It’s not unusual to open the local newspaper or turn on the news and see professors from California State University, Bakersfield sharing their expertise on any number of topics. The university has hundreds of experts in the worlds of science, the humanities and business eager to share their knowledge and relate it to current events.
What is, perhaps, a little out of the ordinary is when a news organization interviewing our faculty is not local, or even national. So when Dr. Saeed Jafarzadeh was asked to speak to a Belgian news crew for a story on solar energy in the San Joaquin Valley, he wasn’t sure if his wife would believe it. Luckily, there would be photographic and video evidence to back him up.
Journalists Björn Soenens and Daan Wallis are a two-person team essentially serving as the U.S. bureau for their news organization, VRT NWS, which brings national and global news to the Dutch-speaking, Flemish community in Belgium. Ahead of this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, the New York-based duo were assigned to do a story on solar energy. With California leading the way on a number of clean energy initiatives, the journalists’ research led them to Kern County, where they knew there were huge solar fields powering parts of the state.
“We’re such a small country, we need to look outside of our own world,” Soenens said of his audience’s interest in news from the United States. “It’s always good to climb up the wall and see how others are doing different things.”
For Dr. Jafarzadeh, the experience certainly was a first. The journalists had first reached out to Dr. Anthony Rathburn, interim director of CSUB’s California Energy Research Center. He asked a group of CERC-affiliated scientists if anyone would be able to help, and Dr. Jafarzadeh happened to be a perfect fit for the story.
“It’s interesting, a TV crew coming from Belgium,” Dr. Jafarzadeh said, reflecting on the experience after his interview in October. “This specific field is my interest in terms of research. The politics and perception of it, I’m interested to talk about it, not only about the technical aspect but more broadly too.”
Dr. Jafarzadeh spoke with interviewer Soenens while Wallis filmed. Explaining the different aspects of large solar farms versus rooftop panels on individual homes, Dr. Jafarzadeh said the farms are the better long-term option for clean energy.
While rooftop solar installations give a sense of satisfaction to the homeowner, he explained, its operation presents technical challenges to the electric grid. When it comes to electric energy, limited large-scale storage options are available, so utilities must balance the generation with demand in real-time. However, consumers may decide at any instance to change their energy use, Dr. Jafarzadeh pointed out; they don’t coordinate with the local utility before turning on lights or air conditioning, for example. So to achieve the balance in generation and consumption, utilities can only alter the level of generation. Solar farms give further control to utilities to achieve that.
A challenge scientists will have to solve is finding a way to store large amounts of solar energy to be used to power homes, buildings and other parts of a community.
So, with that in mind, is solar energy the future of clean energy? Soenens asked.
“I think the future is huge solar farms,” Dr. Jafarzadeh responded. “I’m happy to see that happening consistently in California and that it’s growing.”
Following their interview, Soenens and Wallis said their time in the Central Valley, which included stops in Hanford and Visalia, was one of their nicest reporting trips. As U.S. correspondents, their work regularly takes them all over the country. At each location, they work on at least two stories to make the most of their time; the second Central Valley story will be on the state’s drought.
Some stories, like the one Dr. Jafarzadeh will be featured in, air on the local news in Belgium, lengthy interviews pared down and edited into short two- or three-minute segments. Others will be longer-form pieces for the web. Though the shorter time allotted for a televised segment means leaving interesting parts on the cutting room floor, it also reaches a wider audience, Soenens explained, because six million people in Flemish Belgium watch VRT NWS.
“As journalists, we are like small children being enthusiastic going into a playground,” Soenens said of the experience of learning all about a new topic. Being a U.S. correspondent, he added, “is like being a chronicler of a country that interests a lot of people. America still fascinates big parts of our public.”
It’s likely the VRT NWS audience thinks primarily of Hollywood and New York City when they think about the United States, but Soenens and Wallis said they enjoy filling in those gaps and giving their viewers a richer understanding of all parts of our country.
For Dr. Jafarzadeh, helping the journalists with their story was a chance to put Bakersfield on the map globally for something even some residents don’t yet fully appreciate.
“Agriculture and oil are very important here, but with renewable energy, there’s so much potential there,” he said. “I was really happy to see that recognized, especially internationally.”
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