Revisiting LGMI Ideas

While the Board of Directors works hard to move this email to the website, I thought we would go back and look at some past LGMI Ideas...

9 Sep 15: What I learned on my summer vacation

Laura and I just returned from a 13-day cruise in northern Europe. Started in Amsterdam, visited Berlin, Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, Stockholm and Copenhagen. The relevant story here is in the ship, not the destinations.

We took our first cruise in 2003--a 10-day adventure out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida to the Panama Canal. That ship was on its second trip--it was brand new.

The ship this time was a year or two old. This was our fifth cruise. On every other cruise I have ever been on (or when, years ago, I used to take the ferry between Helsinki and Stockholm), the ship always has had a distinctive shudder when under way. Including the ship to the Panama Canal. 

Not this time. There was only one day you could even tell we were moving--our last "sea day" in the North Sea when swells reached 15 feet and the crosswinds reached 40 KTS. Otherwise, you never knew whether this ship was docked or moving.

This is verification of the Light Green Machine Institute's basic premises. These ships are a mass of engines, pumps, other rotating gear (I would guess this ship had close to 20 elevators--12 in the public areas and at least eight for service use). All of this equipment operating and no wasted energy turned into vibration.

This flies in the face of the traditional methods of designing pulp and paper mills doesn't it? We always think we have to have lots and lots of mass. Ships prove this to be wrong.

Something to think about.

Of special note...

In a few months, we will be moving this column to the Light Green Machine Institute website. There is not much there right now, but you might as well get signed up and start thinking about moving over there. It is at www.lightgreenmachine.institute.