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Ambassadors Journal: November 25, 2009

amb-oreck-blog8Interview with YleX.

I headed over to the YleX radio studios earlier today for a live interview with Heikki Soini and Bikka Puoskari.  I thought we were going to try to figure out why Hip Hop music is popular in Finland or maybe discuss Lady Gaga’s latest releases.  But no, they wanted to talk about the environment and at one point about bodybuilding. (Note to readers, despite Heikki’s assertion that we could both bench press about the same weight, I am not so sure.)  If you want to hear the interview -  yes, it was RADIO not TV – you can click on the following link: http://areena.yle.fi/audio/575685

By the way, Heikki is really ticklish, as you can see from the photo below. 

  

The interview was a lot of fun, but I turned the tables on them a bit as I brought a mini video recorder with me.  Look for the video in about a week when we have the Youtube channel up and running for my journal.

 

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 20, 2009 – post 2

amb-oreck-blog7Climate change – that is a topic on everybody’s mind.  There is plenty of talk about it, but I wanted to spend time with someone who really understands the science and whose work truly makes a difference.  That person is Professor Petteri Taalas, the Director General of Ilmatieteen Laitos, the Finnish Meteorological Institute. So, I went with Wendy Kahler, the Environment, Science and Technology officer here at the U.S. Embassy to meet with Petteri and his Executive Assistant, Joanna Saarinen, at the stunning headquarters of FMI.

 fmi_stairs

I listened intently for almost two hours as Petteri explained all of the amazing work that was being undertaken at FMI. (O.K., I have to admit that I interrupted every few minutes to pepper him with questions.) He covered everything from the short term weather modeling that they use to generate the predictions so important to businesses and individuals, all the way up to the large scale and long term climate analysis critical to understanding, addressing and adapting to climate change. 

This kind of meeting with someone armed with so much knowledge and such clarity in translating technical information into layman’s terms brings out the science geek side of my personality.  I had days of questions, but only a few hours to spend with Petteri.  I warned him that “I’ll be back!” (to quote a now famous Governor), although next time I want to meet up at the Sodankylä-Pallas weather research stations (around 67 degrees latitude).

By the way, just because this is serious science doesn’t mean you can have fun.  Here is a photo of Petteri and me in his office.

fmi_petteri

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 20, 2009

amb-oreck-blog5My wife, Cody, and I try to travel around Finland as often as we can and although we have already been to many places outside of Helsinki and have lots of trip planned for the future, work keeps us here in the capital city a great deal of the time.  Accordingly, every week we try to explore some lesser known treasure of Helsinki. So a few days ago Cody arranged a tour of the Sohlberg house museum which is a part of the Päivikki and Sakari Sohlberg Foundation. (Sakari was a justice of the Supreme Court, and his wife Päivikki, a referendary counsellor.)  The foundation sponsors medical science and health care in Finland through generous grants.  But it also preserves the large and wonderful apartment that was the Sohlberg home.

building_blog
 
So off we went with the Spanish Ambassador, H.E. Ricardo Zalacain and his wife, Monica Espinos, Heidi Day (of the U.S. Embassy) and Octavian Balea (a photographer friend).  The tour was lovely and fascinating – a real look into the private world of some important citizens whose lives covered a significant portion of the 20th century.

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 18, 2009

amb-oreck-blog4Several weeks ago my wife and I spent a rainy afternoon at the terrific Suomen Rakennustaiteen Museo, the Museum of Finnish Architecture. Finns are renown for a long history of innovation and beautiful architecture and that proud and on-going achievement is captured in the exhibitions and library of the museum.  I highly recommend this wonderful museum for everyone who wants to know more about the art of the built environment. (And yes, for those looking for just the right gift, they also have a first rate book and gift shop!)

