Keith, Thanks for your candid feedback and good ideas. Before I address your specific points and questions, let me try to clarify that the basic motivation for forming this group as I see it, through a hypothetical:
On the consumer side, if I am in New York and I'm interested in questions like: a) how my kid can ride to school in a cleaner bus b) who in NY city government can I call to demand that she ride to school in a cleaner bus c) what vehicle I can buy TODAY that can be more environmentally friendly d) why the local staff of my favorite environmental organizations don't support biodiesel e) what the heck is the connection between fossil fuels and the destruction of my downtown skyline last year f) what local businesses should I patronize that are running environmentally friendly vehicles ... it is currently quite a time consuming and daunting task to find those answers, and most people with jobs and families simply aren't going to. I think we can assist people in educating themselves on local/regional-specific level, and grow our political consituency and the market demand for BD, as a result, and in turn effect greater change. Similarly, on the business side, if I am in New York and I want to start a local environmentally and socially-responsible energy business, I'm trying to assess questions like: a) what are the local market opportunities are and who (fleet owners, building managers with boilers, etc.) controls them, b) what is the local tax/incentive situation c) who is already in the business locally that I might partner or have to compete with d) how I can get effective local PR done to help my fledgling local business grow, etc.? Or if I own a local business with a vehicle fleet and I have heard of this thing called BD but don't know where to get it, I want answers to questions like: a) what my range of choices of suppliers would be b) what the difference between buying BD from soybean oil from World Energy and buying from someone that has processed recycled oil from Chinatown restaurants would be etc. In all these cases is quite difficult to find reliable answers in context to locally-specific questions such as these. The result is fewer businesses, less economical supply, less awareness, and less demand (in no particular order). There is room, and I would argue a need, for some coherence and centralization of information and sharing of resources and experience, particularly when local issues and experiences bear on national and international issues and vice-versa. There needs to be a bridge. That does not have to be a scary corporate thing, and a group of a few dozen volunteers trying to put up a central information resource online and acting as local information gatherers does not a Redmond Monster make! :) Keith wrote: > Um... I think I'd contest the idea that that would be unlike other > biofuels lists. That you don't see any central organization or overt > coordination doesn't mean that it doesn't achieve specific goals. > Indeed it does, but not by marshalling people in any way, and that's > as it should be, IMHO. It's very open, as in Open Source, and as > opposed to Microsoft, but Open Source has achieved rather a lot, and > so have the biofuels lists, and the very uncoordinated biofuels > movement. Absolutely-- these lists are fantastic, and are making a huge difference! They are not focused on a single specific project however, and this new group is. It's neither better nor worse nor competitive. Just more specific. > I'm afraid I see this rather as yet another biofuels list. I'm a > little sceptical on a few counts. Your outline below entails a lot of > people doing a lot of work, and sustaining it. And they won't be > working at their own ideas on their own account, they'd be following > someone else's plan, someone else's vision. What would be their > incentive to do that? Unless you pay them. A lot of this work won't Yes there is a lot of work to be done, but I think we can all sense on these lists the power of community. When a lot of people are willing to share resources, the workload falling on any individual does not have to be so daunting. I disagree with the idea that group members won't be working at their own ideas on their own account, and that there is any need to incentivize us beyond the difference we can make in our respective communities. Yes I have laid out an idea and a plan and an invitation to begin it, but I hope, and in fact am counting on, the project being defined and developed far more by the community carrying it out than by any specific ideas I had off the cuff at the outset as one of the first members of the community. I'm simply committed that we see BD information and resources gathered and shared globally at a local/regional level in an organized fashion, because I believe that will make a difference. We'll see! :) > be replicable from country to country, or even from region to region > within a country, I'm not sure much of anything would be that isn't > already easily available. Such a website as you describe takes more > than just design, it takes a hell of a lot of prolonged hard work, I think it will be a new and valuable resource as soon as the initial work is done, and thereafter it will be more effective the more ongoing work is done. But the bar to jump over to make a difference in this area is pretty low in my opinion, because I can tell you from experience that it the relevant information is NOT already easily available. Your context on that may be difference Keith, because you are true expert that has devoted 1000s of hours to researching, learning and networking. But there aren't too many people in the world in your position. That's why efforts such as Hakan's business document are already so valuable. > and more. You're talking of a worldwide movement, quite a tall order. > On the other hand, there already is a worldwide movement, but it's > not centralized or planned or organized, it's about as disparate and > unorganized as it could be, and I'd say as it would need to be. What exists is fantastic. We're not talking about a new worldwide movement-- just coordination and new forms of empowerment among people already committed to sharing information and resources at a local/regional