Bring Out the City Bikes, Five Days of Påske, The Life of a Scientist

Godt Påske everyone! It's a sunny and clear Easter afternoon from København!

So much time has passed since I last wrote and I have forgotten many things I wanted to write. Research has ramped up to a new level and I'm finding myself less motivated to pause and blog. The mood just hasn't taken me recently.

Spring has come full force, evidenced most recently to me by the appearance of the København Cykler (city bikes) for tourists and citizens alike. These simple sturdy bicycles come out in April and disappear around October. It's a cool system where you slide a 20 kr coin into a box on the handlebars and a chain at the other end of the box slides out. The rider takes the bike around town and, when finished, finds an empty chain slot and gets the coin back. Free city bikes! I've been working with students on campus back home to get a similar program going, but interest really hasn't built for it yet. I think it has to do mostly with the hilly Golden landscape and the preference for cars over all other transportation modes. Perhaps someday bikes will carry more cultural weight in America...

On a related note, I was riding my bicycle to the train station about a week ago and was handed free food by a smiling woman standing on a street corner. She and several dozen others were passing out brown bags containing rolls to all the pedaling folk as they passed by on the bike lanes. And so I was introduced to "Vi cykler arbejde!" meaning "We bike to work." It's a month-long campaign and I'm hoping to snag some more free baked goods this week!

Denmark today is a dominantly secular nation. There are many churches around town, mostly Lutheran, though I've found several Roman Catholic and even a Baptist one. A Mormon temple sits three blocks from my apartment. Yet, congregations are small and some of the churches hold services once a month. Even with the relatively large population of immigrants from Iran, Iraq, Syria, and other Middle Eastern nations, I have yet to see any mosques or even a hint of Islamic worship places. In fact, other than all the Arabic (I think) script I see in my neighborhood, on grocery stores, restaurants, and barber shops, the only advertisement for Muslims I've glimpsed was a small store selling "Islamic dress," printed in English. Going back to the Christian influence, something of a juxtaposition with the agnostic majority are all the Danish flags being flown half-mast for Good Friday. I've only ever seen that ritual connected with memorializing the deaths of politicians, military casualties, and other famous people. Jesus Christ, VIP in Denmark, for one day only.

While actually practicing religion seems to be rare, religious holidays are taken to the max. Easter, for instance, is five days long. Starting (Maundy) Thursday, many Danes don't go back to work till the follwing Tuesday. There's Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday, and Second Easter (Monday). Most shops shut down, though some of the grocery stores, which are regularly closed on Sundays, are open, so there appears to be no uniformity to the holiday-taking. At Risø, most of the technicians left Friday, April 3 and won't be back till Tuesday (4/14). That's all well and good for them, but the safety rules at the lab prevent anyone from working with the furnaces, presses, polishers, and other various (and expensive) equipment unless they're in there. Here, like mismatched gears, the '9-3 regular-drop-it-all-and-scoot' work day (technicians) grinds up against the '?-? gotta-get-this-done-by-Monday-why-does-this-machine-hate-me' schedule (scientists). Such fun! Jesting aside, I really am enjoying the hustle and constantly shifting timelines that go with real-world R&D. I think I'm going to like doing this for a living.

Accepted!

Today I received a metaphorical kick in the rear: acceptance to speak at the 17th bi-annual Conference on Solid State Ionics! This round it's in Toronto, June 28 - July 3. The way it fits in my overall overseas overture, I'll most likely be heading straight to Denver from Canada afterward, since my Danish visa expires July 15. Plus, I'd soon avoid having to de-lag three times in two weeks, and go through that ritual only once.

Now, I'm accountable not only to my bosses in Denmark and Colorado to produce results, but also a slew of international conferencing scientists, coming together for a week of swapping ideas, innovations, and business cards.

I've had some difficulties in research these past few weeks, but this announcement has throttled me forward a few gears and knocked me out of the delay-ridden doldrums. Yay!

Speaking at the conference will be my first big event as a graduate student, and I'm excited to put some of the hard work done here at Risø on display.

Ts'all for now, time to work!

Fredag Bar, Enigmatic Heiko, Excess Modifiers, Nørrebronx

I've been feeling uninspired to write lately. Thankfully, the drought is over! There have been some upslopes on the adventure pulse this month, and today, because I've found blogging much more interesting than studying the defect theory of ceramics, I'm finally sitting down to relate them to you, Dear Reader.