 

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Historic preservation has been a long time personal passion.  And for the last decade both my wife and I have been very active in energy efficient and sustainable building practices.  (Although I will leave a detailed discussion for a future journal entry, these principals are fully compatible with beautiful design.)  At any rate, we invited the museum director, Severi Blomstedt, and his friend and longtime Helsinki resident, the British born architect and author, Jonathan Moorhouse for lunch at the Embassy. What was scheduled for an hour drifted into over two hours as we discussed a century of Finnish architecture.  Wonderful conversation and the start of what will be great friendships!

With Severi Blomstedt and Jonathan Moorhouse

With Severi Blomstedt and Jonathan Moorhouse

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 10, 2009

Ambassador OreckThe Marine Ball

For those who are not familiar with the tradition, the United States Marines (founded during the American Revolution in 1775) celebrate their “birthday” each year to commemorate their fellow Marines who have fallen in combat. It is also an event that helps to keep their esprit-de-corps as strong as their skill sets. Now while that sounds rather formal, the event itself is really a wonderful celebration with great food, good friends and terrific dancing.  This year’s event followed firmly in those traditions. Basically, I ate too much, danced too little and stayed too late.  I attach the photo below just too show that everyone had a whole lot of fun!

Marine Ball

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 9, 2009

Ambassador OreckLast Friday my wife and I joined a big crowd to see the latest developments in electric cars at the Helsinki Electric Motor Show – and quite a show it was. Among the many things I saw there (and test drives were available too) I had a few favorites. 

The American made Tesla was on display. An absolutely beautiful car that just happens to be fully electric. And although I am not exactly sure where one could actually do this legally, the Tesla will go from 0 to 100 kilometers an hour in just 3.9 seconds!  As you can see from the photo below, the test drive blew the hair right off me and Jyrki.

Here I am with the Tesla and the show promoter Jyrki Mattila of Shift2e

Here I am with the Tesla and the show promoter Jyrki Mattila of Shift2e

Another really compelling presentation was by eCars-Now! – a Finnish firm that is using open source thinking to create a fully electric retrofit for older cars. Basically they are looking at the most popular gasoline cars on the road today and are designing a drop in fully electric drive system to convert older cars to electric power. Very innovative and potentially a terrific way to “fix” the existing auto fleet as it ages.

Here is my wife, Cody, with, Jiri Räsänen, Tim Hitchkock and Eki Leinonen of eCars-Now!

Here is my wife, Cody, with Jiri Räsänen, Tim Hitchkock and Eki Leinonen of eCars-Now!

My other favorite was the Think City car – a real vehicle already for sale in Norway (if I recall correctly).  Moreover, they are opening a manufacturing plant here in Finland.  OK, I want to test drive one as soon as they become available here!

Cody and a Think City car

Cody and a Think City car

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 5, 2009

Ambassador OreckSNOW!! But first …

I spent the morning at the Cleantech Finland Conference in Lahti. Several very thoughtful presentations were given and I plan to return to get into greater details and specifics on their waste reduction and utilization practices. (Yes I know, it perhaps does not sound exciting, but it really is.)

The conference included lunch followed by a concert at Sibelius Hall – neither of which I could attend due to an already over-scheduled afternoon. So instead, I headed back to Helsinki for the first snow of the season. By the end of the day only about 4 or 5 centimeters had fallen, but wonderful nonetheless. 

What is it about snow? Watch any child and you cannot help see their sense of wonder and delight playing in it, catching snowflakes and of course throwing snowballs. Kids don’t complain that it is cold or that the days are darker. For them, winter isn’t a cause for unhappiness. Rather they revel in the miracle of snow, in the entertainment of seeing their own breath in the frost air and the discovery of the mysteries of the trees now revealed in the absence of leaves. Winter means popcorn by the fire, the beauty of candlelight and piling in under quilts and blankets. Sometimes as adults we focus more on the drudgery of winter than on its pleasures. 

I got to thinking about this because of our dog, Deckard, who simply revels in the cold and snow.  Here he is yesterday afternoon catching snowflakes with his tongue and generally romping without a worry in the world.

