The Story of Titanium

A Cycle of Misery: The Business of Building Commercial Aircraft

"There are no historic precedents or current parallels for the magnitude of financial exposure risked by an American airframe company" – George Ball, managing director at Lehman Brothers, 1982 "You can't win, you can't break even, and you can't quit" – Jean Pierson, former CEO of Airbus

What Happened to the US Machine Tool Industry?

What Happened to the US Machine Tool Industry?

Machine tools – machines that cut or form metal – are the heart of industrial civilization. Sometimes called “mother machines” (because they’re machines that make other machines), machine tools are required to make almost everything. Nearly every manufactured good is made using machine tools, or by machines which were made using machine tools:

“No inventions; no innovations” A History of US Steel

Last week US Steel announced it was being acquired by Japanese steel company Nippon Steel. The milestone gives an opportunity to look back at what once was the largest and most important company in the US (and arguably the world), and how it slowly declined. Prior to the acquisition announcement, US Steel had a market cap of around $8 billion, not even enough to put it in the Fortune 500 (it would come in at around #690, slightly below the

Building Apollo

A review of Angle of Attack: Harrison Storms and the Race to the Moon

The Technological Innovations that Produced the Shale Revolution

Part One of Hot Rocks: Commercializing Next-Generation Geothermal Energy

The Long, Sad History of American Attempts to Build High-Speed Rail, Part I

California has received its fair share of criticism for the trajectory of its high-speed rail project. When voters first approved the $10 billion dollar bond issue for the project in 2008, it was projected to be completed by 2020 at a cost of $33 billion. Instead, its costs have

The Evolution of Tunnel Boring Machines

Tunneling is an important technology for modern civilization, as a tunnel is often the only reasonable way to create a direct path between two points. When the Hoosac tunnel was completed in 1875, it turned a difficult, 20-mile railroad route along “

How Washington DC Got Its Metro

There have been two main periods of subway (or “metro”) building in the US. The first was during the late 19th century and early 20th century, when Boston, New York, and Philadelphia all built subway systems

The worst US bridges are getting fixed

It’s become a common assumption that US infrastructure is in a poor state of repair; that our roads, bridges, pipes, and transmission lines are decaying faster than they’re being repaired or replaced. This concern goes back to the early 1980s, when the book "

The Rise and Fall of the Mail-Order Home

In the early 20th century, a new business model appeared: the mail-order home. Companies would mail out catalogs containing several dozen different home options, buyers would send in their orders, and the company would send the necessary materials – pre-cut lumber, roofing, millwork – along with instructions for correct assembly.

The Story of Titanium - by Brian Potter

The Story of Titanium

The earth contains a lot of titanium - it’s the ninth most abundant element in the earth’s crust. By mass, there’s more titanium in the earth’s crust than carbon by a factor of nearly 30, and more titanium than copper by a factor of nearly 100. But despite its abundance, it's only recently that civilization has been able to use titanium as a metal (titanium dioxide has been in use somewhat longer as a paint pigment). Because titanium so readily bonds with oxygen and other elements, it doesn...

The Grid, Part IV: The Hard and Soft Paths of Energy Strategy

Today, the electrical grid has over 500,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and more than 5 million miles of lower voltage distribution lines, which supply power from nearly 6,000 large power plants. Together, this system supplies more than 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity to the US each year. The extent of it has led the US electrical grid to be called “

The dream of deregulation - the grid part III

For most of the industry’s history, electric power in the US had largely been provided by vertically integrated utility companies that handled every part of the electricity supply: generating it, transmitting it, distributing it to customers, and managing the overall system. Utilities were granted monopoly status in their area of operations, and in return had their rates regulated by state public utility commissions. Most utility companies were private enterprises known as investor-owned utiliti...

The grid part II - the golden age of the power industry

Welcome to Part II of our history of the electric power industry. For Part I, see here. By 1930, the US was using 114 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, generated by more than 4000 power plants. Most electricity was generated by coal (56%) and hydroelectric (34%) plants, with the remainder generated by natural gas and fuel oil.[0] 68% of homes overall, and 84% of homes in urban areas, had electrical service. Electricity had, in the

The Birth of the Grid

The day must come when electricity will be for everyone, as the waters of the rivers and the wind of heaven. It should not merely be supplied, but lavished, that men may use it at their will, as the air they breathe. - Emile Zola, “Travail”, 1901

https://www.construction-physics.com/how-did-solar-power-get-cheap-part-2

Why buildings are built the way they are. Click to read Construction Physics, by Brian Potter, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of readers.