dpb wrote in :

On 12/29/2014 5:32 PM, John McCoy wrote:

Spent quite a lot of time w/ Duke Power as started w/ the reactor
vendor for the Oconee station and was there for startup of Unit 1 then
went the consulting gig but continued to work for the B&W owners
utilities for years afterwards before eventually drifting over to
mostly fossil as nuclear work became more competitive and tiring to
deal with the increasing bureaucracy burdens...

I hear you on the regulatory burden - altho in fairness, the
scale of the problem when things go wrong with nuclear does
justify an excess of caution.

On the fossil side, I recall Duke being noteworthy for the
high efficiency of their powerplants back in the early 80s.
Dunno if that's still the case, or if everyone else has
caught up.

Just out of curiosity, where in S TX are you starting from???
Possible to suggest other touring guidelines, perhaps knowing starting
point...

I'm actually starting from the pointy end of Florida (Ft
Lauderdale) :-)

I have family in Austin, and family in Ft Collins, and every
so often I take I long vacation and drive to both. There's
still a lot of alternative routes for sightseeing out west
(I've pretty much worn out all the alternatives in Fla).

John