So usually I don’t like to write about my personal life on here too much, but I had an offer accepted on a house yesterday and I think it’s relevant to topics discussed on this site. Yes, I realize that the housing market is down and that it will likely only get worse. And yes, I realize I’m young and a house is a big responsibility. And yes, I know home ownership can be a daunting experience from upkeep to sales to everything else bad that can happen. But there are some great things about houses too, namely tax advantages and being able to do whatever I want with it (within reason). Plus, I feel that every home can take advantage of advances in conservation and renewable technology, even if they are already in good shape and the energy bills are low.

1. Insulation — A no brainer, this is a great way to reduce the amount of energy leaving your home. A friend and I were talking about older houses and he made a good point that houses built in the 50s didn’t always worry about insulation. It was decently inexpensive to just crank up the heat. Now with gas prices rising (don’t worry, this temporary lull won’t last), it becomes a necessity to conserve the energy we burn. My friend also mentioned a possible tax break that exists; if not, I would hope the next administration includes something in their renewable energy plan. Remember, conservation is the cheapest method of energy savings right now.
2. Windows — One of the most frustrating things in cold weather is walking up to a poorly insulated single pane window; it rattles, it frosts and it let’s chilling temperatures through. Windows are one of the best ways to lose heat and waste energy in the winter, especially in the great north. It feels like it literally is sucking the heat from your house. Sure, double pane and triple pane vinyl windows are a good start and will stop 90% of your heat loss. However, A great story on NPR about legacy technology from the 70s tells about how a simple coating can stop heat loss in the winter and block heat from coming in during the summer. The low emissivity (or “low e”)coating basically just blocks out infrared radiation from getting through (think of those waves you see rising from blacktop on a hot summer day). Windows were already proficient at blocking convective heat flow (think warm air), but the radiative piece was missing. Look for the low e rating when purchasing your windows and you could see some significant energy savings.
3. Efficient Devices — Every time the compressor kicks on for my current refrigerator, I can’t help thinking about how much electricity is being wasted to keep my food cool. While it isn’t great to throw out the old clunker fridge just to buy a new shiny energy STAR certified fridge, it might be better in the long run to get something that will save energy (even at the cost of greater consumption). If you’re really crafty, you can always turn that old fridge into a meat smoker (think ribs), a bookshelf or even a planter. Remember, don’t just throw the old fridge in the basement and keep running it for frozen goods. If it’s truly an energy vampire, unplug it from the wall and find a different use for it.
4. DC Power Outlets — Instead of plugging in cell chargers that are burning power no matter if you are charging something or not, why not have a few lines in your house that are set to a specific voltage, say 6V (most devices are running 3.3V these days). Then when the 6V comes to the wall, you could have a “tuner” based on a buck converter that would dial down that voltage to the one you need. Delivering power from a central source could be controlled remotely, so you could close a relay at the source and no power would be delivered to the converter unless “asked for”, and there would be very low losses in the system.
5. Solar panels — I wrote last time about GreenField Solar and their new solar concentrator, which is very reasonably priced and could pay itself off in less than ten years if it works as advertised (1500 W output). However, in northern climates, it’s often better to get more total exposure by having a larger array of panels collecting the most light possible, even if at lower efficiency. This requires more space of course, but you might be able to get lower cost panels if they are older and assumed to be less efficient. A friend and and I are talking about trying this in the backyard (which is sizable) and doing some measurements on the power we could harvest even in the Cleveland winters. The eventual goal would be enough to power a shed or outhouse for a small music studio, but that will take some work. Wind might be a better candidate, but that would require more infrastructure (AC-DC conversion) and the turbines are still quite expensive (if not beautiful and artistic in some cases).
6. Do an energy audit — Sometimes the places where you waste the most energy are the least expected. Have an electric water heater? You might be paying out the nose for your showers and washing dishes. Air conditioning unit more than 10 years old? Maybe that’s pulling hardest at your electricity usage. Do you own a programmable thermostat (the kind that shut off heat when you’re not usually home or asleep)? This simple device will save you hundreds in electricity and natural gas savings. Energy audits are usually offered for free by your energy companies. Look them up and take advantage.

So part of me is terrified at the prospect of owning a home but the other part is pretty excited about what I can do with it. I think using it as an example for simple home fixes and ways that analog electronics projects can help to save money and carbon emissions will be good for my conscience and for this site. If you have any ideas on home projects, please leave them or a link to them in the comments.

