Updating David MacKay's 'Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air'
Current progress can be found here.
My experience of David MacKay was of a brilliant, patient, and kind person who I was fortunate to have had some, albeit it too few, conversations with. His book "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" is a rational and strategic assessment of how the UK might power itself sustainably.
As we approach the 10th anniversary of his death I was reminded by Anil Madhavapeddy of a plan to update the book with the changes to the UK's energy system that have occurred since the book was published in 2009.
This is a big undertaking and one that I will not be able to complete myself so the plan is to make it into a wiki which will allow it to be kept updated at by anyone going forwards. I have a few questions:
1. Who should I ask for permission to modify David's work?
The contact link on withouthotair.com gives a 404. Both William Sigmund and openDemocracy are mentioned. The openDemocracy link is a 404 but should probably be updated to point at this page https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/energy-without-hot-air-start/. After some searching I haven't been able to find William Sigmund yet. If anyone knows who manages the website I'd be grateful if you could put me in touch with them please.
2. I'm not sure how to update the book and publish it respectfully
I think it would be best to publish it under the same name of "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air" but I've never done anything like this before so I don't know what's either considerate, possible or wise? Any thoughts or guidance on this would be gratefully appreciated.
3. Who would like to help with this project?
I have started with chapter 6 on Solar by copying some of the key numbers and equations onto the WikiSim platform which I am building.
It will certainly be a case of many hands making light work. If you'd like to help please let me know by email.
Current Progress
It currently looks like this. This is a temporary micro-site though so expect its link to be broken when the project moves.
The current micro site also has its code embedded within my larger personal website so needs a little work to stand it up independently of my site, or shifted somewhere else.
But before doing any of that work it makes sense to answer questions 1 & 2 above first.
WikiSim
Whilst I think it is a suitable platform for this project if there is one with a better fit please let me know. WikiSim is all open source, and all open data, so the data would be trivial to scrap, and republish to another platform.