Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

How do you get so far into a project before you even realize that you have such a show-stopper problem? Move fast / fail fast works with software because iteration times are quick and penalty per iteration is low. But just building stuff and hoping it works and then realizing major problems doesn't work so well with real-world stuff. Couldn't they have "workshopped" this with non-functional item to see what the real world roadblocks would have been before a deep investment?

This is especially the case in high-risk unproven areas such as cleantech where the solution space is vast and potential problem areas significant. Any problem area can kill a project, so why are we progressing so fast to build first?

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#5

Post by fullstop » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

I initially read the domain as "Charmin Industrial" which is an entirely different use of corn cobs, but also possibly fuel of nightmares.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#6

Post by carbadtraingood » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:25 PM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #4

How do you get so far into a project before you even realize that you have such a show-stopper problem? Move fast / fail fast works with software because iteration times are quick and penalty per iteration is low. But just building stuff and hoping it works and then realizing major problems doesn't work so well with real-world stuff. Couldn't they have "workshopped" this with non-functional item to see what the real…

They discuss a bit in the article, but the material they had prototyped with was very different than the material they tried to scale up with.

It sounds like their scaled up plant accepted a wide variety of materials, but this one specific input stream slowed them down.

So they weren't shut down while they figured this out, they just processed the material they knew they could process until they had a solution here.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#7

Post by rexreed » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

carbadtraingood wrote: post #6

rexreed wrote: post #4

How do you get so far into a project before you even realize that you have such a show-stopper problem? Move fast / fail fast works with software because iteration times are quick and penalty per iteration is low. But just building stuff and hoping it works and then realizing major problems doesn't work so well with real-world stuff. Couldn't they have "workshopped" this with non-functional item to see what the real…

They discuss a bit in the article, but the material they had prototyped with was very different than the material they tried to scale up with. It sounds like their scaled up plant accepted a wide variety of materials, but this one specific input stream slowed them down. So they weren't shut down while they figured this out, they just processed the material they knew they could process until they had a solution here.

Why would you prototype with a material that's substantially different from the real-world item? I read the article and this bit puzzled me. The differences clearly matter, and the $300M bankruptcy they reference in the article even makes that point.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#8

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:28 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#9

Post by SV_BubbleTime » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

carbadtraingood wrote: post #6

rexreed wrote: post #4

How do you get so far into a project before you even realize that you have such a show-stopper problem? Move fast / fail fast works with software because iteration times are quick and penalty per iteration is low. But just building stuff and hoping it works and then realizing major problems doesn't work so well with real-world stuff. Couldn't they have "workshopped" this with non-functional item to see what the real…

They discuss a bit in the article, but the material they had prototyped with was very different than the material they tried to scale up with. It sounds like their scaled up plant accepted a wide variety of materials, but this one specific input stream slowed them down. So they weren't shut down while they figured this out, they just processed the material they knew they could process until they had a solution here.

I’m starting to believe the idea that long term zero percent rates have made MBAs in charge of almost everything completely careless to the historical realities of business where you have a product and process before investing tons into a system.

It seems to me that with “endless free money” we miss things like “this one input stream will be a nightmare, let’s not do it”.

Re: Corn Cobs: Fuel of Nightmares

#10

Post by truffdog » Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 3:31 PM UTC

rexreed wrote: post #7

carbadtraingood wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They discuss a bit in the article, but the material they had prototyped with was very different than the material they tried to scale up with. It sounds like their scaled up plant accepted a wide variety of materials, but this one specific input stream slowed them down. So they weren't shut down while they figured this out, they just processed the material they knew they could process until they had a solution here.

Why would you prototype with a material that's substantially different from the real-world item? I read the article and this bit puzzled me. The differences clearly matter, and the $300M bankruptcy they reference in the article even makes that point.

Probably they want to handle wheat waste and corn waste long term. Seems like there should be plenty of both to go around