My own private Ventoux

One rite of summer that occupies three precious weeks in July, as Dulcie has unavoidably become nauseatingly familiar with, is the Tour de France, or more simply "Le Tour." All other televisual activities, F1 excluded, become subordinate to the daily couple of hours devoted to a stage on VS (the station formerly known as OLN). So conditioned has she become to watching Le Tour, or in her case more like enduring it, that she expresses surprise when "bicycles" (Le Tour in Dulcie-speak) are not on. "It's a rest day." I might reply patronizingly.

The odd thing about my fascination with this event is that I don't ride a bicycle; I don't even like them; I'm even slightly afraid of being on one. As a student at Oxford I was one of the few without one. A bicycle was central in a long-since-forgotten brush with the long arm of the law. Yet every summer, on that first Saturday in July, I am geared for the prologue (Stage 1). This year it started in Monaco, with the finish using the same piece of harbor front that the F1 cars pound round at nerve-tingling speed. The slightly more sedate pace of the bikers allows the viewer to observe that there actually is a swimming pool on that series of bends. Not that the bike riders are any the less brave than an F1 driver: watch these chaps descend off one of the high peaks down a series of hairpins to get a measure of their cojones on the bike.

There are two things to savor when following Le Tour. One is the complex, fascinating, convoluted, fluid strategy playing off the often opposing ambitions of individuals and the teams they ride for. In general a team has one leader to whom the other team members sacrifice their own personal goals, except on those days when opportunity might present itself. There are Tour super-objectives (winning the Maillot Jaune, the green jersey etc.); and there are daily stage objectives. Only a chosen few have any hope in the first category; but in the second one, history shows that almost anyone can have his day and define a career in the process. The second reason for watching is simply the scenery; all that hyperbole about the beauty of France is annoyingly true: ancient ruins, beautiful churches, beyond-quaint villages, vistas of yellow, jagged peaks and on and on.

So you might be thinking that I'm one of those Johnny-come-lately Lance worshipers. In truth, like John the Baptist, I came before him - not exactly making a way though. For I have been an addict since turning on to watch Indurain (then 5-time winner) crack in the mountains in 1996. A youthful Jan Ullrich finished second that year, and won it the next, the first of many it was thought. That was until a certain cancer survivor arrived on the scene in 1999, with neither fanfare nor expectation. In the prologue that year, Lance rode like a "man on a mission" as Phil Liggett described his awesome display in seizing yellow on his very first day back. Paul Sherwen later gushed "He has come from the gates of death to ride like a Trojan at the head of the Tour de France." Paul should know; he knew him back when. Much more thoroughly justified hyperbole has followed. Whatever might be said of Lance's less-than-amiable personality, his achievements stand alone in the sporting pantheon.

So as I head out for my own modest constitutionals, the images of Le Tour accompany me. The hill up to Thornhill on the west side of the Morton Arboretum (the Arb in Dulcie and Aylwin speak) becomes my own private Mont Ventoux, that terrifying moonscape peak in Provence (toujours Provence n'est ce pas?) that faces the riders on the penultimate stage this year. The Ventoux will make or break the contenders or so it is hoped: the ultimate stage on the penultimate day. Upon that stony slope decades ago Tommy Simpson collapsed and died, his alleged last words being "Get me back on the bloody bike." These chaps are driven. Sometimes too far, as Simpson was one of the early victims of performance enhancing drugs. It's not just a modern problem.

Cap and trade

Some time Thursday or Friday I received an anxious e-mail from somebody at Environment Illinois urging me to call my congressman (woman in my case) to exhort them to vote for the new emissions bill. As it happens, my phone call was not needed because the The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) (aka the Waxman-Markey bill) was passed by a slender margin of 219 - 212. Onto the Senate it now trundles to what end we shall see. I doubt if my phone call would have had much impact as my congresswoman voted against it, and I doubt that my little voice would have swayed her. So, while she is all for earmarks for green fuel depots in Naperville (many thanks for that), Ms. Biggert is less persuaded by the proposed legislation for curbing carbon emissions on a national scale.

