Simon David Freeman[1] (January 14, 1926 – May 12, 2020) was an American engineer, attorney, and author, who had many key roles in energy policy.
After working with the Tennessee Valley Authority, first as an engineer and later as an attorney, he was selected to sit on energy committees by Lyndon Johnson in 1967.
He then worked with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, before returning to the TVA as chairman at the request of Jimmy Carter.
[8] He counseled the Senate Commerce Committee with regards to fuel-efficiency standards and supervised the 1974 report by the Ford Foundation titled 'A Time to Choose'.
As of 2020[update], TVA's generation portfolio is 39% nuclear, 19% coal, 26% natural gas, 11% hydro, 3% wind and solar, and 1% energy efficiency.
Rose said, "Before anyone else, he was talking about conservation as a replacement for the central station power plant,” adding that he was three decades ahead of his time.
He has said that SMUD was an embarrassment at that time, and the district was "reeling from two decades of rate hikes, construction cost overruns, operating failures, equipment outages, worker injuries, poor morale and management scandals".
[13] According to Freeman, since opening in 1971, Rancho Seco Nuclear Generating Station had "suffered dozens of emergencies, shutdowns, releases of radioactive material and accidents".