One difficulty of urban living that I’ve noticed is the stoplights around here are often on really long timing cycles. And with major artery roads crossing every which way, it’s very difficult not to cross several of them, say, on a run. Because the walk signs have count-down timers, I know that typical cycle times are 45-65 seconds, which, when you are panting and sweating next to a bunch of commuters in business attire, is a really awkward length of time to wait, as well as long enough to kill a good running groove. Sometimes the lights along the same street are coordinated, so by traversing one way or another I can fast-forward stoplight time. But If I choose the wrong direction, I put it in slow motion: at each new block I hit, the sign still reads “47″, and I’ll never get to cross.

I used to be proud of my ability to stay upright and almost stopped on my bike for the course of most light cycles. Now, more often than not, I have to give up and put a foot down before it turns green. Especially when there are 3 or more cycles, each 30-60 seconds, that’s a lot of wait time.

After a month hiatus, R/C is back online. Since it used to be hosted on my office computer, it didn’t stay up for the move. But now I’m moved and unpacked enough to be able to upload the files to my new, carbon neutral server at Dreamhost.com. Yes, it’s very exciting, because starting life in a new city means plenty to blog about. Stay tuned for all the, um, juicy details.

I totally forgot to post photos from my Hawaii trip in January until I unloaded a more recent set from my camera. It was a fabulous visit to the Big Island, including stays at a luxurious mega-resort and a smelly, sketchy bed and breakfast. The hiking, snorkeling, and lounging were excellent. The other-worldly landscapes of Volcano National Park were spectacular (but heavy rain kept away the camera). It’s a trip I can heartily recommend.

I went to elementary school in California amid serial budget cuts. First went the school buses. Then went the art program. The music program got scaled-back. I think the activities for gifted students went away for a few years and came back. In any case, why do we need art education? Why not focus on math and science — the kind of skills that prepare kids for real jobs? Here’s one answer: the Boston Globe reports on a study of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders that found visiting a museum and associated classroom activities improved kids’ critical thinking skills. Interestingly, Garrison Keillor remarks that that’s such an obvious result, it wasn’t worth the Department of Education’s $750,000 of funding.

Well, sometimes it’s important to restate the obvious, in study form. Our economy does not value the fine arts very well. I’ll bet we wouldn’t have many museums if it weren’t for a small number of extremely wealthy individuals who had, or who’s heirs had, liberal arts educations. I have often wondered about the utility of art and whether such lavish museums are worth supporting. Here is at least one way to think about the benefits: observing, evaluating, and trying to talk about art is a complex cognitive process that kids(/people) should practice.

Since I’ve now heard about it from 20 or so people, I feel like everyone must know about the Virgin Earth Challenge. But since probably a few people have not heard about it: Virgin Airlines owner Richard Branson is offering a $25 million prize to the team that comes up with the best design for a device that captures CO2 from the atmosphere. It just so happens that I’ve been researching such devices for more than 4 years now, and even built a prototype of a component of such a device as part of my PhD thesis research. So am I going to enter the contest? I’m not sure. It would be a lot of work and I was about ready to move on from carbon capture technology. I will see what the full contest requirements look like when they release them in a few months. Certainly a lot of friends have encouraged me to enter. I like the way Miriam put it: “Yours is the story that all grad students dream about. You toil away thanklessly in the basement for years and then all of a sudden this magical fairy comes down and offers you fame and fortune for all your hard work. You have to enter the contest.” (Or something along those lines.) I have to do it to give hope to the huddled masses of graduate students out there.

But in the mean time, the announcement of the challenge has drawn a lot of media attention to my work. Apparently a web search on atmospheric carbon capture brings up my thesis rather quickly, and I continue to be contacted by reporters almost weekly. This article in National Geographic has a lot of quotes from me. The article fudges a couple of things; it set’s up a false dichotomy between me and the manager of the International Energy Agency’s greenhouse gas research program (he says that capture would be cheaper from power plants and I don’t disagree). But basically the article gives me a soapbox to say a few of the most important things I can about air capture. Which is pretty awesome.

Thanks to Aurora for pointing me to this article by green design heavyweight Brad Allenby, which references my thesis heavily. He pulls out what I think is a rather good quote and takes it as support for a “fundamental shift in the climate change debate”. The technology for capturing CO₂ from ambient air that I describe, as well as other geoengineering schemes, he writes, allow us to separate climate change mitigation from fossil fuel use.

