Making Choices: Chapter 15
Best laid plans of men and mice....Sometimes in the late 70s', OPEC raised the price of oil. This was a sudden move and it caught the World by surprise. Actually, the truth of the matter is that the World powers colluded on this plan....If I take off on this tangent....we would be off the subject.
The news media and the prophets of doom jumped on this band wagon. Our wiley politicans saw this as a golden opportunity to start up a whole new agency. Jimmy Carter was the president then. He called this "the moral equivalent to war..." and with great fan fare DOE ...The Department of Energy was created. This new Department was supposed to "save" millions of barrels of oil....Needless to say, like any other Federal Agency, this DOE grew ...and grew. Within a space of two years DOE was spending well in excess of 2 billion dollars a year!!! Not a single barrel of oil had been saved. Instead, the tax payers had to shell out an extra 2 billion dollars for these paper pushers.
New laws were passed. Mandates were issued to businesses and to car makers to increase miles per gallon. While the poor ordinary folks were shovelling more and more insulation into their attics and walls, brand new office buildings and complexes were being put up to house these new DOE sub departments.
After spending millions of dollars on studies...recommendations were issued. Lower the thermostat to 63-65 degrees. This will save the country so many million barrels of oil a year. One after the other these edicts poured out of DOE. Think about this for a minute. They spent 2 billion dollars to tell us that if we lowered our thermostats to 63 degrees , we would save energy. And the 55 miles per hour speed limit was passed into law.
At the height of his power, Hitler is reported to have said " Isn't it great that the public is so stupid". And he was right.
It was at this time that I was at the University of Wisconsin Madison attending a class in Advanced Energy Management.
We had top scientists from all over the USA and Canada. Engineers, coal plant managers, utilities, steel mills, Oak Ridge, etc etc etc.
One of the projects we were given was to figure out how to save energy in the manufacturing sector. We were divided into groups...chosen by pulling names out of a hat. There were 10 of us in my group. We were given a Sears vacuum cleaner.. a brand new vacuum cleaner. Our mission? To recommend manufacturing procedures that would save energy in the actual manufacturing process. I was the youngest member of this group. I looked up to all the older members of our class. We all lived at the campus, barring a few ,who stayed at hotels. So I got to know quite a few of my "classmates". They were all good guys.
Vacuum Cleaner Disassembly:
The whole class split up into their respective work stations. We elected the oldest guy to be our group leader. All 10 of us stood around this Sears vacuum cleaner. No one said a word. Each of us had our note pads, pens and fancy calculators....and we all stared at this vacuum cleaner. Finally, our group leader asked us for suggestions. No one said a word....silence. Being the youngest member, and a total green horn , compared to the rest of the group, I too kept my tongue in check....
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. And I suggested, we take the vacuum cleaner apart. I mean take it apart and study every nut, bolt, screw, motor, brushes ....in short rip this baby down to its components. Then we study each piece.....The group agreed...there were no arguments.
In no time at all we had this vacuum cleaner in pieces. All laid out neatly on the table. One thing I noticed....most engineers in our group wrote in caps. Plus they had beautiful hand writing. I made a mental note of that....and to this day I write in caps. There are times when my brain is going faster than my hand and I switch to scribbling. But later, there are times when I can't read my own scribbles. well,..I try.
Even my "caps" suck.
Once the vacuum cleaner was disassembled...the active discussions began. Why, they even got heated at times. There were dozens and dozens of screws, some philips, some hex nuts tons of different kinds of screws. All these screws were to hold the body of the vacuum cleaner together. The body was in 10 different pieces. Now the discussion switched to "how to make screws" by using less energy. I mean this dicussion went on and on....and we hadn't even touched on any of the rest of the parts staring at us.
And....then....as I looked at these guys....a thought suddenly dawned on me. This was utter stupidity.
The Kid Speaks:
I raised my hand....Finally when they all stopped talking, I said "Why are we wasting our time talking about screws"? As I said this , I reached over and swept all the screws that were the topic of discussion, off the table. Then I paused, to see the group's reaction...Shock....utter shock....Before they could recover from this shock, I took the rest of the screws and swept them off as well.
"Gentlemen" I said, " We have to redesign the whole cover, so that no screws are needed. Not only will it save "energy" but also labor and reduce manufacturing costs."
By the end of the day....we had finished the project. All fancy calculations were done and reduced to "BTUs" saved. This complete report was submitted to the University. Iam sure they passed it on to Sears. It was Sears, after all , who had donated the vacuum cleaner in the first place.
Oh, by the way, I was offered 4 jobs.....
