The Hydrogen Frontier: Power Without Pollution
Beneath the New Orleans pizzazz is a heritage of pollution, class inequality and unethical business that puts profit before the well-being of employees and the environment. Sebastian Delacroix experiences this first hand while watching his father toil as a mechanic at an aluminum plant fraught with daily hazards that take a toll on workers' physical health and the surrounding environment. Eventually, Chalmette Aluminum's promises of prosperity becomes a death sentence for Sebastian's father and many others. Its history of bribery and cover-ups gives birth to a cycle of environmental and social destruction in the working-class community. The odds are against a blue-collar kid breaking the barrier of inequality, yet Sebastian forges ahead with his plans to show the the world that hydrogen is indeed the fuel of the future. But first he must break down the barriers to education that have trapped blue-collar kids for generations so that he can become a young man who saves the world. The Hydrogen Frontier unveils the truth about climate change through an historical and scientific lens and asks the question: What are you doing to stop global warming? The world could be one engineer away from a breakthrough.
The Hydrogen Frontier: Power Without Pollution
Chapter 1
I am the son of a forgotten man. Everyone knows about those famous New Orleans jazz funerals. But most burials here are not that way at all. The common man never gets a parade. This was the day I had long anticipated but dreaded. My polished black shoes were at the foot of the bed, and my only suit had been set out the night before. I chose a dark-red tie. My alarm was set two hours early. On the breakfast table was a half-full cup of cold coffee and the morning paper opened to the obituaries section. The two-paragraph item was the only time my dad’s name ever appeared in print. “Pierre Delacroix, a plant worker, died of natural causes…” It was never going to win a Grimmy Award for the best-written obit. The photo was the one Dad had picked out.
It was a damp, overcast morning. I stood alone; my tears mixed with misty raindrops that washed down my checks. The few friends and family standing around wore their best “going-to-town” outfits. It was obvious they were all uncomfortable in fancy clothes and, like me, were wearing suits purchased years before. The going-to-town outfits were saved for special occasions. These are the same clothes they will be buried in when their time comes. Condolences were exchanged with glances, not words. Our limited time is but a brief candle, as described by Shakespeare’s Macbeth, that adds up to very little in the total scheme of things.
Dad was raised Catholic and remained faithful. He attended mass on a regular basis and always took Communion. He asked for a traditional Catholic burial. The priest sprinkled holy water on the casket and broke the deepened silence with a few half-hearted words. A young altar boy dressed in a long white-and-black vestment extended his arm as far as possible and struggled to hold an umbrella over the priest. “We are gathered here today to celebrate the life of Peter Delacroix, who has gone home to the house of God. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and to dust you shall return. May the souls of the faithful departed, though the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”
I stood in the same out-of-the-way spot under a small overhang. The weather worsened. Gusts of wind howled through the live oaks hammering rain against the tombs. Nearly everyone started running to their cars. I handed the priest an envelope containing fifty dollars to cover his time.
“Sorry for your loss. Your father was a good man,” he said in a matter-of-fact way without looking directly at me. The priest fiddled with the buttons on his raincoat. “Give me the damn umbrella.” He was aggravated with the altar boy and seemed annoyed that Dad had picked a rainy day to die. It wasn’t worth the trouble to tell him Dad’s name was Pierre Delacroix, not Peter.
I watched graveyard workers slide Dad’s inexpensive casket into the crypt. They smoked unfiltered cigarettes and complained about working in the rain. A stone mason quickly placed the original marble plaque back in place and sealed the edges with mortar and grout. He covered it with a sheet of plastic. The workers all ran off, trying to get someplace dry. An engraver would show up tomorrow morning to add my father’s name below the forgotten names of my other forebears interred in the same tomb.