Fredag bar every week at Risø continues to provide chances for bettering my pool skills, spectating the intense fooseball tourneys, linguistic smörgåsbord (a Swedish word actually), and enjoying beer cheaper than Coors Light (à la bartender) and many times tastier. This past Friday, a Swedish woman living in Göteborg (midwestern coastal city) scolded us for complaining of the sleety high-wind weather of Thursday eve. I rode my bike home in that storm for 5 minutes, got thoroughly drenched (with the help of a city bus spraying gutter water like a tidal wave) and cold, despite my warm bundling, so I was a bit ruffled by her admonition. But, when she told us that in Göteborg wintertime, temperatures rarely get over -15 ˚C and the sun is up from 9-2, we all shut up. Which was good, because we were in the middle of a heated pool game. It was an international match--U.S.-China v. Sweden-India. Whenever Corin (the Swede) missed a shot, her "Queen's English" turned into a rapid-fire stream of Swedish curses. When I sank the 8 ball for the win, she was especially vocal. No hard feelings at Fredag bar though; we're all mild-mannered scientists.

I made some friends at the International Church of Copenhagen a couple weeks ago. We're mostly foreign students studying abroad and fall into the 20 and 30-somethings category. I find a lot of common ground to revel on with them, and am excited to see what adventures come our way this spring. Tentatively, I'll be going to Iceland in June with some of them, and maybe down to Berlin in the nearer future.

To make sure I get work done this afternoon, I've decided to split up the description of this group of friends I've merged into, and present one or two of these wonderful people here each post. Today, I give you Heiko Schluter. His origins are still a mystery to me because whenever we talk, I get so wrapped up in the deep and interesting dialogue that I've not yet fount out most of the basics. His surname sounds German to me, though I'm not positive. His accent is so similar to mine that he could be a midwest U.S. suburbanite. All this mystery I plan to solve at some point. Facebook stalking has proved inconclusive, as he's more ascetic with his profile than I am.

His stories have been rivetting. Heiko's life (the slices of which I've heard so far) has been beyond cool. He lived on St. Croix for 10 years, where his brother had moved after hurricane Hugo, to help residents rebuild. There, the Schluter I know honed his painting abilities (his job) and designed boats (his hobby). He also dabbled in biodiesel production out of his home. We chatted about eneryg policy, history, literature, religion, science, flying fish, building catamarans, rescuing buildings from monsoons, and the theories of Sanskrit scholars. His painting is very impressive. He works mostly in acrylic from what I've seen on Facebook (an album of an exhibition featuring his work) and fills his creations with resonating vibrancy, exacting perspective, and meticulous detail.

Heiko Schluter. Next post, David Tiprigan.

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My København neighborhood, Nørrebro, has been infamous for gang presence in recent years. Hells Angels biker gangs (no joke) have been squaring off with the ambiguous 'Immigrant' gangs for drug trafficking power, or so the natives say. While it's true there is a high concentration of non-Danes living in Nørrebro, dominantly Arabs as I've learned (evidenced by the 'Starbucks-like' density of kebab houses and birka-clad women), I have yet to witness any hostilities beyond a few heckling youths in my end of town. Actually, I am at the 'end' of it. Across the street, not 30 meters from my window, is the neighborhood of Frederiksberg, a decidedly wealthier part of the city containing no ruckus and abundant in pram-pushing new mothers.

Nevertheless, Nørrebro's reputation for being the 'seedy side' of København has been the inspiration for recent comical commentary by my lighthearted Spanish roommate, Fernando. "We are living in 'Nørrebronx,' my friend."

The humor is dark in light of the recent shootings and civilian casualties in parts of København. Nørrebro was one of the scenes, but no where near me, or I'm just completely oblivious. I've seen a few cop cars, ambulances, and news stations vans in hot pursuit, but I've heard no gunshots and seen no arrests. I think it's such a big issue because these violent events haven't happened hardly at all here. Fernando and Kristian have told me about the history of immigration tension in København and Denmark at-large. Many political refugees from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern nations were taken in by the Danish government decades ago. Since then, the numbers have increased, and two generations have grown up Danish citizens. Minimal integration (fault of both the immigrants and the government) has contributed to cultural stress and to a degree of societal polarization. And, like any other unmixing mix of vastly different peoples, violence is the speediest and loudest voice of the strain.

