Dud and Oi! - a short review of the Discovery Channel's series Blood and Oil

Update 28 July 2013: Appears I was not alone in my low opinion of the "merits" of this show. B&O seems to no longer be on Discovery's broadcast lineup. Perhaps lawyers for Particle Drilling pursued some sort of injunctive relief in order to divorce their product from this train wreck?

Blood and Oil chronicles the struggle of the Cutter Oil Company and the Cutter family in Ohio against the predations of the evil monolith that is "Big Oil". I was hopeful that the show might depict for the public what energy exploration and production is about in at least a semi-realistic manner. My foolish hopes are dashed. Most of their struggles are against self-inflicted problems.

The scion of the Cutter family (after his dad's recent death), CJ, is an idiot; Homer Simpson personified, but with absolutely none of the charming goofiness or humor. It's small wonder that everyone around him is depicted as being frightened, just as any reasonable person would be in the presence of a real world Homer and all the potential for harm that his surliness, ridiculously hot temper, and incompetence would imply. Suffice it to say that impulse control doesn't seem to be big in his skill set.

Younger brother Josh has a degree (in geology -- of the "rocks for jocks" variety, I assume) that is never put to use in selecting drilling sites. Nor is seismology or any other technological tool that might be used to mitigate risks of a $500K investment. The show stresses (every 8.3 seconds, it seems) that "Cutter pays for drilling costs out of their own pockets", in contradistinction to the free-loading finks of big oil.

The first well they drill is in their sister's backyard (quite literally), started without her knowledge or consent. At least we can't accuse CJ of being a NIMBY type (or at least not a NIMSBY - Not in my Sister's Backyard). Drilling operations seem to be conducted in a blissful universe where permits, OSHA, and basic common sense safety practices are as yet undiscovered.

CJ frequently refers to "turning up the crazy" as a means of getting things done. Sadly, the crazy knob appears to be coaxial with the STUPID knob, and both get twisted up to eleven. A group of looters descends on the Cutters' ancestral homestead -- CJ's carefully considered strategy, tear the 150 year old structure down with a back hoe and then set the wreckage afire with a flare gun. That will teach them pesky looters. And oh yeah, smash the thieves' presumed vehicle while you're at it. Having a bad day? Turn that frown upside down by smashing something big into pieces that are small.

CJ, Josh, and the unfortunates who are condemned to work for them decide to destroy a grain silo (which makes sense because all they do in any grain storage area is grapple each other into submission, WWE style). CJ's "turn up the crazy" concept is to place an arbitrary blob of some sort of explosive in an arbitrary location in the silo and detonate it with a rifle shot. All this seems to accomplish is blowing off the top of the silo, thus inadvertently educating viewers on the rocket principle. Then they enter the silo (I mean what could possibly go wrong) and go for round two with a double-sized charge. After reentering the now more precariously leaning silo to inspect their handiwork, CJ sets about knocking it down with his back hoe, all the while noting how dangerous this all is.

My recommendation is to only watch this show with its wooden (or maybe leaden) dialog delivered so ineptly in a purely ironic sense in much the same way that one might enjoy watching Sharknado. You'll probably be able to get through two and one-half episodes this way.

Quote of the Day: "Through a combination of dancing, singing and Kung Fu moves, he was able to defuse the situation." http:

The "situation" was:

A) Old Dirty Bastard resolving a contract dispute over Wu Tang Clan's debut record.
B) Jimmy Carter convincing a group of hostile Israelis and Palestinians to meet in a public forum.
C) A globe-spanning cyclist encountering a pistol-packing gang of Siberian motorcycle enthusiasts.
D) Jackie Chan explaining box office performance of his two recent films to studio executives.
E) President Obama's uncle facing deportation after a DUI arrest involving a police cruiser.
F) Edward Snowden explaining his future plans for an IT career to Venezuelan diplomats.

Read about it here: nyti.ms/12dx6eJ 

My Lunch With a Radical Futurist...

