Mass and Unity of Effort: Hanging Together on RE

In military doctrine, among the principles of war, the concept of mass was always my favorite. Mass is the effects of overwhelming combat power at the decisive place and time.  Until recently, that was the only thing, since my altarboy day long ago, with which I associated mass.  Since entering the energy business, I now associate mass with biomass and biogas.  As a recently minted "Methane Miner", I have been working to develop small landfills for their energy potential.  If you look at an RE map of the U.S., the southeast, which has a boat load of DOD installations, provides an opportunity with biomass.  Frankly, I don't know enough about the subject, so I am off to the world's largest biomass event in Denver Colorado this month to get my brain filled. 

The 5th annual International Biomass Conference & Expo will take place April 16-19, 2012, at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver, Colorado.  Check out their website here.  Their list of presenters is very impressive with the exception of the keynote speaker (yours truly).  Normally, Groucho and I would never join any club that would have us as a member, but I am making an exception here. 

Another of my favorite principles of war is Unity of Command.  Where Unity of Command is not possible, you must have Unity of Effort.  One of the mistakes that RE producers make is to compare themselves to other RE producers and point out the shortcoming of that other system(s) that their system does not have.  Next thing you know, some boneheaded politician (I know, redundant) is bashing the Services for their efforts.  It is bad enough that the minions from K Street are strutting the halls of Congress with their message about why the status quo must remain the status quo, we in the profession ought not fuel the fires.  We do need an “all of the above” strategy.  As my friends at OpFree like to say, “There are no silver bullets; we need silver buckshot”.   We must all pull together or we will be pulled apart.  Dan Nolan