Author: Gregor J. Rothfuss

Biggest EMP in 10 ka

Today, such a superflare would be civilization-ending.

In the year 774 AD, an enormously powerful blast of matter and energy from space slammed into Earth. Nothing like it had been felt on this planet for 10 ka. A mix of high-energy light and hugely accelerated subatomic particles, when this wave impacted Earth it changed our atmospheric chemistry enough to be measured centuries later. Such an event happening today would be catastrophic. It could take out numerous satellites — the particles and high-energy radiation can short out even hardened electronics — and cause widespread blackouts. Those could take a long time to fix, since the bigger transformers used by power grids cannot be mass-produced.

2022-01-29: An even bigger EMP happened in 9125 BP. It was 2x bigger than the 774 AD one.

Recycling robots

Although labor costs vary by region, recycling workers make around $25K per year. But the robots are far more productive than humans, with an ability to pick up 80 pieces of material per minute versus 40, so each machine can handle the work of at least 2 employees, while freeing those workers to do other jobs at the recycling center. Add in other employment costs, such as training expenses, workers’ comp and PPE, and just 2 employees could cost a facility at least $70K a year, meaning the hefty price tag for the robots should be repaid within 3 to 4 years. It can help the facilities get the cleanest, best streams. AMP is making a lot of headway cleaning up the end bales that are sold and getting them to be sold for a higher value.”

2020s Technology

Therapeutic plasma exchange is FDA-approved (not for aging, but for a bunch of other conditions). I imagine there remain prohibitions on advertising that it can add years to your life, but it is safe, and a doctor can prescribe it off label. It’s also cheap. An automated plasmapheresis machine—which lets you do treatment after treatment—can be bought online for under $3000. That is less than the cost of a single transfusion of young blood sold by the startup Ambrosia. How long until someone opens a clinic offering plasma dilution? I bet someone tries it in 2021. If it works, people will get over the weirdness, and it could be commonplace by 2030.

What is more plausible this decade is enhanced and advanced geothermal systems. The legacy geothermal industry is sleepy, tapping energy at traditional volcanic hydrothermal hotspots—forget about it. The next generation of the industry, however, is a bunch of scrappy startups manned by folks leaving the oil and gas industry. The startups I have spoken to think with today’s technology they can crack 3.5¢/kWh without being confined to volcanic regions. With relatively minor advancements in drilling technology compared to what we’ve seen over the last decade, advanced geothermal could reach 2¢/kWh and become scale to become viable just about anywhere on the planet. Collectively, the startups are talking about figures like 100s of gigawatts of generation by 2030. I’m watching this space closely; the Heat Beat blog is a great way to stay in the loop. As I wrote last month, permitting reform will be important.

The 2020s will be a big decade for sustainable alternative fuels (SAF). Commercial aviation can’t electrify—batteries will never match fossil fuels’ energy density. Given political realities, aviation has no choice to decarbonize, which means either hydrogen fuel or SAF. Hydrogen fuel is much better than batteries, but still not as energy dense as fossil fuels or SAF, and so my money is on SAF, and particularly on fuel made from CO₂ pulled from the atmosphere. It is easy to convert atmospheric CO₂ to ethanol in solution; and it is easy to upgrade ethanol into other fuels. But it is hard to separate ethanol from water without using a lot of energy—unless you have an advanced membrane as Prometheus Fuels does. I have written about Prometheus before and continue to follow them closely. Their technology could decarbonize aviation very suddenly.

Construction tech is another area to watch. Whether it’s 3d-printed homes as imagined by Icon, or advanced manufactured housing as designed by Cover or Modal, there has to be a better way to build than our current stick-built paradigm. Housing costs have skyrocketed largely due to zoning rules, but construction technology is another lever by which we can increase housing productivity. This is another area where the barriers don’t seem to be primarily technological.

Thoughts on China

This emphasis on growth makes it less likely for China to develop into American complacency or decadence. There are other types of paralysis that it stands a good chance of avoiding. With its emphasis on the real economy, it is trying to avoid the fate of Hong Kong, where local elites have reorganized the productive forces completely around sustaining high property prices and managing mainland liquidity flows. With its emphasis on economic growth, it cannot be like Taiwan, whose single bright corporate beacon is surrounded by a mass of firms undergoing genteel decline. With its emphasis on manufacturing, it cannot be like the UK, which is so successful in the sounding-clever industries—television, journalism, finance, and universities—while seeing a falling share of R&D intensity and a global loss of standing among its largest firms.

2021 edition:

An important factor in China’s reform program includes not only a willingness to reshape the strategic landscape—like promoting manufacturing over the internet—but also a discernment of which foreign trends to resist. These include excessive globalization and financialization. Beijing diagnosed the problems with financialization earlier than the US, where the problem is now endemic. The leadership is targeting a high level of manufacturing output, rejecting the notion of comparative advantage. That static model constructed by economists with the aim of seducing undergrads has leaked out of the lecture hall and morphed into a political justification for only watching as American communities of engineering practice dissolved. And Beijing today looks prescient for having kept out the US social media companies that continuously infuriate their home government.

Rethinking designs

Some fun entrants:


Amsterdam’s Smart System of Underground Garbage Bins

Liquid-Filled Window Absorbs Heat During the Day, Releases It at Night
2021-11-05: A bit more on underground trash systems:

While the wave of waste tubes hasn’t materialized, Roosevelt Island’s experience gives us reason to believe that the concept is more than a pipe dream. After 45 years, the island’s waste system is still humming along. It breaks down only occasionally, when residents shove a toaster oven or a Christmas tree or some other oversized piece of trash down one of the cutes, according to chief engineer Al Digregorio. He says workers can usually clear those blockages out in a few hours.