Free Republic

Oilfield services companies will need to join forces in the next few years to avoid a downturn of the sector's own making, the chief executive of French oil services company Technip SA (TKPPY) said Wednesday. That could mean merging with each other or, for the first time in decades, with energy companies, Technip CEO Thierry Pilenko said. During a panel at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Pilenko floated the idea of international oil companies acquiring service firms as a way to manage a growing labor shortage facing the entire energy industry. International oil companies explore for and produce oil...

If the British and French can design and build spectacular bridges at a modest or at least reasonable cost, why can’t we? Or maybe we can, but we haven’t tried it lately, at least not in Oregon. The question comes up because Peter DeFazio, our man in Washington, is chairman of the highways and transit subcommittee in the U.S. House. His committee will write the next highway bill, probably by the end of 2009. And when DeFazio led his colleagues on a fact-finding trip to Europe, he saw the viaduct at Millau. It’s the most spectacular bridge he has ever...

How the Chinese plan to modify the weather in Beijing during the Olympics, using supercomputers and artillery. To prevent rain over the roofless 91,000-seat Olympic stadium that Beijing natives have nicknamed the Bird's Nest, the city's branch of the national Weather Modification Office--itself a department of the larger China Meteorological Administration--has prepared a three-stage program for the 2008 Olympics this August. First, Beijing's Weather Modification Office will track the region's weather via satellites, planes, radar, and an IBM p575 supercomputer, purchased from Big Blue last year, that executes 9.8 trillion floating point operations per second. It models an area of...

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi River Patrol Police station is training their trainers to maintain and troubleshoot their river craft while underway with a 10-day basic engineering course taught by U.S. Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Joseph Aldana, Naval Special Warfare Unit 3, Bahrain. Students are participating in the Basic Engineering course offered as a way to assist the river police in troubleshooting malfunctions of boat equipment and help them understand how the river craft operate. The topics taught within the Basic Engineering course are Internal Combustion; Basic Electricity; Marine Battery/Electricity; Backing Gaskets and Seals; Troubleshooting and Planned Maintenance System checks....

MANHASSET, N.Y. " Is there a thread that ties engineers to Islamic terrorism? There certainly is, according to Diego Gambetta and Steffen Hertog at Oxford University, who recently published a paper titled, "Engineers of Jihad." The authors call the link to terrorism "the engineer's mindset." The sociology paper published last November, which has been making rounds over the Internet and was recently picked up by The Atlantic, uses illustrative statistics and qualitative data to conclude that there is a strong relationship between an engineering background and involvement in a variety of Islamic terrorist groups. The authors have found that graduates...

You're wading knee-deep in science if you're following the presidential primaries this year, but in some cases, the candidates' positions are as clear as mud. Stem-cell research, climate change, alternative fuels and creationism versus evolution in public education are acknowledged by even some of the most marginalized candidates. More broadly, Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain and Barack Obama have directly criticized the current Bush Administration for its science policies, with accusations — based on numerous media reports — ranging from data distortion to research censorship. "I respect scientists and the scientific method, so I believe that policy should be...

Engineering students around the country will be able to apply their education to a real-world challenge. The EcoCAR challenge, a contest sponsored by General Motors and the Dept. of Energy, will offer students the opportunity to design a car that gets maximum fuel economy and minimal emissions. The students’ requirements include designing and building advanced propulsion solutions that emulate vehicle categories from the California Air Resources Board (CARB) zero emissions vehicle requirements. The alternative technologies include electric hybrids, fuel cells, bio-fuels, lightweight materials, and high-tech aerodynamics. The EcoCAR challenge launches in the 2008-2009 academic year as a three-year program with...

SUGAR LAND — The global demand for energy is keeping the Sugar Land offices of international engineering and construction leader Fluor Corp. busy — and growing. Sugar Land is home to Irving-based Fluor's energy and chemical division, the biggest source of the company's revenue. In 2006, the segment accounted for 38 percent of Fluor's $14.1 billion in revenue. And it's only becoming more prominent. For the first nine months of 2007, the energy and chemical unit brought in $6 billion, more than half the company's nearly $12 billion in revenue for that time frame. Sugar Land is at the center...

