samedi 6 novembre 2010

From Wolfsburg to Bremen

Since I wrote a couple days ago so many things have happened (they all happen extremely fast).
I have been hearing many stories from people and everyone'z background is very diverse. Sometimes funny, sometimes profound.
Like one guy from South Africa was telling meth first day at the hotel that he took a drink of what he thought was tropical juice but it was tomato. Disgusted, he poured himself another glass of what he took to be guava juice. Again he was stymied and just stuck with orange juice. I joked with him about no longer being in tropical coastal Africa.
Another one from China was telling me how it is different because he has never used a knife and fork (only chopsticks...he said even the McDonalds give out chopsticks). I later observed him eating at a meal and he was balancing a huge piece of chicken on a spoon and taking bites out of it while taking small bits of rice onto his fork.
The guy from Vietnam went to university in South Korea and has told me a lot about the differences between the two in terms of technology, research opportunities, as well as the culture and physical landscape. He just got accepted to a PhD program at UC Santa Barbara for organic solar cells.
The girl from the Ukraine showed me a set of pictures from when she was in Chernobyl for a university project on measuring radiation. She lives in Kiev which is relatively nit far from the site. The city itself is completely deserted it is very spooky, no cars or people and the buildings are just shells since the concrete couldn't be reused due to radiation absorption. Trees can be seen growing inside the buildings. Her career focuses on the reuse and disposal of scrap tires and she was telling me about the lack of expertise in the Ukraine in this field. Apparently there is only one expert in all of the Ukraine on this topic and she was excited to come to Germany to see what kinds of scrap tire reuse projects exist here so that she can study with more experts before completing her thesis.

Some of the people come from parts of the world where higher education isn't very common and this program is a great way for them to leave their countries and pursue their professions in a place with better funding. The man from Indonesia told me that he already plans to move here with his wife and child after the research program. Some people, lime the girl from the Ukraine just wants to get the experience so she can take it back with her.

It's hard to fit into an email all of the different people because they all come from such different places.

People are very open to collaboration and everyone has already exchanged emails so that we can contact each other in case we need any help or professional consultation in the future.

For the expert meetings unfortunately my rendezvous with the energy minister fell through. During these meetings we will all travel to different parts of Germany for a couple days to have different meetings. I had to choose a couple different ones so I will be meeting with one expert for solar buildings, one for wind energy research, and one for biomass research. All of these institutes do applied research for industry application, I'll definitely give you more information on that later. I've already been offered to do research for projects or even to pursue a PhD at a couple of institutions that we have visited and have been collecting business cards like crazy.

On Thursday we were at the Clausthal University and looked at a bunch of research on car disposal. They manage to find ways to recycle at least 95% of a car in order to resell or reuse the recuperated parts for further application - from zinc and gold removal to reworking the scrap metal to make new cars. We got to tour a couple facilities including fuel cell labs, zinc removal processes, and the reducing of certain parts to powder in order to run it there various extraction methods for different materials.




They also do work on recharging cars and they had a Tesla (that electric sports car that is sold in Boulder) that they were modifying so that it would charge in 30 minutes (instead of 4-8 hours).
They also do a considerable amount of biomass research especially reducing biomass (like crop waste) into liquid fuel - lime Rumpelstiltsken making the princess spin thread into gold.
Then the icing on the cake - we went to the Volkswagen manufacturing plant. this isn't the only one, but according to the tour guide it is the largest car plant in the western hemisphere (about the size of Monaco). It's powered by two 450MW power plants (enough to supply power to a city of 1,000,000 people) and turns out about 3,500 cars per day (the line is 7.6 km long and each car takes 3.5 days to travel through). The factory is so huge that we had to take a special car-train to make the rounds. The employees get around the factory on monographed bicycles. They do everything there - we saw the raw steel get sent into enormous presses that shaped the frame of the cars that are then snapped into place by precision robots (they have 1600 robots just for this process). It all seems a bit Willy Wonka style in Rube-Goldberg-ness as well as vastness, our car was pretty much the equivalent of a glass elevator. We saw a lot of processes all the way down the line to employees driving the cars out of the factory (they are making Golfs and Touaregs). There are 48,000 employees at pretty much every step, although a lot of processes are robotic, human oversight is still needed and they are still doing the painting and certain other steps that don't require precise alignment or exceedingly heavy lifting.
The town where the factory is located, Wolfsburg, is centered around the factory. If it weren't for Volkswagen this town would not exist.
As if this wasn't enough, after the factory we went to this Volkswagen theme park. It's this huge park where I imagine the remainder of local people who are not employed at the factory work. We were practically the only people here in this enormous space that showcased all off their models and subsidiaries - past and present, their design projects, their sustainability efforts, and the company history all through slick and expensive interactive technology. I was blown away by how each exhibit was laid out (what's more there were no lines and I was able to try out everything).

