Rhenium moves from Science Fiction to Aviation Week

Back in 1965 E.E. (Doc) Smith wrote "Subspace Explorers" a super science space opera.  In addition to much daring do and space warfare, it featured a super material with ten times the strength of good steel, made from the element rhenium.  As a holder of a PhD in chemistry, Smith knew rhenium was a scarce element, existing in little more than traces on earth.  He had his protagonists go prospecting in interstellar space and locate a far off planet rich in rhenium.
   That was then.  Now we have an article in Aviation Week reporting that the Chinese are placing orders for delivery of anywhere from 2 to 10 tons of rhenium a year, starting in 2016.  Rhenium (melting point 3182 C) improves the temperature resistance of nickel (melting point 1455 C) alloy jet engine turbine blades.  Five tons is estimated to be 10% of total world production. About 80% of rhenium production goes into jet engines, the rest makes catalysts for the chemical industry. 
   Rhenium is a byproduct of a byproduct.  Molybdenum is a byproduct of copper mining, and rhenium is found as an impurity in molybdenum.  The current price of rhenium ($3000 per kg)  is not far above the cost of the recovery process.  Increased demand could lead to vastly greater production, at a higher price, of course. 

Kill the Federal Highway Trust Fund

The Highway Trust Fund was set up during the Eisenhower administration to build the Interstate highway system.  It did a good job, and by 1985 we had excellent highways running the length and breadth of the land.  The federal gasoline tax paid for all this. 
   Now that the Interstate system is built, the Highway Trust Fund is doled out to the state highway departments to maintain the Interstates.  And to do favors, like the favor Congress did for good old Tip O'Neill upon his retirement.  That favor was the Boston Big Dig,  which soaked up $14 billion, of other states tax money, to produce some very nice real estate in down town Boston.  It didn't improve traffic flow, but Boston (and only Boston) is much prettier now. 
  The Highway Trust fund is running dry now and the road contractors, highway departments, and the newsies are crying for more funding.  The Trust Fund administrator is threatening to reduce payments by August this year.  Horrors.  End of the world.  We MUST  pour more money down this rat hole.  Our senator, Jeanne Shaheen, is pressing for a federal gas tax hike to pump up the Highway Trust Fund, and to round out the state gas tax hike Maggie Hassan just blessed us with.  
  Better, would be to shut down the Highway Trust Fund altogether.  Lay off all the bureaucrats who run it. Cancel the Federal gasoline tax.  Let the states, who do the roadwork, pay for road maintanance out of state funds.  The states could even hike their gas taxes if needed.  With the Federal gas tax removed, the states could take a much bigger bite without raising the price of gas. 
   The money would be better managed if the states had to raise it them selves.  If you have to pay for it out of your own pocket, you only do essential projects.  If Uncle  Sam showers money on you, you go out and spend it quick, whether you need it or not.  If you don't spend all the free money, Uncle won't give any more next year.  Despite Obama's disbelief, the ARE shovel ready projects to soak up free money right now.  Up here we can always repave I93. 
   The Highway Trust Fund is just a batch of free money, getting poured down rat holes.  We ought to shut it off, for good.

Franconia, Old Home Day

We held Old Home Day on Saturday, the day after the 4th.  Good luck attended us, the 4th was wet and rainy, the 5th, Saturday started out overcast, the Sun broke thru in mid morning, and it was clear as a bell by evening.  I did the FCCC pancake breakfast, checked out the flea markets.  Then I formed up for the parade at noon with the rest of the up country Tea Party.  It was just right, about 70, dry and nice.  I'm getting old, it was only a little more than a mile, but it tired me out.  We had little kids, lots of politicians, veterans, fire trucks, brass bands, the works.  And we had fireworks in the evening down on Dow field.
I was going to attach some photos but they seem to have broken the photo uploader (again).

 

 

Try, try again.  Photo uploader appears to have recovered.  This is Russ Cumbee leading the Tea Party group in the parade. Parade goers line the main street.  Franconia only has 900 registered voters.  Must have been double or triple that number out watching the parade.
Lets press our luck with a second photo.  Sorry out of luck, the uploader broke again.  I'll give it rest and try again.

OK, uploader worked again.  This is Dow Field in Franconia, crowded with families and kids waiting for the town fireworks show to go on.