One myth dogging the immigration debate is that employers are fibbing (or grossly exaggerating) when they claim that hiring foreign professionals is unavoidable because U.S.-born Ph.D.s are hard to come by. But a new report on doctorates from U.S. universities shows they're telling the truth, and then some. Foreign-born students holding temporary visas received 33% of all research doctorates awarded by U.S. universities in 2006, according to an annual survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. That number has climbed from 25% in 2001. But more to the point of business competitiveness, foreign students comprised...

Signs with the words "U.S. citizens and permanents only" greeted students at employers' booths at a recent career fair at Duke University, where I teach. In previous years only government jobs requiring security clearances were labeled off-limits to international students. Foreign-born engineering graduates told me they were disappointed that employers like General Electric, IBM, and Carmax as well as smaller companies would not even interview them. Recruiters told me they were frustrated that they could not fill critical positions. They have few options because the visas they need to hire foreign nationals simply aren't available. This visa shortage is a...

As baby boomers retire, aerospace and engineering companies in the Antelope Valley need an influx of new workers - homegrown, if possible. Like creosote, mesquite and other native plant species, Antelope Valley residents have an easier time putting down roots in the dusty Mojave Desert, home to Plant 42 and Edwards Air Force Base. "From an employer's perspective, we see much higher rates of turnover when we recruit young engineers from anywhere east of California," said Michael Huggins, chief of the Air Force Research Lab at Edwards. "They're not used to the desert environment and they're away from home." Using...

For decades, and most particularly since Sept. 11, 2001, commentators have noted the curious prevalence of higher education amongst members of radical Islamist movements. The idea that poverty is a "root cause" of radical terrorism can no longer be put forward without attracting snickers -- at least not without some further account of why it is the brightest and educationally best-equipped in poor societies who turn to violence. Of course, no one can be surprised that university campuses should serve as incubators of radicalism in the Muslim world, since they have served the same function here for so long. The...

Visiting Sweden, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that Sweden is one of NATO’s most important partners and is welcome as a member in the rapid reaction force, should Sweden decide to join. On Friday Morning, NATO’s Secretary General met Sweden’s Defence Minister Sten Tolgfors to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, one of the two places where Swedish troops come under NATO command as part of the ISAF force. They also discussed possible participation in NATO’s rapid reaction force (NRF), with Sweden saying a decision may be reached by the spring. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer also promised to...

Forget the conventional wisdom. U.S. schools are turning out more capable science and engineering grads than the job market can support. Political leaders, tech executives, and academics often claim that the U.S. is falling behind in math and science education. They cite poor test results, declining international rankings, and decreasing enrollment in the hard sciences. They urge us to improve our education system and to graduate more engineers and scientists to keep pace with countries such as India and China. Yet a new report by the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, tells a different story. The report disproves many...

COLTON, N.Y., Oct. 30 — The bridge that carries Route 56 over the Raquette River here is so ordinary that it has no name, only a number, 1027260. But for now it is a bridge like no other, studded with instruments like a cardiac patient, giving up secrets that may explain how to keep others from falling. Bridges are big, dumb pieces of steel and concrete, and mostly out of mind, until one collapses, as the Interstate 35W bridge did in Minneapolis on Aug. 1. Even now, three months later, no one is sure why that happened, but it has...

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers 'buckling' under stress, admits USN By Tara Copp Serious structural defects have been identified throughout the United States Navy's fleet of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, Jane's can reveal. The navy (USN) has admitted that many of the 51 ships currently in service are buckling under the stress of higher-than-anticipated loads at sea. The impact of rough-sea slamming on the bow has led to warping of main transverse bulkhead beams and some of the cribbing, a source said. Repairs and strengthening work is already being carried out on the latest Flight IIA ships as well as vessels from the...

