GLOBAL WARMING

I am not going to say whether there is or isn't global warming, I do know that this past winter (2007-2008) and spring would suggest it is all a bunch of hooey.

The whole thing reminds me of what the expert scientist were saying in the early 1970's --"there is only a twenty year supply of oil left in the world". Scientist said it so it must be true. Manufacturing companies quickly started to create Energy Management Positions. Their function was to find ways to manufacture their goods using less energy or to find alternative materials which were less energy intensive.

This profound statement had a major effect on my particular career. I was a Materials Engineer and also chief metallurgist in a company that among other things had a Malleable Iron Foundry producing automotive castings. Malleable Iron is a very good type of cast iron but it requires extensive heat treating to obtain the desired structure. Companies like Ford started to tell us we couldn't afford to make malleable iron because of the energy requirements, and therefore the started to switch to ductile iron which can be made without heat treatment.

It hurts when you are told you can't afford to make a material when you were and making a profit at it just because someone said energy requirements were too intensive.

I did a study of malleable iron production in about six different foundries and also energy requirements to produce ductile iron. Unfortunately I cannot find my report but I can say I did find major differences in the various foundries and that the difference between the two irons was not a major difference. Gas torches for ladle heating was a major factor and applied to either type of iron, magnesium used in ductile iron was very energy intensive. The report included all phases of production and the results were in millions of BTU's per ton produced. Included were the BTU's required to produce pig iron, coke, all of the ferro alloys used, plant heating, all of the electrical energy used for melting, heat treating etc.

So anyway, according to these astute scientist we should have run out of oil around 1993.

Now we have people screaming Global Warming and it is up to the United States to stop it. Put controls on all fossil fuel use because they contribute to global warming. Our plants are required to put in environmental controls which are very costly to install and to operate, thus increasing our costs and making Chinese products more attractive. Meanwhile, in China, they are going balls to the wall producing everything imaginable with cheap labor, government subsidies and NO environmental controls or concerns. Why are we so quick to help put our manufacturing capabilities out of business !!