Raufer Updates

I went back to Masdar, the new eco-city being built in Abu Dhabi, to check out how things had progressed over the past two years. On this visit I unfortunately didn’t have a personal guide like last time. (But while it was unfortunate for me, it certainly wasn’t for her! My former student, Zeina, who used to work in Masdar’s Carbon Unit, has now married, moved to Geneva, & works there for the UN’s Office of High Commission for Human Rights.)

Masdar personal rapid transit (PRT)

Things have certainly changed at Masdar as well. The taxi dropped me off at the parking garage, and I hopped into one of the personal rapid transit (PRT) vehicles there – an electric, driverless vehicle that can reach speeds of up to 40 kph. It took me over to the Masdar Institute, a cluster of buildings housing a Knowledge Center, laboratories, and other research facilities.

Masdar Institute wind tower

Particularly noticeable is a 45m wind tower, which has louvers at the top which open in the direction of the prevailing winds, diverting wind down the tower and into a courtyard at the bottom. I sat in a coffee shop in another of the Institute’s courtyards, and read about its relationship with MIT, and the upcoming Phase II – seven new buildings, including labs, residential buildings, and a large, multi-purpose recreation center, which will double the Institute’s physical size. Work has slowed down because of the financial crisis, but the city’s first phase is expected to be completed by 2015, and the second in the early 2020’s.

Petroleum Institute

In November I was back in Abu Dhabi again, doing a GE/IFPEN training program for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). This course had twenty seven participants, and was held at the Petroleum Institute. I stayed once again at the Al Raha Beach Hotel, & was cordially invited to a special event for their best customers (courtesy of my association with ADNOC) — and therefore had a really great stay!

View from Burj Khalifa

I also took some time to head up to Dubai to hang out at the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building. Of course, everyone in Dubai has been anxiously awaiting the new movie Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, which has its world premiere there in early December – and if the scenes near the end of the movie’s trailer are any indication, this will be one really amazing show. You can see them filming the Burj Khalifa scenes in another clip, and while Tom Cruise really was ‘hanging out’ at the building, I stayed safely – very, very safely – inside! [Note: I checked out the movie over the holidays (in an IMAX theater), & while the last part was more than a bit melodramatic, the Burj Khalifa scenes were truly stunning!]

Tom Cruise on Burj Khalifa (photo credit: Paramount Pictures)

A while back, I was invited by Professor Wei-Yin Chen to contribute a chapter about emissions trading for his comprehensive, four-volume Handbook of Climate Change Mitigation — and his arduous efforts have finally reached fruition. The work is now available from Springer, for the modest (given the effort involved!) sum of $1350 (& a bit less expensive on Amazon.com).

Wei-Yin is Professor of Chemical Engineering at the University of Mississippi, and does cutting edge research on combustion reactions and control, addressing both NOx and CO2 emissions. I first met him several years ago in China, when we were both delegates at the Sino-American Technology and Engineering Conference in Beijing in late 2006. (You can see him and his lovely wife Tsuei-Ju in the picture on my Nov. 2006 posting, standing in the second row, fifth and fourth from the right, respectively, over my right shoulder). Wei-Yin is currently on sabbatical at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou (absolutely one of my favorite Chinese cities!), so I certainly envy him that — & he definitely deserves a break after all that work!

Luckily, my own chapter efforts received a tremendous amount of help from my co-author, Ms. Sudha Iyer. If you have a great memory, you might remember that Sudha and I previously worked together on a UN project addressing energy system integration in Asian cities (noted in a July 2009 posting). Sudha has now graduated from Penn, and runs her own company, Cerebronics, LLC, based in Princeton, NJ. She has been spending a lot of time in Europe over the past year on project work, but never let our joint effort lag… so I’ve been particularly appreciative. It was really great to work with her once again, & I certainly look forward to other collaborations in the future!

I recently finalized my report on International Experience with SO2 Emissions Trading Mechanisms for the GEF China Thermal Power Efficiency Project. As the title makes clear, it focuses on international – rather than Chinese – experience, but does include a few recommendations for the programs in Shanxi & Shandong provinces. I’ll be receiving the domestic consultants’ reports over coming months, & look forward to continuing work on this project.

China has been actively exploring emissions trading mechanisms over recent years – and recently added Shenzhen as a seventh pilot trading area for its carbon reduction program. (You might remember that I met with — and made a presentation for — the Shenzhen folks last summer.) Meanwhile, as the attached report indicates, the Chicago Climate Futures Exchange will be closing down after the first quarter of 2012. As someone who started off as an emissions broker in Chicago in 1981, it has certainly been more than a little depressing to watch the U.S. simply walk away from both the environmental ideas and ideals it pioneered years ago.

I was back in Paris in September, giving lectures for the Executive MBA program that IFP runs in conjunction with the BI Business School in Oslo & the NTU Nanyang Business School in Singapore. This year’s class had energy engineers, financing specialists, and renewable technology developers, and was a well-seasoned cohort with an average age of forty. They invited me along on their evening dinner cruise on the Seine, and we passed by the Eiffel Tower just as its hourly light show started – which the nearby picture hardly begins to capture!

I was reading Jill Jonnes’ book Eiffel’s Tower on this visit, an interesting work which might have been more accurately entitled L’Exposition Universelle de 1889 à Paris, since it included significant chunks of material about Thomas Edison, Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody, and the painters Whistler and Gauguin, all of whom were participants in the international exhibition. What I found particularly interesting was the section near the end that described Eiffel’s considerable efforts to keep his tower from being demolished at the end of its twenty year contracted lifespan. It’s hard to believe that such an iconic and beautiful structure – what Jonnes calls “the most celebrated and instantly recognizable structure in the world” – had come close to such a dismal conclusion. But having read one of Jonnes’ previous books, Conquering Gotham, about the building of Pennsylvania Station (as well as the rail tunnels under the Hudson River) in New York City, I realize that such a fate might have been all too real.