Bell Helicopter engineers have resolved a performance anomaly that test pilots had discovered when flying the hybrid aircraft in conventional flight mode, also known as the zero-degree position of the nacelles. The BA609 is a six- to nine-passenger corporate aviation tiltrotor, a product the companies expect to begin delivering in 2011. According to Roy Hopkins, Bell's chief test pilot for the BA609, both prototype aircraft had been exhibiting a differential torque between the two prop-rotors in flight tests, causing a left-turning tendency at cruise speeds. The companies are flight testing one aircraft at Bell in the USA and the other...

They weren't out to make history, the eight young engineers who met secretly with investor Arthur Rock 50 years ago to form Silicon Valley's ancestral chip company, Fairchild Semiconductor. The men, among them future Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, mainly wanted to escape their brilliant but batty boss, William Shockley, who had just shared the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics for his role in the invention of the transistor. Shockley, who had started a company in Mountain View in 1955 to commercialize this breakthrough, had bullied and browbeaten his young engineering staff, whose numbers included future venture capitalist Eugene Kleiner, at...

HOUSTON (AP) -- So much for sweating out that first job after college. Like star athletes, engineering students Julie Arsenault and Emily Reasor are prized prospects for the energy industry, which is experiencing dizzying demand for engineers. Bustling oilfield activity and retiring baby boomers, among other factors, have petroleum outfits large and small trying to hire thousands of engineers, and experts say the trend is expected to extend into the next decade as worldwide energy demand grows. "I've talked to quite a few of my peers, and we know we're in a good spot," Cornell University's Reasor said as she...

Minneapolis I-35 bridge collapse: Failure Analysis The I-35 West bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, consisted of three trussed spans and several beam and post spans typical of 1960's era freeway construction. Analysis to date here at Free Republic has centered on looking for the triggering cause in the bridge collapse, and the sequence of failure, as determined by available pre- and post-collapse imagery and video. Efforts so far have been hampered by uncertainty regarding the condition and disposition of the eastern truss panels originally located above and near pier 6. I hope to rectify this uncertainty and...

MINNEAPOLIS, Aug. 8 — Investigators have found what may be a design flaw in the bridge that collapsed here a week ago, in the steel parts that connect girders, raising safety concerns for other bridges around the country, federal officials said on Wednesday. The Federal Highway Administration swiftly responded by urging all states to take extra care with how much weight they place on bridges of any design when sending construction crews to work on them. Crews were doing work on the deck of the Interstate 35W bridge here when it gave way, hurling rush-hour traffic into the Mississippi River...

A week after a deadly bridge collapse, U.S. Navy divers cut through tangled debris with underwater torches and saws on Wednesday in the search for victims while investigators identified a possible flaw in the 40-year-old span's design.

Just turned on the news. 35W bridge collapsed in the Mississippi River. Cars, trucks, semis..... Fires burning, tanker trucks, at least one school bus, more than ten cars...... Just now breaking.......

A spy in the sky not much bigger than a fly has been developed by a top American university. Scientists at Harvard have invented a robotic fly to send on reconnaissance missions in areas too dangerous for humans, such as those contaminated by chemical or biological weapons. It can also be used to find hidden bombs and in search missions. The "flybot", which can fit on a fingertip, is made of lightweight carbon and weighs less than a pin. Researchers, led by Professor Robert Wood, spent seven years on the project with the backing of the US military. "The...

The U.S. aircraft manufacturer Boeing has unveiled its latest airliner model with great fanfare, and great focus on technological advances in its construction. At a ceremony at a company hangar in the state of Washington Sunday afternoon, some 15,000 guests saw Boeing's 787 Dreamliner for the first time. Boeing says the new airliner will use 20 percent less fuel than other similarly sized planes because of the carbon composite material used in its airframe. An airplane made of composites weighs less than a metal plane, and requires less fuel to do the same job. The 787 has not yet left...