I’ve been writing a lot more lately about renewable energy than I have analog electronics, but I think with good reason. There has been added interest on the part of many because of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency and his promise to invest $15 billion per year for 10 years in order to create 5 million new “green collar” jobs. But where and how do we separate the promises and the politician from the reality? How do we know that renewable energy will help pull America out of our economic recession? And most importantly, once we are confident that this idea of a green economy could work, how do we know where to put our money and invest?

I think the most important thing to point out is that there are going to be a LOT of bad investments out there. My last entry about EEStor is a good example; a company that could potentially be doing great things, but more likely will look for lots of investments and then not deliver on their promises. Like any other engineering activity, renewable energy is an iterative process. On average, the solar technologies in 2 years will be better than the technologies we see today (especially because of the higher interest in renewables and the notion that eventually oil prices will return to extremely high prices). Further, there will be other companies “green washing” (basically talking the talk of being an energy friendly company, but not walking the walk). If you decide to invest in solar, wind, geothermal, etc, you should realize that beyond the usual risk of investing, there are risks associated with unknown, unproven technologies. Prices on renewable companies haven’t gone through the roof yet, but human nature tells us that there will be an overzealous buying of stocks at some point. Let’s look at what we should do when investing so we avoid any unnecessary losses:

1. Are they forthcoming with details? – Companies like EEStor might try to be secretive because they have a breakthrough technology, but there are limits on how much a company should really withhold information. Mostly it comes down to whether or not you want to roll the dice on a company that keeps you in the dark. I would much rather see a proven technology (heck, a prototype would be nice) and then make my decision based on that. You might not get the 1000% returns that people expect (perhaps they’re nostalgic for the dot com days?), but you will go into an investment with facts you can hold companies to when things get tough.
2. Do you understand everything about what they are doing? — This is important for two reasons. First, it is important because you should not invest in what you don’t understand. If you don’t get how a solar cell works, don’t get how it could benefit society and are only sure that it will somehow produce power, then it is not a good idea to dive headfirst into investing in that company.  Second, some of the best investing ideas are the simplest ideas; if you cannot explain to someone in 1 sentence what the company does, it is probably too complex to form a productive, sustainable company (a generalization, of course). Examples of this might be Apple (”They sell computers and music players”). Of course the internals of their products are more complex, but the products are simple to describe and sell. If you have a company that is producing a chemical that is required in the fabrication of GeAs solar cells for the 3rd implantation process…yeah, might not be such a great buy at first glance.
3. Have they brought in good management? — The best ideas in the world are worthless if you can’t sell them. It’s not greedy; it’s business. Sure, the truly great ideas will always rise to the top (eventually), but since we’re talking about investing here, we need to concentrate on ideas that are likely to get to market quickly and ones that will be successful for the long term. Good management will include a proven track record at start ups (there are very specific skill sets) and some experience in the industry. Note that these people can sometimes be the founders, but unless the creators of the new idea or technology have significant soft skills, don’t expect it.
4. Are they digging for the gold, selling the gold or selling the shovels? – This was always an analogy and investing idea that I liked: the ones who made the most in the California gold rush were not the ones digging the gold, but instead those selling shovels.  To give an example for each, the diggers here would be the solar companies (cell manufacturers), the sellers of the gold would be the energy companies and the sellers of shovels would be fabrication equipment manufacturers. The best case scenario is when you find a great company supplying the shovel with little competition. If the “shovel-maker” can continually sell their product to each new technology that pops up, then they will be well positioned to outperform the rest of the market.
   
5. Do they have a simple product that can be produced quickly and efficiently? – Really, I’m thinking about GreenField Solar Corp, which I recently read about in the Cleveland Plain Dealer. They have a simple solar concentrator that can mostly be built from off the shelf components. However, the best part of their implementation is that they would license and franchise the production facilities (making the start-up cost lower for the actual company) and they would only retain sales ownership of their proprietary software, control systems and solar cells (a very specific type). It is reminiscent of the lean manufacturing idea that Solar Automation eschews and Henry Ford pioneered. If you have TONS of money you want to invest, you could always try to start a solar factory.