I also took some time after my lectures and headed up to Normandy, to visit the beaches and battlefields that were the site of the WWII D-Day invasions in 1944. The visit included Pointe du Hoc, where U.S. Army Rangers scaled 100 foot cliffs to tackle a German gun fortification; and the sweeping, wide-open Omaha Beach, whose bluffs must have seemed towering and impenetrable to soldiers landing under severe hostile fire. The cemetery and memorial at the top are testament to their bravery and sacrifice. It was a solemn location, and I’ve added Saving Private Ryan and The Longest Day to my movie queue to revisit over coming weeks with a new perspective.

Pillbox view at Pointe du Hoc

In July, I participated as a moderator in UN ESCAP’s eForum, designed to address energy security issues within the region. I was assigned the topic ‘Improving the affordability of renewable energy options,’ and prepared the attached discussion note – and then led the eForum’s discussion on this topic on July 12th. More than 160 experts from around the world (mostly from the Asia/Pacific region) participated in the eForum, addressing eight energy security topics. The results will be used in preparations for an Asia-Pacific Energy Forum (APEF), which will be held at the ministerial level in 2013.

In addition to the regular academic and executive training programs at IFPEN, this year’s visit included a half-day lecture at Sciences Po (more formally the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris), one of France’s elite universities. They offer a joint Executive Master’s degree with IFPEN in Energy and Globalization, and my lecture covered the development of emissions trading markets, the status of today’s carbon market, and some discussion about recent work in China.

Alchemy at Notre Dame?

I was reading Graham Robb’s book Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris on this visit, a book which has gotten mixed reviews on amazon.com — but I really enjoyed it. One chapter has a rather strange story about alchemy, the transmutation of matter by nuclear physicists, and Notre Dame Cathedral. I’m not even going to try to summarize it, but it sent me over to the cathedral looking for supposedly alchemical carvings – and I found them on the front portals, as described in the text.

I also had dinner with my good friend and colleague Li Shaoyi, who has now moved to Paris from Bangkok, to work for the UN Environment Programme. Given the restaurant that he chose and the wine selection, it is apparent that Shaoyi has learned the Parisian lifestyle very, very quickly — and Paris is never too hard to take! I walked through the Champ de Mars by the Eiffel Tower on the way over to our meeting point in the 16th arrondissement, including a nice stroll along the Allée Pierre Loti (whom you might remember from the July 2006 Istanbul posting).

Ferris Wheel over the Haihe River

Another highlight of this China trip was a visit to Tianjin – and a powerful reminder of just how much China has changed over the past two decades. I left my hotel near Beida and took the new subway (cost: 2 yuan, or 30 cents) to the new Beijing South railway station, and there hopped on the new high-speed rail connection to Tianjin – and arrived just a half an hour later. The beautiful (& comfortable) bullet trains travel at 200 mph through the countryside, and were certainly the equal of anything I’ve traveled on in Europe or Japan. (Hopefully, we’ll get some soon in the US!) I had never been to Tianjin before, and expected to see a grimy industrial/port city – but the walkways along the Haihe River were beautiful, the preserved foreign sector with its restaurants & nightclubs was quite charming, & the architecture impressive. There was a 110 meter diameter Ferris wheel on a bridge above the river (the only one in the world like that) which takes visitors up as high as a 35 story building at the top – even taller than London’s version.

Century Clock

The landmark Century Clock at the railway station represents the fact that China’s modern industrial development began here. And, of course, you can’t go to Tianjin without stopping in at the Goubuli restaurant for some of their steamed stuffed buns! A great visit, and many, many thanks to Ms. Yuan Fang (formerly of NDRC, now with Shell Oil) for arranging it.

Dr. Wang (left) and Prof. Tang

I spent another three weeks as a guest of Peking University in June, meeting with the faculty and students, catching up on China’s environmental news, doing some plant site visits, lecturing, etc., etc.  On this trip I had a chance to have lunch with my Chinese faculty mentor and good friend Prof. Tang Xiaoyan, who guided me around China on my very first 1990 visit, and who has worked with me on numerous projects over the years. You can see her in the photo, along with Dr. Wang Weili, the Vice Director of CICETE (the group that acts as the liaison between the Chinese government and the UN on energy & environmental projects; you might remember Dr. Wang from an April 2009 posting). Prof. Tang travels even more than I do, and she’s been away during my recent trips, so it was really great to see her once again!

I also made a full-day presentation for a new GEF/World Bank project I’ve been working on, addressing SO2 emissions trading in Shanxi and Shandong Provinces. This effort is part of a larger GEF China Thermal Power Efficiency Project, and my presentation covered international experience with this kind of emissions trading. I’ll be working with this Shanxi/Shandong group over the next year, as well as with their national consultants from Tsinghua U. and the Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning, and I’m very much looking forward to that!

Shanxi & Shandong GEF/World Bank meeting

For those of you who have been wondering exactly what it is that I’ve been doing in China over recent years, perhaps the best summary is a brief paper I prepared for L’Hydrocarbure, the alumni magazine put out by IFPEN (the Institut Français du Pétrole Energie Nouvelles). The article is entitled Emissions Trading in China, and it summarizes my recent experience and implementation ideas there. A very special thanks to Diane Counord for all of her assistance on this!