Anticipating this unhappy event, I had spent a week pulling weeds and vines around the tomb and painting. The vine root systems had dug deep into mortar between the crumbling bricks, clinging tight like leaches to the falling walls their roots had helped weaken. I repaired some of the old plaster and painted everything with a fresh coat of white Tomb Paint. That is a New Orleans thing. The aboveground crypts can only be painted with special paint manufactured locally. Tomb Paint is very expensive. I saved a few dollars doing these things myself, but I still made a payday loan to cover the remaining final expenses. Dad was penniless, and as a part-time freshman college student working restaurant jobs, I did not have $800. “What are you doing? Don’t pull those vines down!” The graveyard director interrupted my work. “The sweet smell helps to cover death’s stench!” he said.
Clearly, overgrown vines had weakened the old mortar holding the bricks together. The misinformed director was unknowingly encouraging the cemetery’s decline, not preserving it.
Cemetery workers were supposed to keep things up, but the poorly paid, overworked crews never seemed to get things done, and the cemetery’s perpetual care agreement wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on. The contract was seventy years old anyway and probably not enforceable. Other aboveground tombs were also crumbling and open to the elements. They were constructed during the administration of Andrew Jackson and abandoned long ago. Names engraved into their marble plaques had been worn smooth by time and were now invisible. Only the dead remember. The graveyard was crumbling like forgotten ruins, and no one cared enough to bother anyway. In Central America they believe spirits stay around until they are forgotten by the living.
I ran my fingers across the forgotten names. These unfortunate souls had departed long ago. Many names on my family’s tomb also sounded strange and foreign, the older ones having not been spoken aloud for generations.
The first name on my family tomb was added in 1843. My dad’s name will be the ninth. The only thing my downtrodden ancestors left behind are the names carved into this single thin slab of marble. It is the only proof that they ever existed. It is our Rosetta Stone. New Orleans has many prosperous families. They inherit priceless art, businesses, and historic Saint Charles Avenue mansions passed from one generation to the next. They learn culture, etiquette, and expectations for success. They have the confidence and means to take risks. Bank presidents solicit them.
The city also has families like mine. We have been in New Orleans for nearly three hundred years, and the only real estate we have managed to acquire is this simple six-by-ten crumbling brick-and-plaster tomb. Dad tried hard and worked nonstop, but the generational disadvantage he faced was an inability to pick prosperous ancestors.
“I told your dad to buy a modern in-ground burial plot across the lake like everyone else. This crumbling old place should be bulldozed. No one ever accused your dad of being smart.” My uncle Larry was not one to hold his tongue, although nobody took him seriously since he quit school after the tenth grade. He said education was too time consuming.
“Good to see you again, Uncle Larry. Be safe driving home. Weather is awful!”
These were the same scraggly working-class people I had known my entire life—with one exception. At the end of the service, an attractive middle-aged woman I did not know arrived and stood still under a black umbrella. In a snug-fitting dress and expensive pearls around her thin neck, she seemed out of place. She acknowledged no one. The woman bowed her head for a moment, clinched her pearls, said a short prayer, and then made the sign of the cross. Touching the tomb gently with her fingertips, she seemed to whisper something, then just as quickly drove away in a green Land Rover.
Rain continued to fall. Alone now, I placed my hand on Dad’s tomb and said a short prayer in my own way. “It’s been a tough go. Now it’s time to get some rest.” Walking to the cemetery’s main gate on Washington Avenue, I watched uniformed doormen at Commander’s Palace hurrying about with giant umbrellas protecting their important dinner guests. Expensive Bentleys, Cadillacs, Jaguars, and BMWs lined the street. Stylish women in tight-fitting low-cut dresses showed off large diamond rings, pearl necklaces, and sexy, thin legs. Prosperous aristocratic men smoked cigars and handed restaurant workers twenty-dollar bills. Like a child with his face pressed against a candy store window, I stood rain soaked, across the street, a lost soul looking in.
“Move along, buddy! If you stay around here, I’ll have to call the cops! There’s a Salvation Army shelter a few blocks away!” the parking attendant yelled at me from across the street. His stance was determined, with his legs slightly apart and his hands on his hips. I pulled my lapels tight across my chest and walked away.