For my part, I am staying put on renewable energy stocks for now. In reality, it’s always a very difficult climate when you try to guess what technology will come out on top. It happened with the biotech stocks in the early- to mid-2000s, it happened in the dot-com era (post-bust), it happened in the 90s with the PC and chip makers, it happened in the 80s with banks and so on back through time. If you are reading this post, you likely either found my site through searching or you were linked here; in either case, if you are not sure about renewable energy stocks, stick with what you know and continue to monitor the industry. Then when you see a disruptive technology that you think WILL revolutionize the industry, maybe buy a few shares to help support the company. However, do not expect to make money for a few years and continually research your target company. If you are REALLY looking to invest in your favorite solar or wind company, go buy a solar array or turbine and try powering your home. You will help the company and yourself.

If you have any questions about investing in renewables or if you have any favorites you would like to let others know about, please leave them in the comments.

I used to read Popular Science religiously. Those great stories about the new technologies were so exciting, sometimes I had trouble sitting still. And the best part was turning to the back where you could buy some DIY kit! I remember there were “lightsabers” and “hovercrafts” and flying vehicles, all available in kit form. I have since stopped reading Popular Science, but I could very easily imagine some of those ads on the back. One might just happen to read “Batteries no longer necessary. Ultra-capacitor is the wave of the future! Cheap energy for all!”. Of course, these are in fact the headlines for an Austin based company EEStor.

So I’m going to say it. I don’t think EEStor will deliver on the hype surrounding them. Even the more recent endorsements from third party auditors, a deal with Lockheed Martin and their ongoing partnership with ZENN motors does not make me think they can produce an award winning product any more than other companies out there could. Part of me thinks there are signs that prove this (explained below) but the other part of me is secretly hoping this is one of those situations where I say something will never happen and then it immediately does. This could be called “self-reverse-psychology” or “deluding myself” or even just “being wrong”, but who cares? I just don’t see it in the cards for EEStor and I’m not the only one.

Oh sorry. I forget sometimes that the only people who fall into reading my blog are my lovely friends and hopefully a few casual browsers. EEStor is a company that claims they have and are continuing to develop an “ultra-capacitor” capable of producing capacitors with extremely high capacitance, thanks to a new dielectric material, barium titanate. But real quick, let’s look at capacitors in general for anyone who might not have the whole picture. (Maybe skip down the page if you know how capacitors work).

The simplest capacitor possible is two flat plates of metal, connected to a DC electricity source:

When you turn on the source, charge flows to either side of the plate, but cannot pass through. In this case it cannot pass through because of the air in between the plates; here, the air is the dielectric.

Ok, so now there is charge stored on either side of the plates…but what good does that do? Well, there are myriad uses for the capacitor in the world of science and otherwise; but in the most basic definition, a capacitor exists to store energy. Furthermore, the higher the capacitance of a capacitor, the more energy it can store. So how do we get that capacitance to be higher? Let’s look at the equation (real quick, I promise and then no more equations).

Here C is capacitance, A is the area of the plates, d is the distance between the plates, and ε is something called the permittivity of the dielectric. So to make C bigger, we either need to make A or ε much bigger or d much smaller. At first I thought EEStor was trying to only find a better dielectric (with a higher value for “ε”), which would look like this:

This shows that the charges being closer together, but in reality, it’s that the material between the plates allows the electric field to permeate through to the other side better than air. This approach of having a better dielectric is actually closer to an electrolytic type capacitor.

However, EEStor is trying to make a better ultra-capacitor. So back to the formula (last time). Ultra-capacitors try to change everything in the formula. To maintain overall size of capacitors, the area of the plates (”A”) is changed by adding material with higher surface area (Wikipedia lists a possible material as activated charcoal). This gives the charges on each plate more places to rest. Next, the distance between the plates (”d”) is reduced to be as small as possible, down to the nanometer range. This is where most ultra-capacitor manufacturers stop. They use an ultra-thin dielectric layer with a standard permittivity (”ε”) and then surround the capacitor in electrolytic fluid. This limits the overall capacitance and the material properties of the current dielectric also limits the amount of voltage (potential energy), usually to around 3V (rather there is a trade off between voltage rating and capacitance).

