Army Green

Yesterday we drove down (and over) to Abu Dhabi for a green building conference held at the Abu Dhabi Military Officers Club. The club is a sprawling hotel/convention center/Bond villain secret base that confuses the senses with indoor gardens, mausoleum grade marble, and multiple vintage weapons display cases. There was also a particular oil painting that depicted (presumably) American GI's at war in the desert. They were hurling grenades at an indistinct target and seemed at once tight knit and relatively safe from harm. I imagine this type of thing is on hand to honor and inspire (among others) the several US service men and women that we saw in the lobby of the hotel section, their camouflage working opposite its intention in plush tuck and roll leather seats, their faces unreadable or perhaps exhausted. I gather that the UAE is one place that US troops spend their R&R, I believe that the severely wounded are also brought here for treatment. For a moment, I felt I was slightly less removed from the war, which though physically closer here, has little news presence in my day to day life. Personally, I hope the new boss isn't the same as the old boss. 

The conference was OK, too many of the talks were by vendors/firms pitching their products/projects, but Vanessa intimated that the USGBC conference (and others) used to be the same way in the early days. Of particular interest, was the presentation of Dr. Lana Chaar, a professor of Electrical Engineering at Abu Dhabi's Petroleum Institute, who spoke about the challenges of solar power. Strange bedfellows perhaps, I imagine at some point that the solar experts working for the oil industry were something akin to Big Tobacco's cavalcade of sympathetic doctors, i.e. exhibiting a predictable bias. But Dr. Chaar was convincingly engaged in addressing the challenges presented by solar technology, notably that the current generation of photovoltaic cells aren't especially efficient; they're expensive, rely on Silicon which is expensive due to demand, they're challenged by dust and rain (surely there's an engineering solution for this--compressed air?) and that DEWA, Dubai's utility company is only now allowing solar enthusiasts access to their grid, and in very small numbers. Still, she said two things that I think are great; that the sun emits far more electromagnetic radiation than we need to power the globe, and that solar would benefit tremendously from government subsidy, which the UAE can surely afford. One of the traditional dilemmas facing solar is the fact that weather will inevitably cause supply interruptions, and while I used to relish blackouts when I worked in an office (Later jerks! I would announce as I donned my coat), I can understand that this is a problem. In my complete engineering naivete, I wonder if the world's municipal power grids could become internationalized? Surely it's always sunny somewhere, right? 

Upon return from Abu Dhabi we stopped at the lone Subaru dealership in Dubai. I have seldom seen such brainlessly aggressive driving anywhere, even in S. Jersey. Our rental car is a tiny Yaris, and the monthly rental fee is more than our car payment would be, so we want to buy something safer. Our main concern is short term resale value, it'd be nice not to wind up upside down on the loan. Subaru is relatively under represented here, and I'm trying to gauge how that will effect resale. Opinions amongst car salesmen vary wildly, afterall, they're not unlike those tobacco loving doctors of old. If  you're wondering, the only hybrid currently commercially imported into the UAE is the Chevy Tahoe. So, if you slightly prefer bad gas mileage over horrendous gas mileage, the UAE has a ride for you. I realize that buying an AWD car isn't the greenest choice either, but the safety rating of the Subaru is quite good, and we'd be able to drive it out to some of the more remote camping sites we have in mind. Camping is the one thing you can do in the UAE without spending a lot of money, that is, unless you lose your pants on the car you purchase with camping in mind. 

PS, that's a nearby Mosque above, not the club itself. It's actually the same Mosque pictured here.