Deckard1

Deckard2

Deckard3

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Ambassador’s Journal: November 4, 2009

Ambassador Bruce J. OreckReturning to Jyväskylä.

One of the first trips I made after arriving in Finland just over two months ago was to Jyväskylä to attend a two day Bio-Energy conference there. Anyone who cares about technology (and of course for me that means technology applied to address energy and environmental problems) knows that two days in Jyväskylä is not nearly enough time to begin to get a sense of all the cutting edge products that are being developed there. The day started with an amazing visit to Moventas, where the team from the U.S. Embassy met with Moventas’ senior management. Partnering with world leaders in wind turbine industry such as Vestas (which has brand new manufacturing facilities in my home state of Colorado) and General Electric (who manufactures wind turbines in Pennsylvania), Moventas engineers and builds what are arguably the finest wind turbine gearing mechanisms in the world. Their plant is as spectacular as is their technology.

From there, we traveled to the home of Markku Anderson, the Mayor of the City of Jyväskylä. I had the pleasure of meeting Markku on my first trip to Jyväskylä (a very funny thing happened at that first meeting – but I will leave that for another entry). His home, a beautifully restored wooden house from the late 1800’s – was filled with wonderful art and furnishings – and the lunch was terrific. Just to prove how much fun we had, check out the photograph below.

BJO and Mayor Markku Anderson

The afternoon was filled with terrific presentations from a number of start-up and established businesses all relating to alternative energy and energy efficiency. The view from their conference room was so spectacular that I had a hard time imagining how anyone actually got any work done there.
 
Last stop of the day was at the offices of Keskisuomalainen Oyj, the publisher of so many Finnish newspapers. I was there to learn about their leadership in sustainability. I saw and heard the details about their real commitment to sustainable business practices. I know it isn’t Finnish to brag about oneself, so I will do that on their behalf. I was impressed and inspired.

Once again, the time in Jyväskylä flew by and we had to rush off to catch our train back to Helsinki – I plan to return to Jyväskylä soon.

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(Almost) No Heater Required for Finland’s High Standard Energy-Efficient Housing

Thermometer (Photo Credit: Wikimedia)

Thermometer (Photo Credit: Wikimedia)

Imagine a newly-built apartment heated only with the excess energy produced by your television, your computer, even your own body. Now imagine that same apartment in Helsinki, Finland – one of Europe’s northern-most cities where winter climes can dip to -20C (5F). Sound impossible? Not at all. Finnish building contractors, Reponen Oy, are making it an everyday reality with their new low-energy building concept called MERA

Reponen’s Jukka Kinnunen and Mika Airakselaa recently took Embassy Helsinki’s Economic staff on a tour of their latest MERA project – a new apartment complex that blends passive housing designs with Finnish craftsmanship to create ultra-low energy housing.  

Here’s how MERA works – in simple terms. First, the apartment building is super insulated.   The roof and walls have extra thick insulation to keep warmth in and the cold out. Next the windows are quadrupled paned – four layers of specially-designed glass that lets in light but effectively keeps out drafts. Then there are the pièces de résistance: a thermostat box located near the door and a small, understated air vent near the ceiling. Via the thermostat, you set the desired temperature for your apartment – say 20 degrees Celsius. Your appliances, your own body, even your dog produce heat that raises the apartment’s internal temperature. The air vent sucks up the internal air, runs it through a filter located in an adjacent hallway and then shoots it back out into the apartment in quantities sufficient to keep the internal temperature at your desired level. 

Since Finland’s winter weather can be rather severe – and the amount of heat-generating appliances/people/dogs may vary from one apartment to the next – each apartment complex is equipped with back-up central heating for the coldest winter months. But according to Reponen, central heating is used only two months at the most throughout the entire year –an impressive feat considering Finland’s cold weather can stretch for eight months from September to April.  