He goes on to argue that this shift allows us to disentangle the need to mitigate climate change with the desire of “many environmentalists and climate change scientists” to change US-style consumption patterns, a conclusion that I don’t agree with. At least, I don’t think anything in my assessment of ambient carbon capture technology indicates drastic changes in developed-world consumption are not needed. I suppose you may draw your own conclusions about the viability of current consumption patterns, but I think ambient carbon capture at the kinds of costs I calculated only makes sense as a complement to extensive restructuring of the economy to be more energy-efficient and driven by carbon-neutral energy sources. I suppose I always knew that a danger of promoting ambient carbon capture is that it can be used as an excuse to avoid or put off doing the more obvious stuff to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Of course, I don’t believe that Allenby is trying to delay action on climate change. He seems to be looking at a change in the debate as a way to catalyze more aggressive mitigation measures. He also makes in interesting point about input from a broader range of actors being needed now that we have the freedom to choose any level of atmospheric CO₂.

In other news, I got an email out of the blue from a man in Arizona who wants to build one or more pilot plants modeled on the prototype CO₂ capture system I built for my research. He claims to be willing to put down a couple hundred thousand dollars of personal financing to get it started, and that he “may do something unusual (and legal) to raise some short term cash”. I have not yet determined his seriousness, but I guess it’s good that he’s keeping it legal.

[photopress:Josh_Spike_and_Moira_Buffy_fighting_1.jpg,thumb,floatright] [photopress:Josh_Spike3.jpg,thumb,floatleft] Prior to spending Halloween as Spike, I would have guessed that about 50% of the grad student demographic has seen a least a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Just about all of my friends have. I didn’t think it was a particularly obscure reference. After a couple of parties, though, I’d have to guess that it’s more like 10%, because most people just shrugged their shoulders and said “Oh, I never saw that show.” But the people who got my costume got it right away and appreciated it. Moira liked it so much that she put together a complimentary Buffy costume for the third Halloween party.

[See all pictures.]

[photopress:MB_zombie1.jpg,thumb,floatleft] [photopress:MB_zombie2.jpg,thumb,floatright] Twice, Moira and I have stumbled coincidentally on a Zombie Walk. First we met zombies in the South Side, and two weeks later we met zombies in New York’s Union Square (see photos). I love the idea of it. It’s like a flash mob but with Zombies; a safe, fun way to violate social norms and make the world (or at least certain urban centers) more interesting. It’s too bad I missed the record-setting zombie walk at the Monroeville Mall, site of George Romero’s classic zombie film, “Dawn of the Dead“. The Post-Gazette has a great slide presentation on it, with a tastefully ironic light jazz soundtrack.

[photopress:Cave_on_the_river.jpg,thumb,alignleft][photopress:Mountains__clouds__and_flowers.jpg,thumb,alignleft][photopress:Josh_wading.jpg,thumb,alignleft]

It’s amazing how lazy I can be about publishing digital photos, given how easy is it now compared to the pain of getting down to the photo shop, paying a lot of money, and subsequently picking up prints. Anyway, a few weeks ago I took a delightful 4-day trip to Zion National Park in Utah. My good friend Nick came out from California and met me for some camping and hiking.

It’s really a stunningly beautiful place, perhaps my favorite of the national parks. Sheer cliffs of deep red sandstone rise dramatically from the floor of the river canyon. The variation in altitude and distribution of water make for a wide array of ecosystems, from forest to desert. The signature hike in the place goes upriver through the narrow part of the canyon (“The Narrows”) and involves a lot of trudging through the river where the river takes up the entire canyon floor. Almost every time we came around a bend we would get an exotic new scene of primordial beauty.

It’s a small park and remarkably well-managed. Transportation through the canyon is by shuttle bus during most of the year. Signage and trail maintenance are pristine. Foreign and domestic visitors kept all the major trails well-populated during our visit, even on a weekday in late September. It had the feel of a theme park at times, because it was so well-managed and crowded. I would like to try some back-country backpacking if I go back, but we didn’t have the gear or the time to try it this trip.

You can find a few more photos in the full set .

Anyone who has bicycled in Pittsburgh has probably noticed the glaring lack of bike lanes. It is dangerous and frustrating, especially with the occassional ignorant Pittsburgh driver honking or yelling at bikers to “get out of the road.” Well, at least soon we’ll have one road to ride other than Beechwood Boulevard. The City has agreed to add lines and signage to Liberty Ave in Bloomfield to create a bike route. Why now? According to this Post-Gazette article, high gas prices are driving an “explosion” in bicycle commuting. Also the bicycle community seems to be an increasingly effective lobby. The choice of bike lane locations is coming from Bike Pittsburgh.

For those who haven’t heard, my sisters were in a fairly serious accident several days ago, and I made an unscheduled trip home instead of returning to Pittsburgh after the conferences. They are both home from the hospital now and doing amazingly well considering the circumstances. Though there are some weeks of painful recovery ahead, we’re pretty sure they will come back to 100% with some time. I’m going to stick around here for a while (not sure how long yet) to help out and whatever.

