Jed Selby has swapped his kayak paddle for a golden shovel. Last week the developer of Buena Vista’s South Main neighborhood broke ground on a 20-room boutique hotel.

Jed Selby, the developer of Buena Vista’s New Urbanist community South Main, last week broke ground on a 20-room boutique hotel on the banks of the Arkansas River.

It’s an all-local affair, with Selby and his wife Kennley building the project with their own South Main Building Company and their in-house vacation rental company will manage the hotel. Funding comes from the local Collegiate Peaks Bank. The hotel was designed by South Main architect Kenny Craft, an advocate of the New Urbanist movement whose buildings reflect both traditional and urban perspectives.

Selby said the hotel will be the first in the Upper Arkansas Valley to offer balconies overlooking the river, where the former professional kayaker has built a whitewater park for kayakers and surfers.
The avid music fan hopes to expand his riverfront music venue and develop South Main’s commercial core as a musical, recreational destination. The long-planned hotel will help anchor the next phase of development for South Main, Selby said.

Top: Firefighters douse hot spots while fighting the Black Forest Fire. Bottom: Workers hose down the Boeing 787 “Dreamliner” before the inaugural direct flight from Denver to Tokyo. (Photos by Helen H. Richardson & Joe Amon, The Denver Post)

Mike Provencal woke up at 2 a.m. Friday in Japan and couldn’t go back to sleep.

Call it jet leg or a restless mind, he decided to walk down the street from his hotel by Narita International Airport to a place he knew had an Internet connection.

Awaiting him in his e-mail inbox were two reverse 9-1-1 notifications — the second one sent him spiraling.

His home was under mandatory evacuation due to the Black Forest fire that is ravaging homes and properties north of Colorado Springs. As a veteran United Airlines flight attendant, he wasn’t scheduled to return from his six-day Asia trip until June 17th.

Provencal immediately called his wife.

“She proceeded to tell me all she had done. She had been running around all day. And I told her, ‘You’re a wonderwoman,’” Provencal said.

Having worked in the airline industry for 35 years, Provencal immediately began charting a way back home. He domiciles in Houston, which means that every trip he takes he must first commute by air from Colorado Springs to Houston before beginning his shift.

“I immediately called our scheduling office to figure out how I could get back,” Provencal said. “I was thinking, ‘Maybe I can go from Narita to L.A., then to Houston and then to Colorado Springs.’ I had forgotten that they had just started this new nonstop between Narita and Denver.”

When the flight’s crew sat him next to me on Friday’s return flight, he was visibly shaken.

The new nonstop, daily service between Tokyo and Denver is touted for its economic opportunities, but it is in moments like these that it serves a clear humanitarian purpose — to quickly get people across the globe in moments of crisis.

“When I called her, my wife was trying to maintain composure,” Provencal said. “I felt so bad for going to work. I kept apologizing, but this hadn’t happened yet when I left Houston.”

Sitting on an 11-hour plane ride with no access to the outside world, he didn’t know the condition of his house or how close the fire line is to his neighborhood.

Standing up while the rest of the cabin slept, he offered to get me more ice for my water despite the fact that he was off-duty. He then went and chatted with the flight attendants in the front galley before returning to watch another portion of a movie.

Last year’s Waldo Canyon Fire taught Provencal and his wife several lessons that are paying off now.

“We re-boxed all of our important documents and papers in one central location so we could grab them in an emergency,” Provencal said. “My wife has a specific wall of photographs that are important that she grabs in an evacuation. And luckily she was able to find a kennel in downtown Colorado Springs that would take our dogs.”

His wife’s grown son helped her move out heavy, expensive equipment to his house, but they worry that his neighborhood may be evacuated at some point as well.

The couple is no stranger to Colorado wildfires. In 2001, they were living in a more remote cabin in the woods when the Deer Mountain Fire tore through the area.

“We were gone for a week and had no idea that whole time if our house had survived,” Provencal said.

When asked if all of these fires and close calls make him question where he lives, Provencal said, “Yeah, it does. Once again, here we are back in it…we have learned a lot of lessons over the years.”

Many conservative politicians have been among climate change deniers, but ignoring the science will led to something the GOP dreads even more — big government.

So argued Jim Hansen, who since 1988 has been in the forefront of the issue, first as a NASA scientist and more recently as a free-agent activist, in an interview Thursday.

After an ill-fated, and it could be argued ill-conceived, attempt to pass climate legislation in the first year the the Obama administration there has been little traction on the issue. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is delaying its rules on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and the new Department of Energy energy efficiency standards for appliances are also being delayed.

