College Scorecard

An NYT article about the dollar value of graduation in earnings -- always a limiting way to look at things* -- is here (behind a paywall).

(*Limiting because, of course, the person properly educated to use their brain to look after themselves and others, and their stuff, needs less money than someone who doesn't to be happy. Basic Buddhist/Quaker thinking. And... duh!)

'Tis a gift to be simple.

I downloaded the DoE base data, just for shits and giggles. I'll publish what I find here.

From the archive, an oldie but goodie

 Career counselling?

What advice would I give to a student looking for a career in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate change mitigation?

This is an interesting question, as our Unity College admissions calendar is well in progress and the Admissions Office is assembling next year's entering class. It's also in the news. Each morning, if I have time, I read the New York Times and scan the education section headlines, and lately the paper has been full of articles about admissions.

I encounter the admissions process through visits by high schoolers. I generally meet most of the entering students in our Sustainability Design and Technology Program one or two years before they attend Unity College. They come for a visit, or attend one of our Open Houses, meet me, and we have a conversation.

The conversation that I can have with them at that point is naturally shallow, as are most processes associated with this stage of the choosing-a-college process. I can't tell you how many students have shown up to talk, only to realize that they were looking for something completely different. Students show up thinking that we offer a program in household installation, for instance. Or they somehow arrive believing that they can have a career in energy without doing science or math.

Often the first thing I ask is, "so you want to be an applied scientist working in the energy field" When they're stumped or bemused by this question, that's a bad sign. They hadn't realized that what we offer is a science degree in energy. I don't know how high schoolers show up at my door thinking this, but they do.

Indeed, I'm not sure how high school and college age people think or where they get their information from.

Which is good. That's not really my job.

But every week I have long conversations and/or email correspondence with half a dozen to a dozen different professionals that already work in this field. Sometimes we are talking or writing about students, setting up internships or projects, for instance. But more often than not I'm helping solve real world problems that these professionals encounter, in energy analysis, anemometry, finance, or legislation. They call me up or email me for answers, to stay in touch, to learn how to do new things, or I call them for the same reasons.

So I know what these well paid professionals do for a living, how they or the businesses they work for make money, what the skill sets are that they seek in order to make more money, and how to train students up to the proper standard in those skill sets.

That is my job, isn't it?

Thank heavens I don't have to think like a high schooler, though!

What I have to do instead is put the information needed in the workplace into forms and levels that high school and college-entry age folks can understand.

So, based on that information, what advice do I have for the student seeking a degree program and remunerative employment in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and climate mitigation?

First, up, lay down the iPod, get off Twitter or Facebook, remove all distractions, and settle down for at least a minute.

You're going to need to learn to concentrate.

The modern world is full of distractions for all people, young and old, and the way that the field of energy and climate is evolving is no different. There is all kinds of spin and greenwash. But the great majority of successful professionals I encounter are not this kind of person. They are analysts and engineers, number crunchers and applied scientists who have a natural tendency to want to solve practical problems in making green energy or saving dirty, brown energy and in accounting for the emissions that are reduced when either of the above happen.

This is good, because this is where the money is, that pays their salaries. Energy is valuable, and green energy more valuable than brown, so if you know how to make green energy or save brown energy, then you know how to make or save money. You have to be able to account for making or saving that money if you want to get paid -- you must prove to your employer or the government that you are making or saving this money. But the potential supply of money to pay your salary is quite large. There's an awful lot of wasted energy in this world.

You need to learn to concentrate so you are capable of analyzing the energy problems of whatever organization you are working for, and solving them. Most organizations are complicated and energy can be made or saved in hundreds of different ways. It takes concentration to analyze all the ways and lay them out for study and pick the most cost effective ones and come up with physical improvements.

If you are prone to distraction, you won't do very well at this. So learn to concentrate.

The next thing I would say is, get real. Put away the ego. Stop noticing yourself. The world is not a stage on which you may play out the fantasy of your life. Get used to noticing, identifying, interpreting physical reality instead.

These energy problems are real problems with real physical embodiments. There's either a leak in the building envelope or there isn't. The oil level goes down faster or slower in the tank. The meter turns faster or slower, or if you're really good, backwards. Something physical has happened. You have made a difference or not.

You're in the picture, but you're not the important thing. The machine or the building that is using energy is the thing. Reduce the ego, get outside of yourself, and study the thing, not how you feel about the thing.

This is not a job for folks who enjoy telling fictional stories, for fantasists, or egotists, or grand-standers who like the idea of spinning out their own egos. Good analysts are often quite modest types, with modest dress and modest habits. Sometimes we're downright frumpy.

