Greenhouse Mending

  Vince and Audrey Cilurzo developed one of the first wineries in the Temecula Valley of Southern California.   They recognized that (contrary to the scientific consensus) there were enough cool fogs to grow red wine grapes.   Then they fermented and aged those grapes into great red wines. But, that is not the key theme of this post.   The key is their wonderful heresy.   The American oak barrels used for aging wine are expensive, and French oak bottles are even more expensive.   As a startup winery, the Cilurzos experimented with a radical change.   They aged their wines in steel tanks … with thin strips of oak lathe floating in the tanks.   They achieved the delicate oaky sub-taste, to which many have grown accustomed over the centuries, at a much lower cost.   That model could apply to farmers, ranchers, or a local coop entering the wine-making business on a small scale.   Just as micro-breweries returned beer consumption to a m...

  Two energy commentators in Oilprice, Leonard Hyman and William Tilles, noted that the COP26 climate conference of 2021 was one of many news events suggesting that there will be a resurgence of nuclear fission reactors. However, they started their comments from the other end, “Why Did Nuclear Power Fail the First Time Around?” They listed three major reasons.   First, the giant quasi-governmental projects (which are essentially scaled up submarine reactors) are expensive in management, construction, and grid stability when a giant unit is down for any reason.   Second, people were concerned about the worst-case possible disasters from those giant reactors, even if the bottom-line risk is small.   Third, people are skeptical about storing nuclear waste for thousands of years.   Hyman and Tillis mentioned small manufactured units as a way to reduce costs by half and reducing the size of any potential disasters.   Meanwhile, they caution that the p...

 Because there are now vast burned-out areas, begin replanting these areas (thinly!) with trees or other plants that are better adapted to dryer and warmer climates than the present species.   By some accounts, this is already starting to happen in some burned-out areas.    However, foresters could help speed the process.   Furthermore, tree replantings should be an assortment of species native to the local area and nearby areas.   This would allow nature (rather than people) to pick winners and losers based on changing climate in future decades.   In cases of large burns, it would also reduce the tremendous advantage of trees whose seeds are spread widely by birds versus those that are only spread by squirrels.   Finally, forests with an assortment of tree types are more productive in drawing down carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

      Back in November 2021, Brian Wang’s Next Big Future   (and several pro & con Youtube videos), described how the startup company, Spinlaunch, managed to mechanically hurl a test payload into the sky.   The ultimate goal is to sling a payload so fast that it could reach orbit.   An interim goal would be hurling a rocket launcher at a lesser speed that would still be fast enough to replace the first stage of the rocket and greatly reduce fuel combustion used for launching material into space. The test facility has what looks like a propeller with a giant arm on either side of a central hub.   The two giant arms turn at high speed inside a giant enclosed partial-vacuum chamber.   At just the right moment, the payload is released.   It rips through a membrane into the air and is flying.   The ground crew can then replace the membrane, place a new payload on the propeller arm, pump the chamber back down to vacuum, and start the...