ROLLA, Mo. — Camp Winnigootchee was never like this. A group of high school students stood at the edge of a limestone quarry last month as three air horn blasts warned that something big was about to go boom. Across the quarry, with a roar and a cloud of dust and smoke, a 50-foot-high wall of rock sloughed away with a shudder and a long crashing fall, and 20,000 tons of rock was suddenly on the ground. The campers laughed. “That’s cool!” said Ian Dalton, a student from Camdenton, Mo. Austin Shoemaker, a student from Macon, Mo., concurred. “It was...

Switzerland has opened the world's longest rail tunnel on land - the 34-kilometre (21-mile) Loetschberg tunnel under the Alps. It will cut the journey time between Germany and Italy by at least a third.

Helicopter Shield Invention Gets Attention Of U.S. MilitaryBy KEVIN COUGHLIN   Richard Glasson, chief engineer at Control Products Inc. in East Hanover, N.J., with his invention, a prototype net mesh parachute to be deployed by rockets as protection for helicopters from enemy fire. (Photo by Patti Sapone)     [Morris County, NJ ] -- Richard Glasson spends most days hunkered in an office cubicle, where he designs computer sensors for bulldozers and backhoes. But he's proudest of an invention he dreamed up in the shower.His patent-pending "rocket-propelled barrier defense system'' is a simple idea with a serious goal: snagging rocket-fired...

May 4, 2007 — An unemployed former aerospace engineer has built a better spacesuit glove, claiming the first payoff in the NASA-backed Centennial Challenges competition. Peter Homer clinched a $200,000 prize in this week's Astronaut Glove Competition with a spacesuit glove that proved more comfortable, durable and flexible than gloves currently used by spacewalking astronauts. NASA turned to cash-prize competitions in an effort to solve some of its technical problems with low-cost, innovative solutions. Homer, for example, bought most of the materials for his gloves at local shops in his hometown of Southwest Harbor, Maine, and on eBay, said Alan...

JENNINGS, La. — The sun shone brightly on the crowd gathered at the rusting old oil refinery here, as company officials showed off diagrams explaining how they planned to turn weeds and agricultural wastes into car fuel. Government officials gave optimistic speeches. In the background, workers prepared a new network of pipes, tanks and conveyor belts. That was in October 1998, when ethanol from crop wastes seemed to be just around the corner. It still is. Last February, company officials gathered here once again, to break ground on a plant designed to make ethanol by yet another method. At the...

Miss January -- wearing only a G-string thong -- says she likes tattoos and Harley Davidsons. Miss July -- appearing in pink lingerie and a lab coat -- says she likes going to the beach but also the book Anna Karenina. Miss February likes taking naps, live music -- and "fun science demos." Like a Playboy pinup collection, this 2007 calendar features a dozen scantily clad models. But these students at the University of Illinois aren't your typical models. The women in the "Girls of Engineering" calendar were accepted to the Downstate campus' nationally ranked engineering program, where students on...

Baby Boomer Retirements Could Trigger A&D Engineering Crisis By Joseph C. Anselmo Dire warnings of an aerospace brain drain have been issued for so many years that it's easy to tune them out. Four years ago, a presidential commission predicted a "devastating loss of skill, experience and intellectual capital." Across the U.S., CEOs say the industry is not attracting nearly enough young engineers to replace the baby boomers that will start retiring in large numbers in the next few years. This magazine sounded the alarm in 1999, then 2000 and again in 2003.Yet the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry has...

Germany’s Automobilewoche reports that with the change in Volkswagen’s top management is coming a change in strategy for hybrids. Martin Winterkorn, who formerly headed the company’s Audi AG unit, became CEO after Bernd Pischetsrieder resigned at the end of 2006. Pischetsrieder had brought in Wolfgang Bernhard from DaimlerChrysler to run the Volkswagen unit. Berhard has now left (as of today), and Winterkorn will personally oversee the VW brand for the time being. Now, rather than target a mild hybrid Jetta for sale into the California market in 2008 as described by Pischetsrieder, Volkswagen will focus first on a full hybrid...