Over lunch with one of the most compelling and fascinating conversationalists I've ever known (and he's asked me to keep his name out of this), I assumed the conversation would be heavy on sports, as we shared a table in a Houston Buffalo Wild Wings sports restaurant. But no, we had a far-ranging conversation on a few current topics of national moment. Here are some nuggets:

• More people die in bus-related accidents in India in a week than have died due to commercial nuclear power since the industry existed.
• [on the "green-ness" of pure electric cars] The best thing folks can do today is to maintain and continue driving whatever cars they own right now. Manufacture and eventual disposal of battery packs for pure electrics will place on enormous burden on the environment. Cash for clunkers, aside from jacking up the price of all used cars, has at least gotten many of the real rattletraps and gas guzzlers off the road. Electric cars' demands for things like rare earths put the US at a strategic disadvantage with China, a condition we needn't exacerbate.
• Tesla is a technologically advanced electric but still in no way a "people's car" or a practical sole car for average Americans to own. True long-term costs of ownership remain unknown and ephemeral incentives are fueling a "bubble"that Elon is quite rational to reap.
• China has no intention of conforming to "environmental norms" for the foreseeable future. This seems to be baked into their "cultural DNA" from the individual to the top apparatuses of government and economic power. Look at the pictures of Beijing smog turning noon into midnight that their leaders are trying to suppress. 
• When you talk about something like adulterating baby formula in China, that wasn't perpetrated by some ignorant-ass peon. Someone with very advanced knowledge of the chemistry and how the product would be tested was required to figure out what adulterant to use, when to introduce it, and how much was permissible.
• The leadership in Japan is at some level grateful for the atomic bomb. They see that it saved a good bit of the population from terrible slaughter in fire-bombing campaigns such as had been unleashed on cities like Dresden and Tokyo. On a larger scale, they recognize it saved Japan from Stalin and the experience of eastern Europe post-war.
• On the topic of sports, he did offer that RG III perhaps was "out there a bit too much" with press conferences, etc., and would be better served by "keeping more mystery". He also reports that he's not been to an Astro's game since they switched to the American League.

DRONING ON ABOUT DRONES

DRONING ON ABOUT DRONES

Seems there remains not much new under the sun. Concepts for and actual drones have existed at least since the days of World War II. Granted, these were not the surgically precise death-dealers of today, but drones they were.

Historically drones have been used (or designed to be used) for multiple purposes, among them:

• Flying active or passive decoys to draw attackers away from "real" aircraft
• Primitive air-deployed cruise missiles armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads
• Aerial photography or spy systems
• "Sniffers" to fly through or around nuclear detonation clouds to sample radioactive debris 
• Remote control targets for air or ground-based gunnery and missiles. It remains common that conventional aircraft past their prime are converted into drones for this purpose and several of them have lived to perform numerous flights, seemingly unkillable.

Modern drones capitalize on the confluence of technologies that allow them to be more autonomous; higher, faster, longer, and farther flying; reusable; multi-faceted; more perceptive in terms of the sensors they employ; and more accurate and lethal because of the weapons they carry.

Drones can be less intrusive (i.e., quieter and smaller) than a conventional manned aircraft and they can generally be counted on for more persistence over or near a specific location. They certainly ought to be less costly than manned airplanes and, minus the human element, can execute maneuvers that would disable or injure a human pilot. Losing a drone either to accident or enemy fire is not as problematic as losing a human pilot in enemy territory (although recent examples highlight the technological risks of such losses). Most drones today are remotely operated by human pilots. The pilots can be half a world away and their degree of involvement can vary from intensive "stick and rudder" control, setting objectives for a mission, overseeing execution of the mission, to giving final consent to fire a weapon.

Newer and more capable drones can fly their missions completely autonomously, including identifying and selecting targets and making the shoot/don't shoot decision. Therein lies the big moral issue with this new way of waging war: combat without casualties -- except for the bad guys, of course. Recent progress has been made in integrating drones within the hectic and exquisitely coreographed operations of aircraft carriers. Another concern with drone operations is how nicely they can interact with the existing air traffic control system and infrastructure.

