Generators at Umspanwerk, Recklinghausen Germany

Posted on by Thor

In Recklinghausen Germany there is a museum right near the Rhine-Herne Canal. After sketching the canal, I walked over a footbridge and decided to go into the Umspannwerk museum. The museum tracks the progress of technology and energy in Germany. I figured that understanding the progress of energy in Germany might help me understand how energy fueled the German war machine during World War II.

What I decided to sketch was a large Tesla designed generator. A photo of Tesla was on the wall behind the generator. The front desk curators were very kind about getting me set up to sketch. Rather than getting my compact art stool outI decided to use a stackable chair that was with several other unused chairs behind the generator. The stackable chairs were locked together and I couldn’t get then unstuck. The guy behind the desk helped me by laying the chairs sideways on the floor and the. stepping on the legs. They snapped apart effortlessly.

The Ruhr area of Germany has deep veins of coal. The coal is fairly close to the surface near the Ruhr river in the south and it gets deeper as it is mined further to the north. What made the Ruhr area so important to the war was this source of energy.

Hydro power was used for some industry. Huge generators like the one I sketched would convert energy of spinning turbines spun by water onto electrical energy. Hydro electricity was important for specific industries like the aluminum and chemicals industries.

Germany’s energy consumption during WWII was characterized by a massive escalating demand primarily for oil (especially aviation fuel) which was provided through a huge synthetic fuel industry which converted coal to oil. This system collapsed under allied bombing, crippling the military by 1944-1945, forcing reliance on coal for electricity, and ultimately leading to fuel-starved German forces relying on horses.

The Allies crippled Germany’s energy by launching devastating bombing campaigns against oil fields, refineries, and synthetic fuel plants (the Allied Oil Plan), which drastically cut petroleum, oil, and lubricants production by over 90% by late 1944, which grounded the Luftwaffe and immobilized Panzer divisions, grinding the German war machine to a halt and severely limiting mobility for all forces. By 1945, the Wehrmacht was so fuel-starved that army vehicles were sometimes pulled by oxen, effectively ending mechanized warfare.

Ventilators in Short Supply

Posted on by Thor

In severe cases of people infected by the Covid-19 virus the lungs fill with fluid and it becomes difficult to impossible to breath. Ventilators help patients breath by pumping oxygen directly into the lungs, while removing CO2. This machine makes the difference between life and death. In Italy, doctors had to make the gut wrenching decisions every day about who could go on a ventilator and live and who would die. The ventilator can keep someone alive long enough to fight off the virus.

In 2018 it was estimated that there were about 160,000 ventilators in the United States. Up until now that has been enough machines to serve anyone who needed one. The American Hospital Association estimated that up to 1 million Americans will need a ventilator due to Covid-19. Patients might need a ventilator for a matter of weeks before they recover.

So were will all the much needed ventilators come from? The machine can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Now with this virus affecting every nation, everyone it trying to buy ventilators all at once. They can not be found. The companies who make the ventilators are ramping up production.

Auto makers, Ford, General Motors and Tesla in the United States are offering to help with mass production. The problem is that it might take months for these companies to start producing ventilators. Chinese companies are also producing ventilators, but considering the trade war with the United States it is hard too imagine Trump bowing to get help form the East. He continues to go out of his way to blame the virus on China.

Dyson, a vacuum machine manufacturer in Britain signed a formal contract last week, when it announced an order for 10,000 of its CoVent prototype, which was designed in about a fortnight. CoVent is yet to secure final regulatory approval, and may not reach production for weeks.

Ventilator Challenge UK, a consortium of 14 firms including Airbus and
Rolls-Royce, is expected to say that it has secured a formal order for
two types of machines with twin code names of Project Oyster and Project Penguin. The goal is to produce 10,000 machines for England to help battle the virus. These design are more likely to get quickly approved because they incorporate two existing designs.

3D printers are being used to create ventilator parts, and engineers are designing open sourced DIY machines with 3D printed and of the shelf parts. They are envisioned to be used in a worst case scenario.  It is possible to intimate a patient and then manually pump air into their lings with a small hand held pump. This could be dangerous if done wrong. To much air can damage the lungs.

Public health expert have estimated that there are 12,000 ventilators in the national stockpile, which is far to few to the coming demand in about 14 days. New York Mayor Andrew Cuomo explained that in New York, they are trying to use one ventilator to treat two patients at once by splitting the tubes.

On Friday, March 27, 2020, President Donald Trump announced he was invoking the Defense Production Act to require GM to “accept, perform, and prioritize” federal contracts for ventilators.Switching from making cars to making ventilators however takes time. The machines sophisticated software and specialized parts, and companies that seek to
manufacture them face several hurdles, including intellectual property
rights, the need for specially trained workers, regulatory approvals
and safety considerations.For now the auto makers are teaming up with existing ventilator makers to help them ramp up production. New York Mayor Cuomo however said that getting ventilators in a month or two months will not help save lives since the virus apex is in just 14 days. The city hospitals are full and overflowing with patients.

There is no solver lining to this pandemic. America is unprepared and having leaders ignore the science has not helped. Calling the pandemic a hoax cost many their lives. Ignoring science is not the way to keep Americans safe. Things are getting very real in America’s hospitals right now.

As of this writing, there are 777,286 cases of Covid-19 in America with 37,140 deaths. The US has surpasses Spain and Italy for the most confirmed cases of the virus. I have been watching what has been happening in those countries hospitals closely online. Things are about to get very real and ugly here in America. There is no miracle cure and there is no wishing it away. Now Trump is spinning the ultimate Covid-19 death toll saying, “if the death toll stays at or below 100,000, “we all together have done a very good job.”

Stay home. Stay safe. Self isolate.