The hypothesis is that the optimal location for a power plant will be centrally located to the major cities of Southern California, as this will have minimal line loss.

You will create a set of functions in an Excel spreadsheet, place a coordinate plane over a map of Southern California, and calculate linear inequalities to represent the boundaries of the gas pipeline corridor. You will also use the distance formula to find the distance from a given node to the major cities, and weight the distances by the city populations.

You will need an Excel spreadsheet, a map of Southern California, and data on the major cities and their populations.

The mathematical model shows that the best location to construct a power plant is about 50 miles east of Lancaster. Surprisingly, the optimal locations are outside the Clean Air Zones and areas of high property costs, but still close to the population centers.

This science project is unique because it uses math and linear programming to create a model that takes into account environmental and property costs, production costs, and power loss.

Experiment variations to consider include changing the constraints to approximate hot summer conditions, and finding locations closer to LA during periods of high demand.