My short-term assignment as the national expert on industrial process and product use is about to end in a few weeks and a transition back to graduate school is something I will have to look forward to. I just received the email confirmation that my proposed adviser for the PhD program has confirmed her willingness to work with me on my research topic on frostbite. Is this perfect timing, or simply ways to torture myself to fulfill my academic temptation. I was dreading to go back to work full time to my old day job, everything seems horrible in our office, I would prefer to work part-time or even just as a contractor.
Today is my 9th year anniversary working for my organization but I am quite disappointed at how things had turned out, they just dumped too much work on me that I believe no longer fits my qualification and my work didn’t even generate an impactful knowledge product. Everything seemed shallow and superficial, it feels mediocre. The people who contracted me for this short-term assignment were quite impressed at what I am capable of doing and I am likely to get another short-term assignment on “decarbonization of hard-to-abate industries” and as advised by my mentor and friend who also underwent the same route of employment opportunities, just grab whatever good things you can get, now that you are part of the roster of experts.
Even if opportunities for decarbonization is vast, the information I gathered from the local industry was quite disappointing. It seems we failed to meet the peaking of emissions of core heavy industries like steel and chemicals manufacturing. The energy cost is too high, the raw materials are imported and closing down the business seems like the most feasible thing you can do. Then how about the workers? As if it’s the natural course of things and not fighting for a just energy transition. The national emissions are not high because industry is dying because of the lack of competitive advantage with neighboring ASEAN countries just like my experience with Yamal LNG.
What are we really good at? Call centers and business process outsourcing, there is the growth of the service sector who can only do energy efficiency, the foundation, the basic energy source according to Art Rosenfeld and my collaborators from Berkeley Labs. I am still charged to that project but it is evolving into something quite unsatisfying for someone like mee…dee pee.
ecomaray 