EEStor is trying to change all of this by using a dielectric with a much higher value. They use barium titanate, which in a powder form has a very high dielectric constant and very high tolerance to voltage. They claim to compress the material to a pure form in a very thin layer (up to 99.9994% purity, they claim), which should maintain that high dielectric constant; however, this is up for contention. If they do manage to purify the material, they will be able to put a much higher voltage across the dielectric without fear of material breakdown, which they claim is main benefit of using barium titanate. Additionally, they use many different layers of the dielectric and other plates in order to create a higher capacitance. Why, you ask? Because the work (Energy * charge) a capacitor is capable of producing is equal to

That means if you are capable of increasing the voltage rating of a capacitor (how much it can handle before the dielectric breaks down or blows up), the work goes up in a square relation to that higher voltage (doubling the voltage yields 4 times the work). You can have a much higher energy density in the device, making the operation appear to be closer to that of a battery.

Alright, so we’re finally at the point where I explain why I think that EEStor won’t deliver on their promises. First, let’s look at what they have promised:

1. A working prototype by the end of 2008. A fully implemented device in a ZENN vehicle by the end of 2009.
2. A Capacibattery at half the cost per kilowatt-hour and one-tenth the weight of lead-acid batteries.
3. A selling price to start at $3,200 and fall to $2,100 in high-volume production.
4. Weighs 400 pounds and delivers 52 kilowatt-hours.
5. The batteries fully charge in minutes as opposed to hours.

Yikes. Those are some pretty lofty goals. I’d say the most unbelievable of these is the first one (followed closely by the third). Since they haven’t shown the slightest sign of publicity, there really is not much to go off of. In fact, as a business model, EEStor has mystique as it’s main asset. They could go public with no product and have people bid up the stock price towards the sky with absolutely no product behind the curtain. In fact, the only people who have really stuck their head out to talk about this product is the CEO of ZENN motors, Ian Clifford. And why not? Even if the EEStor product (called the EESU) is a flop, ZENN motors can play the martyr and get the free publicity. But that’s all business. What about the technical stuff? Let’s look at some safety/efficiency/production concerns that could prevent them from making a product that can be mass produced at (relatively) low prices:

1. ESR
   • ESR stands for “Equivalent Series Resistance”. It is caused by imperfections in both the dielectric and the material that connects the capacitor to the rest of the world. The ESR is how much the imperfections impede the current flow, as the current works to align internal bonds (in both the capacitor and the connecting material). Normally, ESR will not have any effect at DC because it is assumed that there is no charging time. However, charging a battery or capacitor is more like an AC signal (albeit only half of a cycle), and the faster someone tries to charge it (in EEStor’s case, quite fast) the higher resistance will be. This will translate to heat in the capacitor and wasted energy. With the high currents being pushed through the capacitor at high rates, this becomes a safety concern first and an efficiency concern second.
2. High Voltage
   • This is really the key to the EEStor device. If they are ever planning to have a super fast charge, it will require higher voltages, likely on the order of kV. However, the high voltages have the obvious safety concerns (ZAP!) and the not-so-obvious concerns such as skin effects. Manufacturing a safe product that will pass automotive standards will be a difficult test. Consistently turning out a reasonably priced product that will safely deliver those same voltages will be even more difficult.
3. Piezoelectric Effect
   • Piezoelectric effect occurs when the crystal structure of a substance is stressed and then releases charge. The best piezos release charge all in the same direction based on their crystal structure. What happens when this box gets compressed, via a car crash? Will all of the charge be released at once? Will a fender bender turn into a ZENN car sponsored fricassee? (on a related, but unimportant note: If we go to all electric cars, what will happen in car chases in the future and they want to blow up the other car? Even though it doesn’t actually work, what will they shoot if there’s no gas tank? )
4. Material/Production Costs
   • The product we have heard about so far, with extreme purity, will require a cleanroom-like setting, a foundry-like setting, or both (comparing it to what I know about fabs). In any of these scenarios, the cost of operation far exceeds what most venture capital firms are willing and capable of supplying in terms of cash. Unless they are quickly bought by a large scale producer of batteries or similar technologies, they would not have the working capital necessary to bring their production facility to a point where they are making enough units to create economies of scale (lowering the overall cost by averaging large fixed cost over all products produced).
5. Manufacturing issues/Large scale manufacturing
   • Aside from the material cost and the operations cost, let’s look at the obvious: making one of these units seems to be hard.  I understand that they are developing processes to create these products, but the precision required for a consistent quality product could be so cost sensitive that they will drive the final part cost way past the projected $3200 price tag.
6. Leakage
   • Leakage would likely not be a barrier to production, but it would probably hurt them in their ability to deliver a product with the longevity needed to power cars. If the voltage across a capacibattery is supposed to be 1kV or higher, even with the best available insulators, there will be some amount of leakage (everything allows it). If the car was required to be plugged in while in a parking lot it would not be as big of an issue, but I don’t believe this is the model they are going for; they seem to want to deliver a standalone piece of equipment.
   • Another way “leakage” can happen is across the dielectric. As capacitors age, the stress on the dielectric barrier eventually starts to break down and let electrons through. If EEstor does not properly monitor for DC leakage, there could eventually be catastrophic failure of the capacitor, as more and more current moves through the dielectric; this would heat up the device to unsafe temperatures and eventually cause a meltdown or explosion (exciting, but unsafe).
7. Efficiencies
   • Let’s say you have a “fueling station” that is actually capable of charging a ZENN car in minutes (as opposed to hours); it would likely require voltages on the order of kV as opposed to 10s or 100s of volts and currents that are on the order of amps. Let’s say for our example that we are trying to transfer 10 kW (10A * 1000V) . Even at 95% efficiency of power transfer (a very optimistic estimation), that means we would be wasting at least 500W everytime that we go to charge our capacicars.
8. Infrastructure
   • While my friend Nate would love to point out that the energy density of these devices still won’t approach that of gasoline or ethanol, they are proposing a product that comes closer than any others have yet. However, to achieve their miraculously fast charge times and high capacity capacitors, the product will require a charging station as mentioned above that is capable of deliving a high voltage payload to the battery (hopefully at a high efficiency). This means we’ll either need to convert gas stations into power stations or create huge step up transformers for the home. Remember, US line voltages coming into a house are 120V out of your wall socket. That will take some expensive equipment to safely regulate those voltages and convert to DC (another potential efficiency problem). The costs associated with implementing such a system (either commercially or in the home) could seriously hinder any chance of public acceptance.

