Sponsors Biodiesel & SVO Home Biodiesel & SVO Forums General comments about Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial Project Using the Open source model
Biodiesel & SVO Home Biodiesel & SVO Forums General comments about Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial Project Using the Open source model Read-Only Topic|
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bnordgren,
It would be good to have more organization at the cbt than we presently have. I think our lack of formality and organization are mostly products of the size of the group and the size of the pool of "experts" we can draw upon to contribute. We might have 10,000 people in the US with working knowledge of making biodiesel. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands of people with a working knowledge of IP addressing or a working knowledge of linux (to site two major and formal open source initiatives). There is also the monetary incentive. With the CBT there is very little. At least not the billions of dollars that are at stake on outcome of IP6. or the millions of dollars that are at stake with linux. A networking company can afford to have five or six of its employees join working groups for IP6 to try to get their ideas at least considered by the group. In homebrewing, those kinds of resources don't exist. You've got to get people to donate time out of their busy lives without any hope of compensation. Having been involved with the cbt since it's inception, I do think having an official "Manager" could be beneficial. We have actually found an "IT" person to address some of the behind the scene security issues and a "Manager" might be a good addition. I see the job as a something of a project manager that coordinates the activities of the group productively. So far no one has stepped up to offer their time in such a position. |
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Wow. I'm sure this is not how you meant it, but it took you less than two paragraphs to tell me that your efforts will never bear fruit. People make the time for all sorts of efforts which have no monetary returns. Is the "practicalization" of biodiesel really less worthy of effort than maintaining trails, joining the American Legion, the Elks, volunteering at the fire department, attending "Dragon Con", coordinating the next Star Trek convention? Of the two open source initiaves you cited, Linux for sure would not be here today if Linus Torvalds gave up before it caught on. What Linux is today is what your organization could be in a decade. Open source/volunteer projects acquire a critical mass (in terms of a following) over time if they are of sufficient quality and if they are sufficiently accessible to interested people.
In the last week I've "discovered" the biodiesel community. You know what I've found: there's an incredible wealth of practical knowledge in many aspects of biodiesel production. There's also a frustration, certainly in the algae community, that certain basic questions remain unanswered after decades of tinkering. You know the scariest part...I get the impression that "community biodiesel" considers itself separate from the scientific and industrial communities. Not complementary, not uniquely positioned, but separate and alone with no support, funding or hope thereof. Imagine for a moment that you were an actual non-profit organization with a charter for standardization and education in the field of biodiesel generation. Your near term goals are to secure voluntary industry partnerships to ensure that the "Appleseed" processor is manufacturable. This group is the neutral entity which allows the consensus development and distribution of reference platforms; industry has a means by which their products could be certified compliant with particular designs. But this is a means to an end: the equipment was really designed and instrumented to be part of a distributed science experiment tailored to answer some persistent question (clever you). Poof, you are now in a position to compete for an NSF grant where you subcontract the production of 100 instruments, draft an experimental procedure and educational materials, and coordinate the activities of 100 middle-school science classes strategically sprinkled across 100 congressional districts, listing partial salaries of 100 school teachers as in-kind contributions on the proposal. And if this ever happens, well then you just dragged the kids parents into it too. The URL to the main project website gives them links to plans and the advice to download the plans directly or to buy a kit (assembled or not) from any manufacturer sporting the "Appleseed Inside" logo. (Yes there will be a policy for awarding the right to display the logo and it can be based completly on technical merits rather than monetary licensing fees.) Your place is not on the "fringe" of the biodiesel movement, it's right in the middle, where the cutting edge becomes widespread. (Easy example for distributed experiment: make a simple little algae grower with a calibrated light source on a timer, a heating element and a controller. Each school group has an assigned algae species, a target temperature, a nutrient cocktail and a timer program for the light. Class records the amount harvested, the amount of oil extracted via method X, and enters the data on the website. Classes can see the results of all the experiments (as can we) and can draw conclusions about which nutrient mix, temperature, light timer program, and extraction method has the best yields.) But most important, consider the consequences of success. Right now, widespread adoption of a WVO processor only implies a WVO shortage. It certainly is a waste stream which needs to be managed intelligently, but this is not a practice everyone in the US can adopt all at once. Make success count. Because your time is so valuable, make time on biodiesel be time well spent. I might step forward to be a manager temporarily if you all can be convinced to think bigger. But you'd have to start looking for my replacement from day 1 because I'd really be gunning for science advisor, if you'd take me. |
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bnordgren,
I consider the cbt a success already. Yes, there is room for improvement. If you would like to get involved in the project then I suggest you read and join the cbt forum. It's a small forum and shouldn't take too long to read the whole thing. Some of the topics you bring up have already been discussed over there. Again, I feel the CBT is already a success! It gets people such as yourself started on a success path. Your still in the very beginning stages of exploring biodiesel. Was not the CBT helpful for you? Once you have absorbed it, the great folks on this forum can help with the more advanced topics, you just need to ask. |
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Again, I stress that I offer this with a great deal of respect, but the cbt does not address the reasons I began looking at biodiesel. The cbt is extremely helpful at the nuts-and-bolts operational level. Perhaps the best way to say this is that I am looking for something more fundamental--prerequisite. If the popular image of an imminent fossil fuel shortage is to be accepted (as I expect it should be), then it stands to reason that a replacement must be found. WVO can in no way be that replacement--not for everyone. Other technologies hold promise and deserve attention.