There were pavilions all over the complex that showcased their top of the line models from Skoda, Séat, Audi, Lamborghini, and Bugatti (fastest and most expensive production car ever made - 1001 horsepower). Each of these cars had its own building. I went to the Audi one and had a one-on-one tour of their high-end sports car. I got to sit in it (not drive - it is a $200,000 sports car after all) and turn it on. They also had an exhibit about the rest of the Audi line with very visual explanations about different technologies that go into making the cars safe, secure, environmentally friendly, reliable, etc...




The sustainability exhibit was crazy - they had huge multitouch screens that showed different efforts across their product lines to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. They had one set of screens of experts talking about sustainability and each time you would ask a question to one of them, all of the other head should turn to listen, (if you touched one of the listening heads while someone was talking they would turn and look at you as if annoyed). They had a model waterfall that was also a multi-touch projection screen with bubbles that could be touched to show different keywords about their water resource use. Then I saw a short film (not really sure why it was in this exhibit but it was very well done) in a 360 degree theater. It was only me and the South African guy in this huge theater where you stand and turn around to look at different parts of the scene (there were some expansive mountain landscapes that looked amazing).

Yesterday we were at the university of Göttingen. It is an agricultural university so not exactly my field - we learned about climate research that they are conducting on soil quality, crop yield, and its effects on livestock yield and production.

We also got a tour of Carl Gauss' house/observatory. In case you didn't know, Gauss was a 19th century astronomer, physicist, and all around genius. I've studied a couple of his laws/theorems mostly dealing with the changing of atoms due to temperature changes (Gaussian curve). They've kept his observatory completely intact including his telescope in its original position inside an observation dome. It was very mechanical and used pendulum weights to move in time with the night sky.




Now we are heading to Bremen, in the north and have a couple free days for since it is the weekend, more updates later!

Location:Bahnhofsplatz,Brême,Allemagne

mercredi 3 novembre 2010

Days 2 and 3 from Berlin to Leipzig

Everything here is simply incredible. Germans seem to invest a huge amount of money into basic and applied research and development and it really shows. The conference was great and the minister gave a speech about sustainability and then we saw sone interviews with people who are doing various research in a variety of fields including environmental friendly cement and a geothermal collaboration with Indonesia. We also got up to receive our awards from the minister and had quite the photo opp (we pose for many photo opps every day, normally with the logo of whatever facility we are having a tour at...we tend to stand there for a minute or two while many flashes and cameras click all around us and then we are told to move along, all the while we are being filmed for documentation of the whole trip, even the semi-awkward posings for the photos). After a fantastic catered lunch of käse spetze (sp) and a whole variety of delectable hors-d'oeuvres, drinkable gazpacho, and creamy fruity desserts I was interviewed by a German magazine writer and another writer for Chemistry Science magazine (based in Boston I think). Then I was asked to participate on a panel for a moderated question and answer session on sustainability - the members were a few people from last year's competition, two other's from this years, and a couple members of research boards and a Siemens board member. I think I answered the questions in a comprehensive manner especially drawing from examples that I had encountered when working with Paty - everyone seemed very attentive and responsive to my examples citing that they were simple to understand but very metaphorically profound. They also said my resume makes it look like I'm in my 30's.

In Berlin I was able to take a short walk around the center from the Brandenberg tower/gate to the Holocaust memorial which is a silent piece of urban artwork with no writing. There are large stone slabs representing graves that rise steadily upwards as you walk in until you are surrounded by a labyrinth of very tall stones, it is very dark in the middle.
I also just walked around taking in the city. I came across a storefront that was more of a promotion for electric an green vehicles. Inside they had a sports car similar to the electric Tesla. This one, however, is Swiss made and even has propellers on the back so that it can drive around underwater. Although since it is a sports car you are obligated to take the plunge with the top down which necessitates a scuba suit. If you don't mind being a little wet while driving you could save the environment and drive an outrageously impractical car at the same time.

Today we were in Leipzig (picture attached) but we are sleeping in Zellerfeld (central Germany) tonight. We left Berlin early this morning and went to the research institute for biomass and the research institute for water treatment (two separate entities but located right next to each other). The site is very impressive and it was established as a research center in 1953 after having been a forced labor camp for the manufacturing of weapons during the war. At the biomass research center we saw their experimental labs and got to see some of their doctoral candidates in action collecting data and pursuing their experiments. I case you were wondering, biomass research consists of the reworking of crops or the use of agricultural waste to make energy in various forms from heat/combustion to a more tangible liquid fuel (ethanol). All of the labs are large with state of the art equipment (it helps that this biomass research facility receives 2.4 billion Euros per year). They also have an energy producing facility which is more applied research where they sell power to the grid yet keep the equipment as part of the research facility (experimenting with the combustion of various types of agricultural waste).