This is a job for somewhat grumpy Zen masters who can leave their egos at the door to the boiler room. People who are prepared to see things, to notice stuff. People who are more comfortable doing than being.

Pocket protectors, suspenders, toolbelts, sensible shoes, backpacks or handbags that contain useful stuff, these are all signs of the emerging energy master. Who cares what others think about how I look? It's not what I look that counts. It's what I know. My students may not be the most well dressed on campus. (But they will be the most well paid on graduation.) They are not the most gregarious, nor the most popular. Some, like me, tend to the grumpy.

But this is only because what we are interested in most is outside of ourselves, and we don't necessarily like what we see. When we get to the point where the thing we wish to fix is fixed, then we'll be happier.

The next thing I'm going to say is, be patient. Take your time to understand things.

Good news. This is a good area to be in right now. It's probably the best area to be in, from a job security and financial point of view.

Here's a common-enough type of headline about humanities majors who can't find jobs.

Our Sustech students won't have that problem. The energy sector, especially the renewable energy sector, proved relatively recession-proof during this latest business cycle droop.

Wind power in particular was one area where companies continued to hire during even the worst of the recession. And salaries are relatively high. Most of the just-left-college professionals I talk to, with only two or three or four years under their belts, get paid more than I do.

If I didn't love teaching and learning, I'd quit and take one of these jobs myself!

So why can't our Admissions Office find more students who want to work in this relatively recession free and relatively well-paid area? The usual American aversion to science, technology, engineering and math is one reason. There was a time when this country turned out the best scientists and engineers in the world, and in many ways that's still true, but you wouldn't think so sometimes, especially when you're trying to find a high schooler who wants a good career.

I don't know what it is that teachers and parents and pop culture does to scare students away from science and math, but it sure works.

Science and math is hard, but not that hard. One of the things that constantly amazes me in my energy outreach work is how easily people's eyes glaze over or they get confused when you show them a schematic, a spreadsheet, or a GIS map. People lack patience with complicated ideas. We geeks and wonks get paid because we have this patience. The huge STEM salary premium, the extra money you get paid for the rest of your life for being a bit of a wonk, is not so terribly hard to get.

You just have to be a tiny little bit more patient with science and math than the competition. That's all it takes.

Finally, I'd say, be prepared to change your ideas lots of times in life, based on new evidence and the emerging situation. I can't tell you what the price of a barrel of oil or a tonne of carbon will be in even one year's time, let alone for the rest of your career. But everything you want to do, every problem you want to fix, will be more or less easily fixed depending on those two metrics and many others. As the major facts of the energy and climate system change, so will you need to change. And you will need to be able to bootstrap yourself into new areas of expertise. the basic skills and knowledge: analysis and problem solving, physics, ecology, engineering, accounting, business skills, presentation skills, these will remain the same.

But the problem will change. So don't get stuck on one thing. Keep your eyes looking down the track. Read the papers and the blogs, trying to see what's ahead.

And keep your hard hat handy.

Climate bill article cites Jimmy Carter Solar Panels

A long time ago in an educational galaxy far away I became the default Guardian of the Jimmy Carter Solar Panels. Now they are cited again in todays WaPo. 

The $200 boat

One of the great pleasures of living in Maine is the dickering lifestyle. Dickering is the business of buying and selling secondhand stuff. They even made a TV show about it, Downeast Dickering. This show came out just at the moment when we harried first-time parents were just learning to get a kid to sleep and it was a great thing to finally get her down and then relax with a show that showed a lot of familiar scenery and even some familiar characters. North Woods Law was a better Maine-based show, featuring several of my former students, and I even made a cameo once giving a pre-search brief to the Unity College SAR team before a line search. But Dickering was close to home, culturally speaking.

Aimee and I furnished and outfitted three homes and a small farm mostly by dickering. One of those homes, our AirBnB, is fully-furnished with dickered-for treasures, and seems quite successful despite this.

Anyway. I digress. Again. As always. 

Long story short, last year, in search of a compelling summer project that might be good family fun, I went and dickered for a secondhand motorboat and trailer, all of which I won for $200. This is a 1979 Galaxy 17-footer "bowrider" made of sprayed, chopped fiberglass. 

This was a cheap way of making a boat in the seventies and eighties, much maligned by "Wooden Boat" magazine types and other purists. But the thing about a heavy chopped glass boat is that it's hard to sink and even harder to destroy. So much so that boats like this are ten-a-penny on the sides of the road in Maine, although they are seldom if ever running and floating. You could buy one rather like it today on FacePlant for $500. There are at least three for sale locally. All would need at least as much work too, and probably not be worth a whole lot more at the end of the process. You don't get rich dickering. But you can improve your lifestyle significantly.

