From 46439007cf417cbd9ac8049bb4122c890097a0fa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: "Charles.Forsyth" Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 20:52:35 +0000 Subject: 20060303-partial --- lib/ebooks/oebtest/MeasuringOilTanks.html | 76 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 76 insertions(+) create mode 100644 lib/ebooks/oebtest/MeasuringOilTanks.html (limited to 'lib/ebooks/oebtest/MeasuringOilTanks.html') diff --git a/lib/ebooks/oebtest/MeasuringOilTanks.html b/lib/ebooks/oebtest/MeasuringOilTanks.html new file mode 100644 index 00000000..fce323c6 --- /dev/null +++ b/lib/ebooks/oebtest/MeasuringOilTanks.html @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ + + + + + + +Bill Wattenburg’s Background: Don’t Call the FBI! + + + + +

Don’t Call the FBI!

+ +

(1974)

+ +

This next story amused our staff to no end when they found the first of the newspaper +stories. Wattenburg seemed excited himself when we showed him how widely the story had been +publicized around the world. He said that he hadn’t realized it at the time.

+ +

In 1974, Wattenburg again embarrassed government scientists and bureaucrats alike. He saved +the country millions of dollars during the first oil crisis when he showed that he could measure +how much oil was in oil refinery storage tanks by simply pointing a special infra-red camera at the +tanks from a distance. This story was first reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, February 6, +1974, with the headline: “How to See Inside Their Oil Tanks”.

+ +

During the oil crisis, Energy Department officials announced that they were going to use +a thousand FBI agents to crawl into all the oil tanks in all the refineries of the country to see how +much gas and oil the oil companies were hoarding. Embarrassed officials in Washington quickly +cancelled their plans to use FBI agents after the story of Wattenburg’s feat was carried by the +wire services all over the country.

+ +

Wattenburg treated the viewers of the ABC network to a dramatic film that showed how he +stood back at a distance and measured the oil levels in all the storage tanks at the Richmond, +California, Chevron Oil Co. refinery—without really trying! As his special TV-like camera +scanned the tank farm, the screen showed the surface of each oil tank glowing brightly up to the +liquid level in the tank. The empty upper portion of each tank showed black. The liquid levels of +a hundred oil tanks in the distance could be measured to an accuracy of 5% just by looking at +their images on the camera screen.

+ +

Wattenburg had made the film in a few minutes using a commercially available infra-red TV +camera—from a distance of a mile away! He showed that the government could easily measure +the oil in all the refinery tank farms of the country. He proved that they could do this in a day by +simply flying over the tank farms with military reconnaissance aircraft that carried the same infra-red camera.

+ +

This is the story he gave one reporter at the time:

+ +

+
The idea came to him when he remembered that water tanks on the farms near where he + grew up often had a very visible dew line on them early in the morning because the portion of the + tank filled with water stayed at a warmer temperature overnight than the empty upper portion that + was cooled down by the nighttime air temperature. Conversely, the sun warmed the upper + surface more quickly than the lower surface in the afternoon. This meant that the portions of oil + tanks filled with oil would be warmer in the morning and cooler in the evening than the empty + portions which followed the local air temperature. This temperature difference is easily measured + and displayed by infra-red TV cameras of the kind Wattenburg borrowed for his dramatic + experiment (Thermovision by AGA Corporation). This technology was first developed for satellite + reconnaissance of rocket launchings (Wattenburg worked on this as a consultant to Lockheed + Missiles and Space Co. in 1965–1968.)
+ +
The congressional subcommittee that had initially insisted that the Energy Department use + FBI agents later asked Wattenburg to testify at a hearing in Washington. They wanted to + investigate why the Energy Dept. had not thought of his idea. He wrote the committee staff a + widely publicized letter in which he gave them complete instructions on how to do it themselves + and where they could find a suitable infra-red camera in the Pentagon! He suggested that this + would save the taxpayers his airfare—and that “they would really find it a lot more fun to do it + themselves.”
+ +
The subcommittee staff insisted that he appear. Then he wrote back that he would be + delighted to appear because he had “just discovered something else that your subcommittee has + told a government agency to do that is even more foolish than using FBI agents to crawl into oil + tanks.” They evidently cancelled the hearing.
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