An important FAA rule change, construction microfactories, recycling data center waste heat, the rise and fall of MATLAB, and more.| www.construction-physics.com
An early version of the US Senate budget bill which passed last week included a provision to sell off between 2 and 3 million acres of federal land in western states, ostensibly to be used for homebuilding.| www.construction-physics.com
Since 2017, China has been the largest shipbuilder in the world.| www.construction-physics.com
Fannie and Freddie’s mortgage blacklist, the air traffic controller shortage, the largest landowners in the US, a blended wing airliner, and more.| www.construction-physics.com
Earlier this month I came across the following graphic, originally posted on Reddit in 2022, showing the state of housing affordability in the US.| www.construction-physics.com
Risks to US battery storage, un-affordable affordable housing, a major Supreme Court NEPA ruling, making chip materials in space, and more.| www.construction-physics.com
In the US solar energy has steadily risen in how much of our electricity it supplies.| www.construction-physics.com
How Japan invented modern shipbuilding, and conquered the shipbuilding industry in the process.| www.construction-physics.com
This is a policy proposal written by Austin Vernon and myself for improving US naval shipbuilding.| www.construction-physics.com
You can’t throw a rock these days without hitting someone trying to build humanoid robots.| www.construction-physics.com
Solar PV adoption in Pakistan, a sodium-ion battery startup closing up shop, Figure’s humanoid robot progress, an AI-based artillery targeting system, and more.| www.construction-physics.com
The most prestigious scientific achievement is likely the Nobel Prize, which is awarded every year to “those who confer the greatest benefit to mankind” in the fields of physics, medicine, and chemistry (of course, there are also Nobel Prizes for literature and peace, as well as a Nobel Prize for| www.construction-physics.com
Chinese EUV machines, North Korea’s nuclear submarine, greenhouse gas and low-orbit satellites, far-UVC for pandemic prevention, and more.| www.construction-physics.com
Civilization's toughest technical challenges are those that require extraordinary (and constantly improving) performance to be delivered at a low cost.| www.construction-physics.com
Earlier this month the Trump administration announced hefty 25% tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports, along with an additional 10% tariffs on Chinese imports.| www.construction-physics.com
Electric power in the US is provided by the electrical grid, a huge network of power plants, transmission lines, and transformers that moves electric power from where it's generated to where it's consumed.| www.construction-physics.com
The recent Los Angeles fires have highlighted the rising costs of homeowners insurance in the US.| www.construction-physics.com
Book review of the autobiography of Morris Chang.| www.construction-physics.com
This week on the reading list we look at GDP growth by metro, wind and solar bans, battery material consumption, carmaker struggles, Norway and startups, and much more.| www.construction-physics.com
The evolution of polycrystalline diamond drill bits| www.construction-physics.com
It took decades of research, performed around the world, before a practical lithium-ion battery was possible.| www.construction-physics.com
We’ve talked previously about Bell Labs’ long, storied history as an innovation engine and a generator of new technology.| www.construction-physics.com
Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in Chinese manufacturing as the “China Cycle”:| www.construction-physics.com
It’s often hard to get much detailed information on the operations of Chinese industries.| www.construction-physics.com
This post is cross-posted at Noahpinion.| www.construction-physics.com
One of the goals of this newsletter is to figure out ways to improve construction productivity and reduce the costs of construction, particularly residential construction (ie: housing) - if you could reduce the costs of construction, housing costs would fall as well.| www.construction-physics.com
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, a revolution took place in American military aircraft design.| www.construction-physics.com
Even before it became a state, people migrated to California in search of a better life: for jobs, the chance to become rich and famous, or simply the comfortable climate and beautiful landscape.| www.construction-physics.com
There’s quite a few good books on the history of California, and how its culture evolved to be anti-growth, and pro-environment.| www.construction-physics.com
For decades, people have tried to bring mass production methods to housing: to build houses the way we build cars.| www.construction-physics.com
For most of the 20th century, AT&T was almost entirely responsible for building and operating America’s telephone infrastructure.| www.construction-physics.com
If someone was making a list of the most important American companies today, it’s unlikely AT&T would be anywhere near the top.| www.construction-physics.com
This piece is the first in a new series from the Institute for Progress (IFP), called Compute in America: Building the Next Generation of AI Infrastructure at Home. In this series, we examine the challenges of accelerating the American AI data center buildout. Future pieces will be published| www.construction-physics.com
It’s no secret that the Allies won World War II on the back of the U.S.’s enormous industrial output.| www.construction-physics.com
For the last several decades, one avenue of technological progress has towered over nearly everything else: semiconductors.| www.construction-physics.com
Buying a home is by far the largest purchase most of us will make, and paying the rent or mortgage will be our largest monthly expense.| www.construction-physics.com
Airports are a critical piece of modern infrastructure.| www.construction-physics.com
Machine tools – machines that cut or form metal – are the heart of industrial civilization.| www.construction-physics.com
Long-term, I’m optimistic about robots and automation solving construction’s stagnant cost and productivity problem. Even if nothing else works, if you can build a cheap machine capable of doing everything a human can do, that would greatly reduce labor costs, which are a large fraction of the total cost of putting up a building. This level of automation would probably reduce the cost of producing construction materials as well.| www.construction-physics.com
Last week, US Steel announced it was being acquired by Japanese steel company Nippon Steel.| www.construction-physics.com
Solar photovoltaics (PV) have become one of the cheapest sources of electricity. Lazard’s estimate of unsubsidized levelized cost of energy (LCOE)| www.construction-physics.com
The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) is a piece of federal environmental legislation that was passed in 1969 towards the beginning of an “eternal September” of environmental laws, and is often called the “magna carta” of environmental laws because of how influential it has been in shaping environmental policy.| www.construction-physics.com
In the early 20th century, a new business model appeared: the mail-order home.| www.construction-physics.com
The earth contains a lot of titanium - it’s the ninth most abundant element in the earth’s crust.| www.construction-physics.com
For most of the industry’s history, electric power in the US had largely been provided by vertically integrated utility companies that handled every part of the electricity supply: generating it, transmitting it, distributing it to customers, and managing the overall system. Utilities were granted monopoly status in their area of operations, and in return had their rates regulated by state public utility commissions. Most utility companies were private enterprises known as investor-owned ut...| www.construction-physics.com
Welcome to Part II of our history of the electric power industry.| www.construction-physics.com
The day must come when electricity will be for everyone, as the waters of the rivers and the wind of heaven. It should not merely be supplied, but lavished, that men may use it at their will, as the air they breathe. - Emile Zola, “Travail”, 1901| www.construction-physics.com
(note: all quotes are from Nemet’s How Solar Energy Became Cheap unless otherwise noted.)| www.construction-physics.com