It took three trips to get boat and trailer home, one to buy it and scope out a plan for moving it, and two to execute the plan. The trailer was in such bad shape that it needed to be dismantled on site at the house where I bought it. The boat was intact, but had to be transferred from the dilapidated trailer to my flatbed. I used the flatbed winch and PVC pipe rollers for this. Then there was a complete engine in boxes, which went into the truck bed and cab on the second lift.

Here's the boat on the flatbed.

Here's the trailer on the flatbed, in pieces. This was dismantled and rebuilt with new fasteners and bearings and then sprayed with urea formaldehyde paint. Should last as long as I do.

And here's the engine in the process of being rebuilt. This is a Mercruiser 120, a popular sterndrive model from the glass pack boat era, built on a versatile GM base that also went into mail trucks and forklift trucks. It's a cast iron block, so eminently repairable by the backyard mechanic in a way that modern aluminum blocks are generally not. 

You can see the cracked crankcase leaking water. This is hosepipe pressure at 40-60 PSI, much greater than working pressure with the engine running. Rather than spend $500 or more for a rebuilt case, I welded it over and again until almost of this spray stopped and then put JB weld on a couple of tiny remaining pinholes, a time-honored shade-tree technique. I don't have great faith in this lasting forever, but I expect if it starts to leak again it won't be catastrophic. I'll have time to make it back to the dock.

New pistons, rings, bearings and seals cost around $400. Add another $300 or so total for a new marine alternator, a starter, a starter solenoid, and a little less for a tilt motor (the hydraulic pump that lifts the sterndrive out of the water for trailering). This particular tilt motor was rare as the proverbial rocking horse shit but eventually I sourced a supplier of modern replacements.

It was surprisingly easier to rebuild an engine in boxes than it would have been to strip one down and rebuild it. Everything was there, although the purpose and placement of some items was a little mystifying at times. 

Just a big 'ole jigsaw puzzle for a sumpy.

Here's a video of the engine in the final stages of rebuilding and testing.

And here's the final boat today after this year's job, which was to service the sterndrive to deal with an overheating problem that materialized on the final outing last year. I replaced the outdrive water pump and cleared a blockage in the exhaust, which in these boats also exits the cooling water from the engine. I also fitted a new Bimini cover that I got new-but-soiled merchandise from eBay. Nothing was wrong with it. Someone had ordered and returned it. 

Older carburetor-equipped motors start hard like this if you don't keep the carb charged with gas. You do this by starting it daily. That's annoying, but better than charging batteries. 

So, for an outlay of maybe $1,500, we have a nice boat here. All dickered-for, paid for, and fitted out.

I'd like to find a small outboard to use as a "kicker.'" This is a smaller motor used to save gas and noise while trolling for fish or maneuvering in tight spaces. There's already a mount for one on the back of the boat. It would also serve as an emergency motor, which would make it safer to use this boat while camping on big lakes or Maine sea islands. 

That might be a project for another year. For this year we'll just go cruise around a couple of local lakes.

One reason I wanted a motorboat was because our kid was so frightened of the canoe. Here she is the first time we took her for a canoe ride. What a face!

And here she is in the "engine boat." What an improvement!

It was worth all the effort just for that moment.

Why I fix

I fix to make money, sometimes by saving money, and to build and enhance lifestyle. I can give my family a better life than would otherwise be possible by building things and repairing them. This applies mostly to vehicles and houses, but also to smaller things like toys and garden equipment.

How much, in dollar terms? We'll be strictly utilitarian, even though I don't agree with the morality of that analysis. More than enough, in most cases, to justify the time spent on an hourly basis. Somethings, like fixing houses, pay better than others, like fixing clothes or consumer electronics. I tried to fix a GE laundry machine once, only to discover the replacement parts cost more, collectively, than a new GE laundry machine. But I live in a house on three acres that cost only $60,000 before repair and is worth at least twice that, and drive a reliable car, a Toyota Camry that cost only $3,500 secondhand, before repair, has give 120,000 miles, and is still worth at least $3,500. Both house and car have given us many years of service. I have another car, a 1975 VW bus, that was given to me and that I subsequently have gotten at least 400,000 miles out of, for perhaps another six thousand or so dollars in parts. At the IRS tax rate (2021) of 58¢/mile, that's $226,000 in value.

I fix to build friendships and community. I am not by nature particularly social. I no longer dance, hardly ever go on outdoor excursions with groups other than my family anymore, something I used to do an awful lot, and I dislike small talk. But people need help with stuff, so helping gets me out of the house.

