It’s a surreal thing, the Watson Fellowship. At times it is like some kind of bizarre time warp. Too much travel can confuse you. It is strange, for example, when you accidentally thank a Chilean in Icelandic, or when you try to pay for yet another bland sandwich in yet another airport but forget which of the seven currencies in your wallet should be placed on the counter. I’ve taken six flights in the last week, and that hard-driving journey has delivered me from Madrid to the tip of South America in Argentine Patagonia.
I’ll spend two weeks trekking through wintery winds, scoping hydroelectric sites, and understanding the engineering and planning of transmission lines and grid connectivity. My host is Carlos, a local of Rio Gallegos, which is a rough oil and gas town in Argentina’s southernmost province of Santa Cruz. Carlos is also a tango fanatic, and has two professional dancers from Buenos Aires living in his house. Upon arrival I was immediately outfitted with tango shoes and inserted into nightly dance classes.
People sometimes inquire as to how I make connections and develop projects with people like Carlos...
“Cully:
Meet my dear friend Carlos. He is the best power engineer in Argentina, and one of South America’s finest tango dancers. Carlos and I have a lot of interesting history and I love him very much. In fact, my little Chihuahua is named after him.
Carlos has moved on from his chief engineer position at the provincial utility and now runs his own consulting company. I have explained your Watson Fellowship and your work with me this year, and I asked Carlos if he would accept you. I am very pleased to inform you that his answer is yes and you are being welcomed to Rio Gallegos.
You should contact Carlos to advise your schedule and begin your relationship.”
The above email is an introduction that was made by the CEO of a geothermal company I worked with in Iceland, and an example of the surprising interconnectivity of the geothermal industry. The deeper I penetrate this industry, the smaller I realize it is, and the easier it is to move around within it. A small world indeed - everyone seems to know each other.
Next week Carlos will take me into "la sierra" – Andean mountains where we will trek up valleys and ravines to survey the hydrology and geology of prospective power plants. We will stay in the mountains for four days of fieldwork. Our living conditions, according to Carlos, will be “very bad,” and we will shelter in various cabins and ranches that he has access to. It seems that my Death Race training from last summer may come in handy (www.deathraceforlife.blogspot.com).
Of course this is all a brutal and shocking contrast to my luxurious accommodations in Madrid. The only similarity is the language, really, and I still enjoy that part very much.
I ended my time in Madrid happy with the knowledge that I had made friends, helped a wind power development company analyze the economics and finances of a large wind farm, explored a magnificent country and culture, developed my language abilities, and glimpsed the European model of power plant development. But those are only the surficial things I did there, and to be honest, they were secondary. My greatest struggle and potentially my greatest success this year was a personal, philosophical, and spiritual one, which was initiated by a Spanish sage and business mogul. I don’t feel compelled to share the details, just to say that my mental space is different now, continues to change, and is perhaps healthier and happier.
After two weeks in this frozen realm, I will resurface in the comparatively tropical worlds of Buenos Aires and Santiago, where I intend to remain for one and a half months. I will be in the center of the world’s greatest geothermal boom – the piping hot volcanism of the Andes. I imagine some blend of the wild American west, the early oil boomtowns of Pennsylvania (where Colonel Drake drilled the world’s first oil well and precipitated a human flood of prospectors), and the volcano scene from Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom.
Of course I must also be warry. I’ve already been scammed in Argentina once, and have heard gruesome tales of taxi cab kidnappings, robbings, and murders. One close mentor wrote me, “Buenos Aires is seductive, but is a culture without standards. It is all passion, and whichever way passion blows, that is what happens. This means that financially, all money is one way - into Argentina, and to the person with the upper hand. Because of course, no one is ever passionate about giving money back, and if there are no other standards beyond what the person with the upper hand and passion wants, that is what happens. But, everyone seems wonderful, and soulful and talks good stories and seems reasonable. But this is why the country is a 500 year basket case.”
Still, all of the world’s biggest geothermal developers have set up shop in either Buenos Aires or Santiago, so I intend to spend the remainder of my fellowship in those places. Also, I’m going to tango, study Spanish aggressively, consume lots of steak and maté, and probably succumb to the local obsession with fútbol.
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