Today is the first anniversary of the Ukraine War. I was planning to have a long review today, but decided to skip that because all the news channels have special programs. Instead, let me only mention that China has become the peacemaker, calling for a cease-fire and open talks as part of a 12-point proposal to end the conflict.
The plan issued Friday morning by the Foreign Ministry also urges the end of Western sanctions imposed on Russia, measures to ensure nuclear facilities, the establishment of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians and steps to ensure the export of grain, after disruptions caused global food prices to spike. (To the left, China's foreign policy chief Wan Yi with Vladimir Putin.)
I wasn't planning to have a three-part hydrogen series, but I yesterday gave a travel talk at 15 Craigside on our Regent Seven Seas cruise from Dubai to Singapore, and remember well another talk I gave in Japan in the 1990's, which was a disaster, but with some redeeming humor. The topic was hydrogen, and deserves a re-telling.
A professor Yoshida of the chemical engineering department at the University of Tokyo was tasked a quarter century ago by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI--Economy replaced International today) to select three "experts" from the USA to review the nation's hydrogen research program.
- James Fleming, dean of engineering at the University of Kentucky.
- David Block (right), director of the Florida Solar Energy Center.
- Patrick Takahashi, director of the Hawaii Natural Energy Center.
Block and I were at that time also chair of the Department of Energy's respective National Hydrogen Research Centers on our campuses.
Japan paid for two trips each, so we brought our wives. All other costs were also covered in the country.
We visited seven research centers, four at universities and three in companies. I should mention that our countries are different. In the U.S. the better fundamental research is done at universities, compared to in industry. Japan is the opposite. Their university research is maybe too fundamental, and all the useful research is accomplished in companies. Higher education institutions are mostly valued for the students they graduate.
We had a grand time for a week, going around the country with Professor Yoshida to tour these facilities to conduct the review. We did not need to submit a final report with our views. All MITI wanted was a final talk by the three of us at their headquarters in Tokyo.
We first had lunch with sake and beer and showed up late to the auditorium. Very high tech, in a half-bowl shape with all 100 or so seats filled.
- Jim had planned to use view graphs, but when the device was turned on, the bulb burned out. There is also a second bulb that is activated by a switch. But it too did not work. There was no other machine available. So he mumbled on verbally for around 15 minutes.
- Then came Dave, who brought slides. They gave him one of those linear holders and told him how to load it. He did so, but the staff member stumbled and all the slides fell out of the holder. Remember, the audience was sitting there wondering how incompetent we were. Rather than meticulously reload, he just talked for a while.
I saw all this happening, so I asked for one of those Kodak rotating slide projectors. I know how to load those and quickly practiced my talk in another room, not really using a screen, but satisfied that this was going to work. Well, turned out that this device also malfunctioned, for the automatic zoom device kept going in and out of focus, and people began to get seasick. Me included. Well, I, too, just verbally gave my report.
MITI was then the epitome of high tech in Japan. This wasn't our fault, but theirs. They paid for the trip and never asked us for our written views of what was right and wrong with hydrogen research in Japan. Yoshida himself was not taking all of this too seriously, for he was the one who was enjoying himself at lunch to cause all of us to walk into a theater into obviously irritated officials.
Later at night, reliving this catastrophe with Yoshida and our wives, we laughed that we all have had our problems giving talks in the past. Fleming, for example, remembered once in a South American university when he was given a small box plugged into the wall, where you had to individually place a slide. At one point he saw the alarm on the face of the students, and looked to see in his hand a burning slide. In short, Yoshida thanked us for our help.
I've given at least a thousand talks around the world, and nothing got close to Fleming's burning slide or the MITI disaster. And this 15 Craigside presentation yesterday might have been my final performance, for I am getting too old.
Finally, I've noticed that I'm now able to keep my weight at 150 and lower. Reasons? A lot of sleep (7-12 hours/night) and a minimum amount of solid carbohydrates. For example, at dinner last night, in the past I would always have rice. Note: Chutoro sashimi on a vegetable salad, burdock fish cake, cream tomato soup, hot sake and cold kombucha....but no rice.
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