Meeting update

It was good to see so many people show up Saturday.  Thanks to everyone
for coming.  Sof, Alexander and I proceeded to get each other nice and
sick, so I apologize for the delay getting this out.

A lot was discussed in the meeting, and I'll try to summarize here:

Everyone present agreed that the fundamental structure of the co-op is
not viable.  It's nobody's fault, the model is broken.  We came up with
a variety of ways we might proceed and agreed to meet again in about 3
weeks.  I'll add my thoughts to each one about the challenges and
potential I see.

1) Go commercial.  Piedmont Biofuels on the east coast started about the
same time we did and have since gone into commercial production.  We'd
need to raise at least a million dollars to do this, probably more like
ten.  Personally I am not interested in pursuing this model.

2) Dissolve.  We could simply call it quits, liquidate the gear, and
part friends.  As many people have pointed out, we've built up a lot
over the years and it would be a shame to just let it all go.

3) Advocacy.  One option would be to abandon fuel production and focus
on advocating for biodiesel.  This is something we've always been good
at, and one I'd put time into.

4) WVO sales.  Another thing we've been good at is collecting waste oil.
We could continue to do that and provide the oil for sale.  I do see
some challenges with that model as all of our collection is based on the
collectors getting fuel in return for picking up oil.  Without that I'm
not sure there is any reason why collectors will continue to collect.

5) Form a new organization.  It's entirely possible that some or many of
you still believe in the original model strong enough to continue on.  I
don't have faith in the model any longer, so that's not something I am
interested in pursuing, but if the board were presented with a solid
plan and good leadership we would support turning over the equipment to
such a group as dictated by our bylaws.

6) Distributed production.  This proposal aims to coordinate many
homebrewers and oil collectors together.  No central production -
instead individuals would produce fuel in their garage or backyard and
sell/barter unused fuel with others.  This is an interesting model.  

I do see some potential roadblocks with a distributed model.  It is
legal to produce small quantities of fuel on residential land in
Portland for personal use - according to Felix a maximum of 10 gallons
of methanol are allowed to be stored residentially which limits batch
sizes to 50 gallons.  I don't know if it is legal to produce fuel for
sale on residential land but I kind of doubt it.  Assuring uniform
quality is likely to be extremely costly and quite hard - see below for
a proposal from Leo that might mitigate that.  Coordinating such an
effort is potentially much more complex.  I wonder about efficiency --
I'm not at all sure that having dozens of small production sites will be
either energy efficient or environmentally friendly.  Without 100%
methanol recovery producing biodiesel causes as much damage to the
environment as burning gasoline.  Dealing with waste products is also
liable to be quite challenging.  Tax collection might be tricky.
Getting liability insurance will probably be quite hard, and the
liabilities are too large without insurance.

7) Combination of above.  We might decide to do two or more of the
above.  I believe we should focus on one thing, and do that one thing
well.

Leo followed up with a number of possible avenues as well:

A) Testing lab.  We could establish a testing lab that any homebrewer or
co-op could send us fuel.  We'd have to do this ourselves, as Jordan
points out no institution would partner with us and allow students to
certify fuel because of liability issues.  This is likely to be costly,
and much work would need to be done to organize, but it would definitely
provide a service.

B) Distribution.  In conjunction with the above, the co-op could collect
fuel from homebrewers, test fuel and distribute it.  The liability
issues here are large.

C) Waste management.  The co-op could collect and/or process waste water
and glycerin from homebrewers.  Interesting model, one we don't have
experience in but something that could be quite valuable.

D) Training.  The co-op could become a place for training homebrewers.
Also a good potential model, though we'd need a strong cirriculum, and
there may be others trying to do that as well.

Regardless of the path we choose, if we do decide to move forward we'll
need to radically strip away the requirement for management.  I'm not
sure if that is possible in all of the proposed models, but the numbers
just don't work out with paid, skilled managers.

Blue skies,

-B