ISG_RSAP 2017_Corbett

Entlebuch and Lucerne
On the way to Lucerne, we stopped in the Entlebuch biosphere, a
quaint little self-sustainable town. There, we visited a sawmill run
by an incredibly smart entrepreneur. He was able to see use in the
byproducts of his sawmill and began to provide heat and hot water to
the whole town. His advice for success: you will only learn so much
from school, you have to learn to think ahead and think for yourself.
My highlight from Lucerne was hiking Mt. Pilatus. We stopped about
halfway up the mountain for a few hours to spend time on the ropes
course, then we headed to the top for and incredible view. Our way
down the mountain was on and incredible mechanical engineering
feat. One of the steepest trains in Europe is built up the side of the
mountain. It was a incredibly cool ride down. Once back at the
bottom, we embarked on a marvelous cruise across the lake to get
back to Lucerne.
As we left Lucerne, we stopped at the Grimsel Power Plant to learn
about how they create hydroelectric power. Their facility was very
impressive, and they are able to produce power for the entire town.
However, the most astonishing fact was that they had to slow
production because of the large amounts of wind and solar power
coming into Switzerland from Germany. They had too much power
purely from renewable resources, just further emphasizing how far
behind the U.S. is when it comes to clean energy production.