1
How an oil refinery works
Though wind and solar continue to carve out larger and larger shares of world energy supply, the modern world still runs on petroleum, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Brian Potter
Essays about buildings, infrastructure, and industrial technology. Click to read Construction Physics, by Brian Potter, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
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Visit construction-physics.com → RSS feedOn Hacker News Oct 2023 – Oct 2026
Tech Industry & Business 18History & Retro Computing 16Science & Space 11Society, Policy & Culture 9Hardware & Electronics 9Infrastructure & DevOps 5
2
How to build a 50k ton forging press
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a revolution took place in American military aircraft design.
3
Why it's so hard to build a jet engine
Civilization's toughest technical challenges are those that require extraordinary (and constantly improving) performance to be delivered at a low cost.
4
Helium is hard to replace
The war in Iran, and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, has unfortunately made us all familiar with details of the petroleum supply chain that we could formerly happily ignore.
5
300k airplanes in five years
It’s no secret that the Allies won World War II on the back of the U.S.’s enormous industrial output.
6
The story of titanium
The earth contains a lot of titanium - it’s the ninth most abundant element in the earth’s crust.
7
How to build a $20B semiconductor fab
For the last several decades, one avenue of technological progress has towered over nearly everything else: semiconductors.
8
What would it take to recreate Bell Labs?
For most of the 20th century, AT&T was almost entirely responsible for building and operating America’s telephone infrastructure.
9
Why is it so hard to build an airport?
Airports are a critical piece of modern infrastructure.
10
Understanding Solar Energy
The biggest energy story of the last fifteen years is the rise of solar photovoltaics, also known as solar PV or simply solar panels.
11
"No inventions; no innovations" A History of US Steel
Last week, US Steel announced it was being acquired by Japanese steel company Nippon Steel.
12
How good are American roads?
We’re in an era where US infrastructure is getting a lot of attention.
13
Will we ever get fusion power?
“Every one of the stars in the sky uses fusion to generate enormous amounts of energy. Why shouldn’t we?”
14
How SpaceX streamlined the Raptor engine
If you’re reading this, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen this famous image of three iterations of SpaceX’s Raptor rocket engine.
15
Why the U.S. can't build icebreaking ships
I want to say thank you to all the people who sent condolences following last week’s post, especially those who shared their own stories of loss.
16
How does the US use water?
Water infrastructure often gets less attention and focus than other types of infrastructure.
17
Morris Chang and the Origins of TSMC
Book review of the autobiography of Morris Chang.
18
Why is everyone trying to build a solid-state battery?
A battery technology that’s getting a lot of attention is solid-state batteries, lithium-ion batteries that replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid material.
19
How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry
From roughly the end of the US Civil War until the late 1950s, the United Kingdom was one of the biggest shipbuilders in the world.
20
The Influence of Bell Labs
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.
21
What happened to the US machine tool industry?
Machine tools – machines that cut or form metal – are the heart of industrial civilization.
22
Do U.S. ports need more automation?
On October 1st, 47,000 members of the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), primarily dockworkers on East and Gulf Coast ports, went on strike after failing to agree contract terms with USMX, an alliance of port operators and employers.
23
Mass timber is great, but it will not solve the housing shortage
A short policy memo recently posted on the Federation of American Scientists’ (FAS) website argues that “mass timber can help solve the housing shortage.” It was posted as part of the Housing Ideas Challenge, a collaboration between FAS, Matt Yglesias and a few other organizations to generate new, innovative ideas for…
24
An engineering history of the Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project, the US program to build an atomic bomb during WWII, is one of the most famous and widely known major government projects: a survey in 1999 ranked the dropping of the atomic bomb as the top news story of the 20th century. Virtually everyone knows that the project built the bombs that were dropped…
25
The Fall and Rise of Screwworm
Every spring, as sure as the seasons, and for generations unknown, screwworms began their annual march northward from their overwintering sanctuaries in Mexico and South Texas.
26
Why are so many pedestrians killed by cars in the US?
It’s unfortunately not uncommon for pedestrians to be killed by cars in the US.
27
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.
28
Building the Bell System
If someone was making a list of the most important American companies today, it’s unlikely AT&T would be anywhere near the top.
29
Could we stop Yellowstone from erupting with a geothermal power plant?
It’s become fairly common knowledge that Yellowstone National Park, in addition to being incredibly beautiful, is sitting on top of an enormous supervolcano that catastrophically erupts every few hundred thousand years.
30
How to Train Your Robot
The enormous advance in AI capabilities over the last several years has in large part been driven by the availability of vast amounts of training data.