For the most part I've watched others ask what questions I've had. I've read the NREL's wrap-up report for Biodiesel from Algae. We apparently don't have enough land to replace fossil fuels with soy-generated-biodiesel. There is only one identified technology with the potential ("algae"-based). The one catch is that large farms in the desert can't be competitive at wholesale prices. Well crap, I'm not attached to my yard, and if it can compete favorably with retail rates, I'd be all for it. Even moreso if I could bubble stack gasses from my diesel furnace/woodstove thru the pond in the winter. But there's no plans or talk of an end-to-end system like this. The low-hanging fruit of WVO seems to be distracting the community from realizing that the problem which draws people to sustainable alternatives really isn't being addressed by WVO to biodiesel. But this may be a false inference brought on by the lack of an expressed goal. You see, success to me means marching down the road to a solution, even if it's difficult. I consider the absence of purposeful closure on a solution to be ongoing failure. That's what goals are for: making people think about what problem they're trying to solve, what a solution might look like, and how to measure success. I guess I need you as a group to formulate a plan so that I can evaluate your estimation of the solution and judge whether your position is persuasive enough to merit a committment of time. I guess this might be why OS software projects (especially the ones without stalwart commercial support) usually put this basic info within easy reach of anyone who happens across their site. Perhaps you don't really need a Manager at all. Rather think of it as a "Facilitator". It really sounds like the core members of your team need to sit down in a room/on a telecon/on IRC and not leave until Mr. Facilitator has gotton you to figure out what problem you're trying to solve and how you want to measure success. |
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There you go. You just hit on what the CBT is all about. There are other places to learn about the other issues you raise. For instance biodieselnow has a large contingent of algae people as well as discussing the more esoteric issues. There are environmental / political sites devoted to sustainability and end-to-end solutions. The CBT is all about the nuts and bolts of making biodiesel from WVO. There is still much work to be done just in this area. I'm not sure we need some formal organization with bylaws and strict adherence to parliamentary procedures. The folks involved just want a place where newbies can learn the basics of how to make biodiesel from WVO. |
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Perhaps example is the best cure for this mental hurdle. Take a look at the Apache Software Foundation's main page http://www.apache.org. On the left, you'll notice all of the projects they've accumulated in the past ten years. But I want you to click on the "Introduction" link under "How it works" on the right. I just glanced at my original post again, and it does appear that I was suggesting that your little, highly focused project take over all the administrivia functions of a multinational orginization. I formally withdraw any requests along those lines. My suggestion now (and what I meant to say then) is that a community be formed where your highly focused project could exist just as it does presently. The community provides services (web hosting, issue tracker, "knowledge base" sw) to your project and others like it. Because these many varied projects are members of the same community, the community becomes large enough that annual/bi-annual conferences are realistic. But organizing the conferences is not on any project leader's head. Rules and procedures aren't evil if they stay out of the way. Apache seems to have found a good balance of organization and meritocratic freedoms. So I pose this question to you, which you won't understand until you read up on the apache site: If an organization structured like the Apache Software Foundation existed and the focus was on capture, storage, conversion, and utilization of energy, would you be willing to have the CBT become one of the first podlings? Note: I'm seriously interested in this, so I'd appreciate more than just yes or no. I'd like to see what the reasons are and if it is possible to address objections. |
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bnordgren,
You might get more responses if you asked these questions on the CBT forum. |
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Allright, now I'm confused. Isn't the title of this forum "General Comments on the Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial?" Which of the other forums is the CBT forum? Maybe I'm old fashioned, but the [projectname]-users/[projectname]-devel mailing list pair works extremely well.  |
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This forum is for comments from the general public and users of the Tutorial. (after publishing)
There is a separate forum used by the group to prepare articles for the Tutorial. (before publishing) The separate forum is also where the group discusses "Policy" issues. click on the link below to go to the Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial page writing forum http://www.localb100.com/forum/ |
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I couldn't agree more, sometimes there is a need for a lot of dedication and perseverance to make an idea a reality and it is usually worth the effort. ___ http://www.mylinuxgang.com/ |
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You might also look at the GNU/Free Software Foundation model: http://www.gnu.org/ http://www.fsf.org/ Check out their copywrite notice:
In fact, wondered about some things on this site... Dr. Pepper - Patent Pending... is that an inside joke? Or something more twisted? Anyway, I fully support the idea of a free distribution of a knowledge base. And, hope people can avoid the temptation to point fingers at each other. Lately I've been absorbing various WVO conversion ideas. And, seeing people selling 50 cents of welding wire for $50, then criticizing others for wanting to do the same thing. Let's try to work together to progress towards a CLEANER FUTURE. |
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Sponsors Biodiesel & SVO Home Biodiesel & SVO Forums General comments about Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial Project Using the Open source model
Biodiesel & SVO Home Biodiesel & SVO Forums General comments about Collaborative Biodiesel Tutorial Project Using the Open source model© Maui Green Energy 2000 - 2008