Equally impressive is that the MERA design is more energy efficient than Finnish passive housing standards. For the non-initiated, passive housing standards require that a house (or an apartment building in this case) have exceptionally low energy consumption – particularly for heating/cooling systems. How low to go varies vary widely from country to country. 

In Finland, passive standards require that the amount of energy required to heat a home not exceed 30 KwH/m2 per year. By comparison a conventional apartment building uses an average of 70kWh/ m2  per year for heating.   Reponen’s first MERA apartment complex, located in Heinola (2 hours from Helsinki) and occupied since May 2009, measures in at 15.6 KwH/m2 per year. That translates into a nearly 25% reduction in heating energy compared to conventional apartments.

But how comfortable are the apartments, really? After all, living in a cave with blankets might be energy-efficient but not entirely practical. Luckily, the apartments are aesthetically pleasing with all the modern conveniences one would expect from high-quality apartment living in Helsinki – lots of windows, enclosed balconies, electric ranges and even individual saunas. As for its winter warmth, we unfortunately could not judge the toasty-factor just yet.  But similar designs in central (albeit warmer) Europe have proven quite effective. 
 
MERA homes are also surprisingly affordable. Construction costs for Reponen’s MERA designs are only 1.7% higher than conventional buildings, keeping the price of a MERA low-energy apartment competitive with traditional housing.  Clearly the Finns are hooked:  the new MERA apartments are still under construction yet every unit is already sold. 

In the US, passive housing is gaining traction. In 2003, architects Katrin Klingenberg  and Nicolas Smith built America’s first passive home in Urbana, Illinois. The two-bedroom home’s annual heating demand averages only 11kWh.  Klingenberg now co-directs the Passive Housing Institute US, a consulting and research firm working to further the implementation of Passive House standards and techniques nationwide. Many US top architectural schools, such as MIT and Yale, are also introducing green and passive building courses into their curriculums. Solar panels, green roofs and state-of-the-art energy efficiency are all steadily becoming the norm of the built environment – a small, but important step on the road to a greener, cleaner tomorrow.  

Even our new US Ambassador to Finland Bruce Oreck has personal experience with US-based green housing. Ambassador Oreck and his wife Cody Oreck launched the Zero Carbon Initiative as a clearinghouse of information on green housing standards. They even used their own Colorado home as at a test lab, successfully turning it into a model of low-carbon living that sacrifices neither quality nor luxury.  

Imagine fifteen years from now living in a low-carbon world where homes are fully energy efficient and actually make more energy than use. Sound impossible? Not any more.

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Ambassador’s Journal: October 27, 2009

amb-oreck-blog1Arrived in Oulu in the morning and a light fog was still hanging in the air.  This gave the most beautiful look to the birch trees and the last golden leaves of autumn.  First stop was a very informative meeting at Oulu Innovation where a lot of important work is being done to keep Oulu at the forefront of technology.  From there our group traveled over to the University of Oulu who were the gracious hosts of the Embassy sponsored talk on climate change.

The presenter was Mr. James Balog of the Extreme Ice Survey.  Speaking to an overflowing auditorium, Mr. Balog lectured by way of his amazing time-lapse photography film clips.  Using solar powered cameras permanently located at some of the most remote locations on earth, Jim Balog has assembled remarkable footage on the retreat of key glaciers over the past several years. I can honestly say that the audience was spellbound by what they were seeing and motivated to expand their own efforts to make a difference.

Then off to Oulu University of Applied Science where the School of Music, Dance and Media acted as the host of the Embassy’s sponsored “Scratch Ambassadors Tour”.  This was one stop on a multi-city Finnish tour for this hip-hop group from the famous Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. For all of the various master classes and the concert itself, the joint was jumping.  

Ambassador Oreck

Scratching with Berklee Hip Hop Quartet in Oulu

Finally, a late night dinner with the Major of Oulu, Matti Pennanen and then I caught the late night flight back to Helsinki. My only regret was that I didn’t have more time on this trip, but I plan on getting back to Oulu soon.

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