1. Heading Out and what it's about

This is my third attempt at a blog, and the second is still going, under the title The Oil Drum, where I could have been found for the past three and a half years. But, for reasons that I will probably allude to in later posts, it became time to move on. That site remains an excellent one for information on many of the topics that I am going to cover, and is well worth a visit (or several).

I called myself Heading Out, back at TOD, and I will continue to  use that as a pen name. For those with more curiosity I am David (Dave) Summers, and there was a short NYT piece on what I was then doing some thirteen years ago. The sons have now grown up, and will be referred to here as "The Advocate", (who has his own site ) and "The Engineer".  Barb, for historic reasons will be "The Actress". More recently, I have spent some dealing with items that contain explosives. 

In the main I have spent the last four decades teaching and leading research teams at the Rock Mechanics and Explosives Research Center at Missouri University of Science and Technology.  It is a job from which I will soon likely retire, and Heading Out was initially meant to signify that taking place. For a variety of reasons I‘ve stayed on already a year longer than planned, and we’ll see how much longer that continues.

So what is this about – well I’m starting with the same premise that I had back over three years ago. I will try to give a little technical background to some of today’s events, and providing a chronology and a little bit of a living history as we move through the change from an energy rich economy to one that is more challenged. Generally the posts are going to be contemporary comment on energy issues, as they unroll, intermixed with technical bits that I used to call Tech Talks (and which can be found on TOD). Those will be re-started here, and there will be some repetition as I build up a resource that I can then refer back to in later posts.

I expect to talk a little bit about climate change issues as the post goes forward. With the change in Administration, and the emphasis by the President-elect on a blanket acceptance of the global warming premise, signified in part by his choice for the energy portfolios in the Cabinet, it is going to be hard to be able to distinguish between the two. This is going to be particularly true as the debate on the role of coal intensifies. Since that was part of what “got me into trouble”, I suppose it would be as good a place to start as any. So the first Tech Talk posts will likely start discussing coal from where it came from, through how we get it out of the ground, to how we burn it, to the problems that are created, and how some are being or intend to be solved. But since the aim is to provide some commentary on events as they unfold, these technical posts are likely to be spread out over the next few weeks, and may end up being the Sunday Post.

The site should get a little more organized, with time, but since this was started with the North-East buried in a snowstorm, while we waited in Detroit for a plane to move us up there (see the comment following this post ), the site is a little more primitive than it may end up.

And we’ll see where we go from here! Thanks for coming along for the ride.