There are several questions, at least a couple being exactly what is a cap and trade system and will it have any effect? I have long been a bit mystified by the whole concept of cap and trade and how it could be preferable to a more direct approach such as simply setting limits and/or taxing emissions. As I understand it, there are annual targets of emissions established on a downward slope with the goal of achieving some ambitious reduction (17 % by 2020). Individual producers will be able to exceed the limits only by purchasing credits, which, in order for the system to function effectively, will be sold by those who have reduced their emissions below the established standards. Thus the cap and trade establishes economic incentives for industries to lower their carbon emissions. At the same time it accommodates those that can't or won't reduce their emissions, but a cost is imposed upon them.

There are already some free-market versions of the scheme floating about. For example, we have our very own Chicago Climate Exchange, which is a voluntary exchange operating a cap and trade system for greenhouse gases. According to their website, CCX emitting Members make a voluntary but legally binding commitment to meet annual GHG emission reduction targets. Those who reduce below the targets have surplus allowances to sell or bank; those who emit above the targets comply by purchasing contracts. The contracts are priced by the metric ton of CO2. The data show that the price has fluctuated wildly over the past few years (data begin in 2004) from a floor of about $1 a ton to a high of over $7 last summer. The bursting of the energy crisis bubble appears to have caused a similar deflation of the contract price. Good for polluters I guess. So why would anyone want to join an exchange like this? A review of the members reveals some interesting things. One brewery, New Belgium has signed up; beer drinking environmentalists should now flock to Fat Tire. There are just two coal mines, but quite a list of electric power producers. The longest list comprises participant members that represent "offset aggregators." They sport names like Carbon Green, LLC, Carbon Logic, LLC, Climate Bridge Ltd. and so on. I suppose these companies have all sprung up with the intent to make money on the regulation of emissions. If they invested last year at $7, then things are not looking good currently. On the free market, it is a polluter's world right now. And even then, there is no compunction to participate.

Critics have claimed that the cap and trade system will lead to an increase in energy prices. This of course is true if the sources of energy are carbon-based; and since some 80% of the current energy is carbon-based there is little likelihood of the sources changing to non-carbon sources any time soon. They say this is a bad thing for the economy and that prices will rise for consumers. Undoubtedly, yet that surely has to be the outcome if the objective of reducing emissions is to be accomplished at all. There are two alternatives: one, to replace all the carbon-based fuels by alternatives (or renewable carbon fuels); two, reduce consumption (drastically) of carbon fuels.

The critics further argue that the price increase will drive industries overseas to locations where energy is cheaper. It's a fair point, but industries have been becoming globalized for decades now for cost reasons, notably labor and materials.

The biggest question is whether or not the current legislation will be effective in reducing emissions. Many are skeptical. For one thing, the bill could not have passed without a host of compromises (the essence of politics being compromise - or quid pro quo). To that end, accommodations have been made for the coal industry. Since coal is both the most important fuel in electricity production and the most carbon-intense, there is little chance of significant progress unless there is a radical change in the coal business. While saying the right things by environmentalists, the new king of Camelot has not forgotten the lobbyists for the coal producers. Mattoon may again be the host for the once-and-Futuregen project for "clean coal." The talk is all about carbon sequestration and how it will revolutionize the coal industry, transforming it into an environmental friend. Even if it is technically successful, questions about cost and time required to implement on a national scale remain. I cannot believe it can be implemented without a massive price increase being incurred. How could it be otherwise? Oh, and wasn't there recent approval of that environmentally devastating coal mining technique that involves blowing the tops of the hills to expose the coal?

Meanwhile, I'll start hoarding CO2 credits.

Proton accelerator hits the brakes

Just checked in to the blog and was shocked to find last posting was two weeks ago. What has the idle bastard been doing I hear my dwindling readers asking; after all, it is the summer and we all know that academics do nothing over the summer. At least that is the impression I get from students as they depart the spring term with the farewell, "Have a great summer!" What, like I'm going to spend it idling on a beach somewhere? Au contraire of course: your (Super) Savvy Cyber Professor has, as is ever his wont, a plate filled to overflowing with summer assignments; working at Argonne, as I have the past three summers, is not one of them unfortunately. (Of course I am writing this while watching practice for the British Grand Prix (weather appears uncharacteristically summery there), Friday morning - but that is because of the decision taken by the higher powers to close the college from Friday through Sunday. No comment.)