In what I assume to be reaction to the killings and injuries, I rode past a anti-violence protest march today. The hundred and fifty or so members, shepherded by several motorcycle-mounted police officers, slowly made their way across the Nørrebrogade bridge as I biked home into southeast Nørrebro. The banner at the front displayed a gun painted over by the universal 'No!' symbol of a circle slashed by a line. Black behind red. The words were simple and big: Våben Nej Tak (Violence No Thanks). At the flank, a couple teenagers unfurled a second banner saying: Liv Ja Tak (Life Yes Thanks). Concisely profound.

A Treatise on Cake

Cake: a multitudinous class of comestibles that carries significant weight here at Risø. Success in this national laboratory is measured by credible publications, healthy research grants, favorable press releases, and cake.

Cake is scheduled, often days or a even a week in advance. Everyone syncs their Outlook calendars, Gmail calendars, notifiers, and Entourage agendas with cake. E-mails are sent. Phone calls are made. Planners are marked. Kitchens are busy! Cake is good.

In snynonymity with 'party' or 'informal meeting,' a cake will be "thrown" for several reasons (that I know of so far). The obvious birthday cakes, wedding announcements, and anniversaries (of employment). Successful experiments, tests, arrival of new colleagues and equipment alike, and the 'christening' of lab stations. This last category was the reason for today's cake, given for the official naming of test rig 32 and declaration that it is ready for operation (meaning mostly debugged). It's new name is "Lichen" (after the plant), given by Chris, the American PhD student from Columbia University whom I am working closely with in my tenure here. He said he chose the name because all the other rigs and machines in the lab are either named after Norse deities or Earthly bodies of water, except for one, called Flower. He reasoned that 'flora' needed more representation.

The cake was good, a confection resembling chocolate brownies (after squaring it in its rectangular pan) with orange-flavored frosting and two slices of clementine cuties per piece. There was also a side dish of coconut balls layered with chocolate and sugar. Delicious!

Cake has the added feature of sparking technical discussions amongst us nerds, geeks, and engineers.* Today's topics included a thorough discussion of using gadolinium-doped ceria to absorb unwanted silica from the working atmosphere of a solid oxide fuel cell and solid oxide electrolysis cell test chamber, leak testing on "Lichen," the explosive tendencies of a custom-designed glycine-nitrate wet chemistry powder synthesis process, and the precise workings of an isostatic press machine in the context of fabricating dense ceramic electrodes from powders. One of the older researchers present, a Greek named Nikos, took us on a tangent about how he could float his ceramic powder down to the bottom of a trench in the Aegaen Sea on a nylon string and isostatically press it that way. Being nerds, geeks, and engineers,* we of course discussed (and joked) about the specifics of this pragmatically ludicrous suggestion.

Cake is good.


*redundant, but I included it for completeness' sake.

A Conference, Good Science, A Fifth Force

I've spent the last two days far away from Risø. Many of us from the Fuel Cells division are out here in Lyngby, a municipality north of København, at the DTU campus. The university is hosting a conference on sustainable energy technologies this week, and many scientists and students have come from across Denmark, Europe, and the world to participate.

This conference is really more of a workshop. Rather than listening to lectures and presentations (no poster sessions) all the time, the schedule has been split between this 'conference-style' and a 'think-tank' process in smaller groups. I estimate there are several hundred people here at the event, and the small group I'm in is numbered at 14. Our task is to discuss and present a developmental road map for synthetic fuels as chemical energy storage. It's a fascinating experience, because I feel so useless around these people. For any readers who've gone to Mines, this working group like an EPICS team involving your parents and grandparents. What I mean is, we have a few students (my age), a bulk of professionals and post-doctoral researchers, and a few (politely) older gentlemen from the university and research institutes (i.e. Risø). Basically, us students are sitting here while the 'big guys' quote us their publications, their numbers, and their knowledge, and we write it down and put it all in a report. Later this afternoon, our group will present our conclusions to a panel of sustainable energy big shots from around the world, though most of them come from Denmark and Sweden.

I wasn't required to come along to this conference/workshop, but, since registration was free, and Anne, the woman in whose house I am staying and who I depend on for transport, was going; so I came too. I actually got to contribute to the group discussion yesterday and today, so I feel much less like a broken vacuum cleaner, sitting in the corner and looking ridiculous!

Not wanting to be too boring and technical, I'll briefly say our group's goals, and then go on in more detail about the more interesting implications. We're comparing the energy value (Joules per kg or liter), efficiency of storage (euro-cents per liter), and production cost for various synthetic chemical fuels. Specifically we're considering hydrogen, ammonia, and hydrocarbons (methanol and DME). We've also thrown in an environmental comparison, looking at the cost of carbon and carbon-free fuels, and, if we use carbon based fuels, how best to recover the waste.

