Alternative Energy/Commons based cases in AE

Answer the questions:

Commons based cases (the cases that we know will appear in the right part of the quadrants)

Identify cases

• International Energy Agency (IEA) Technology Implementing Agreements
  • http://www.iea.org/Textbase/techno/index.asp
  • Allows interested IEA and OECD countries as well as non-member governments or other organisations to pool intellectual, technological and government R&D funds resources and to foster the research, development and deployment of particular technologies.
  • Currently there are renewable energy Implementing Agreements in:
    • Bioenergy http://www.ieabioenergy.com
    • Geothermal Energy Research Technology http://www.iea.org/tech/gia/index.htm
    • Hydropower Technologies and Programmes http://www.ieahydro.org
    • Ocean Energy Systems http://www.iea-oceans.org
    • Photovoltaic Power System (PVPS) http://www.iea-pvps.org
    • Production and Utilization of Hydrogen http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/hydrogen/iea
    • Solar Heating and Cooling Systems http://www.iea-shc.org
    • Solar Power and Chemical Energy Systems (SolarPACES) http://www.SolarPACES.org
    • Wind Turbine Systems http://www.ieawind.org
  • Many other agreements exist in energy efficiency end-use technologies for transportation, industry, and buildings.
  • Altogether there are 41 Implementing Agreements that incorporate task-sharing, while some incorporate cost-sharing.

• Solar-Aid
  • http://solar-aid.org/
  • solar energy charity for the developing world
  • Microbusiness approach: encourage beneficiaries to develop their own solar or solar-powered businesses/sustainable technologies (Is this information shared?) [[1]]
  • Educational Programs
    • Zambia community centres [[2]]
    • Solar for children [[3]]
  • Solar hearing aid recharger manufactured by Godisa Technologies
    • [News Coverage]
    • [Godisa Page]
  • It appears that information exchange in terms of design and implementation is critical to this organization yet externally posted information was not found. More follow up should be done to investigate this.

• Energy Citations Database
  • http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/
  • "The Energy Citations Database (ECD) provides free access to over 2.3 million science research citations with continued growth through regular updates. There are over 209,000 electronic documents, primarily from 1943 forward, available via the database. Citations and documents are made publicly available by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)." (from the home page)
  • Since this is a database of government documents the work is in the public domain (see Data Rights: http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/disclaimer.jsp#datarights)

• An open source toolkit for utility automation and wind power applications
  • This paper appears in: Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition, 2008. T&D. IEEE/PES
  • ISBN: 978-1-4244-1903-6
  • INSPEC Accession Number: 10014137
  • Digital Object Identifier: 10.1109/TDC.2008.4517111
  • http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4517111
  • An open-source Toolkit for constructing IEC-61850-based systems for a variety of utility automation applications. I will need to investigate how to read the full article since I was not able to initially access the publication.

• MAKE: Alternative Energy Gift Guide
  
  • http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/11/alternative_energy_gift_g.html
  • The projects are designed to focus on learning concepts involved in solar, wind, biodiesel, and nuclear energy creation while also creating something practical. For example: MAKE Magazine- Volume 14 contains a "Solar Power System Desig" that explains how to use solar panels to supplement your home electricity needs. Another example is in MAKE Magazine - Volume which contains "Wind Powered Generator" instructions on how to build an inexpensive windmill generator.

• Pure Energy Systems Wiki: Finding and facilitating breakthrough clean energy technologies
  
  • http://peswiki.com/energy/OS
  • This is a wiki devoted to sharing energy technology using open source licensing. The site provides a place for posting project information and discussing results. Over all, it looks like an idea that never took off but the lack of success should teach us something too.
    

• Alternative Energy Network by Open Source Energy Network (OSEN)
  • http://www.osen.org/
  • This site provides a forum for sharing alternative energy technologies (it wanders outside our scope) under open source licensing. In addition to discussion, the site provides document upload and search abilities. The site has very few participants and low growth but the model may be instructive.