I fix because I can. I was well trained in a tough school. Royal Air Force Number One Technical Training School Halton, Bucks, plus six years on squadrons, flight lines, in repair hangers, and engine bays from one end of the British Isles to the other. We were given a full parade inspection every morning and marched to our shop classes by drill instructors. I tell shouty and bullying people, "You can't scare me by yelling. I was yelled at by professionals." Being that kind of asbestos has probably made me thousands at contract negotiations and saved thousands in therapy fees. Then I worked in a rental repair yard, a mine, a lumber mill, a car dealership, and in construction yards, building sites, and home repair all over the US. I haven't yet met the system or assembly that I couldn't somehow take apart and troubleshoot. Even electronic gadgets can be fixed. You may not be able to fix a computer chip by yourself, but printed circuit boards go bad in other places and can be fixed by repairing solder, switching out components other than chips, or simply replaced in modular fashion. Just about everything can be fixed. If it can't be fixed, you can at least begin to understand why. That's better than not knowing at all.

I fix because you have to keep fixing. If you don't use it, you'll lose it. I didn't fix things as much during the twelve years I spent in full-time college, 1989-2000 (BA, MS, PhD). My skills atrophied. I didn't learn as much new stuff. I missed a decade of technological development, particularly in autos, and had to catch up later. These were the years that onboard diagnosis (OBD) technology came out -- OBD is your car's "check engine" and other code system for signifying faults -- so they were crucial years to miss and it took a long while to catch up.

I fix because fixing puts me in charge of my life. It reduces my dependence on others and on parts of our social system that I often do not agree with or support, particularly monopoly capital. Matthew Crawford, author of "Shop Class and Soulcraft," writes that nothing is more pathetic than a modern individual who is unable to even begin to fathom the technology he depends on. And there's nothing I despise more than a company who deliberately goes out of their way to prevent you fixing their product.

I fix because I like old stuff and old stuff is often nicer than new. Or the new version simply doesn't exist or do quite the same thing. My 1975 VW camper, for instance, which has been taking me places since 1993, has no modern analog that retains all the indispensable features of the old. There are no modern camper vans that have such a simple engine and such a clean uncluttered interior. My 1973 Kubota B6000E tractor is the smallest strongest tractor ever made for the US market and comes with a wide range of useful implements. I paid $6,000 for it and all the implements.

I fix because society depends on fixers. If nothing was ever repaired or made better, where would we be? Someone has to do it. Old buildings, old cars, old things in general shouldn't just be thrown away. Even throwing stuff away requires fixing. Someone must keep the demolition and scrapyard equipment running. And society will always need fixers. Your drippy tap has to be fixed by a local person. You can't outsource it to China or India. One of the reasons the allies won WW2 was because there were so many handy fixers in the allied armies, technicians who could keep Spitfires and B17s and Sherman tanks and Liberty ships running. During the Cold War, the Soviet leaders' fear of our technology -- and by extension the technicians (like me) who maintained that technology -- kept communism and its gulags contained. I can claim credit for a small role in preserving my own freedom and that of our daughter. That little nugget of self-respect is a priceless value. In Ukraine today, fixers are keeping the increasing brutal Russian hordes at bay by repairing aircraft, abandoned Russian tanks, drones, and donated weapons of all different kinds. More power to them.

Finally, I fix for peace of mind and related spiritual feeling. This is the closest thing to religious practice that I have. 

Robert Pirsig, author of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (and former Mainer), writes, "Peace of mind isn’t at all superficial to technical work. It’s the whole thing. That which produces it is good work and that which destroys it is bad work."

If I'm down, which is rare to begin with, I often feel better just looking at stuff that was broken or not working that I have fixed and keep around. I feel like I can handle this life. I feel like life is good and good to me and mine. If I'm depressed, a good thing to do is to tidy my workshop and put tools away. I always feel good about myself with a clean shop.

I know lots of people, particularly younger people, that don't feel this way. Some have killed themselves. Others manage with prescription drugs that are supposed to make them feel better but often don't seem to help much. It isn't surprising that they have learned this sadness and helplessness when society tells them that they shouldn't even try to figure out what is wrong with the stuff they own and use, never mind try to figure out what is wrong with society or themselves. Or what society is doing to themselves. I feel bad for them. I often try to help. But it's very hard, it seems, to repair this problem once it is well-established. A hard fix.

It's better to fix, and keep fixing, from the get-go, and just keep fixing as you go along. Staying in command of your stuff helps keep you in command of your life, and keeps you from being overwhelmed by the dysfunction around you. You can create a personal island of stuff and ideas that work. You can extend this island by helping your friends and neighbors.

Sooner or later enough of us will do this and it will spread and the whole system will start working better.