Two days, four lamp fixtures installed

Good thing I don't do this for a living.  I'd loose my shirt.  But the job is done, the living room is put back together. The lights all light.  Every time you throw the switch. 
    Why did it go so slow?  Well weather didn't help.  It was 90 both days.  I worked up enough sweat that I could smell myself.  And I'm getting old.  I took a couple of breaks each day.  Then that wall-to-wall carnivorous carpet didn't help. It ate up everything.   Every dropped tool disappeared and required a lengthy search. A #2 Phillips screwdriver rolled all the way under a book case.  I had to move the whole loaded 1000 lb bookcase to retrieve it.  Dropped screws disappeared  never to return. Good thing I had spares.
   The new fluorescent lamps look nice.  The burn a lot more white than the traditional "cool-white" tubes which actually were quite blue, lacked much red, and made red and brown things look awful.  And they strike immediately when you flip the switch.  They don't even have heaters at the ends.    
   I had the lights lighting by 3 PM, but I didn't have the curtains rehung, the defuser re installed, the crud vacuumed up, the cobwebs vacuumed out of corners, the furniture replaced and the floor lamps plugged back in until 5 PM. 
  At which point I mixed a tall gin and tonic and settled down to watch Fox News. 

Is college worth it?

Depends.  Do you have any options?  The skilled trades pay as well as many college jobs.  Plumber, electrician, welder, machinist, mason, carpenter, heavy equipment operator, trucker, HVAC, railroad engineer, lineman, and others are well paid, and depression proof, you can always find work.  For guys who enjoy working with their hands, and who have an entry into the skilled trades, this can be a a good way to go.  You need to decide whether such a life would be satisfying to you.  Many guys like it, then a lot of guys really want to be white collar, which needs a college degree these days.  Know thyself.  
  Another option, enlist in the armed forces.  It's free, They will take you if you don't have a criminal record, aren't too fat, and don't do drugs.  The services offer good technical training and good experience.  Enlisting, even in wartime, isn't very dangerous.  During Viet Nam, the services lost more men to motor vehicle accidents than they did to enemy action.  After a hitch in the service, you will do MUCH better in college, should you decide to go that way, and they probably still have GI benefits to help pay for college.  They did when I got back from Viet Nam, and I suspect they still do.  You want to check this out before enlisting.  Also, remember that recruiting sergeants will tell you anything you want to hear.  Double check on their promises.  Internet is good for this.   One other thought, if you aren't sure what you want to do in your life, you will be a lot more sure after your hitch.  A final thought, the services are fun.  I enjoyed my tour of duty.
   When you go to college, you ought to have an idea of what you want to do after graduation.  And take courses that will make you employable.  Colleges offer a lot of totally worthless courses that just eat up your time and money.
   And, if you go to college, you gotta graduate.  If you flunk out, you have spent the money and have nothing to show for it.  If you like your major, and enjoy reading and writing, and you did well in high school, it isn't hard to keep it together for four years and graduate.  If reading bores you, and writing comes hard to you, and you just scraped by high school with a C average,  you may not make it thru college.  And you still have to pay off your college loans even if you don't graduate.   
  

To evaluate the Iraqi military

A TV pundit just said that.  The mission of the 300-500 Americans Obama rushed back into Iraqi last week is to evaluate the Iraqi military.  You mean after training the Iraqis for years, funding them, supplying weapons, and leaving 5000 cookie pushers in the US embassy in Baghdad we don't have a fair idea of what the Iraqi military is worth?  ??   Especially after some 30,000 Iraqi troops allowed 1000 ISIS terrorists to take Mosul away from them?  Same pundit goes on to say evaluation is  is done by data analysis. 
   No way.  To evaluate a combat unit, you inspect it.  An experienced sergeant can tell in short order whether a unit will fight effectively, or not. 
   So much for our knowledgeable media.  This pundit doesn't know squat

Let there be light, again.

  Last week I flipped on the living room fluorescent lights.  The lights instead of lighting, did their end-of-life thing, blinking and glowing and refusing to light up.  So I went down to Franconia Hardware to buy new tubes.  The existing tubes were showing black burn marks on their ends.  Awfulness.  Mike Ford down at Franconia told me they had stopped making real fluorescent tubes three years ago.  Some how I missed that bit of lefty-greenie aggression.  I'd heard about the war on 100 watt light bulbs, but some how I missed the war on  40 watt fluorescent tubes.  The new tubes are only 32 watts, a fantastic saving of eight whole watts per tube, but they don't work in the regular fixtures. 
  So I went out to a real electrical supply house to buy four new dependable new style fixtures.  $32 a fixture, less tubes.  He only had 3 fixtures, when I needed four, but he promised to deliver up to my place the next day. Not too shabby.  
  So next day, I started in replacing four fixtures.  It was a fine summer day, in the 90's. Good daylight  so I could see what I was doing.  I'm old school, I still use a Yankee screwdriver instead of those cute battery drill-drivers. Got the first two old fixtures down, got the new ones up.  What with one thing or another, it was 3:30 when I was done.  Decided to leave the other two fixtures for  tomorrow. 
   The new lights are nice and bright, and whiter than the old "cool white" tubes.
   By tomorrow evening the whole job ought to be done.