Victor McFarland

Ethanol - University of Oklahoma Press Though ethanol, a liquid fuel made from agricultural byproducts, has generated controversy in recent years—good or bad for the environment? a big-ag boon o...

It's the official publication day for ETHANOL: A HEMISPHERIC HISTORY FOR THE FUTURE OF BIOFUELS. Want to know why the US turns 40 percent of the corn crop into fuel? How the US and Brazil became the world's two largest ethanol producers? Tom Rogers and I have answers.
www.oupress.com/978080619601...

My chapter deals with non-military uses of U.S. nuclear explosives via Project Plowshare in the 1950s-70s. Plans included digging canals and artificial harbors, and boosting oil & gas production (like fracking but with a bigger bang), which posed serious water contamination risks.

Look what came in the mail today! I was thrilled to contribute a chapter to this volume by @perhogselius.bsky.social and @siegfriedevens.bsky.social, based on a fantastic conference in Stockholm.

Thanks, Kate — I’m so glad you could join us!

HIV is believed to have spilled over in early 1900s. The first (retrospectively) verified cases are from 1960s, but it had been around for a while at that point. There's interesting historical epidemiology on this, incl. re: colonial Léopoldville/Kinshasa as center of early transmission.

Great article -- taught it in my energy history seminar last semester!

I don't have numbers at hand, but I bet the arrival of big New Deal dams, like Grand Coulee, brought down electric rates for people nearby. (It definitely did for industry.) In this speech Harry Truman praises "the energy of our rivers put to use as power and sold to the people at cost."

Heat pumps were supposed to help save the planet. But they’ve run into a bump. Heat pump sales, critical to the transition to clean energy, have slowed in the U.S. and Europe even as other clean energy technology continues to boom.

HVAC installs are down generally. @shannonosaka.bsky.social had a good article about this. High interest rates don't help, plus HVAC systems get replaced on a c. 15-year cycle. We're 15 years from 2009 -- not a lot of new homes were being built then, so not many HVAC systems to replace now.

A large female green darner dragonfly. She has a bright green thorax and a patterned dark red abdomen, and is perched on a mottled reddish-green stem of Monarda fistulosa.

Green darner in our garden. Monarch butterflies get all the attention, but other native insects are long-distance migrants, too! These dragonflies can fly for hundreds of miles between Mexico, the US, and Canada.

Bright columns of northern lights, pink and green, in the night sky.

Aurora over Columbia, MO. Easily visible even in town with houses and streetlights nearby.

I won't be at ESEH, but I wish I could attend this panel -- it sounds great!

Flyer for the ESEH2025 conference and call for papers, for more information see https://eseh2025.com

@dudleymarianna.bsky.social and I are looking for papers for panel(s) on landscapes of energy history and transition for
#ESEH2025!

We also plan a workshop session on new methods and approaches within #energyhistory.

Let us know whether you want to be involved in either / or by 11 Oct!

#envhist

One week left to apply for the Michael J. Hogan Foreign Language Fellowship offered by SHAFR. Graduate students can receive up to $4,000 for language study or research in foreign language archives.

Thanks to Liat Spiro & the Toynbee Prize Foundation for the invitation to join this roundtable w/ Trish Kahle & Mark Hendrickson. I really enjoyed reviewing @eastasiascitech.bsky.social's book CARBON TECHNOCRACY. Highly recommended reading for all historians of energy, labor, and 20th c. East Asia!

A fallen leaf in red, yellow, and brown autumn colors on a stone surface.

Ohio buckeye leaf, already changed color and fallen in Columbia, MO.

Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professorship in African American History and Culture, Associate/ in Columbia, MO for University of Missouri-Columbia Exciting opportunity in Columbia, MO for University of Missouri-Columbia as a Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professorship in African American History and Culture, Associate/

Job at MU: the Arvarh E. Strickland Distinguished Professorship in African American History and Culture. Appointment at full professor or associate professor level. Applications due November 1, 2024.

Goldenrod soldier beetle on our showy goldenrod. Seems to be transferring a lot of pollen!

Petra Dolata and I are presenting a working paper at tomorrow's CHSTM Energy History online meeting. We'll be discussing Walter J. Levy, maybe the most influential oil consultant in the world during the quarter-century after WWII.