1) The amount of knowledge that "erupts" here is significant. At present there is no way to capture the key elements of a debate or expose them to later critique. Development of a "project" page, or an resource composed of "working papers" would avert transitional loss of intellectual capital.

 2) We often see the invocation of the "technological fairy," some technological fix which, if immediately applied, would resolve everything. The recent debate on Fusion power is one example. It would be just as worthwhile to identify technological dead ends as it would be to identify possible lines of solution.

 3) EROEI is a valuable concept. I had not seen this applied outside of anthropological studies of hunter-gatherer practice until I came to TOD. It would be worthwhile to do formal EROEI studies on such topics as fuel ethanol so that they can be revealed as bogus soluitions if that is in fact what they are. Such a resource would help prevent public bamboozlement and pork driven political decisions.

 4) The availability of working papers would help prevent us  from reiterating the exact same debate six months later. Xaxat recently provided an image which perfectly illustrates this lack of progress here:
http://www.gilbert-garcin.com/chrono/photos/photo_1999_4.php

 5) The compiled working papers would be available for public distribution as PDF or similar. This would help communicate the issues to a broader public.

 6) If a working paper indicates a solution that may be of economic significance then the co-op could coalesce around it. It would also be helpful to provide economic studies that highlight the technical, economic, or social roadblocks to a possible solution. Another reader may be able to innovate around those roadblocks and transform a "dead end" into a viable solution. I am taking for granted here that our bottom line is a search for viable solutions rather than individual economic return. Both would be nice.

 7) The working papers repository would provide a collection of studies that TOD might rework into publication form for general sale. This would both get the word out and provide economic sustenance to the TOD project.

 8) I am sure that there is an item 8 and equally sure that some other TODder has it on the tip of their keyboard. :-)