Well, I'll be damned.

"Electrifying the Piedmont Carolinas: The Duke Power Company (1904-1997) is the story of how the well-known industrialist developed the production of electricity in the Carolinas and how, after his death, the company eventually expanded far beyond its original boundaries. It is being published by Carolina Academic Press in Durham, an independent scholarly press, and is expected to be in bookstores in late April.

"He was a very bright man," Durden said of Duke. "Essentially, his plan was to build hydroelectric plants that could be used to run textile mills, which he saw as the escape route from massive agrarian poverty."

By the time of Duke's death in 1925, more than a dozen power plants were completed. The primary founder of Duke University lived to see what he envisioned - that the larger part of the textile industry would in fact move from the North to the South, Durden said."

http://today.duke.edu/2001/03/durden309.html

So a "study", presented in press release format, from the heart of coal country from a university supported by the coal industry rejects a carbon tax. Hmm.

I'll put a little bit more credence in this one from Yale, which shows 56% approval:

http://www.carbontax.org/progress/opinion-polls/

(Sorry I left that off.)

You would be looking for the “survey instrument.”
http://nicholasinstitute.duke.edu/Survey%20Instrument.pdf

The only reason they would put out a press release is a shameless attempt to influence policy.

Looking forward to a study on the cause of the SuperBowl blackout

They put out a press release for the same reason everyone else does.

They made the instrument available so you can check the validity of the survey.

of which there is a clear one here.

Everyone else does? No legit academic paper is announced with a press release.

That’s just BS, plain and simple.

Most of the postings you see on this board are the results of press releases. Either they’re from blog posts (written from press releases) or news stories (written from press releases) or the press releases themselves.

Sites like EurekAlert, ScienceDaily, and others are merely conglomerations of press releases.

Your posting, “Oil industry launches full-scale assault on ethanol, says it's "worse than tar sands"” (from AutoBlogGreen) is a blog posting, based on another blog posting.

Most of the postings on this board are not scientific studies, but news. The credence of the story is generally attributable to the credence of the source.

Two other concepts which really shouldn't be conflated.

I trust a press release from a major university, a lot more than I trust some random 5-generation blog reposting.