RAGE AGAINST THE (AUTOMATIC TELLER) MACHINE:

A Rant Against the Evolution of Things Until They Become Less Useful

Not to sound too much like Andy Rooney or anything, but, "do you remember when ATMs were called cash machines?" That was back in the days like maybe mid-70's when ATMs were widely introduced and began their evolution into being useful things. You could go to a cash machine at any time of the day or night and, assuming you had any money in your account and that the machine was actually working, come away with money in your pocket. At first, I viewed ATMs with a jaundiced eye since they seemed poised to let me down when I was most counting on them working. Or at least that was the situation in the ground in Atlanta, Georgia.

Over time the reliability, expressed as the likelihood of a given ATM being capable of dispensing cash on demand, and thus not pissing you off royally, improved markedly. This was probably a result of the confluence of ATM technology improvements and successively more robust networks linking the machines to the central banks.

As the man who had jumped from the roof of a very tall skyscraper was heard to exclaim as he passed by each floor, "So far, so good." ATMs had become unquestionably useful. And that's a good thing.

But more recently I've noted that ATMs have evolved to perform tasks beyond mere dispensing of cash. This, paradoxically enough, is not a good thing. Yesterday I pulled into the ATM lane. By dint of poor planning, I was in a slight hurry as I frequently am. But all systems looked to be go as there was but a lone car in front of me. What I learned was that this particular motorist was using the ATM to renegotiate a jumbo home mortgage that was seriously underwater, fund a micro-loan facility under the auspices of the World Bank, or perhaps commune with Ben Bernanke on QE3. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating somewhat. In reality my antagonist seemed to be depositing multiple checks (probably birthday money from his grandma, etc.) and some cash in small, wrinkled bills. The money launderer in me recoils at the thought of ever depositing cash; why not hang onto it, throw it on your bed and roll around in it, or use large denomination bills to light cigars?

Anyway, this transaction was taking a long time and I started to conclude that all this high finance could have been more promptly transacted inside the bank with a human teller rather than outside with his car, my car, and now a third car that had pulled in behind me, idling and needlessly despoiling our air. The bile began to rise to my throat. Just at that moment, the car pulled away from the ATM. So now it was my turn and I was determined to conduct my business with all the alacrity and economy of motion of an Indy-500 pitstop. This would render me a hero to the guy behind me. I hummed my ready card into the machine, banged my PIN into the keypad, and was greeted with the message: "THIS MACHINE CANNOT DISPENSE CASH AT THIS TIME."

The failure of the machine accounted for at most twenty percent of my blood pressure rise. Stuff happens, right? But having to wait behind someone conducting a protracted transaction should be avoidable. It never would happen to begin with if ATMs had not evolved beyond their useful purpose as cash dispensers.

My modest proposal is that banks install cash-dispensing-only machines to augment the all-purpose ATMs that I will promise never to use. I realize that this may be problematic in terms of real estate occupied by the ATMs and any drive-up teller lanes but I don't care. Figure it out and get it done.

What technologies will near-term new cars feature?

Looks like $80K and up Tesla's notwithstanding, the internal combustion engine will stick around for some time, especially when one considers hybrids.

Pure electric autos have to get a credible 300 mile range (like a real car) and crack the recharge time problem. I can pump 300 miles worth of oomph into my GTO (which has a hearty thirst) in about three minutes, versus half a day for moving electrons around. I'm not saying this won't happen, but it will take some time and investment. Investment in technology for quick-charge batteries and in infrastructure for more ubiquitous charging stations. One option would be an industry-standard battery pack that could be robotically swapped out in minutes. Speaking of industry standards, a "universal" charger and charge control interface is mandatory as an enabler for widespread acceptance of electric cars. Possibly more so than price (within reasonable limits of course).

I wonder about the long-term viability of hybrids since they seem to be neither fish nor fowl and bring along a lot of complexity and cost. Seems to me that a small, light weight car powered by a modern turbo-diesel could eclipse the effective MPG of a hybrid and do so more cheaply in terms of initial cost (and long-term cost of ownership if the battery pack needs to be replaced).