Robots Are Honored in Japan By HIROKO TABUCHI TOKYO - A feeding machine and a furry, therapeutic seal _ both designed to make life easier for older people _ were among robots honored at a government-sponsored robotics award ceremony in Japan on Thursday. The "My Spoon" feeding robot, which won a prize in the "service robots" category of the Robot Award 2006, helps older or disabled people eat with a joystick-controlled swiveling arm that shovels morsels from a plate to the person's mouth. My Spoon, which is already sold in Japan and Europe, doesn't force feed: the spoon-fitted arm stops...

New Delhi, Oct 30 (IANS) US engineering jobs are being 'offshored' to countries like India and China, a trend that is 'gaining momentum', says a study just out. But it says that it is still 'not clear' whether this would erode US competitiveness or provide long-term benefits to the West. 'What is clear is that there is insufficient independent research on this study,' says the study by the Durham, NC-based Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering Research. The study is titled 'Industry Trends in Engineering Offshoring'. Significantly, this study challenges the often-accepted view that China and India 'graduate 12 times...

Scientists have long said the only way to restore Louisiana’s vanishing wetlands is to undo the elaborate levee system that controls the Mississippi River, not with the small projects that have been tried here and there, but with a massive diversion that would send the muddy river flooding wholesale into the state’s sediment-starved marshes. And most of them have long dismissed the idea as impractical, unaffordable and lethal to the region’s economy. Now, they are reconsidering. In fact, when a group of researchers convened last April to consider the fate of the Louisiana coast, their recommendation was unanimous: divert the...

This is true Professor Wichman E-mail Claim: A Michigan professor sent an e-mail telling Muslim students to leave the country Status: True. Professor Wichman E-mail Hooray for Michigan State University (The Spartans) and Professor Wichman! Well, what do we have here. Looks like a small case of some people being able to dish it out, but not take it. Let's start at the top. The story begins at Michigan State University with a mechanical engineering professor named Indrek Wichman. Wichman sent an e-mail to the Muslim Student's Association. The e-mail was in response to the students' protest of the Danish...

FRANKFURT - When high school junior Daria Schirmer conducted scientific experiments with 8-year-olds as part of a school project this year – building a periscope or a compass with a magnet – she became not only an inventor of sorts but also part of the solution to what looms as one of Germany's greatest challenges: how to keep its sterling reputation as the world's leader in engineering. For centuries, Germany led the world in technological prowess, from the motorcycle to the refrigerator. In the 19th century, inventors and entrepreneurs like Gottlieb Daimler, Carl Benz, and Carl Wilhelm Siemens developed products...

A system that provides electricity, refrigeration and water - the three vital elements of emergency situations such as hurricanes and war - has been created by two University of Florida professors. William Lear, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, and S.A. Sherif, a mechanical engineering professor, combined a gas turbine power plant with a heat-operated refrigeration system. The cool air from the refrigerator makes the turbine more efficient and powerful, Lear said, while waste heat from the turbine then powers the refrigeration. The engine, which runs on conventional fossil fuels, biomass-produced fuels or hydrogen, also forms about one...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When hurricanes, wars or other emergencies force authorities to respond, three essentials top their list of must-haves: water, electricity and refrigeration. Now, in a project funded by the U.S. Army, two University of Florida engineers have designed, built and successfully tested a combined power-refrigeration system that can provide all three – and, with further development, be made compact enough to fit inside a military jet or large truck. “If you’re in a forward base in Iraq, it costs you the same per gallon of water as it does per gallon of fuel,” said William Lear, a UF...

