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THE ORIGINS OF EFFICIENCY
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Where Has Construction Automation Been Successful?
Construction is famously labor intensive: direct labor makes up close to 50% of the cost of constructing a new single-family home in the US, compared to…
Sep 11
•
Brian Potter
130
20
16
How Will the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Affect Housing Supply? Part III
This is my third and final essay looking at the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, and how it’s likely to affect housing supply.
Sep 3
•
Brian Potter
79
7
3
How the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Works
The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) is the largest crude oil storage facility in the world.
Aug 27
•
Brian Potter
241
21
20
How Will the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Affect Housing Supply? Part II
This is the second installment of my look under the hood of the recently passed 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, looking at what each provision…
Aug 14
•
Brian Potter
96
10
5
What Will the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act Do for Housing Supply?
A few weeks ago the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act became law. This is an enormous housing bill that’s been in the works for roughly a year — I first…
Aug 6
•
Brian Potter
103
7
7
Why Is Everyone Trying to Build a Solid-State Battery?
A battery technology that’s getting a lot of attention is solid-state batteries, lithium-ion batteries that replace the liquid electrolyte with a solid…
Jul 30
•
Brian Potter
210
13
11
Can We Lower Construction Costs with Cheaper Labor or Materials?
Last time in our series on the nature of the construction productivity problem, we looked at economies of scale, finding that capturing economies of…
Jul 23
•
Brian Potter
170
29
11
How Predictable Are Laws?
An enormous amount of ink has been spilled (some of it by me) on the trials and tribulations of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act…
Jul 16
•
Brian Potter
164
21
12
The Fall and Rise of Screwworm
Every spring, as sure as the seasons, and for generations unknown, screwworms began their annual march northward from their overwintering sanctuaries in…
Jul 3
•
Brian Potter
358
21
47
US Subways Build Too Many Cross Passages
I wrote the following piece for IFP’s Transit Abundance Playbook, a collection of 15 ideas to improve transit delivery in the US.
Jun 25
•
Brian Potter
181
10
7
Converting Coal Plants to Natural Gas
For the better part of the last several hundred years, coal was the fuel of choice for generating power.
Jun 19
•
Brian Potter
164
7
9
Biological Evolution and Information Acquisition
A few weeks ago we looked at a simulation of technological evolution by economist Brian Arthur, in which he was able to start with simple building…
Jun 11
•
Brian Potter
137
7
5
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