date & Time:
Thusday, 5 October 2006
5:30 PM: Registration, social time, and dinner
7:30 PM: Business meeting & program
Where: Hilton Garden Inn at Innsbrook
Location: It’s behind the restaurants at Innsbrook. Turn from Broad St. onto Dominion Blvd.
There's a map link on the IEEE Richmond Section website.
Cost: $20 by the RSVP deadline, $25 after the deadline. Student members get in for $10 before or $13 after the deadline.
Menu: An all-you-can-eat buffet
Payment: By check payable to IEEE Richmond or cash, during Registration (5:30 PM - 6:30 PM).
RSVP & Deadline: By high-noon on Friday, 29 September. Go the the Web site, click Next
Meeting, and then the Online RSVP link.

Error on IEEE-USA Printed Ballot

There has been an error on the printed ballots for the IEEE-USA elections which inadvertently reversed the candidates for IEEE-USA President-Elect and IEEE-USA Member-at-Large.

Here is a message from Michael Lightner, IEEE President and CEO:
"Dear IEEE Voting Member:
You will soon be receiving, or may have already received, your individual ballot materials for the 2006 IEEE Annual Election. I am writing to alert you that an error on the printed ballots for the IEEE-USA categories inadvertently reversed the candidates for IEEE-USA President-Elect and IEEE-USA Member-at-Large. To correct this, we are sending all eligible voting members in Regions 1-6 a second paper ballot that covers the IEEE-USA slates of office only. This ballot includes a notice on the envelope to help you identify it and an explanation and instructions inside. I urge you to watch for both of these mailings.

Please do not discard the initial ballot as we are asking you to return both ballots if you submit them by U.S. mail. If you submit your ballot electronically at http://www.ieee.org/elections or https://www.directvote.net/ieee/ this change does not apply. All ballot materials accessed via the election Web sites are correct.

For members who are submitting ballots by U.S. mail, both ballots are required for the following reasons:
- To ensure your votes will be recorded in all categories since votes for the two IEEE-USA positions on the initial paper ballot will be invalidated.
- If you do not also submit the initial ballot, you will not be voting in all of the other categories for which you are eligible.
- Please note that if you submit only one of the paper ballots, you will be contacted by the vendor and urged to cast the other ballot.

The opportunity to vote in the IEEE Annual Election is a privilege of your membership, and your vote is important to the IEEE. I encourage you to learn as much as you can about the candidates and participate in the annual election when you receive your ballot materials. Additional information about the candidates including video question and answer sessions with the IEEE President-Elect candidates, and links to many candidates Web sites, is also available from the annual election Web site.

I am very sorry for any inconvenience to our members and our candidates caused by the necessity to send you two paper ballots this year. Please remember to return both forms if you submit your ballot by U.S. mail or, instead, submit your ballot electronically.

If you have any questions, please contact corp-election@ieee.org .

I thank you in advance for your understanding and your help in enabling the IEEE to have a successful 2006 election.
Sincerely,
Michael Lightner
IEEE President and CEO"

Wind Energy: Opportunities and Challenges for Off-Shore Applications

Offshore Wind Energy will be the topic of the next IEEE Richmond Section meeting on Thursday, 7 September 2006 at the Hilton Garden Inn Innsbrook. Social, Dinner & Speaker: 5:30PM. RSVP by Noon, Friday, 1 September 2006

Wind Energy:
Opportunities and Challenges for Off-shore Applications

Professor Saifur Rahman
Advanced Research Institute
Virginia Tech
With the worldwide generation of electricity from wind power reaching almost 60,000 megawatts at the end of 2005, this has become a significant source of electricity worldwide. In fact wind turbine generators accounted for 2% of the worldwide capacity for electricity generation at the end of 2005. As the land-based sites for wind energy projects are facing organized opposition in some parts of the world, the interest in off-shore wind energy exploration is growing. While it is more expensive to install wind turbine generators and their associated infrastructure in the water than in land, the available wind regime is usually better, and cost of "land" is cheaper.

