Bill James

The Prime Law of Networks is that the value of a network increases exponentially with the number of interconnected nodes. I am old enough to have commercially used teletype machines for communications. When 2% of our trading partners had FAX machines, no one needed one. When 5% had FAX machines, everyone had one within 3 months. The same was true of emails. Networks cascades are exponential. We are witnessing the cascade into renewables because of decades of efforts have been made to network the human community needed to create a critical mass of awareness, regulations, and supply chains. When I look at contacts in LinkedIn, I often click on the recommend connection links. This has been a great help.

Renewables and energy storage are at the same scale of deployment as when a 20 megabyte hard drive cost $1,200. It seems important to gain experience with the tools available today without becoming bound to a technology that will be eclipsed. One technology that JPods are binding ourselves to is grade-separation. Overhead guideways simplify the complexity of self-driving vehicles. Grade-separation: 1. Radically curtails the long-tail risks of self-driving cars on roads. 2. Eliminates linear barriers on the commercial and community plane that is the street. 3. Provides a platform for using the distributed nature of the transport networks to harvest distributed solar energy.

Recommend reading "The Scrum Fieldbook" and "Outsmart Yourself: Brain-Based Strategies to a Better You", Lecture 23. Happiness is a predictor of performance, not an outcome of it. We set up weekly scrums with questions of: 1. What made you happy in your tasks this week? 2. What can be done to reinforce those events, people, and tasks? 3. What made you unhappy this week? 4. What can be done to reinforce those events, people, and tasks? Write down the results each week. Make a chart that can be shared with a team. What gets measured, gets done.

Leverage AI to prioritize and distribute metrics on the value of renewables. Metrics remove the weird politicizing of renewables. Creating a series of questions people can as any of the AI platforms. This provides a 3rd party verification of the metrics. Questions must be specific. JPods solar-powered transport networks example questions: What are the Wh per passenger-mile JPods PRT and other transport modes? What are the GHG emission levels for solar-powered JPods PRT and other transport modes? What are the equity benefits of JPods PRT relative to other transport modes? What advantages do JPods and other PRT networks have over mass transit for quality of service?

Start small, iterate relentlessly. The difference between wisdom and knowledge is scares. Focus on a niche. Define a minimum viable product. Produce that product so customers reward you will purchases or punish you with indifference. Fail fast, fail cheap, document and learn from it. Adjust and repeat. Brilliant ideas are a dime a dozen. Commercially viable ideas are rare. Only customers can sort the viable from the brilliant. With enough experience/scars strategic choices might become clear enough to be acted on.

The single biggest failing I have found in the renewable industry and Climate Change activist is a failure of metrics. Specifically: 1. The 140,000 miles of freight railroads (US) average 470 ton-mpg. This is 188 times more efficient than moving a 200 pound person in a 2-ton car with the 25 mpg efficiency of the Model-T. Since The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916, 45% of railroads have been replaced by roads. 2. Massive funds are being spent for electric cars that are 1-3 times more efficient than ICE cars. 3. Modern PRT networks are 20 times more efficient that highways. Morgantown's PRT has provided oil-free, injury-free transport networks since President Nixon's daughter opened it in 1972. Policies do not allow PRT networks.