And that’s okay with Hansen, who says he sees the solution coming in a different form, a carbon tax, and from a different place — the right of the political spectrum.

“It has to be a carbon tax and it really has to come from conservatives,” Hansen said. The reason is that the tax has to be market-based and revenue neutral.

“That money has to be given back to the public on a per capita basis so all legal residents of the country get an equal amount and that way the person who does better than average in limiting their carbon footprint would make money and then everybody in the country becomes an environmentalists whether they want to or not,” Hansen said.

“The fundamental fact is that as long as fossil fuels appear to the public to be the cheapest energy we are going to keep burning them,” Hansen said.”Fossil fuels are not the cheapest energy they only appear to be because they are subsidized.”

California Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent, have introduced a bill that would create a carbon tax, but that doesn’t make Hansen happy.

“As usual the Democrats are going to take some of the money, 40 percent of it,” Hansen said. “Conservatives have to put ta foot down and say you can’t use this as another excuse to make government bigger. Democrats have a problem they can’t keep their hands off our wallets.”

The reason Hasen is so adamant is by his calculation if the government keeps 40 percent most people will end-up paying more for energy than they get back. “It is important that all the money go to the public, so get this push from below,” he said.

What of the general reluctance from anyone — and we mean just about anyone — on the GOP side of the aisle to take up the issue since Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsay Graham abandoned their 2008 efforts to fashion bipartisan legislation?

“If they continue to pretend that human-made climate change is a hoax, eventually you get to the point where nature makes it clear it wasn’t a hoax and then the public demands the government do something and that’s the worst nightmare for conservatives,” Hansen said.

“It would allow the government to take over and do things by fiat, which not in anybody’s interest in my opinion, because the government never, seldom, makes the right choices,” Hansen said. “Let the market make the choices, which is a conservative approach.”

Steamboat ski area. Denver Post file photo.

Colorado’s ski areas hosted 11.4 million skier visits last season, a nearly 4 percent increase over last season’s low showing of 11 million.

The 11.4 million mark, while an increase over the dismal and dry 2011-12 season, is the third slowest season in the last decade and the annual increase falls well below the national spike of 11 percent.

Colorado Ski Country, the trade group that represents 21 of Colorado’s 25 ski areas, reported 6.4 million skier visits in 2012-13, an increase of 3.8 percent or 235,000 skier visits over the 2011-12 ski season. Vail Resorts’ four Colorado ski areas – some of the the busiest in Colorado with Vail, Breckenridge, Keystone and Beaver Creek – saw roughly five million skier visits.

Colorado’s 2012-13 season started slow with weak snow and local skiers opting to stay home. Late December and late spring storms fueled a rebound in visitation. But it wasn’t enough to pull the state closer to the 12 million-skier visit benchmark it reached in 2011, 2008, 2007 and 2006.
Declining skier visits does not necessarily correlate to decreasing revenues, as evidenced by Colorado ski areas that saw increased revenues in the 2011-12 ski season, which saw record declines in visitation.

“We are very pleased with where we ended up for the 2012/13 season and are thrilled to see such a strong recovery trend for both Colorado and the ski nation,” said Colorado Ski country president Melanie Mills in a statement released Thursday. “This season concluded with momentum in our favor as our resorts continue to set the gold standard in the industry for skier experiences.”

TOKYO, JAPAN – JUNE 12, 2013. Adele Tamboli of the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion(CRSP) in Colorado, Yoshikaki Nakano of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology(RCAST) in Japan, and Reuben Collins from Colorado School of Mines sit on the energy forum panel on Thursday. (Photo by Kristen Painter / The Denver Post)

Japan, still reeling from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011, is looking to forge strategic international partnerships as it moves toward a more diversified energy base.

The Denver delegation in Tokyo this week recognized this opportunity and put together a three-hour energy forum with Japanese business leaders before signing a research agreement between stakeholders in Colorado and Japan.

“I see this very much as collaboration because (the Japanese) have things to offer us in terms of research developments as well,” said Pam Reichart of Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.

The five-year agreement is between the Center for Revolutionary Solar Photoconversion (CRSP) in Colorado and the Research Center for Advance Science and Technology (RCAST) in Japan.

“The earthquake and the tsunami…has again changed the world of energy. Because what happened in Japan is rippling around the world,” said Atul Arya, the event’s moderator and senior Vice President of Energy Insight at IHS, a Douglas County-based company.

In 2010, nuclear energy accounted for 29 percent of Japan’s energy. Just two years later in FY 2012, that plummeted to 2 percent. Of the 50 nuclear reactors that Japan once relied on, only two remain in operation.

Makoto Ichikawa of Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corp. said the company has compensated with oil. Oil imports have increased from 71 to 87 percent.

