Control Engineering

Be sure to enjoy this time of relatively cheap oil and gasoline because it probably won't last too long. The global macroeconomic trends are not in favor of it staying that way. Here are two reasons:

1. The International Energy Agency is projecting that world oil consumption is going to increase by 45% from 2006 and 2030. It will actually fall in western Europe, North America, and a few other parts of the "developed" world. However in China, the Middle East, India, and a few other "developing" economies it will grow substantially. By 2030, total oil consumption is projected at 106 million barrels/day. Current consumption is about 87 million barrels/day. Drill baby, drill?

2. Much of this demand is based on ...Read More

Comments (0)

Last evening my wife told me about a video she'd seen where a group of MIT engineering graduates showed that they could not figure out how to solve a most basic electrical challenge. Given a D-cell battery, a flashlight bulb, and a piece of wire, some could not figure out how to use these together to make the bulb light. While this initially struck me as quite funny, I also found the idea difficult to believe, or at least I didn't want to think it was possible.

So, I wanted to see the video for myself. This isn't some silly thing on YouTube, but rather part of a larger project made by Annenberg Media on the nature of learning and teaching, especially as it applies to science. In this case it's the first chapter of a...Read More

Comments (0)

As we move into a new administration, one of the topics that will appear on multiple agendas will be green energy technology. I say multiple agendas because it will be on the "business sectors suffering from the downturn" list as well as the "sectors that should be stimulated" list.

Green energy implementation will suffer because the downturn will slow progress on new projects such as wind power. Even T. Boone Pickens says some of his efforts will have to go on hold for a while. This isn't exactly a surprise. Moreover the need for these energy sources has declined with the global downturn, allowing oil prices to decline, at least temporarily. (More on that in coming posts.)

On the other side, these industries will likely be high o...Read More

Comments (0)

As we have been reminded in the news, the economic problems we are seeing in the U.S. are being duplicated in many areas of the world. One of the biggest questions is how this will affect China, given that it is driving so much of the world's industry, in one way or another.

China is slowing down. There are many reports of slowing production, growing inventories, declining investment, etc. Of course it's all relative. China's government begins to worry when growth falls below 8%, so let's put it in context. Growth there is considered paramount to bring major parts of its population to a higher level of prosperity. If you have hundreds of millions of starving peasants, they can, and have, changed governments.

Anyway, this slowdown w...Read More

Comments (0)

While I was at the ISA Expo, I recorded an interview with Kris Pister, CTO and co-founder of Dust Networks. (This has now been posted on our Website as a podcast.) I'm not sure I'd characterize Dr. Pister as the father of industrial wireless exactly, but his efforts certainly resulted in some major steps toward making it practical and useful. Dust's technology was behind Emerson's early Smart Wireless offerings, and the company provided many of the building blocks for Wire...Read More

Comments (0)

On the eve of this most interesting election, we might stop for a moment and consider the sad fortunes of the fuel ethanol industry. Chicago Tribune business columnist Greg Burns thinks that the election result could have some effect on the industry, along with many others. (I'm going out on a limb here and predicting that Obama may actually win, in spite of McCain's abysmal efforts.) Burns points out that Obama supports the ethanol industry more than McCain, at least if campaign rhetoric is to be believed.

Ethanol refiners are fighting the same combination of problems dogging many other process industries: Falling prices and costs on fuel and grain (which tend to mitigate each other at least a little), but generally profits are goi...Read More

Comments (0)

Today I rode my bike to work, and this will be the last time I do it for 2008. If you've been following this blog, you may recall that I started riding off-and-on at the beginning of August in an effort to save gas (money), get some exercise, claim bragging rights, and reduce my carbon footprint, probably in that order of importance.

I managed to make the trip under my own power at least 14 times. I was hoping for three weeks worth, so that isn't too bad. The economics of the proposition has changed over these months. Gas prices have changed pretty drastically, and I gave my 20 mpg 1998 Volvo station wagon to my daughter and got a 30 mpg Toyota Matrix. When I started out, I calculated that each bike trip saved about $4.00. Now it's maybe half that given better mileage and lower gas prices. But that is only a side issue.

The exercise has been a consider...Read More

Comments (0)

Earlier this month I received a press release from McObject, a company that produces embedded database software that is used in many industrial systems. They were announcing a new device that uses their software, which I'm sure they consider very cool. What the release says is that the technology to monitor your personal carbon footprint already exists, just in case your company or government wants to know what it is.

This system, called Carbon Hero, doesn't actually monitor carbon output, but it uses a BlackBerry or other overgrown cell phone to monitor your activity, from which it can calculate how much you're probably putting ...Read More

Comments (0)

This morning the Chicago Tribune ran an excellent full-page article on the topic of offshore drilling for oil and natural gas. Sadly the online version does not have some of the graphics, but the discussion attempts to plumb the depths of what's really out there. Obviously nobody knows for sure, but answers differ depending on who you talk to.

The U.S. Interior Department estimates that areas off-limits to drilling contain 18 billion barrels, compared to 68 billion barrels still in the ground in areas where drilling is already permitted. Many oil industry types feel this is far too conservative and that there is much more in very deep water. The article points out that the amount of oil spilled from offshore platforms has de...Read More

Comments (0)

Most of us are having a hard time understanding what's going on in financial markets. How did we get to this point? (Please note that this has nothing to do with process industries, but it's still fascinating.) Much of it was driven by the fact that there was too much money (supply) looking for good investment opportunities (demand).

If you think back a few years to a happier time, there were mutual funds that were particularly successful. Everybody wanted to put money in those, and they ended up having to turn investors away because fund managers simply couldn't find places to invest the new money where it would make above average returns.

Recently National Public Radio's program, This American Life did a fascinating ...Read More

Comments (0)

The run-up in the price of oil this summer had many drivers: Low dollar, some production glitches, squeezed capacity in local markets, but one issue discussed in many circles was the growth of demand as Asian economies develop with increasing energy consumption.

Prices have retreated significantly, although they aren't back where we're used to. That change has been for a number of reasons too: Climbing dollar, discovery of new sources, but one major issue has been falling demand. The world, and particularly the U.S., is simply using less oil. Less demand means prices drop.

The fact that we have proven we can move the needle on demand through brute willpower (not to mention a slowing economy), the people on the other side of that equation are beginning to make their own noise. ...Read More

Comments (0)

If you've been following global warming discussions at all, you should know that Europe has been pressing for greater efforts to cut carbon emissions and energy use in general. But now that the same economic turmoils are taking a serious toll on them as well, it will be interesting to see if they maintain their enthusiasm for such difficult measures. According to an article in today's Chicago Tribune, the answer will likely be no. For example:

"'Our businesses are in absolutely no position at the moment to absorb the costs of the regulations that have been proposed,' Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told other European leaders."

To put the situation in perspective, Nicolas Sarkozy is pushing a pla...Read More

Comments (0)