An odd feature of living in a highly developed, industrialized nation with abundant energy and food is that, most of the time, we have little understanding or even awareness of how it all hums along. Things just work and we don’t concern ourselves with all of the arrangements that make them work.
When I was growing up, my grandfather had a small cattle ranch north of Dallas, and during summer recess, I worked a couple of days per week on the place, doing odd jobs. He kept a large diesel tank behind the barn for filling his two tractors, and one day he told me about the importance of diesel for agriculture, construction, and transportation of goods and services.
“We put gasoline in our cars, but diesel is the lifeblood for growing, producing and transporting things,” he told me.
Named after the German mechanical engineer, Rudolf Diesel (1858–1913) who developed the high efficiency internal combustion engine to replace the extremely inefficient steam engine.
In my estimation, Diesel was one of the greatest inventors of all time, and he endured enormous hardship, litigation over patent disputes, and personal injury in his quest to build his engine that ultimately transformed agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and transportation.
His death on the eve of World War I strikes me as deeply intriguing. On the evening of September 29, 1913 he boarded the steamer SS Dresden in Antwerp, bound for England for business meetings, including discussion of diesel use in British submarines.
He dined, retired to his cabin around 10 p.m., and left instructions to be called at 6:15 a.m. He was never seen alive again. His coat was found neatly folded on deck; his bed was unused. His death was ruled a suicide, but I wonder if the Imperial German government was unhappy about him consulting the British navy about putting diesel engines into their submarines, and therefore sent an agent to make sure he didn’t make it to England.
Speaking of diesel and war, I suspect that Americans are about to experience a very rude awakening about the cost of the US government’s senseless wars abroad if these conflicts aren’t resolved soon.