“As a result, the import costs have been increasing,” Ichikawa said.”Japanese are more involved in gas development in The U.S., Russia and Mozambique.”

Colorado is offering up its expertise in solar, oil and gas extraction and renewables.

The Colorado contingency included representatives from Energy Insight at IHS, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Colorado School of Mines, Colorado Energy Research Collaboratory and Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Last week I interviewed David Hiller, executive director of the Colorado Collaboratory, on what he forecasts for the state’s opportunities with Japan.

“Colorado is one of the world’s leading areas in clean energy innovation…in significant part because NREL is located here, which I think gets much greater respect outside the U.S. than within,” Hiller said. “The U.S. is still sorting through its feelings on clean energy. NREL is recognized around the world as probably the leading clean energy lab.”

While Japan offers its own set of top-notch research institutions, the forum’s panel discussions noted that advances in clean tech cannot sustainable answer the energy demands of an entire nation and the solution is a balanced mix of sources.

“Japan doesn’t have the natural resources, so that becomes a strategic — as well as an economic — issue for them,” Hiller said.

Forum moderator Arya referenced the tectonic shifts happening in the energy industry — including the United States’ onshore oil.

When you look at where the crude oil is coming from, it is coming primarily from three places: Iraq, North America and Brazil,” Arya said. “If I would have told you that five years ago you would’ve laughed at me.”

If Colorado’s energy labs and businesses can make these partnerships last, Arya insisted that “stronger links between Colorado and Japan will be win-win.”

The Japanese contingency outnumbered Coloradans for the first time all week, showing the importance that they place on energy opportunities. Reichert admitted that it is difficult to read participants’ reaction, but the Denver delegation has definitely learned that business relationships take time in Japan.

“I think you just have to take a very long-term view,” Reichert said.

Visit Denver on Wednesday announced its had landed the U.S. Travel Association’s International Pow Wow – or IPW – will return May 19-23, 2018 after last visiting Denver in 1991. The three-day convention hosts 1,000 travel organizers from across the country and 1,200 international travel buyers, all of whom will book roughly $3.5 billion in future U.S. travel.

“There is simply nothing we could do better to showcase all the exciting things that are happening in Denver to more than 1,200 travel buyers from 65 countries around the world than to host IPW. This convention will have a lasting impact on our city, helping us secure more international flights and bring more foreign visitors to Denver,” said Visit Denver chief Richard Scharf in a statement released Wednesday.

Visit Denver will host the U.S. Travel Association’s International Pow Wow at the Colorado Convention Center in May 2018, a coup for Denver tourism boosters.

Scharf said travel studies show IPW hosts can reap $350 million in international tourism business, jumpstarting a host city’s international tourism efforts.

By 2018, visitors will be traveling from Denver International Airport into the city by train, highlighting the sweeping changes Denver has seen since it last hosted the IPW almost three decades earlier.

“The last time IPW was in Denver, we ended with a John Denver concert by the lake in City Park overlooking the skyline and the Rocky Mountains,” Scharf. He said it was too early to announce plans for IPW 2018, but he promised similar events to wow visitors.

The sun is shining on solar power

A record 297 megawatts of solar power were connect to the electric grid in the first quarter of 2013 –almost triple the installations for the same quarter in 2012, according to SNL Energy.

The first quarter of the year is historically the lowest for installed solar capacity, so the strong first quarter for utility-scale units may indicate “a banner year” for photovoltaic installations, according to SNL, a financial research and analysis firm.

The 2013 number is part on a long-term trend. In 2010, just 10 MW were installed in the first quarter. In 2011, 58 MW were installed and in 2012 it was 122 MW. In the fourth quarter of 2012 794 MW were installed.

The largest solar PV unit completed in the first quarter was the 100 MW unit at Antelope Valley Solar Ranch One in Los Angeles County and the the second- and third-largest units were the 66-MW unit at Alpine Solar in Los Angeles County, Calif. and the 26-MW unit at NRG Solar Borrego I in San Diego County.

The states with the most operating utility-scale solar units, in MW, are:

CA 1,353
AZ 761
NV 270
NJ 288
NC 245
NM 167

The states biggest planned capacity are California (16,164 MW), Nevada (3,621 MW), Florida (1,262 MW) and North Carolina (1,102 MW)

TOKYO, JAPAN – Stephen Anderson, Commercial Attache for U.S. Embassy Japan; Andrew Wylegala, Minister-Counselor for Commercial Affairs,U.S. Embassy Japan; Cindy Yoshiko Shirata, professor of International Business at University of Tsukuba and Jim Mueller, vice president of Atlantic and Pacific sales for United Airlines speak to the Denver delegation and U.S. business leaders on the economic and political climate briefing in Tokyo on June 12, 2013. The panel fielded questions from the full ballroom on current events and the yen exchange rate, among other topics. (Photo by Kristen Painter / The Denver Post)

The Denver/Colorado delegation that flew to Tokyo on United Airlines’ inaugural flight hit the ground running Wednesday morning with an economic and political briefing by officials from the U.S. Embassy in Japan and other regional experts.