On this last note, one of our group members is a professor and scientist from Columbia University, Klaus Lackner. He is personally credited with the development of 'artificial trees' for scrubbing carbon-dioxide out of the atmosphere and processing it back into usable fuel (e.g. electrolysis). Check out his work here in a post on The Breakthrough Institute's website. Dr. Lackner is an amazing guy with a lot of experience in tackling the enormous complexity of renewable and sustainable energy technologies. I know a major criticism of renewable energy proponents is that they don't consider the vast number of hurdles (technical, economic, social, political, etc...). Lackner eloquently acknowledges these problems and constantly produces data and new ideas on how to solve them. For example, in his artificial tree project, he told the group about how his research has extensively looked for the best absorbent agent to capture the CO2 from the air--not just the cheapest or most efficient, but the cleanest, the least-harmful to the environment, and the most sustainable. It's this multi-faceted approach to everything in his work that impresses me the most. When we go around the table, everyone has made this ideology part of their scientific method. It seems to be a commonplace trend here. In fact, at the keynote speech for this whole conference, the director-general of the Swedish Energy Agency stated this: "In America, wind power is patriotic, in the Europe it's just good for the environment." Quite an inciting diction, and, though I don't believe for a second that European sustainable energy is solely 'fueled' by morality and environmental conscience, this attitude of sustainability in every aspect of life (technology, society, politics, and economics) is much more applied than it is in America. In the good old Red, White, and Blue, I feel we do more talking and excuse-making than actually doing anything. Here, everyone from the politicians to the assistant professors is producing real plans, objectives, and 'road maps' that can (will I believe) be realized in the next few decades.

The highlighting statement at this conference came from the same keynote speech by the Swedish energy administrator: "Don't ask: 'why go for 100 % renewable energy?' Ask: 'why less?' They believe it, and they back it up. A tactic of debate my dad wields very well (and I, unfortunately, often lose control and get overly excited when he does this) is to point out all the downfalls, the drawbacks, the shortcomings of an optimistic proposal, such as 100 % renewable energy. The Swedes, Danes, Germans, and all the rest, the companies, universities, and whole governments, are not, I repeat, not, negating the obstacles and the difficulties of achieving this goal. They've been 'pointed out' ad nauseam. Now is the time to focus on solutions, to plan out the paths, and re-plan, and re-evaluate, and retry when the proposals fail. It's time to stop talking and start doing. To shoot for anything less than 100 % is not only environmentally negligent, its economically moronic.

Of course, a nice bonus (to me it's saintly) is that none of these arguments and goals for renewable and sustainable energy need the 'Al Gore fever' at all. They stand plenty fine all on their own. As everyone in my small group here today agrees, fossil fuels have the edge. They are cheaper. The technology is cheaper. The companies, organizations, and governments controlling them can be very flexible to compete with renewables (see the impossible-to-predict price of crude over the last 30 years).

(In my humble opinion) it is clear there is a fifth fundamental force in today's globalizing world, one we can add to gravitation, electromagnetic, strong, and weak: money. It drives, pulls, pushes, tempts, motivates, creates, and destroys, and to a large extent, deaf to any moral outcry. Money has gone far beyond simple barter and trade, supply and demand. It has become a form of identity, raising up empires (i.e. corporations) to power, and in the same moment crushing them down into oblivion. My point is that instead of resisting this force and bogging down the quest for renewable energy with pointless pessimistic drivel, the job of the scientist is to make his technical solution more economically, socially, and politically attractive than the status-quo.

Bah! This post turned out to be much longer than I wanted. There's a whole other argument I want to make about the impatience of today's world regarding scientific, technological, and cultural progress, but I think I'll leave it for a later date. I am passionate about renewable and sustainable energy technologies. I believe if each member of the global scientific and engineering community starts every project with the ambition to address all aspects of our interconnected reality, the policy, economics, social impact, etc... we can silence the radicals, please the politicians, fill the banks with cash, give the stocks their green arrows, and become more responsible human beings. I will dispute the extent of human impact on the Earth's well-being with anyone, even the infamous and be-shamed Mr. Gore, but that's all irrelevant anyway.

The major notion to take to the lab each day and home each night can be summed up in this statement by Dr. Robert E.D. Woolsey, a co-founder of the McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs at my School o' Mines: "...pure technical problems do not exist--only those embedded in political, cultural, ethical, and moral problems."

Afsked Dear Reader