level. > There has been discussion here quite recently on representative > organizations for biofuellers and for small-scale operations, with > quite a lot of opposition to the idea. I've heard lots of sentiment on both sides of the fence on this, but regardless we're talking about sharing information, not about some membership organization or lobbying group that anyone has to join or that would ever purport to represent the biofuel community as a whole. > How would this rather corporate model that you propose address some > of the specific goals that have been addressed here? Recognizing that the answers are ultimately up to the community carrying it out, I believe that this community and web site will make a difference in the areas you raised primarily by spreading the word further to new constituencies about what's available and what's needed, and by helping put interested people outside these communities in touch with the relevant people on the existing lists. This is no silver bullet-- it's simply a coherent effort to gather and share information such that it reaches more people in a more effective fashion. Out of this you may find that some of the issues that these lists have struggled with in the past (e.g.: misperceptions with Big BD) are mitigated, or you may not. You may also find that you get offers from additional companies willing to donate materials, foundations willing to donate $, people wishing to pitch in work, etc. More exposure for what is already happening, and reaching beyond the existing constituency effectively, which this effort can provide, I take to be a good thing. <SNIP> > There are plenty more examples, it's what goes on on these lists most > of the time, along with an amazing amount of general information > sharing. None of this has required any centralized coordination, that > might have been more of a hindrance than a help. This is not a competition, and it doesn't bear at all on how great these lists are or how they operate. I'm confident that this new project will bear fruit in many areas that people on these lists care about. > Your original idea was for a "collaborative project to research, > write, and disseminate a comprehensive how-to manual / business plan > resource to encourage and assist potential investors and > entrepreneurs to initiate biofuels businesses." Fair enough, probably > doable and probably useful. Rather than this new plan, you might do > better just sticking to the original idea, making the results > available so that others facing a different situation could take it > over and adapt it to their own requirements. In Germany they don't > tax SVO, in Japan they don't tax biodiesel (maybe only because > they've never heard of it yet), in South Australia they have > impossible-sounding per-pump requirements, in the UK you have to > prove your SVO is biodiesel, in Spain they're against the whole thing > except for Big Biz. Did you know all that? It's all in existing list > archives and on various existing websites, and much besides. Hakan's > recent initiative on "Structures of a biofuel business" is more > practical and useful than an attempt at a comprehensive how-to manual > / business plan. The motivation to carry this out is exactly because of the situation you lay out. I knew some of those details, but you knew them all, and there are probably more that even you aren't aware of. If there is a web site in existence that provides the comprehensive suite of locally-relevant information to growing a BD business and market demand, and updates this regularly for each locale, please give me the link! I'll go volunteer with them in a heartbeat, and encourage people signed on to this project to do the same. I've looked for it for New York, and have not been successful in finding it. I've had local reporters complaining to me about the same thing. Tidbits sprinkled throughout listserv archives, while a great trove of information, don't serve the purpose we're focused on. > You also talked of "team players", bringing "as many stakeholders as > possible in this community into alignment" and so on, and here I > think few of us would agree, and some were openly sceptical. Quite a > few of us have found that often turns out to mean the opposite of > what it says. You say "particularly at a local/regional level", and > that's a concern with many of us, but you just can't do "local" with > a "team" that's been brought into "alignment". Local means exploiting > local niches and conditions to the full, which big and central can't > do. Local conditions are the opposite of homogenous, unlike the > allegedly level playing field that's best for teams. And local > conditions consistently elude central, coordinated, one-size-fits-all > plans. When such plans hold sway, local initiatives do not thrive. I agree that there is no one-size-fits-all-- including the smallest size! Biofuels are wonderful in not requiring global centralization and infrastructure to produce and consume, and this project is all about helping more local/regional production and consumption happen at the expense of fossil fuels. But I do think there are some markets for biofuels which that will not be viable without production on a significant scale, so I hope that some larger biofuels companies do thrive! My point was simply to be open because I saw a serious communication breakdown between parties that I hoped were all well intentioned. Shortly thereafter, you and Graham Noyes cleared up some of these misperceptions, which I was glad to see. By definition if we hope to have all fossil fuel energy consumers switch to consuming biofuels worldwide, we need to be able to operate within a very big tent and look for opportunities for alignment. That doesn't mean giving up healthy skepticism, and that doesn't mean not protecting yourself-- it just means continuing to look for opportunities for synergy, continuing to be in conversation, and recognizing that the end-game is sustainable health and peace, and not a particular model for how to get there. Thanks again for taking the time to respond with all your good thoughts. I welcome the opportunity to make our work more effective by your critique. Best, Andrew Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