So for the final piece of this ultra-capacitor manifesto, let’s look at the possible scenarios we might eventually encounter with EEStor. Aside from the skeptics, there are a good deal of people who are hopeful this company will succeed and fully expect it to; this outcome is possible, but the extent to which EEStor delivers will be up for anyone’s guess. As such, I’ve included a complementary predicition of the chance each will happen (in percentage):

1. They deliver a “product” but it is only a fraction of the promised delivery-Perhaps they have an overzealous marketing person.
   • Chance of happening: 40%
2. They deliver a product but price it so high, there is no way to employ it in any commercial application for the next 5 years-Lockheed still might buy it. Lockheed’s interest is what got everyone so excited again back in May…but it doesn’t mean this product will be delivered or that it’s even possible.
   • Chance of happening: 55%
3. They deliver on all of their specifications and price targets
   • Chance of happening: 5%

So go ahead EEStor, prove me wrong. I don’t want to seem like those people that said man would never fly or that there would be no need for more than 5 computers, I just wanted to write an article pointing out the difficulties that EEStor is likely to encounter and hopefully have already overcome. So EEstor, if you’re sending out samples and need a tester, I would be happy to play with one of your toys. And if you (the reader) think I missed any crucial points about ultra-capacitors or EEstor, please let me know in the comments.

I take a personal interest in Barack Obama’s new plan to increase investment in renewable energy technologies, as I think and hope my long-term plan of working on renewable energies will come to fruition.

Skip to 9:38 to hear about his plans for renewable energy

I don’t seek to point out any political messages other than to focus on his determination to make renewables a viable part of the American economy, much like Thomas Friedman points out in Hot, Flat & Crowded. A green revolution or economy will help to return America as an arbiter of international issues by once again showing our leadership and innovation abilities (not to mention our economic strength). While I will point out that John McCain has also shown some initiatives for renewable energy (not to mention he does not believe that drilling for oil is the only solution), I feel that his focus on nuclear as the only true long term solution in his administration would not put enough money into the hands of people that will drive the “green revolution”. Given the possibility of recession in this country (or is it already here?), I believe that direct government investment in renewables will help to jump start the economy by driving job growth. And it won’t just come from the presidential administration either; people in the house and senate all need to push these new green energy agendas to really allow for new legislation. Great examples of this are Alice Kryzan, running for the 26th congressional district in New York and Dan Maffei who is running for the  25th district, also in New York.

