We interrupt this rant for this special announcement. Our cold spring in the northern plains is wreaking havoc in the form of tornadoes in the southern and middle parts of the country. I think the weather phenomena had a lot to do with my interest in mechanical engineering. Growing up on the farm in the flatlands, I had seen a great many black clouds approaching on the horizon. As they drew closer, they would either brighten to a lighter gray and rain, or they get ugly. If the approach is led by a dark band of clouds followed by blue-green…
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For this week’s publication, I was trying to think of an expensive, short-lived, duplicative, inconvenient, limited use, frivolous novelty. Did I mention expensive? After a half-hour of wonderment, the best I could do is a Homer Simpson bottle opener. But really the Homer Simpson bottle opener will last longer and at least be useful (note, I didn’t say serve it’s purpose, which is to make people laugh) probably for a far longer period than the electric car. Twenty years ago “they” were talking about developing electric cars, I guess to save us from carbon dioxide, but I don’t recall the…
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The masses want power on demand without interruption or failure. They want it at a practically negligible cost and more so every year, they want it without emissions or other unpleasant byproducts. In the upper Midwest, energy without emissions means wind energy. Wind energy sounds great. It’s “free”. No emissions. But it comes with a load of drawbacks compared to conventional sources of coal, nuclear, and natural gas. First, utilities can’t count on it for peak load generation. I searched a while for this and found nothing but the bottom line is there is no guarantee there will be any…
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