An airline is considering two types of engine systems for use in its planes. Each has the same life and the same maintenance and repair record. - System A costs $100,000 and uses 40,000 gallons per 1000 hours of operation at the average load encountered in passenger service. - System B costs $200,000 and uses 32,000 gallons per 1000 hours of operation at the same level. Both engine systems have 3-year lives before any major overhaul. Based on the initial investment, the systems have 10% salvage values. If jet fuel costs $1.80 a gallon currently, and fuel consumption is expected...

Investigators unraveling how concrete ceiling panels cascaded onto a car in one of the Big Dig tunnels should focus on some basic, troubling questions about the way the tunnel ceiling was built, civil engineers and highway construction specialists said yesterday. Officials from the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority suspect that the accident that killed Milena Del Valle began with the failure of a single steel hanger that helped hold up the concrete ceiling, setting off a chain reaction that caused other hangers to fail and send 12 tons of concrete to the highway surface as Del Valle's husband drove underneath. ...

$100 billion in annual exports is India's new target. Add to that 25 million new jobs within the next 4 years. These are India's new economic goals. India expects its low-cost labor force and expertise in engineering to continue to draw investment into the country's manufacturing sector. India, of course, is known as a services hub. She would like to add to that growth in: 1. Engineering 2. Textiles 3. Drugs (legal) & 4. Auto Parts In any event, India will grow and grow and grow... Do you have plans for business with India? Why or why not?

JUNE 7, 2006 | We recently got hired by a credit union to assess the security of its network. The client asked that we really push hard on the social engineering button. In the past, they'd had problems with employees sharing passwords and giving up information easily. Leveraging our effort in the report was a way to drive the message home to the employees. The client also indicated that USB drives were a concern, since they were an easy way for employees to steal information, as well as bring in potential vulnerabilities such as viruses and Trojans. Several other clients...

IN ancient Babylon, they knew from accountability. Under the Code of Hammurabi, "If a builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death." What's more, "If it kill the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death." Engineers these days don't have that worry. Mistakes may carry legal penalties and a measure of shame. The people who die are those who depend on the engineers' work. Nearly 1,600 people died in...

See for example this thread first. A novel plan to design nukes On-line simulation of flukes It straddles the line 'tween Darwin and Design The thread ought to bring out the kooks!

The National Wind Technology Center sits at the foot of the Rockies just south of Boulder. Although within sight of Denver, the swell of the land hides the city, making you feel as if you’re in the middle of nowhere. The site is well chosen. Generally you need good proximity to mountains to take advantage of wind energy. The best sites in America are in the High Sierras, the Rockies, and the Appalachian Mountains. The other “Saudi Arabia of wind” is the upper Midwest, where the Dakotas, western Minnesota, and northwest Iowa catch the jet stream barreling down from Canada....

BALTIMORE - Dismal new results on U.S. student performance in science ought to spur Congress to pass President Bush’s competitiveness agenda this year — and to extend his “No Child Left Behind” program to high schools. The competitiveness agenda — which includes scholarships aimed at producing 10,000 more science teachers per year as well as increases in U.S. research funding — has bipartisan support but is moving slowly through Congress.Markups of key legislation have yet to take place in the House or Senate, and leaders have yet to schedule floor time for the bills, which could represent a major success...

SARATOGA SPRINGS -- It all started last winter, with a faulty remote starter on her 1996 Chevrolet Lumina. Like many others, Sarah Dodge dreaded the thought of having to brave the elements to warm up her car before school. In today's world of high-tech gizmos, the 18-year-old senior at Saratoga Springs High School figured there had to be a better solution. Turns out, there was -- and now Sarah is the first student in a pre-engineering program at the school to have a federal patent pending, teacher Michael Gallagher said.

By most objective measures, the United States is the undisputed world leader in science and innovation, whether it's funding for research and development, the number of PhD students it graduates or its share of the world's patents. For the world's wealthiest nation, this is hardly a remarkable feat. What is remarkable is that the US accomplished this with a supply of domestic talent whose skills in math and science are, also according to most objective measures, merely mediocre. Luckily, in the past, many excellent foreign students have shouldered the load, preferring to come here to study and work than stay...