Author Archives: Peter Spitz

Chemistry in postage stamps

Posted on January 1, 2019 by Peter Spitz

 As some of my readers have surmised, I developed a lifelong interest in the chemical industry. I started collecting chemical and petroleum/energy related stamps many years ago, joining a large contingent of collectors with a similar interest. At some point … Continue reading →

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Manuscript sent to publisher

Posted on December 16, 2018 by Peter Spitz

    Last week the manuscript for my book Primed for Success: The Story of Scientific Design Company subtitled How Chemical Engineers created the Petrochemical Industry, was sent to Springer, a well-known publisher of technical books headquartered in Switzerland. The e-book version of the book … Continue reading →

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Guess What? I have been writing a book.

Posted on October 14, 2018 by Peter Spitz

Over the past year, I have been busy writing about the petrochemical industry again. It is a book almost finished called: Primed For Success: Scientific Design Company sbhd.  How Chemical Engineers created the Petrochemical Industry   The book will be … Continue reading →

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All good things……

Posted on November 8, 2017 by Peter Spitz

As you know, I have not posted anything for quite a while. The main reason is that I really stopped finding interesting  new developments I could get excited about in either the chemical or the energy arena. Fracking has not … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemical Industry, Energy Industry | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Update on Chemical Companies: Celanese excels

Posted on March 19, 2017 by Peter Spitz

With little new in the chemical industry world [believe me, I have been trying to find some interesting (to me) developments]I have been reflecting on how the landscape of U.S. chemical companies has changed since, let’s say, the end of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Chemical Industry, Energy Industry | 2 Comments

Will Trump retrain coal miners in Appalachia?

Posted on March 11, 2017 by Peter Spitz

President Trump has promised to restart  shuttered coal mines and bring coal back as an important fuel for power plants, a move that has been met with skepticism and disbelief by energy experts who point to the favorable economics of … Continue reading →

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Global Warming Consequences: Part of our “Trump Watch”

Posted on February 8, 2017 by Peter Spitz

A decade or so ago, Bjorn Lomborg, the famous “Skeptical Environmentalist”(title of his book) opined that it would be hopeless and a wrong allocation of trillions of dollars to get the world to transform its energy generation means and transportation … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy Industry | Tagged | 2 Comments

Trump Administration and Climate Change: We’ll follow developments closely

Posted on January 31, 2017 by Peter Spitz

It now becomes important to find out what Donald Trump and his cabinet plan to do to reverse the previous administration’s effort to slow down the pace of global warming. Also, we must monitor the choices the new administration are making … Continue reading →

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Lifeline for “Clean Coal”?

Posted on January 15, 2017 by Peter Spitz

 This blog has covered the long history of technologies and approaches that would allow coal-fired power plants to keep operating while the carbon dioxide in flue gases can be captured and either used or stored in some manner. The most … Continue reading →

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Metamaterials: A possible nano breakthrough

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Peter Spitz

    Readers of my blog have probably recognized that I write more about energy than about chemical developments. This is not by choice, but because I have over the last year found little to write about in the chemical world. … Continue reading →

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