All was lost for want of ... water

I worry that I blog on way too many topics.  I worry because while I am a polymath wannabe, I am at best a dilettante.  There is, therefore, the nagging worry that it is only a matter of time before the world sniffs out this fake.  

But then, every once in a while something happens just enough to boost my ego.  It happened today too, which means I can rest easy for a while ;)

What happened today?  I read this in my favorite newspaper from the old country:

The Ganga that has nourished the Indian civilisation for centuries has recorded a historically low inflow in its lower reaches this year, going by the evidence on the ground. The inflow at the Farakka barrage in West Bengal nearly halved, compared with the quantum of water available in the last two years. The NTPC’s plant beside the barrage had to shut operations from March 10.

An NTPC plant shutting down?

Readings showed that the water level in the canal connecting the river to the plant was going down rapidly. Water is used to produce steam to run the turbines and for cooling vital equipment of coal-fired power stations.
By next day, authorities were forced to suspend generation at the 2,300-megawatt plant in Farakka town causing shortages in India's power grid. Next, the vast township on the river, where more than 1,000 families of plant workers live, ran out of water. Thousands of bottles of packaged drinking water were distributed to residents, and fire engines rushed to the river to extract water for cooking and cleaning.

Unprecedented.

What's the connection between a coal-fired power plant and water?  As the Union of Concerned Scientists put it in the context of the US:

Coal-fired power plants, which produce almost half of the country’s electricity, have significant impacts on water quantity and quality in the United States. Water is used to extract, wash, and sometimes transport the coal; to cool the steam used to make electricity in the power plant; and to control pollution from the plant.  The acts of mining and burning coal, as well as dealing with the waste, also can have major effects on water quality.

A lot of water is needed.  When there was no water, the NTPC's coal fired plant had to close down.

So, back to me.  After all, the blog posts are always about me ;)  Why do I feel like I am not that much a fake after all?

Back in April 2009--yes, seven years ago--the newspaper  published an op-ed of mine, in which I wrote about the importance of water in energy production.  I wrote there that water is a lot more to be worried about than CO2:

This is but another incentive for us to explore alternative energy sources that do not impose additional demands on water, which will then also mean lesser reliance on coal. Water-constrained countries such as China, India and Israel ought to encourage innovation on this urgent issue.
At the same time, we here in the United States have a wonderful opportunity to use our research and development infrastructure to develop feasible and economical approaches that will ease the pressure on water resources, and thereby help the world.
After all, to borrow a water metaphor, we sink or sail together!

Of course, my worry that I am a fake is a waste of my time; after all, nobody cares about what I think anyway! ;)

A minority of one

"What is your hobby?" asked a student.

For all the autoethnography that I engage in here in this blog, in my newspaper op-eds, and even in conference talks, when students ask me questions about me or my views, I don't open up.

"I like cooking" I told the student who asked about my hobby.  Thankfully, she didn't ask me about my views on cooking and eating animals ;)

In another class too it happened. I had barely walked in to the room when a student shot a question at me: "How come unlike other professors you are not wearing a union tshirt, Dr. Khé?"

I typically do not respond to such questions in the classroom.  It is not because I do not talk about my what I do when not "working" or what I think about the faculty union.  There are plenty of blog-posts on all those and more.  Yet, I try my best to deflect those questions away for one simple reason--we get together in a classroom for a specific reason, which is to learn about the scheduled topic.  To talk about the union or my hobby is nothing but an abuse of the power and privilege that I have in that classroom just because I am the instructor.

"I don't want to take up class time on that" I replied.  "I am old-fashioned that way" I added.

"No, you are not old-fashioned" came a quick retort.  "Other professors have been talking about it in class" jumped in another.

It looked like I had to satisfy the mob ;)  The clock said it was not class time yet--two minutes before the official start time.  I dragged myself to responding to why I wasn't wearing a union tshirt.  But, that opened up more questions.  "Are you against unions?" "Are you the only professor not a union member?" "Do you benefit from not being in the union?" "Are you worried about groupthink?" Important questions that students and taxpayers need to think about, and juicy topics for me.  But, I am old-fashioned!  Perhaps my responses were all way briefer than what they wanted to hear.  But, as the clock indicated it was class time, I began the process of putting them to sleep via my lecturing ;)

I worry that I will become one of the many who do not think twice about using and abusing their power and position.  Right from when I was young, I have found it difficult to work with people with power and authority because almost always they abuse it.  Whether it is the police or the politicians or the World Bank or the union or the religions or  even a lowly Ramamritham, rare is the person who does not abuse the power and the privilege that come with that position.

Over the years, and especially from my own personal experiences, I have also come to understand that it takes a lot of effort to resist the urge.  If a union leader can abuse the position's power and privilege, and if a lowly Ramamritham can, then should we be surprised when a Bill Clinton takes advantage of an intern, or ...?

Thus, I continue to tilt at real and imaginary windmills.  As George Orwell put it so well in 1984:

He wondered, as he had many times wondered before, whether he himself was a lunatic. Perhaps a lunatic was simply a minority of one.

It looks like within my small professional world I will forever be a lunatic, and in a minority of one.  That's ok too.