[photopress:parade_marching_Oslo.jpg,thumb,floatleft] I went tooling around Oslo and continued to enjoy the feel of the city. I happened upon an open-air market and then a huge parade with 3 or 4 marching bands separated by various uniformed groups.

I hadn’t thought before that it must be pretty hard to see where one is stepping if one is a bass drum player in a marching band. The elderly player for one of the bands was confidently keeping a beat while the band marched at rest when he tripped on a curb and fell squarely forward onto his bass drum. The rest of the band scattered briefly in confusion with the driving pulse missing. It was one of saddest things I’ve ever seen.

The parade converged at a park in front of the royal palace. I never figured out what it was about.

[photopress:art1.jpg,thumb,floatleft] [photopress:art2.jpg,thumb,floatright] It’s a little bit of a shame that I find I’m getting comfortable in Norway just as I’m about to leave. I had a pretty nice day here in Oslo. On my way in I helped an arriving Vietnamese girl navigate the train from the airport. I even hefted her gigantic bag (which must have been about two-thirds her weight). It turns out she works on energy systems and sustainable development and is hear for a summer class at the university. I had a delicious and cheap falafel pita for lunch and I checked out downtown Oslo. I found it delightfully lively in that urban-cosmopolitan way.
I saw everything in the National Museum of Contemporary Art. Some of it was pretty enjoyable, like the things pictured. I was a little disappointed at the size of the collection, though. The Carnegie Art Museum probably has a bigger collection of contemporary art.

[photopress:art3.jpg,thumb,floatleft]Overall, I got a good vibe from the city, but I had to get some work done, so I’ve been doing that for last 8 hours or so. Maybe I’ll get to see a little more before I ship out tomorrow.

[photopress:cathedral_from_bridge.jpg,thumb,floatleft] [photopress:riverside_residential_trondheim.jpg,thumb,floatright] That’s it for the 8th International Conference on Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies. I learned a little bit. I made a few connections. I ate fancy food and drank French wine at a dinner hosted by Statoil, thus benefiting from oil companies’ massive profits. I enjoyed Trondheim’s maritime charm and swooned at its more contemporary architecture and design. Their style is very Modern, rational, and conspicuously wood-heavy with a really nice sense of texture and intrigue.

[photopress:square_at_midnight_trondheim.jpg,thumb,floatleft] It’s easy to describe the phenomenon of perpetual daylight, but the feeling of a light sky and active street life at midnight on a Wednesday still took me by surprise. The picture helps to illustrate it. In the evening one gets a sense of imperviousness to the clock: “I can stay out as late as I want; it’ll still be light when I want to go home” and there are enough other people out and about to support that sense. Of course, the imperviousness doesn’t extend to the next morning and afternoon.

Incidentally, the King arrived in town today (I heard Tronheim is his Summer residence). There was a royal procession, with children and various groups following behind, cheering and waving flags. There’s a concert in the square right now which He is attending. A pop orchestra had been playing incredibly cliche classical pieces, the ones you always hear in movies and movie previews. Now they’ve added a singer and drumset, and they’re doing orchestrated pop numbers. Some of it’s not bad. Some of it is pretty cheesy (My Favorite Things, Lean on Me, …).

I head out tomorrow morning.

It’s my first morning at the conference, and right now the director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Coal & Power Import & Export is waxing poetic about how are planet is uniquely “blessed” in the solar system to support life. She goes on using flowery language to describe “clean energy systems” that protect our “beautiful blue planet” while supporting our needs for “many generations to come”. She urges us to be “as proactive as we can be” in “bring[ing] clean energy technologies to the world”. Gag me. DOE speakers are always full of feel-good optimism while their agency takes no action and doesn’t even talk about potential action on carbon emissions. Okay, there’s a serious speaker up now and I should pay attention.

[photopress:carnival.jpg,thumb,floatleft][photopress:sheepdogging.jpg,thumb,floatright] A few tidbits before I left town. There was some sort of festival going on there, which included the little carnival section, where they were playing a dance remix of Beverly Hills Cop theme “Axel F” when I walked by. There was also what I interpreted as a sheep-dog competition. The man would whistle various patterns and the dog would jump up and chase the five sheep this way or that. It was sort of impressive.

[photopress:wood_church.jpg,thumb,floatleft] [photopress:storeroom.jpg,thumb,floatright]The other thing I have to say is that they love their wood architecture here, especially rough-hewn log construction. This church is one of the biggest and oldest in Norway, dating to the 1200’s, which is pretty old for a wooden structure. The other structure is a large store-room, similarly aged. [photopress:log_bridge.jpg,thumb,floatright] Also, I love that this is a classic king-truss bridge, except made out of logs. Interiors, also, are dominated by unstained wood paneling, wood floors, and hulking wood furniture. You can start to see the roots of the Ikea aesthetic.