We heard four lectures at the center for water treatment, each one was very good. The standout topics were the use of a synthetic microbial method to water cleanup called zeolite. Another was facilitating soil cleanup by using fungal highways to facilitate bacterial movement across paths that are normally void of nutrients. We also were taken to see a lab that uses Junca grass to create a wastewater marshland and the absorptive properties of the plant to cleanse the wastewater and reuse it for agriculture with little no other treatment process besides this purely organic solution.

The people are also as diverse as they are interesting. I find it amazing to hear the stories of research and development from all these different people from around the world as well as their personal perceptions of Germany coming from such different backgrounds (most notably from the Chinese and the South Africans). The exchange of knowledge has been stimulating and overwhelming at the same time.
Oh, and this was just day 3.

Photos:
Courtyard at the center for water treatment, this was where we ate lunch.



Junca plant setup with computer monitor to measure concentrations, BOD and DOC, etc.



Conference room where we had the water treatment lectures.




In front of the Brandenberg tower outside the Fona conference.



Location:Treuerstraße,Clausthal-Zellerfeld,Allemagne

mardi 2 novembre 2010

Arrival in Berlin/Green Talents

It's getting a little chilly here but the trees are gorgeous in all of their autumn colors.
I just flew in today and everything seems pretty much consistent with what was mentioned in the program. We've gotten our itinerary and we will be going mostly around the north, east, and center of Germany. The hotel is nice and everyone has their own room - the dinner was a fantastic spread and everyone seems to come from a very wide variety of background (and not to mention countries). There are a couple biologists, an entymologist, and an agriculture/pesticide specialist alongside climate modeling, energy, and waste treatment people. I'm the only American and it seems like the only one who has a European base, there are people from Columbia, Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, India, China, Vietnam, South Africa, Kenya, and Ukraine.

Apparently when I filled in the part about which experts I wanted to meet they actually arrange a one-on-one session with them...so when I requested the minister for the environment apparently I might as well have requested Angela Merkel in terms of prestige but apparently they've contacted him and are waiting for a response on whether or not he will be able to meet with me. The other one I was especially excited about (director for the huge solar project, Desertec) have consented to meet with me. It is especially through these sessions where we can discuss opportunities for an internship and start to develop a research plan that is required before I can start the internship (I suppose this makes sense for an internship of 3 months - you want to have a clear outline of what will be accomplished during this time).

Tomorrow we will be going to Potsdam for the center for earth sciences and then to Siemens for a tour of a "Green Light" manufacturing facility (highly efficient lighting solutions).



Location:Pariser Platz,Berlin,Allemagne

A little late

I know I'm a little late on starting this up but I wanted to make sure I didn't get too far behind on anecdotes and tales from France.
I'm now at Charles de Gaulle airport on my way to Berlin for the Green Talents forum (more info on that later).
After a month and a half in school they give us a 5-day weekend for la Toussaint. A good excuse to visit the cousins in Deauville! Seafood and cold weather is abound although I was able to make it to the pool one day (50m pool that uses sea water). I mostly played with the 2 little A's and obliged them in all of their hames and activities. Although 4 and 6 year old duos produce so much noise, emotions, and contradictions that it's pretty hard to keep up. All of the cousins are fantastic as usual and definitely get the most out of their weekend getaway home. The beach is pristine and great for walks, runs, and biking even in cold weather.




I spent the night in Paris at Arnaud's house, pretty laid back evening with his friends from elementary to high school.

Orleans? Awesome. A lot of people knock it and say there is very little going on but I think they don't dig deep enough. Therebis always a plethora of activities especially during the weekend ranging from farmers markets, used CD fairs, live music, and simply the outdoor paths that run along the Loire. Ok, it's not Paris but there is a nice charm to it and I've fallen in well between my roomate and the people from school.
Here's a pic from the other side if the Loire from my house on l'ile Charlemagne, a great place to run and bike. You can also reserve places and half parties and cookouts like the school hosted for the "integration" party at the beginning of the semester.



Yep, tearing it up. Now it's off to Germany.

-A

Location:Le Mesnil-Amelot,France

mercredi 14 avril 2010

Creation of Blog

This is a blog about biking, and the joys experienced that will ensue.