You may have observed that this blog is posted under a domain name called osenergy.org. OS doesn’t pertain to Operating System, or the Eygptian God Osiris, rather it means Open Source. Open Source Energy defines a methodology rather than a type of energy. However, the methodology, itself, is a very potent form of energy.

Having been involved with Free Software from the early 90’s, it’s easy to infer how a similar approach could be applicable to the development of technologies in a way equally successful. Even this blog you read runs on Free Software, or as the Business World prefers to call, Open Source. Different licenses like to claim to be about one party or another, but ultimately the effect is the same. The essence of software that is freely available is that it is source code that is freely available, or like a nickname I enjoy using, freesource. It’s a beautiful system that quickens the process of development, and enhances the quality of life for millions, if not billions of people.Other sites like the Open Source Energy Network have picked up on this approach in a powerful way. When the future of the environment is at stake, and when the lives of billions of humans, plants and animals are at risk, not to mention the economic stability and the peace of the world, does it make sense to go around technological innovation in the same “Business as usual” sense? Or has the time arrived when the collaboration of the great minds of our world needs to be approached in a free and open manner?

In earlier, prolific times, inventors would come out with similar designs almost at simultaneous times. Although they shared some basic knowledge, ultimately, many were driven by desires to enrich their hard work via patents. It’s these patents that are the driving force today behind huge corporate greed, and literally a direct cause of the inability of large businesses to act in a fully honest and concrete way to address Global Warming. Until we can all work together to build a solution, putting trillions into peace time research solutions rather than wars, and until that time comes when we can base such success on a model not built on greed, we will certainly confine ourselves to solutions that can only slowly prevent the onslaught that our human existence has created in this world.

People who otherwise would commute with their bicycles will often point out that it is the hills that impede them from this appropriate form of transportation. There are different approaches that Cities can use to facilitate solutions for steep hills. However, the Bicycle Lift Trampe in Norway takes things to a Higher Level.

The beauty of this system is that is takes up such a small footprint. Imagine a sidewalk with the track installed close to the road, well don’t imagine, look.

There is something incredibly exciting about this design. It fits into the scheme of things .. it’s like it belongs there!

Morgantown, WV would benefit from this in many places. This is why I’m writing about the Trampe in the first place. As a Bicycle Board member of the City of Morgantown this source of information came from a member of the newly formed Pedestrian Safety Board.

It is a great start for this Blog. Because you see, everyone, everywhere needs to do whatever they can to make this world we live in sustainable to the highest degree. By this I mean, we can’t continue the way we have been using fossil fuels that release CO2 to provide our energy needs. The only CO2 we should be expelling is CO2 from our lungs as these bicyclists are doing. Ofcourse, it could be correctly argued, that with the Bicycle Lift Trampe, even they are producing less of the stuff.