So much has been written in the papers and elsewhere the past few weeks that really demands a response, and I have been slightly frustrated at my lack of productivity. Around about the time I saw the article about the Green Fuels earmark, there was another one concerning Northern Illinois' beleaguered proton therapy center. It appears that the economy has impacted the funding for its construction. It was about a year ago that we were having meetings with Northern and Argonne about developing the workforce to man the accelerators that were about to sprout like mushrooms in the DuPage landscape. The cynic in me surmised that the whole exercise was motivated by Argonne's bid to land the huge Rare Isotope facility (FRIB), and that the "educational" interest was designed to flesh out their proposal. It's a familiar role for the community college professor: that of being added to other institutions' proposals to enable them to land large grants, from which a few crumbs are handed down. (What is rare about the undergraduate research NSF grant that I'm involved with is that the roles have been reversed: the primary institutions are the community colleges, while the partner 4-year institutions are subordinate.)

Not surprisingly, when the FRIB project sadly went to its (probably rightful) home at Michigan State, the dialog ceased; not a single meeting involving the parties has been held since, despite the fact that the educational needs were supposedly far exceeding those of the FRIB.

As an ironical footnote, it appears that the other proton therapy center being built by Central DuPage Hospital, close enough to the NIU version that the evanescent fields of the beams will actually overlap, may be finished first. In a rather churlish move, and one rather counter to the spirit of championing technology and boosting demand for education, NIU had lobbied aggressively against the CDH project on the grounds that a second unit in such close proximity was unnecessary.

Of green fuels and earmarks

I was distracted by an article in the Tribune last week about some corruption-tinged lemon of an expensive plant in Chicagoland that was supposedly designed to convert human waste into fertilizer. Now the community that ordered it are hoping that the test runs fail so they can get out of the contract (with a former community official of course). I originally missed a much more important article about a proposed "green fuels" depot in Naperville with which the SSCP has more than a passing interest. One of my loyal readers (perhaps the only loyal reader) later alerted me to it. You can read it here if you so desire

In short, a small but energetic company in Naperville called Packer Engineering, which lies in the shadow of the (former) Amoco Research Center (where of course the SSCP once plied his trade) has developed a fledgling technology for converting yard waste (leaves, cornstalks and the like) into "syngas" - a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. Instead of the old-fashioned approach of lighting a big bonfire and converting leaves into less than useful carbon dioxide (bad) and water, or finding some place to dump them all so they can quietly rot, this approach actually inputs chemical energy into the waste which can later be extracted in a number of useful ways. The products could be burnt and converted into electricity; the hydrogen could be separated and used to power fuel-cell cars; the syngas could be converted into alcohol fuels for use in conventional engines. At least one enlightened member of the Naperville City Council thinks it would be a cool thing for the city to be associated with and so the idea of a "green fuels depot" in Naperville was born. Throw Argonne National Lab and its transportation research and COD and education into the mix and that is what we have.

One slight problem remaining is actually paying for it. Despite the vast oceans of wealth (debt?) sloshing around the vulgar excesses of Naperville's bespoke subdivisions, it is unlikely that the citizens would be entirely happy about $12MM of their money being used to finance this experiment, even though it would represent a massive assuaging of their collective green guilt. And that is where the earmark comes in. Congresswoman Biggert has requested a nearly $5MM earmark to fund this project. Some months ago your loyal scribe spent a morning engaging in some low-level lobbying at her office in Willowbrook. Earmarks are those things that normally get one all riled up at the waste of public money in pet projects; bills slide through the system laden with welters of earmarks for often irrelevant special interests. So, should we be praising the congresswoman for the financial support of what is a really cool project, or getting upset at the use of public funds to do it? After all, every NSF grant is an application of taxpayers' money. Is an earmark different from writing a proposal to NSF?

