Why is Bord na Mona building gas power plants? That doesn't seem like something it should be allowed to do?

I kind of feel the vibe shift started in 2018 - when the first tech-skeptical articles started in the NYT. (Right around when Google search started getting bad)

Vivici sees 30% boost in titers, yield, via cell productivity tech from Enduro Genetics Tech can "unlock the biomanufacturing industry from just being focused on specialty products to more everyday products," says Enduro Genetics

Agfunder article: agfundernews.com/vivici-sees-...

Underlying research: www.pnas.org/doi/epdf/10....

The result is a large increase in product production. Vivici - a beta lactoglobulin producer - reports a 30% productivity increase from using an Enduro Genetics plugin.

This is a big milestone on the journey toward cost-competitive engineered dairy.

But ... what if you inserted a biosensor that required the cell to have product proteins in order to reproduce?

This is what Enduro Genetics has done. They replace genes for cell-wall synthesis proteins with mutants that require the presence of product proteins for expression.

One of the problems of using engineered microbes to produce dairy proteins is that even in very short production batches, genetic drift reduces yield drastically.

This is because mutated microbes that sabotage their engineering reproduce faster than those that have the burden of producing proteins.

https://fervoenergy.com/enhanced-geothermal-has-been-proven-at-scale-heres-what-two-years-of-production-data-show/

Fervo (Fracked Geothermal Co.) has a review of its first production pilot (600 days operating).

The interesting part: the 1st field data on whether fracked geothermal can be a counter-generator in a renewables heavy grid. The answer is partly: but batteries may be a better solution.

Hawthorn Shieldbug - I think

That graph is a chart crime though.

We must get back to the original concept of the university as a place where second+ sons between the ages of 14 and 18 are trained for the priesthood.

Students should be under canon law, not civil law, and self-declare as Picards, Normans, French or English.

And no modern nonsense like Thomism.

Trump administration orders dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service Late Tuesday afternoon, with the subtlety of a wrecking ball and the morality of a foreclosure notice, the Trump administration announced the most devastating attack on the U.S. Forest Service in the ...

Amidst everything else, the Trump regime has quietly killed off the U.S. Forest Service 🌲

“One hundred and ninety-three million acres of your national forests… just handed, on a silver platter, to the people who’ve spent their entire careers trying to destroy it.”

www.hatchmag.com/articles/tru...

Weird way to introduce a carbon tax - but 👍I guess?

U.S. Forest Service unveils extensive closures of research facilities Cost-cutting move is expected to cause resignations and turmoil

What will happen to the 82 USFS experimental forests around the country? Many sites have decades-long experiments that are tracking how forests are changed by timber harvesting practices and climate change. As I say here, “you can't just pick up an experimental forest site and move it to SLC.”

I wonder if CRISPR tattoos will become a thing in the future - splicing encoded text or image into a highly
preserved region of mitochondrial or Y chromosome DNA.

My latest column: Ireland’s data centre policy will drive significantly greater fossil fuel use, contradicting multiple statutory and policy targets which require rapid reductions instead.

www.irishtimes.com/environment/...

Potatoes that stay fresh for 2 months without sprouting ...

The problem is that what is often widely reported from the research is *only* the 8.5 result because it is the most sensational - despite it being highly unlikely.

It does seem though, like many nations in Europe need to give up on energy self sufficiency at the national level and shift it to a bloc-level goal. e.g. Germany can't have cheap power without Spanish solar.

Wow. Let’s double down on tying ourselves to a high risk fuel instead of accelerating offshore wind and electrification of transport, building and industrial heat.

How on earth does that make sense?

This is something out of 1950’s pulp sci-fi.

That war planners relied on LLM outputs for *strategic* war decisions should horrify ANYONE that has worked with them.

Ireland’s plan is to take 10% of its grassland and feed it to anaerobic digesters to make wildly expensive biomethane.

I'm surprised to see methane emissions were so low (0.1% of total C balance). What mechanims keeps emissions this low compared e.g. to hydro-dam lakes where fluxes from drowned soils are much higher?

... and geothermal for building heat

Unibio plans ‘world’s largest single-cell protein plant’ in Saudi Arabia as food security moves up agenda Construction is expected to start in the second half of 2026, with commercialization in 2028, says Unibio CEO David Henstrom.

Using fossil methane to grow protein for animal feed plumbs new depths in unsustainability:

agfundernews.com/unibio-plans...

Austin’s Surge of New Housing Construction Drove Down Rents After decades of explosive growth, Austin, Texas, in the 2010s was a victim of its own success. Lured by high-tech jobs and the city’s hip reputation, too many people were competing for too few homes....

From:
www.pew.org/en/research-...

Austin supply side reforms to housing development increased supply and decreased rents:

'Transformation' in Sussex seabed marine life after trawling ban The Sussex Kelp Recovery Project says a "quiet but powerful transformation is unfolding beneath the waves".

Great news from the south of England where life is recovering five years into a trawling ban.

a "quiet but powerful transformation is unfolding beneath the waves" 🐟

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Natural gas is a great climate transition fuel in the sense that once you're on it, you realize you have to transition off it ASAP.

A little over-polemical I agree.

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors Are Mostly Bad Policy - CleanTechnica People saying SMRs are a primary answer to energy generation don't know what they are talking about, actively dissembling or intentionally delaying.

Michael Barnard summarizes the case for pessimism about Small Modular Nuclear Reactors:

cleantechnica.com/2021/05/03/s...