As breakfast ware tinkled in The Pensisula Hotel ballroom, Andrew Wylegala, Minister-Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy Japan, explained why he gave the country’s commercial outlook a Cloudy-to-Cumulus Cloudy rating.

“It seemed that Japan disappeared from the U.S. business world and it never really should have,” Wylegala said.

He then proceeded to pump up the audience of Denver leaders (who have a vested interest in seeing the business between the two regions flourish), with some encouraging statistics.

Japan ranks:
#1 in R+D/GDP
#2 investor in U.S. stock — only trailing the United Kingdom
#2 holder of U.S. Government bonds
#2 spender of tourism dollars in the U.S. (bested only by Canada)
#3 largest global economy (recently surpassed by China)
#4 source of U.S. imports AND destination for U.S. exports
1-10 global competitiveness (WEF)
1-20 ease of doing business (WB)

(More on this to come in the next post…)

The flight map for the precise Denver to Tokyo route, taken aboard the inaugural flight. The plane basically goes over the top of the globe, never leaving sight of land for very long. (Kristen Leigh Painter, The Denver Post)

ABOARD THE DREAMLINER — The first-ever direct flight between Denver and Tokyo went off about as smoothly as United Airlines could hope following months of false starts and redirected plans.

The 787 Dreamliner took off close to 1 p.m. on Monday and landed 10 hours and 52 minutes later at Narita International Airport.

Having been aboard United’s inaugural domestic flight of the new aircraft in November, Monday’s flight had an entirely different tone, which seemed to set a different agenda.

Thus is the tale of two inaugural flights that tell two very different stories.

Flying aboard United’s first domestic flight from Houston to Chicago felt like a party bus in the sky — full of aviation groupies and somewhat jarring enthusiasm. Fast forward seven months to Monday’s highly-publicized inaugural flight from Denver to Tokyo, and the mood was much more subdued and far more…well, normal.

As a passenger, I would prefer “normal” any day to describe a transoceanic flight, especially considering the problems recently faced by the route’s 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

That is not to say, of course, that there weren’t the expected bells and whistles as United outdid themselves with the pre-departure festivities as passengers were distracted for three hours prior to takeoff at gate area B32.

Patrons and guests may have seen a Shinto priest pass by, blessing the people and aircraft. Or the Taiko drummers, donning their traditional black and gold garb, mesmerizing men and women in suits and business casual.

Crowds formed in Denver International Airport’s concourse B to witness city, state, airline and Japanese officials break the sake cask with wooden mallets — a Japanese tradition to mark the opening of a new business.

The party was just getting started when United flight 139′s passengers were whisked away from their Udon soup bowls and vegetable tempura platters in order to board the plane. The ceremonial water cannons trumpeted the new route’s departure, slightly behind schedule, but somehow no one seemed to notice.

A mix of business, leisure and self-described “aviation geeks” made up the inaugural flight’s roster.

“People don’t fly to their destinations anymore, they fly to gateways,” said Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. “This plane is full of people who are using Tokyo as a gateway.”

Cue Richard Schulick, chair of surgery at the University of Colorado hospital.

“I actually didn’t realize this was the inaugural flight, but I had asked to be on the direct flight to Tokyo,” Schulick said. “I thought it had been going for a week or two and then I arrived at the gate this morning and there was the big reception, so I just jumped right in to the festivities.”

In addition to the unassuming passengers, there was of course the Denver delegation riding in first class, which includes DIA manager of aviation Kim Day, Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation CEO Tom Clark, Visit Denver executive director Richard Scharf, United’s head of asia and pacific sales Jim Mueller and many others.

While first class and business first began settling in to try and sleep, Benjamin Stolt sat in economy — crunching mileage numbers on his computer in a feverish attempt to win the captain’s trivia question prize for guessing the midway point on the flight.

“I like exploring the world and part of the challenge is getting there as nicely and cheaply as possible,” Stolt said.

The computer engineer from Austin is part of an online community of aviation fans, who blog and read about frequent flier points, new routes, aircraft and the minutia of airlines.

“Originally this was part of a much more elaborate trip, but then with the technical issues and the delays, I didn’t want to change all those other plans,” Stolt said.