University of Clout

It's been a rough couple of weeks or so for the president of the flagship university of this state, B. Joseph White. First there was the business of the bonuses paid to staff who had worked on UIUC's less-than-stellar performing Global Campus, an online entity that was expected to attract thousands of eager students from all over the place. As it turns out, only a few hundred ever signed up. That is interesting in of itself, because there is a perception I think that online is the way to go to boost enrollment by reaching a wider audience at minimal cost to the institution because facilities are not required to house these additional students. At the COD, for example, there appears to be only one way forward. Online. The online course appears to be the educational analog of a community's opening a casino to raise revenues. It seems to be the first option regardless of whether or not it is the best option, or even a good option. Forget about the question of whether the quality of the educational "product" compares (presupposing that it can even be measured reliably) with the traditional delivery. The first question is whether or not students really want this approach. Aside from exceptions such as folks trudging around Afghanistan, I'm thinking that most do not.

More embarrassing for the president has been the pounding lately handed out by the Tribune in one article after another regarding special admissions deals for students with clout. With offspring currently at Illinois' jewel in the educational crown and maybe another on the way, I was more than a little interested in this story. Of course, why should we be surprised. I mentioned it to Alan and even he, a mere youth unsullied by the ravages of time, displayed alarming cynicism by responding that it probably happens everywhere. He is regrettably probably right, which of course does not make it right. Armed with mountains of documents detailing the admissions favors doled out on behalf of students with the right connections, the university could hardly deny it. However, the president made a revoltingly dissembling response to the revelations on Friday.

Dulcie observed in her usual acerbic fashion that it simply proves that the whole college experience is nothing more than joining a club so it can be added to the resume. Why would people who don't warrant it on merit, and who are unlikely to succeed academically, want to go there at all? Because the only thing that matters is that they can stamp their passport and later wave it in front of prospective employers. University should be a whole lot more than that.

Dawning of a new era

Wow, it's hard to believe it's been three weeks since my last rant! Where has all the time gone? There has been a lot to talk about but regrettably little time to talk about it in, unless it has been an extreme case of lassitude on my part. Maybe.

Today is the beginning of the summer semester, and your SSCP finds himself administering chemistry laboratory experiences to a doubtless eager group of students for the next ten weeks. There is nothing particularly of interest in that intelligence except that the new semester is beginning in our brand new science building that is now open for business. I have already been acclimatizing myself to my new room (with a view) over the past week or so. Now a distant memory is the 9 x 9 cell that reverberated like a ship's engine room whenever the AC was in full flow. That was usually accompanied by an icy blast emanating from the ceiling vent that necessitated wearing warm clothing on the hottest of summer days. Now my Akea-like office affords a pleasant third-floor view of the prairie area of the campus; with a suitable set of powerful binoculars I could spend those quiet office hours bird watching.

The end of the spring term was rife with activities. I have already bored my readers with a lengthy account of the BoT changing of the guard and the antics of the black-shirted Objector and his gang (more to come on that by the way). A couple of days after that I attended the annual grants lunch event, which honors those involved with grant writing with lunch prepared by the culinary arts program. It is one of the few lunches worth attending at COD. I always feel like I'm participating in a taping of Hell's Kitchen or something, since you can see the food being prepared on any of several screens around the room. The only thing missing is a chef going totally berserk; in fact everything happens in quiet, orderly calm. The only other thing missing is a glass of wine to set off the generally excellent cuisine. This year was special because, though modesty renders me hesitant to make mention, your scribe was honored along with two other members of the sciences for work in getting NSF funding. Although it really shouldn't matter, it's encouraging to get a little recognition every now and again.

A few days later, we held our final meeting of the year for the Undergraduate Research Collaborative (funded by the NSF incidentally) where the participants presented posters of their work. Some fifty or more students from the member colleges were there, along with their faculty members. Regrettably, lunch this time consisted of something pre-packaged in a cardboard box, with an apple that appeared to be deep-frozen with the mechanical strength of a cannonball. The SSCP scored big-time by getting both the president and a board member (Sandy Kim) to put in an appearance. The NSF evaluator was suitably impressed.