Probably the point that I would like to point out most in this video is his call upon the American people to reduce their consumption AND take personal responsibility in their lives (i.e. childhood education). Sure, we could use our innovative techniques to create energy at the cost of the environment ad nauseum. But why not instead work on power saving techniques? Why not inflate your car tires to increase gas mileage, instead of pushing for faster ramp ups of offshore drilling? Why not tell people to turn off their lights, recycle their garbage, stop watering their lawns and driving gas-guzzling cars? Because it’s tough telling people that stuff. It’s not going to work at first, but it will over time, and that’s why I thought this was a good video.

I always welcome comments on renewable energy, but given the touchiness of politics, please be extra gentle when commenting. What do you think of the renewable energy plan? Is it a pipe dream? Do you think there are pieces that both candidates are missing?

I was going to call this post “A portrait of an electrical engineer as a young man (or woman)” but decided against it. I’ve got nothing on James Joyce, neither in loquaciousness nor confusing writing.

Anyway, I have been pondering what kind of employee I would hire out of school for an electrical engineering position. There are some basic skill sets that will allow just about any young engineer to succeed if they have these skills (the best situation) or at least appear they will succeed if written on their resume (not the best situation). Either way, let’s look over what a new grad should have on their utility belt before going out into the scary real world.

1. Conceptual models of passive components — This has been one of the most helpful things I have learned since I have left school…because this kind of thinking is not taught in classrooms (at least it isn’t in the curriculum). The idea is to conceptualize what a component will do, as opposed to what the math is behind a certain component or why the physics of material in a component give it certain properties. Why does this matter? When you’re looking at a 20 page schematic of something you’ve never seen before, you don’t care what kind of dielectric is in a capacitor and how the electric field affects the impedance. Nope, you care about two things: What is the value and how does it affect the system. The first question is easy because it should be written right next to the symbolic notation. The second is different for each type of passive component you might encounter. Let’s look at the common ones
   • Resistors — The  best way I’ve found to think of resistors is like a pipe. The electrons are like water. The resistance is the opposite of how wide the pipe is (if the resistance is higher, the pipe is smaller, letting fewer electrons through in the form of current). Also, the work (voltage) it takes to get water (electrons, current) through a pipe (resistor) will depend on the thickness of the pipe (resistance). Well whaddaya know? V=IR!
   • Capacitors — At DC, a capacitor is essentially an open circuit (think a broken wire). If you apply charge long enough (depending on the capacitance), it can consume some of that charge; after it is charged it will once again act like an open circuit. When considering AC (varying) signals, the best way to think about a capacitor is like a variable resistor. The thing controlling how much the capacitor will resist the circuit is the frequency of the signal trying to get through the capacitor. As the frequency of the signal goes up, the resistance (here it is called “impedance”) will go down. So in the extreme case, if the frequency is super high, the capacitor will appear as though it is not there to the signal (and it will “pass right through”). Taking the opposite approach helps explain the DC case. If the signal is varying so slowly that it appears to be constant (DC), then the impedance of the capacitor will be very high (so high it appears to be a broken wire to the signal).
   • Inductors — Inductors have an opposite effect as capacitors and provide some very interesting effects when you combine them in a circuit with capacitors. In their most basic form, inductors are wires that can be formed into myriad shape but are most often seen as spirals. Inductors are “happy” when low frequency signals go through them; this means that the impedance is low at low frequencies (DC) and is high at high frequencies (AC). This makes sense to me because if the signal is going slow enough, it’s really just passing through a wire, albeit a twisty one. An interesting thing about electrons going through a wire is that when they do, they also product tiny magnetic fields around the wire (as explained by Maxwell’s Equations). When a high frequency signal tries to go through the inductor, the magnetic fields are changing very rapidly, something they intrinsically do not want. Instead it “slows” the electrons, or really increases the impedance. This “stops” higher frequency signals from passing through depending on the inductance of the inductor and the frequency of the signal applied. Looking at the how they react to different frequencies, we can see how inductors and capacitors have opposite effects at the extremes.
   • Diodes — I think of diodes as a one way mirror…except you can’t see through the one way until you get enough energy. The one way nature is useful in blocking unwanted signals, routing signals away from sensitive nodes and even limiting what part of a varying signal will “get through” the diode to the other side.