This presentation examines the opportunities and challenges provided by large-scale offshore wind energy power plants. It provides a detailed history of the growth of wind energy throughout the world during the last 15 years, and traces the cost, size and country-specific penetration issues of wind energy. In that regard the presentation looks at the situation in Germany, United States, Denmark, India and Spain – the five top performing wind energy markets in the world. The market penetration and energy cost issues as well as environmental concerns from wind energy technologies are explored.

Electronics Merit Badge Kit Available

The IEEE emeritbadges.org Program developed an electronics kit to be used in conjunction with the Boy Scout Electronics Merit Badge. The kit contains a PIC microcontroller that is preprogrammed with 4 modes of operation. Kit Parts consist of a 3"x 3" box, PC board, components, and battery holder. Kits can be purchased for a unit price of $15.00.

The kits were introduced and first used at the 2005 National Jamboree in Caroline County, Virginia.

Volunteer to Work with IEEE SoutheastCon 2007

SoutheastCon is the annual IEEE Region 3 Technical, Professional, and Student Conference. As the premier conference for the IEEE Region encompassing Jamacia and the Southeastern United States, it brings together electrical, computer and other engineering and science professionals, faculty and students to share the latest information through technical sessions, tutorials, and exhibits.

If you are interested in volunteering to help with the conference organization, you can review descriptions of the various committee/subcommittee responsibilities and assignments on the SoutheastCon 2007 Committees page.

Contact either of the SoutheastCon 2007 Steering Committee General Co-Chairs. Express your desire to volunteer and detail in what area(s) you might be willing work:

General Co-Chair:Sean Haynes
General Co-Chair:Adeeb Hamzey

IEEE-Power Engineering Society "Seminar on Protection"

IEEE-PES RICHMOND CHAPTER VA
S_Dev_Walia@DOM.COM Ph: 804-257-4077
Dan_Ward@DOM.COM Ph: 804 755-5302

Seminar On Protection
Transformer & Industrial Motors in Substation and Industrial Plants
Offered by IEEE-PES Richmond Chapter

Technical Seminar On Protection - Topic:
This program is intended to introduce the attendees to the topics of transformer, motor and circuit protection. You will learn about the theory and principles of basic protection and what is involved in determining the trip settings for protective equipment. The topics include transformer differential and backup overcurrent protection, motor protection, phase & ground overcurrent, under/over voltage and current unbalance protection.

Seminar Date: THURSDAY, June 22, 2006
Place: Dominion Virginia Power Building, 2501 Grayland Ave.
Richmond, VA 23220 – Tel: 804-257-4077

Registration & Coffee : 8:00 AM- 8:30 AM

Program: 8:30AM – 10:00 AM - Transformer protection – Lee Underwood, Schweitzer Engineering

10:00AM-10.15 AM - Coffee Break

10:15AM-11:30 AM - Motor protection - Mark Lanier, Schweitzer Engineering

11:30AM-12:15 PM - DOM Utility & Industry Application - Clyde Johnson, Dominion

12:15 – 1:30 PM - Lunch with Q & A period

Seminar & Lunch Cost: $50 with advance reservation & $60 on the day of seminar.
Reservations: We will accept payment at the meeting, but reservations should be made by no later than 19 JUNE 2006 by email or phone.
Checks should be made payable to the IEEE-PES Richmond Chapter and sent to Dev Walia P.E. Dominion Virginia Power, Substation Engineering, 2400 Grayland Avenue Richmond, VA 23220, S_Dev_Walia@DOM.COM, Ph 804-257-4077, 804-536-8979 (cell) OR
Dan Ward Dominion Virginia Power, 7500 West Broad St., Richmond, VA 23294-3608 dan_ward@dom.com Tel: 804 755-5302

Directions to Seminar:
From the Petersburg, VA area Take I-95 North to Richmond.Take the I-195 Downtown Expressway Exit. Continue on the Downtown Expresswayuntil the Boulevard Exit. Take the Boulevard to Grayland Ave. Make a right onGrayland Ave. The meeting room 2501 Grayland Ave. is located ahead on your right.
From northern Virginia Take I-95 South. Take the I-195 Downtown Expressway Exit. Continue on the Downtown Expressway until the Boulevard Exit. Take the Boulevard to Grayland Ave. Make a right on Grayland Ave. The meeting room 2501 Grayland Ave. is located ahead on your right

IEEE SoutheastCon 2006 Robot

Check out the VCU and VSU IEEE Branch Robots at the IEEE Richmond Section Meeting on Thursday, 4 May 2006.

