Show Notes 28 October 2022
Story 1: Scientists are developing new hybrid grapes to help the wine industry adapt to the effects of climate change
Source: Smithsonian Magazine Story by Sarah Kuta
Link: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-hybrid-grapes-the-future-of-wine-180980642/
- Here’s the problem: rising temperatures due to climate change are causing grapes to ripen faster and allow bugs and diseases to thrive.
- Add to that increasingly frequent and more intense wildfires are causing smoke damage.
- Excessive drought puts too much stress on the vines, which results in lower yields.
- And changes to rainfall patterns, coupled with higher temperatures, are leading to increased levels of humidity which, in turn, allow mildew, molds and diseases to overwhelm the vines.
- To give grapes a fighting chance, researchers at the University of Minnesota, Cornell University and the University of California Davis are using genetics to help create hybrid grapes by crossing European species with our native North American grapes that offer cold-hardiness and disease resistance, and then selecting for specific, preferred traits.
- The research team is now using DNA testing to understand where desirable traits come from in the grape genome so they can select for those traits earlier in the breeding process.
- Remember that a genome is all genetic information of an organism.
- And here’s the good news…This DNA analysis effort is already identifying the parent grapes that carry the genes researchers are interested in, which is allowing them to choose the right varieties to pair up.
Story 2: The world’s largest carbon removal project is headed for Wyoming
Source: TheVerge.com Story by Justine Calma
Link: https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/23/23353054/carbon-removal-project-bison-wyoming-direct-air-capture
- Plans are in the works to build a facility in Wyoming that will ultimately be capable of extracting 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere annually by 2030.
- The CO2 captured above ground will then be stored deep within the Earth.
- A Los Angeles-based company called CarbonCapture is building the facility, called Project Bison, which is expected to start operations as early as next year.
- CarbonCapture’s plan calls for the use of modular, 40-foot, box-like above ground modules that look like shipping containers with vents that air passes through.
- Inside each of the modules are 16 “reactors” with “sorbent cartridges” that essentially act as filters that attract CO2.
- What are these sorbent cartridges?
- Solid sorbents for carbon capture include a diverse range of porous, solid-phase materials, including mesoporous silicas, zeolites, and metal-organic frameworks. These have the potential to function as more efficient alternatives to amine gas treating processes for selectively removing CO2 from large, stationary sources including power stations. Source: Wikipedia, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_sorbents_for_carbon_capture
- These sorbent cartridges can capture about 75 percent of the CO2 from the air that passes over them.
- Within about 30 to 40 minutes, the filters have absorbed all the CO2 they can. Once the filters are fully saturated, the reactor goes offline so that the filters can be heated up to separate out the CO2.
- There are many reactors within one module, each running at its own pace so that they’re constantly collecting CO2. Together, they generate concentrated streams of CO2 that can then be compressed and sent straight to underground wells for storage.
- As the CarbonCapture equipment is modular, they company says that will make it easy to scale up.
- According to the CarbonCapture team they project will start small and work up to 5 million metric tons a year. If all goes smoothly by 2030, the operation will be orders of magnitude larger than existing direct air capture projects.
Story 3: Northwest scientists are working to see if they can convert carbon dioxide pumped underground into stable minerals
Source: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Story by Beth Mundy
Link: https://bit.ly/3ySSLRI
- As we just talked about, capturing CO2 from the air and then pumping it into the ground will help fight global warming. But what if it leaks out?
- To prevent this from happening scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Washington are exploring how carbon dioxide pumped into the ground can be converted from a gas to solid minerals by using an experimental process that takes advantage of ultrathin films of water on underground rock surfaces.
- If successful, the end result would be stable and common solid minerals, known as carbonates, that would ensure captured carbon dioxide stays underground.
- Understanding how and when these carbonates form requires a combination of laboratory experiments and theoretical modeling studies.
- Knowing how CO2 will react with different minerals can help make sure that what gets pumped underneath the surface stays there.
- Right now, at the team’s Basalt Pilot Project in eastern Washington, they are working to fully understand how this carbon dioxide to solid minerals conversion process operates before they can predict and control carbonate formation and, in turn, create plans for realistic and cost-effective systems.
- This is key research to monitor, as it could help make capturing and storing carbon dioxide underground a safe and viable tool in the arsenal of ways to fight global warming.
Story 4: There’s a Canadian company wants to build a train-plane ‘hybrid’ that can go 620 miles per hour
Source: CNBC Story by Tom Huddleston Jr.
Source: Futurism.com Story by Victor Tangermann
Link: https://futurism.com/startup-train-620-mph
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmtwfXG2MfE
- A Toronto-based company called TransPod recently unveiled plans for a fully electric transportation system [which they call a FluxJet] that looks like “a hybrid between a wingless jet aircraft fuselage and a train”.
- The project, currently in the conceptual stage, would involve 82-foot-long, magnetically levitated zero emissions trains that would carry passengers at roughly 620 miles per hour.
- That’s faster than they average commercial jet, and roughly three times the speed of most high-speed trains.
- The levitating train’s aerodynamic design is meant to reduce friction.
- The FluxJet’s theoretical ability to outpace jets and high-speed trains rests on technology influenced by “veillance flux,” a relatively new field of physics.
- Okay, time out, veillance flux has to do with veillametrics:
- Veillametrics — the measurement of sensing — is a quantified approach to the sensing of sensing itself, introducing the new concept of “veillance flux.” Veillance flux is the quantified capacity-to-sense “emitted” from sensors, as that capacity-to-sense propagates through space, reflects, refracts and scatters. Source: University of Toronto, see: https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/handle/1807/102713
- When traveling between stations the aerodynamic levitating train will fly through elevated, above ground, transparent vacuum-sealed tubes supported by pylons, somewhat like the Hyperloop train concept popularized by Elon Musk.
- And for power, the FluxJet train would rely on “contactless power transmission,” where the train would pull power from the existing electric grid through magnetic fields.
- To start, the company plans to build a nearly 200-mile vacuum tube network between the Canadian cities of Edmonton and Calgary.
- And when the system is fully operational, TransPod estimates the cost for passengers will be 44% less than the cost of a comparable plane ticket.