Back to the Drawing Board: The Worst Ship in History – Exxon Valdez
While Greg Trauthwein never assigns me column subjects, each time the Great Ships issue comes around I go with the theme. However, I try to take a view askew on that subject and have found that these are the rare columns where I am criticized for my views. Greg must enjoy that, and this year he asked me to write a column on the worst ship designs. That was the entire assignment, and it was unclear if he asked me to discuss the worst ship designs for 2023, or in the history of ship design.
Back to the Drawing Board: Max Planck’s Maxim
The physicist Max Planck (actually born as Marx Planck) is best known for the development of his universal constant that defines physics at the most basic level. It is an important number, and today it even defines the kilogram and therefore most engineering units. Regardless, in my daily life I have little use for it.Max Planks is less known for his Principle, which, to me, is much more useful and I encounter it almost on a daily basis. Max Planck provided this Principle in his Scientific Autobiography (and Other Papers…
Historic Great Lakes Shipwreck Possibly Discovered
Steven Libert, president of the Great Lakes Exploration Group, announced he has located what is believed to be the remains of Le Griffon, the first European ship to have sailed the upper Great Lakes. The 45-ton barque carrying seven cannons was built by the legendary French explorer Rene-Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle who was attempting to establish a Northwest Passage through Canada. La Salle wanted to provide a faster way to connect France with its trading partners in the Far East and Le Griffon was to be a vital link in the route between Niagra and Illinois.
US 2014 Petroleum Production: Why Hubbert was Wrong
Combined production of crude oil, gas and condensates in the United States is on course to a hit a record this year, passing the previous peak set in 1972. The rise in output has confounded the famous forecast made by Shell geologist M King Hubbert who predicted that U.S. oil and gas production would peak in the 1970s and then decline. Hubbert's prediction was contained in a paper entitled "Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels," published in 1956, in which he argued the coming decline of oil and gas output would make the development of nuclear energy essential. Hubbert's prediction of peaking oil and gas production came to be known as "Hubbert's peak" and spawned the popular and influential theory known as "peak oil".
Arctic Research Ship Scientists on Thin Ice
Return to Bremerhaven: The research vessel 'Polarstern' returns with new findings from the Central Arctic during the 2012 ice minimum. After a good two months. Since its departure from Tromsø (Norway) on 2 August 2012 Polarstern has travelled some 12,000 kilometres and conducted research at 306 stations. These included nine ice stations where the ship moored to an ice floe for several days to examine the ice, the water beneath it and the bottom of the sea. Many measurements were concerned with responses to the rapid retreat of the sea ice this summer.
Where is the All Electric Navy?
"There is a powerful agent, responsive, quick, and easy to use, pliable enough to meet all our needs on board. It does everything. It supplies light and heat for the ship and is the very soul of our mechanical equipment. Jules Verne's classic novel first appeared in 1869. Today, the Navy is standing at the threshold of remarkable capabilities that Jules Verne could barely imagine-a "revolution at sea" akin to the change from sail to steam and from oil-fired plants to nuclear power. But the process for the Navy has not been easy. As a Navy integrated electric drive (IED) insider told me privately: "Innovation is one thing; if you're asking us to change the way we do business…