The Robots are Coming from VCU and VSU … Last Meeting of the Season

SoutheastCon 2006 as seen by Engineering Students will be the topic of the 4 May 2006 IEEE Richmond Section Meeting. Each year IEEE Region 3 Student Branches participate in a Robot contest at the annual IEEE SoutheastCon. Students from the VCU IEEE Student Branch and the VSU IEEE Student Branch will bring their robots to our meeting.

Speakers will be Manan Thakkar, Souma Badombena-Wanta and Prof Salame Amr from the VSU IEEE Student Branch and the IEEE Student Branch members from VCU. The VCU and VSU "autonomous package loading" robots will, we hope, strut their stuff.

RSVP by high-noon on Friday, 28 April 2006.

Engineering & Technology In A Historic Setting - Richmond, VA

The IEEE Richmond Section serves the Richmond, VA metropolitan area. Richmond, the state capital, is located centrally in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Richmond, while a mid-sized city, offers cultural opportunities typically found only in large metropolitan areas, such as first-class museums, prominent universities, numerous theater companies and art galleries, and its own symphony, professional ballet and opera.

Richmond and Virginia are also not without their historical engineering achievements. For instance, the area was home to the first U.S. canal system and the world’s first commercially successful electric street railway system.

Indeed, it is often its long, distinguished history that characterizes the region. Nearby is America's Historic Triangle of Virginia's Jamestown, Williamsburg, and Yorktown. This tiny place in Virginia gave birth to a great nation. In 2007, Jamestown, Virginia and America's first permanent English Settlement will turn 400. Come to Virginia and join us in commemorating America's 400th Anniversary.

"The Smokey Pig" Catering April IEEE Richmond Section Meeting

The famous The Smokey Pig restaurant in Ashland, VA will be catering the dinner for the IEEE Richmond Section Meeting on 6 April 2006. Join us at the Media General Atlee Station Printing Plant for dinner and a tour. Register on-line at www.ieee.org/richmond. The Smokey Pig will be providing Chopped Pork BBQ and Baby Back Ribs.

6 April 2006 Plant Tour...Media General - Richmond-Times Dispatch Printing Plant

Like to see motor-drives running three-story-high printing presses? Semi-autonomous robots moving rolls of paper each the weight of an automobile? How about printing-plate production remotely from the downtown editorial offices? Want to see every kind of conveyor you can think of in one location? A substantial electric power plant? It’s all there and you’ll see a lot of it in operation. Join the IEEE Richmond Section at the Media General Atlee Station printing plant in Hanover County, north of Richmond off U S 301, for dinner, a plant tour, and discussion with their knowledgeable staff.

Tour: Media General staff leads us through the plant from the railroad siding where the paper arrives to the packaging and distribution doors where the papers go to the delivery trucks.

RSVP & Deadline: By high-noon on Friday, March 31. Use the on-line RVSP at http://www.ieeerichmond.org/.
Tell us the following:
1. Your phone number
2. Meal or just the program
3. Student or not

Meeting
Time: Social 5:30 to 6:15, Dinner 6:15 to 7:00, Business Meeting 7:00 to 7:15, Program 7:15 to 8:15, Board Meeting 8:30 to 9:45
Where: Media General Atlee Station printing plant off U S 301 in Hanover County.
Cost: $20 by the RSVP deadline, $25 after the deadline. Student members get in for $10 before or $13 after the deadline.
Menu: Something we’re catering in; still a mystery.
Payment: By check or cash, during the Social time.
Getting There:It’s north of Richmond in Hanover County near the confluence of U S 301 North and I 295 East. You can’t see the plant from either 301 or I 295, so as you head north on 301, look for the fast-food burger place on the right (east). As you approachit, look sharp for Times-Dispatch Blvd. You turn in there (head east). Drive down that road and you’ll see on the left the parking lots and the building shown above.