[Greenbuilding] Jevons's plumber

[Clarke Olsen]

I'd like top know more about "inflection points". I thought of the WWII period as a low point, with the rush to bring new machinery
on line for the amazing wartime industrial expansion. I have some 19th century machinery which shows superb casting technique.
I had assumed that without the follow-up machines, they cast a finished unit, whereas later a finish grinding was assumed.

Clarke Olsen
clarkeolsendesign.com
373 route 203
Spencertown, NY 12165 
USA
518-392-4640
colsen at taconic.net




On Jul 31, 2012, at 11:26 AM, Reuben Deumling wrote:

> 
> 
> On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 11:57 AM, Clarke Olsen <prismoidal at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Are engines more efficient now then in your father's Oldsmobile?
> 
> Let's not forget inflection points. Things don't just automatically get more and more energy efficient. For much of the middle of the 20th Century ~1940-1975 lots and lots of systems, machines, devices because much less energy efficient and not by accident either. 
> 
> 1940 +/- was an inflection point at least in US manufacturing when it comes to lots of generally desired parameters: durability, efficiency, repairability, even aesthetics (this one is of course more debatable, but my point of including it is that more attention was put into the exterior of the machines, into the casting details, the decorative flourishes, than in later periods, and this was not altogether a bad thing). Pride in workmanship as expressed in various ways including the exterior surfaces doesn't hurt.
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