• Google Energy Information
  • http://www.google.org/powermeter/
    • http://groups.google.com/group/energyinformation/browse_thread/thread/b58a34221e048603
    • http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/googles-energy-ideas-might-emerge-under-open-source-licenses-or-not/
  • Google's charitable arm, Google.org, has created 'Google PowerMeter" which provides real-time feedback on energy consumption. The purpose of this project is to promote smarter power consumption. It is not yet clear whether the code will be released under an open source license (as is hinted at in the nytimes article) or if their will be community elements to the project.

• Eco-Patent Commons
  • http://www.wbcsd.org/templates/TemplateWBCSD5/layout.asp?type=p&MenuId=MTQ3NQ&doOpen=1&ClickMenu=LeftMenu
    • http://blog.wired.com/sterling/2009/02/the-smart-plane.html
    • http://news.cnet.com/Eco-Patent-Commons-shares-earth-friendly-tech/2100-13844_3-6225735.html
    • http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39292114,00.htm
    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSnY3bO-kyY
  • Environmentally related patents pledged by members of the commons are made available to members as well as non-members. Currently there are 95 patents and the focus does not appear to be on alternative energy. Despite the lack of focus on our topic I included this because the project may grow into the topic area given some of the large companies contributing.

• Facebook Group: Americans for Alternative Energy
  • http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2207495974
  • The productivity of such a group should be approached with skepticism but it is worth noting that the "officers" of the group appear to be US representatives. Apparently the coherent goals of the group include sharing news on alternative energy and "sending a message" to political leaders.

• US Department of State: Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
  
  • http://www.state.gov/g/oes/rls/fs/2006/75369.htm
  • Summary: 2006 data in URL results in 404 ERROR, 2009 data is available
    

• International Climate Change Information Programme (ICCiP)
  • http://www.iccip.net/
  • A commons-based information site that has 104 climate change report on its site and pledges to spread climate change awareness internationally through information dissemination and education.

Correlate them with their main outputs (Data. Narratives. Tools)

Data

• Google Energy Information

Tool Kit

• Energy Citations Database
• An open source toolkit for utility automation and wind power applications
• MAKE: Alternative Energy Gift Guide
  
• Pure Energy Systems Wiki: Finding and facilitating breakthrough clean energy technologies
  
• Alternative Energy Network by Open Source Energy Network (OSEN)
• Eco-Patent Commons
• Facebook Group: Americans for Alternative Energy
• US Department of State: Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
  

Tools

• No commons tools found. This may be due to the high barrier to entry as well as the high cost of product. For example, a wind turbine blade

How and in what extent they are “experimenting” or “adopting” commons-based approach. Are they adopting OA policies, for instance? Are they adopting Social Responsible License approaches?

partial answer only The most striking use of commons based narrative licensing was the [Energy Citations Database] with its [permissive data rights policy]. The size of the database is large and the scope of the energy topics is wide. What makes this less impressive is that the publication contained are largely government documents so they would be put into the public domain anyway but the organization and centrality of these resources speaks to the value they hold within the field.

Identify these cases and treat them as entities that will also be placed in our mapping device (the quadrants)

coming soon

• Google Energy Information(open source licensing hinted at, community contributions to possible, sharing of energy usage information is also a possibility.
• Energy Citations Database (permissive data rights license, central control of content added, no ability to tag or alter data)
• An open source toolkit for utility automation and wind power applications
• MAKE: Alternative Energy Gift Guide
  (a teaching tool/model, user contribute further ideas for kit usage)
• Pure Energy Systems Wiki: Finding and facilitating breakthrough clean energy technologies
  (open source licenses, open information exchange)
• Alternative Energy Network by Open Source Energy Network (OSEN)(never launched?, user generated content, open licensing)
• Eco-Patent Commons(selective sharing of large company patent portfolios)
• Facebook Group: Americans for Alternative Energy(distributed content and material creation, content must fit within the confines of strictly regulated facebook environment)
• US Department of State: Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs
  

Identify what actors are participating on this and what actors are just observers (Use the questionnaire to guide your research when appropriate - Carol will select specific relevant and helpful questions)

coming soon

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