Tweeting from the Board Room

I thought that the COD board room would lose its allure after the April election and the vanquishing of the gang of four. How wrong was I after first the April meeting and, last night, the supposedly ceremonial transfer of power meeting. There was more drama than an episode of the Hills, which I missed in order to witness the swearing in of Sandy, Kim and Nancy. We should have expected the deposed not to exit with grace and decorum, but I think we were all surprised by the show put on by the Objector and his Roselle rent-a-crowd. At the last meeting, the shameful gang on the old BoT endured 42 minutes of non-stop carpet bombing from community members, wave upon wave of skewering comments mercilessly exposing the self-interest and contempt for shared governance. This time the friends of the Objector came armed for a fight. The result was something like being at a Cubs-Sox game or like in the Wrigley Field of old, the drunken denizens of the bleachers would yell "right field sucks!" and back and forth.

The Objector and his friends were readily identified by black teeshirts emblazoned with "Stop faculty pay to play," summoning up images of the epoch-making November board meeting when the students wore their black teeshirts in protest at the new policy designed to make the president boss of the student newspaper. Unfortunately, unlike the students, these people did not put duct tape over their mouths and stand in silent protest. Rather, they trooped up to the microphone one after another and enunciated over and over again, I.E.A. - N.E.A. Union, union, union...The vanquished LeDonne was there too, not sporting a teeshirt at least but, in the spirit of a sore loser nonetheless(how did a seemingly well-spoken, relentless campaigner like him score fewer votes than candidates who uttered not one word nor make a single appearance during the entire campaign?), posing as a representative of the "tax-payer," exhort the new board members, "bought and paid for by the faculty," to recuse themselves from any votes over faculty contracts. As Lisa Higgins quietly pointed out later, the vanquished McKinnon was supported by the IEA and no one had ever asked the same of him.

The highlight was when the Objector, newly minted as a member of the community, his turn as appointed BoT attack dog done, making his own public comment to the new board, turned it into a bit of a circus. Wearing his black teeshirt proudly, he held aloft giant fake checks that purported to show how much money "we" had spent on electing our candidates. It was like something out of a TV show. On his exit he muttered warnings about the prosecutors knocking on the door.

The excitement was not only in the public comments and the ridiculous spectacles people were prepared to make of themselves (Objector number one by a mile in that regard, although a "student" similarly clad in black rivaled him for imbecility of language - since when is being thoughtful and intellectual such a crime amongst conservatives?). The new board struck unexpectedly swiftly and moved to undo some of the havoc wrought by the vanquished by tossing out (rescinding I should say) the reviled policies bulldozed through at the previous meeting. It was a 4-3 vote (I think we may see a lot of that), holdover from the previous board Carlin warning the new members, to hoots of derision from the audience, of acting overly hastily in these matters. With such people, irony is beyond them.

The whole evening was so enthralling, I Tweeted away furiously on my new Crackberry. Later I reviewed how bad my spelling was in the subdued light; my followers must have thought I was drunk. In a way I was; such nights are rare.

Tweeting from the board room: last night for the vanquished bots.

It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't all thick as posts and boring. Stupid veiled threats

The Objector's rentacrowd keeping me from my dinner.

The Objector is the chief clown, wearing his stupid shirt and now waving giant fake checks showing how much we apparently paid the election

New BoT strikes quickly.

ABOR in the dock: maybe it's going away. Tension amounts.

New board order: four (mostly balding) angry old men slink away; four women take their places.

BoT etiquette: the Objector wearing a shirt saying "stop faculty pay to play" this is shared governance! Sore loser.

ABOR supporter confident that registration will soar as a result of COD adopting Horrorwitz. Ask students whose tuition just doubled...

I thought the election would end the fun. Far from it. Sparks flying once again. Watch the highlights on COD website.

Mr. Goodforillinois in attendance; the lone blogger is running for guvnor!!! Is this the best that the GOP can do? Yikes.

The Objector wearing an anti-faculty teeshirt. Poor loser.