Re: Meeting update

Hi Brian,

Long time, no talk..........See #3, I like that. In
spite of all the hoopla, B'Diesel still is not a
widely accepted fuel by Jack 'n Jill Mainstream.Nor is
diesel tech. I've tried, in vain, to get a major
league road racing program going, using the VW TDI, as
the race platform.
Maybe some of the co-op energy could be used to fast
track the fuel & the new tech.

Bill Isbister
Cool Planet Racing - 'CPR'
Portland, OR. 503 244-7178
--- Brian Jamison <[email protected]> wrote:

> 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
> 
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>
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> 


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