So, he flew out to Japan for a longer trip at the end of March — when the route was supposed to be inaugurated — and decided to go ahead and keep this flight, too.

Contrast that with Jeffrey Hayzlett, a global business traveler, book author and contributor to Bloomberg.

Hayzlett boasts the highest premier level with United — Global Services. He woke up at 3 a.m. to catch a regional jet out of Atlanta in order to catch flight 139 in Denver. He splits his time between Sioux Falls, South Dakota and New York City.

“For me being in the Midwest, to be able to go to Denver and fly anywhere in Asia is huge for saving time,”Hayzlett said. “I am flying to Tokyo today for a meeting, turning around and coming back the same day. That is what this flight is all about.”

As for the aircraft itself, having flown on the Dreamliner in the domestic U.S., I was anxious to test the advertised benefits of this state-of-the-art bird to see if it lived up to its reputation.

It is no secret that Boeing markets its new, carbon fiber aircraft as a long-haul vessel. Its composite structure and fuel efficient design is said to burn 30 percent less fuel than its international counterparts, such as the 767 and 777.

From United’s perspective, that is a winning statistic.

From the passenger’s perspective, a cabin pressurized at 6,000 feet versus the traditional 8,000 feet, plus a more humid airflow and larger overhead compartments is the winning statistic with the Dreamliner.

First point (and perhaps most importantly), I did not have extreme “cankles” when we landed. For those unfamiliar with this terminology, it is when your calf swells up and swallows your ankle. You could also call it stump leg, if you’d prefer.

It is hard to know what is imagined and what is real in terms of health effects, but both my seatmate, Steffan Tubbs, from Denver’s KOA radio station, and I both felt less grimy and noticed the air felt cleaner. The captain of the flight, Jay Panarello, later told me that this was because of the aircraft’s humidification system. (The Dreamliner uses a HEPA filter that reportedly contributes to fresher, less recycled air.)

This plane does, however, definitely cater to the business traveler as the economy seats — which are in a 3-3-3 configuration versus a 2-4-2 configuration — were quite close together. It isn’t any more than what Denver passengers may be used to on 737s and Airbus A320s that often fly in and out of DIA for domestic routes, but it could prove uncomfortable for someone used to traveling internationally on non-U.S. carriers.

The meal service was both the best and (perhaps expectedly) the most lackluster part of the trip.

Mary Dipper has worked as a flight attendant for 36 years and was hand-selected by United to fly the inaugural Denver to Tokyo flight on June 10, 2013. (Kristen Leigh Painter, The Denver Post)

The flight crew was hand-selected by United for this launch flight and they made up for the mediocre food in personality and attentiveness. Unlike other aircraft (except the 767), the 787 flight crew are assigned specific sections of the plane to service the entire flight. We were lucky enough to be served by Mary Dipper, who still loves her job after 36 years in the business.

Dipper got a call back at her home in Houston, asking her to be on the flight. She said that the entire in-flight service crew each had at least 30 years of experience in the industry and many of them closer to 50 years.

“I started in Denver for Frontier in 1976,” Dipper said. “Go-go boots and hot pants.”

Whether or not the route will always be serviced by such a veteran staff has yet to be seen, but flight attendants do have to be trained on the 787 aircraft and most of those crews are still based out of Houston. (The Dreamliners were ordered by Continental prior to its merger with United and so a lot of the 787 energy has been focused around that hub.)

The other downside for this flight is that Narita Airport is an hour drive from downtown Tokyo. So unless you plan efficient transportation, you may end up wasting all those fresh feelings as you traipse through the humid airport.

Meanwhile, Haneda Airport recently transitioned from a domestic airport to an international airport. With its downtown location, this will be an interesting competition to monitor in the future.

Stay tuned for more blog posts. I have yet to sleep and have plenty to share. Sayonara!

Lead ramp serviceman Michael Paolilo guides a Boeing 787 Dreamliner departing for Houston at Denver International Airport in Denver on May 21, 2013. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

It may come as a surprise to some that — for all the talk of the Denver-to-Tokyo flight being geared toward business travelers — the Boeing 787 aircraft is not equipped with WiFi.

The 787 Dreamliner, touted for its state-of-the-art design, is a bit behind the times in terms of the world’s expectations for connectivity.

It is the only aircraft that United will fly on this new direct route and passengers will have to wait an indefinite amount of time before having internet access on the 11-12 hour flight.

A spokeswoman for United Airlines said that this was a decision made by the plane’s manufacturer, Boeing, but implied the aircraft may be equipped in the future.

It is just a matter of how long customers will have to wait before seeing that day.