Two years ago the first posting about Stranded Wind appeared here, an assertion that wind driven ammonia would be the future of both nitrogen fertilizer and liquid fuel. This Is The Hydrogen Economy garnered 13 comments. 358 days later the National Renewable Ammonia Architecture put on its initial appearance.
2009 has been far different than the glorious, sometimes terrifying romp of 2008, but upon reflection the work is just as important as my thinking on the water/food/energy axis was the previous year.
The 2008 diary crop was what the farmers would call a 'bin buster' – 224 of them averaging a thousand words each along with a number of other writings, primarily on The Cutting Edge News. I ruthlessly trimmed the junk, about a hundred topical diaries of no long term interest, and I herded 110 of the best into an outline for a book, which I then promptly ignored.
I was packing to leave Massachusetts on New Year's Day, bound for my brother's house in Missouri. The phone rang and a quick conversation ensued – one day of consulting in eastern Illinois, would I take it? I'd recovered somewhat from Lyme thanks to treatment in the fall and I was delighted to go back, if even for a day.
I resurfaced again 55 days later with Renewable Fertilizer, Regional Vegetables, having worked about 700 hours patching up an ISP that had been neglected by the previous engineer for a couple of years. It was a close run thing, but the plant now runs as well as can be expected for something built of equipment six to nine years old. That one day job mutated into permanent part time with a living wage and time to do other things.
The first other thing I did was scoot off to DC for the A New Climate For Energy: EIA 2009 Conference. I got to meet Robert Rapier and I spent a good amount of time back in Massachusetts with Peacerunner.
May 11th was a landmark day for me – the second revision of the National Renewable Ammonia Architecture was published. Expanded from 2,500 to 6,500 words and being nearly complete, in my estimation, and I began looking for outlets beyond The Oil Drum. I was introduced to the Illinois Institute of Rural Affairs and a 2,000 word policy briefing on renewable ammonia should be one of the first things I announce on the energy front in January or February of 2010.
Equally momentous, although not recognized at the time was the March 22nd Reputation Economics (Following Markos's Tweets), which I wrote in an attempt to expand upon Scout Finch's Twittering Class, an introduction of the Kossack leadership currently on Twitter. I've long been a fan of Bruce Sterling, who coined the phrase “reputation economics”, but I never dreamed where it would lead.
I believe the first time I ever wrote anything about unions was June 22nd's Weapons Of Mouse Destruction, a tribute to felis cattus laboricus, the working shop cat. The International Brotherhood of Shop Pooties diary series never really took off, but the pooties returned later for a key role in the story of 2009.
I was busy the whole summer and finally got free in the fall for Netroots Nation 2009. I traveled to Pittsburgh on the Capitol Limited, sharing a sleeper car with Kossack Ben Masel. The convention itself was good, but the events of the final hours while we stragglers awaited our trains may have been a game changer: the creation of the Blog Workers Industrial Union. Credit for the old time sounding name goes to Ben but the organization, now at 158 members, wouldn't be where it is today without the tireless duo of Spedwybabs and the curiously named AndSarahToo. `
The initial thought behind the union, namely that we'd punk wingnuts with a fake labor dispute with George Soros, rapidly fell by the wayside; there were simply too many people out of work and too much opportunity to not put it to work.
First came ProgressivePST, a social media consulting venture focused on Progressive Democrats. No mere theory, the first checks from paying campaigns began drifting in right before Christmas. Kossack AnotherMassachusettsLiberal, having his green building materials store bowled over by the housing downturn, has launched Peanut Butter PAC. The union is going to get behind this – it's amazingly convenient to have someone pop up ready to do something we've been needing as part of the overall organizational ecosystem.
The union itself has a new tool that's going to be taken into production right after the first of the year: a help desk running Best Practical's Request Tracker. We've got a couple of folks who've installed and support this before, and we're hoping the workflow management the system provides will take some of the juice out of the circular firing squad and hand wringing seen on the wreck list and direct it to winning campaigns, driving ballot initiatives, and then on to actually paying work for the organization's members. We believe the Open Government Directive spells support work for someone, and while we have nothing against native Hindi speakers who need work, we'd like to see U.S. Stimulus dollars actually spent in the U.S.
There are other bowls of stone soup to be had from the economic development cauldron of the Blog Workers Industrial Union, but we'll hold off saying anything until the papers are signed and the dollars begin to flow. If you have an idea that needs some firming up and maybe a little tech support to get it moving I'd be delighted to hear the details.
These are puzzling, tumultuous times as we face Burgundy's triumvirate of collapse: energy, economy, and environment. Even if we navigate the unwinding of the massive fraud perpetrated by Wall Street during the Bush years a reinvigorated economy will bang headlong into the decreased liquid fuel supply brought on by peak oil. Coal is the only high volume fossil fuel solution available to the U.S. Once the public truly understands what hydraulic fracturing for natural gas does to water supplies, this easily available energy solution is the worst for our rapidly changing climate, and it's the one we'll pick. The world as we knew it has moved on, a fact that will become increasingly (and painfully) clear in the very near future.
If you want a better sense of where this is all headed I can make no stronger recommendation than Bruce Sterling's Distraction. This post collapse political thriller set in the Gulf Coast region has been as good a prophecy as one might find for what lies ahead for our nation. If you see me doing something that seems clever you'd do well to return to this novel; you're almost certain to find the roots of some new initiative within its pages.
I penned this a week ago and I must say as I prepare to post that instead of winding down things are actually picking up here on New Year's Eve. I've got training for the new help desk system going in a Google Wave window, I'm hearing about new customers for Progressive PST that are finding their way to us today, and many things that were theories a month ago are going to be cold, hard facts in January. Whee!!!!!