Word: thermal
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This year's favorite blanket is full of holes, and meant to be: it is the thermal blanket, a machine-made creation of loose-weave stitches that looks like the afghan Grandma used to crochet...
...vast bulk of blanket sales is still in the cheap (under $5) rayon blends, which tend to shrink and wear badly. But in the quality field, thermals are the up-and-coming item. This year 7,500,000 thermals will be sold, as compared with 400,000 wools, 5,500,000 electrics and 5,000,000 acrylics. Most blanket-makers now produce thermals ranging in price from $3.99 to $20. They would much rather not. But three years ago a bedspread manufacturer, Morgan-Jones, put the first cotton thermal into U.S. stores. With little advertising except by word of mouth...
...find the popularity of the thermal a bit of a mystery," says Chatham blanket company Executive Director G. Martin Coffyn. "Every warmth test we give it by itself registers zero. The labels say that in winter you need a light covering. That can mean anything from a sheet to a Hudson's Bay blanket." So covered, the blanket admittedly holds more warmth than a sheet or a Hudson's Bay alone would-but not much more, say its critics. There has been no great public outcry from chilled users, and the blankets continue to go like hot cakes...
About 70% of the world's power is still generated by steam, most of which is produced by coal or, increasingly, by oil and gas. Highly industrialized nations depend on improving the efficiency of these sources to meet much of their power need; U.S. utilities now build thermal power plants right on top of coal fields because it is cheaper to transport power than coal, and Britain and France cooperate on an under-Channel cable that feeds French power to Britain at the breakfast power peak, then reverses to feed British power to France at its 5 p.m. dinnertime...
...does not believe that the U.S. arsenal requires a superbomb. Said he: "One possible use of the very high-yield weapons would be to deliver them by missile and detonate them at altitudes of 100,000 feet and above, presumably over cities. Detonation at such altitudes could cause significant thermal damage-fire-over hundreds of square miles. But a better way to achieve even greater destruction, and a way which is within the present U.S. capabilities, is to divide the attack among several smaller weapons so as to saturate any defenses...