I work in the Science Centre of Delft, a place that people of all ages can visit and get acquainted with TU Delft technologies. When walking through the building, we can see high tech innovations such as superconductivity trains, live flying simulators and 3D printers and scanners. In the back corner of the building something weird is going on. This corner is a bit smelly, like a trash can that has been left open. If you follow the smell, you would climb down the stairs, to the basement, where it is dark and moist. Open a door and you will find something very exciting: a Do It Yourself Bio fermentation installation. Here, biogas is won through the fermentation of bio waste. Ofcourse, this causes the smell.
This Social Ecological System (SES) is quite simple: The installation is being fed with all different kinds of biowaste (Resource units such as lunch leftovers) from all different faculties of the whole campus (Resource system). Unfortunately, there are no constant users at the moment, except for the occasional exhibition by the Science Centre itself (sometimes they extract a bit of biogas to torch a small flame). The Governance System is the TU Delft, of which the Science Centre belongs to. In the end, the TU Delft would posess the power to get the Biogas installation at full speed. They could make sure that Sodexo, the operating catering service at all faculties collects the biowaste and transports it towards the Biogas installation. It is important to know that at this stage, the system is not "running", in the sense that almost no waste is being collected from the campus because the resulting biogas cannot be used or sold yet.
Now, how can the Friedman principle be put to use in order to sustainably manage this SES? Friedman argues that companies only strive for profit maximization and that social values are not their responsibility. In case fo the Science Centre, which is largely funded by the TU Delft and the Municipality of Delft, striving for profit maximization is not their core business. However, in order to receive the funds, they have to convince their funders that what they do is usefull and within the Science Centre's scope of desired achievements. And in that sense, it will be very difficult for the Science Centre to become a large biogas production station. Funds to the Science Centre are meant to be spent on education of children, students and promotion of the TU Delft, not to be spent on becoming a competitive energy supplier. So, in order for this SES to grow larger, the Science Centre is not a good platform.
Then how can this SES be managed to grow into a large scale system where, say, all TU Delfts waste is used to make biogas? A better platform would be an organization with goals and material flows that allign with the biogas system. A farmer may be an interesting platform, since their material flows consist of bio-products and they have the space to increase the capacity of the system, whereas the Science Centre basement will become to small.
Then how can this SES be managed to grow into a large scale system where, say, all TU Delfts waste is used to make biogas? A better platform would be an organization with goals and material flows that allign with the biogas system. A farmer may be an interesting platform, since their material flows consist of bio-products and they have the space to increase the capacity of the system, whereas the Science Centre basement will become to small.
Interesting system and you identified all roles in Ostrom's framework clearly. Here I would like to make a few remarks which hopefully can be useful for you.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenFirst of all, in your analysis you mentioned all kinds of bio-waste are the resource units, which I agree. However I think besides bio-waste, the fermentation equipment/set-up should also be considered resource unit.
Secondly there is something I don't understand. You mentioned there are no constant users but occasional visitors, if so, I would assume the system won't be in operation when there is no visitors. Fermentation of biomass is a continuous process, if they keep this system running, there will be biogas being produced continuously, if they don't have a user to get rid of the biogas, they would need to have a storage system. Do they have any storage for unused biogas? Or do they have a small lamp there burning the generate gas all the time?
Regarding the second part of the blog, I think it is a good proposal to find a client to sell the biogas to. I would like to think along. According to Friedman's proposation, this biogas 'business' would only care about making profit, which would include trying to increase demand (promote biogas like you have mentioned) and increase supply so that they can sell more. Imagine if in the end they can use all the biowaste from the cafeterias, maybe the next step they would take is from . the neighbourhood, and then opening different factories in different universities and neighbourhoods, that sounds exciting!
Hey Zejun,
BeantwoordenVerwijderenThanks for your reply! Your thoughts give me new insight in the system. I agree that the equipment and setup is something that affects the system in a great way. However I don't guite understand how the equipment can be a resource unit? Is it because the equipment consists of materials that have to be extracted from somewhere? Could you enlighten this?
There is indeed something vague about the usage/storage of the gas. Unfortunately there is still no client that is commited to buying the gas. And what you say is true, it is a constant process that delivers Biogas. So unfortunately, a large part of the produced gas they have to let it go without use, only sometimes they store it for events etc.