Saturday, April 5, 2014

A Milestone - Post Number 200

This post marks the 200th article published on SLB.   It is certainly not a record in the world of on-line publishing, yet it serves as another small bit of evidence that this little blog continues to exceed my expectations, indeed, even to amaze me.   I started out in blogging a mere 5 years ago in March of 2009, expecting I would write one article per month, for two years at the most.   The evidence shows that many more articles than those original 25 have come forth.   

The topics covered here have ranged from government regulations such as AB 32, regulation of CO2 at the state and federal level, automobile mileage standards, climate science, peak oil and energy, nuclear power, wind, solar, and other forms of renewable energy, fresh water shortages, legal liability of scientists and engineers, and a few others.  

Thus far, the most-viewed postings are

1.  a lengthy article on my journey from being a believer in man-made global warming to my conversion as a skeptic, see link  (this article was translated into German and posted on a German-language climate skeptic blog; I was quite pleased about that)

2.  the transcript of my speech on why climate warmists are wrong, and deep global cooling is coming, see link 
(side note: this article was translated into German and posted on a German-language climate skeptic blog; I was quite pleased about that)  (correction:  the above article My Journey... was translated into German and posted on a blog, not this speech -- Roger 4/5/2014)

3.  a chemical engineer uses principles of process control to rebut the concept of CO2 causing global warming, see link

4.  the transcript of my speech at Tulane Law School on Peak Oil and US Energy Policy, see link, and

5.  the NPRA sues the California Air Resources Board over Biofuels, see link.

About a month ago, I started a series of articles on the Truth About Nuclear Power.  Planned to have about 30 articles total, with 8 of those already published, this series puts forth the many arguments and the evidence on modern commercial nuclear power plants and why they should never be built.  The articles discuss economics, impacts on customers, safety, environmental impacts, unproven technologies that are in development, motivations for countries to install nuclear reactors, why France has so many reactors but medium-sized islands have none, and what lessons we should have learned from our existing history with nuclear power.   

These articles draw on my deep experience in engineering, my university classroom studies of nuclear engineering, decades as a practicing process engineer, justifying then designing and implementing a private power plant to prevent rising power prices from shutting down my company's chemical plant, and understanding the legal requirements for utilities and nuclear plants.  I also had the privilege of a comprehensive guided tour of the Perry Nuclear Plant in Ohio, conducted by the plant manager, when the plant was completed but had not yet had the first load of fuel installed.  Many friends and colleagues encouraged me to write these articles on nuclear power, since it appears I may be one of the few who has the combination of training and experience in these matters. 

The SLB audience also amazes me, as there are more than 32,000 unique visitors from 142 countries.  Most, by far, are from the USA, with second place to UK, third to Australia, then Canada then Germany.  

People ask me if I have a favorite post.  That is difficult to say, but perhaps the post on Climate Science is Not Settled (that was quite fun to write), and another is a guest post by my smart cousin Charley Sowell, on why the Ice Age Is Nigh.  Charley is an interesting character.  

I am also asked if any articles were a surprise, in the number of views or comments.  Two such articles surprised me.  First, the number of views on the article that shows the long-term temperature records for 87 cities in the US.  see link  While it is not in the top 5, it certainly has seemed very popular.  The temperature records show that CO2 is not warming the planet.   

Second, an article on Tire Inflation Rule Causes Liability surprised me with its popularity.  This article illustrates the idiocy of government regulations.  The government meant well, but proposed a rule that could cause dangerous over-inflation, or dangerous under-inflation of automobile tires.  One wonders if they ever talk to an engineer before issuing such idiotic rules.   
There are many, many more articles to write and publish on SLB, and I look forward to the next 5 years, however many articles that will entail. 

As always, thank you for reading.  Leave a comment if you like.  All comments are moderated by me.  

Roger E. Sowell, Esq., BS Chemical Engineering
Marina del Rey, California


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