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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2
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.
3
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.
4
The story of titanium
The earth contains a lot of titanium - it’s the ninth most abundant element in the earth’s crust.
5
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.
6
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?”
7
How does the US use water?
Water infrastructure often gets less attention and focus than other types of infrastructure.
8
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.
9
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…
10
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.
11
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.