Capturing solar energy within the commoning philosophy

[Arvind Parmessur]

Hi

I found out about this project: http://www.tunur.tn/index.php/en/about-us.html from the Keiser report  this http://maxkeiser.com/ morning.

More info. @ http://www.desertec.org/

We would be better off putting money into this type of project.

 

Regards

Arvind

 

 

[Darren Hill]

Hello Arvind,

Although I'm not sure I'm totally in agreement with everything Max Keiser thinks I like his work and his presentation style - he often makes me laugh.  Its certainly good to have financial news/analysis stuff on TV coming from a totally different angle and from someone with intimate knowledge of how the markets operate.  Its been a while since I've checked him out so it was good to see him again.

There are open source solar concentrator projects - where, like open source software, the designs are open, copyright free and can be freely copied.  Like open source software these designs are commons.

http://solarfire.org/

http://freeknowledge.eu/wiki/index.php/Renewable_Energy

http://rbose.org/wiki/FOSH_list#Solar

[Arvind Parmessur]

 Hi Darren

I agree with you that we should discriminate with what we see and hear from others. I have found Max to be very informative in the field of finance. He has been talking about corruption within the finance industries and he first to discuss "Libor" in 2007!!. I have found that he tends to introduce guests and projects/events that the main media ignores.

On the solar issue, I am a novice but was impressed with the idea that the Tinur project is non-profit and that ,once set up, the mainenance cost is not high with "free" energy in perpetuity. The programme also mentioned that Germany are on the way to be non dependent non polluting energy by 2020. Why can't we do the same here!

I believe that we got a deeply corrupt system within Parliament and Finance. I hope the Occupy and Commoning movements, working with other socially concious groups, can gradually change the system.

Sorry about this long rant. It was nice hearing from you and thanks for the links.

Regards

Arvind

[George Por]

hi guys,

Thanks Arvind for  picking up the issue of "capturing solar energy within the commoning philosophy." As I understand, TuNur does utility-scale solar export between Tunisia and Europe, which is good. However when we want to look at projects like that from a commoning perspective, we should always ask questions like: 

• What is their business model?
• Who owns it?
• Who profits?
• Are all workers also decision makers?

There are lots of companies in the green energy market. TuNur is an investor-led, classic joint-venture with shareholders. Just because they're dealing with green energy, that doesn't make them a commons. It may be more interesting to explore what i heard that in Germany, 51% of green energy installations is owned by people.