   • Transistors — I always like thinking of transistors as a variable resistor that is controlled by the gate voltage. The variable resistor doesn’t kick in until the gate voltage hits a certain threshold and sometimes the variable resistor also allows some energy to leak to one of the other terminals.
2. C coding – Sorry to all you analog purists out there, but at some point as an engineer, you need to know how to code. Furthermore, if you’re going to learn how to code, my personal preference for languages to start with is C. Not too many other languages have been around for as long nor are they as closely tied to hardware (C is good for writing low level drivers that interpret what circuits are saying so they can talk to computers). I’m not saying higher level languages don’t have their place, but I think that C is a much better place to start because many other languages (C++, JAVA, Verilog, etc) have similar structure and can quickly be learned if you know C. Even though the learning curve is higher for C, I think it is worth it in the end and would love to see some college programs migrate back towards these kinds of languages, especially as embedded systems seem to be everywhere these days.
3. How an op amp works — I set the op amp apart from the passives because it is an active component (duh) and because I think that it’s so much more versatile that it’s important to set it apart conceptually. I’ve always had the most luck anthropomorphizing op amps and figuring out what state they “want” to be in. Combining how you conceptually think about op amps and passives together can help to conceptualize more difficult components, such as active filters and analog to digital converters.
4. The ability to translate an example — A skill that nearly every engineering class is teaching, with good reason. Ask yourself: are homework problems ever THAT much different from the examples in the book? No. Because they want you to recognize a technique or a idiosyncrasy in a problem, look at the accepted solution and then apply it to your current situation. Amazingly, this is one of the most useful skills learned in the classroom. Everyday engineering involves using example solutions from vendors, research done in white papers/publications and using even your old textbooks to find the most effective, and more importantly, the quickest solution to a problem.
5. High level system design — This is similar to the first point, but the important skill here is viewing the entire picture. If you are concentrating on the gain of a single amplification stage, you may not notice that it is being used to scale a signal before it goes into an analog-to-digital converter. If you see a component or a node is grounded periodically, but ignore it, you may find out that it changes the entire nature of a circuit. The ability to separate the minutiae from the overarching purpose of a circuit is necessary to quickly diagnose circuits for repair or replication in design.
6. Basic laws — It is amazing to me how much depth is needed in electrical engineering as opposed to breadth. You don’t need to know all of the equations in the back of your textbook. You need to know 5-10; but you need to know them so well that you could recite them and derive other things from them in your sleep. A good example would be Thevenin’s equivalent circuits. Sure, they are two (relatively) simple laws about the currents in a node and the voltage around a loop, but done millions of times and you have a fun little program called SPICE.
7. Budgeting — There are many important budgets to consider when designing a new project. In a simple op amp circuit, there are many sources of error and inefficiencies. Determining and optimizing an error budget will ensure the most accurate output possible. Finding and determining areas that burn power unnecessarily must be discovered and then power saving techniques must be implemented. The cost is another consideration that is usually left to non-engineering, but is an important consideration in many different projects. Finding cost effective solutions to a problem (including the cost of an engineer’s time) is a skill that will make you friends in management and will help you find practical solutions to many problems.
8. Math — Ah yes, an oldy but goody. Similar to the passive components, having a conceptual notion of what math is required and how it can be applied to real life situation is more important than the details. Often knowing that an integral function is needed is as important as knowing how to do it. And similar to the basic laws, you don’t need to know the most exotic types of math out there. I have encountered very few situations where I need to take the third derivative of a complicated natural log function; however, I have needed to convert units every single day I have been an engineer. I have needed simple arithmetic, but I’ve needed to do it quickly and correctly. Sure, you get to use a calculator in the real world, but you better learn how to use that quickly too, because your customers don’t want to wait for you to get out your calculator, let alone learn how it works.

Each of these skills could be useful in some capacity for a new electrical engineer grad. There are many different flavors of engineering and the skills listed above are really modeled off what would be good for an analog system engineer (who develop commercial or industrial products). However, a future chip designer and even a digital hardware engineer all could benefit from having the skills listed, as it is sometimes more important to be open to new opportunities (especially given the possibility of recession and potential shifting of job markets).

Did I miss anything? Do you think there are other skills that are necessary for young electrical engineers? What about general skills that could apply to all young engineers?