Saving Energy By Fighting Friction

From BusinessWeek Online -- Technology:

Here's the rub: Resistance alone may burn as much as one-third of the world's power. Have you ever tried drinking a milkshake through a skinny straw? It can leave your cheeks burning for a piddling payoff. Replace it with a fatter straw, and the cheeks barely have to work at all. Why such a difference? Friction. The liquid rubs the straw. And that same force slows the traffic in all kinds of pipes throughout our economy. Strange as it may sound, the energy implications of skinny pipes are huge: More than one-quarter of the electricity consumed by American industry powers pumps and fans that push along stubborn gases and liquids. So the need for shorter, squatter tubing has never been greater. Fat pipes are part of a barely recognized industry that may soon become much more prominent: friction fighting. Estimates indicate that overcoming resistance accounts for as much as one-third of the energy we consume on the planet. Now, with oil topping $80 per barrel, the cost of each rub, chafe, or blast of headwind is soaring. But such costs also bring opportunities for those with high-tech fixes.

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