Another Day, Another Republican
Working with Tom Chester and OREC has turned out to be a far better deal than I originally expected. Not only did he fund my senior project, to the tune of a couple thousand dollars, but I’ve also been given some really unique opportunities. The latest was a chance to meet with United States Congressman Greg Walden. We met at Liskey Farms, a local farm/business that raises produce for the Saturday Market, produces geothermally heated biodiesel, grows nursery plants, and within a year will be the site of a brand new 10 megawatt geothermal power plant. (Among many other things) Professor Jim Long and I have been working with Liskey on improving their biodiesel process, so I got to talk to Congressman Walden about that. He seemed genuinely interested, and asked relevant questions. Next I had the opportunity to tell him about my senior project, which he was even more interested in, and grew quite excited when I told him about our advancement in the Imagine Cup. From there, we proceeded to tour more of the Liskey operation, and throughout Walden was informed on the issues. In fact, when we started talking about renewable energy issues in general, the congressman was quite a bit more knowledgeable than I am. Throughout the morning, he demonstrated a genuine interest and concern for the issues we presented. While I suspect that his motivations for renewable energy are a bit different than mine, with the strongest emphasis on business and national security, the end result is the same, and I came away convinced of his sincerity and commitment to sustainable/renewable energy. The biggest difference between Congressman Walden and Senator Smith was that Walden was more personable and was absolutely more familiar with the topics at hand. Of course, it helps that Walden has spent the last year on a House committee overseeing global warming. All in all I’d like to thank Tom Chester and OREC for yet another positive and educational experience.
This entry was posted on Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 at 10:26 am and is filed under Commentary, Imagine Cup, Politics, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