Having gotten that diatribe out of the way, here is what I am seeing in the crystal ball polished through some work (reasonably priced and unreasonable brilliant!!!) I've done for clients in the automotive industry. Look forward (or not) to:

• Smaller displacement engines of four (or even three) cylinders. These will eschew natural aspiration for supercharging (tuned for performance) or turbocharging (tuned for efficiency).
• Direct (high pressure) fuel injection
• More multi-fuel options and greater tolerance for ethanol blends
• Variable valve timing and a longer term move to electromechanical valve actuation 
• Start/stop engine technology to reduce emissions and increase MPG in city driving cycles. Having driven a succession of crappy cars in my time, I find an engine that dies at a stop sign unnerving, but I imagine we'll get over it.
• A proliferation of engine cycles such as the Atkinson cycle. No gas turbines; no Stirling engines yet.
• Spark plugs as you know and love them will remain with us for some time. There's no big pressure to supplant them with laser initiation (although we could), an they last a long time without trouble. Coil-on-plug will continue to be the standard, and if performance/efficiency demands, we may see two plugs per cylinder in some applications.
• 100,000 mile "hood welded shut" expectation. We're pretty close to that already. I see increased use by OEMs of full synthetic oil and really long oil change intervals controlled by on-condition sensors (or at least an ECM calculation).
• Liquid cooling will be retained, but a non-water based fluid will become more dominant.
• A motor-alternator unit will replace the conventional starter motor and alternator for weight savings and in response to the stop/start feature.
• Automatic transmissions in their various forms will continue to squeeze the conventional manual gearbox out as cars continue their evolution from something you drive to something you ride in. Number of gear ratios will stop at around eight (I hope) and CVTs will be used beyond that. Bottom line is that we'll be seeing engines optimized around a tight RPM band for economy and emissions.
• Some high-end drivetrains will incorporate mechanical or pneumatic energy storage in support of regenerative braking.
• Pre-start oiling systems may allow your rotating and reciprocating engine parts to last forever if the economics work out. Ditto proven cool down post-shutdown controls.
• Accessories like A/C, cooling fans, and power steering will be electrically driven for max MPG.
• Driver "aids" like lane departure warning, back-up obstacle warning, parking assist, radar augmented cruise control, and collision avoidance will increase their market penetration as they come down in cost.
• Increased use of a "car area network" to eliminate cost, weight, installation labor, and failure-susceptibility of conventional wiring harnesses

Thoughts on air-assisted versus ground launch for LEO missions

Most of what I read on this topic is focused on energy considerations -- i.e. how much delta-v can an air launch save versus a "simpler" ground-based multi-stage system. And when you look at it this way, the answer -- somewhat surprisingly and disappointing to my ever hopeful mind -- is not as much as you might imagine or wish for. You will find a good treatment of the situation here:

http://mae.ucdavis.edu/faculty/sarigul/aiaa2001-4619.pdf

The bottom line is, from a purely energetics standpoint, air launch can be viable for relatively small mass payloads (assuming they are within the capabilities of the launcher/carrier aircraft), but it's not anything to write home about. You can compare the perfromance and cost of Orbital Science's Pegasus (air-launched) versus its Taurus (conventional multi-stage ground launch) to get an idea of what I mean.

But I'm thinking that energetics is not the sole or even the primary consideration to be addressed in trades of air versus ground first stages. I see these other factors as being significant drivers to choosing an integrated solution:

• Options for reuse, especially of high value components
• Reasonable and survivable (I'm talking of hardware here since I'm not focusing on a human-rated system at this point) abort modes
• Opportunity for gradual checkout of all vehicle systems prior to commit to flight
• Enhanced dispatch reliability and launch phasing with respect to an orbital target
• Minimized time and consumables dedicated to orbital target rendezvous
• Use of existing hardware to drive down NRE
• Options for "non-conventional" approaches to system architecture and CONOPS. Things like:

1. Tow, rather than carry of the flight vehicle
2. "Leave behind" gear (very massive tires, wheels, brakes, steering actuators, struts, structure)
3. Transfer of oxidizer and/or fuel from the launcher aircraft while in flight
4. On-board oxygen generation within the launcher aircraft
5. Towed UAV that returns to takeoff runway autonomously after releasing the flight vehicle