Readit NewsGreenhouse gas solution? no.
Ammonia will (and does) leak into the environment where it becomes a part of the natural nitrogen cycle. The end result of the natural nitrogen cycle is N2O (aka laughing gas) which is a greenhouse gas 250-350x more powerful than CO2.
Running the world on ammonia, even if logistically possible, will likely accelerate climate change, not slow it.
Dead Comment
It's curious that the response to bringing back mammoths and less-stripey-zebras is so lukewarm when there's very little of the same criticism directed at efforts to save obscure species that are in decline. Say it was discovered that a small herd of quagga had survived since we thought they died out in 1883, but without human intervention they will soon due to habitat loss. Imagine: "Why would we want to save them? The world is inhospitable to them now, their population declined for a reason. They have no use to us, and their niche isn't one that couldn't be filled by living species that we could import. To keep them from going extinct would be a cruel and irrational act of ego."
If the cost of a chicken egg was $10,000 it would likely not be worth the trouble. At $0.15 or $0.60, though, chicken eggs provide an excellent value and are nice to have around!
The real question here is why intervene to keep a species from extinction? The answer is that genetic diversity is massive valuable. The trouble is that the value assessment is very hard to calculate concretely and that value is also very hard to extract in the form of direct profits.
Let’s take the banana as an example.
The global banana market had sales of about $140B in 2023… clearly people value bananas. Today 99% of global trade in bananas is in a single variety, the “Cavendish” banana. But it was not always so. Until the 1950’s the world’s dominant banana was the “Gros Michel”. Over the course of the 1950’s the Gros Michel went commercially extinct as a result of “Panama Disease”. Researchers scoured the world to find a banana not susceptible to Panama Disease that could replace the Gros Michel in commerce. What they found is the Cavendish.
Today, a new strain of Panama Disease has evolved to target the Cavendish. Extinction of Cavendish is proceeding more slowly than that of the Gros Michel, but it seems more or less inevitable at this point.
The fact that we are likely to see 2 varieties of banana go commercially extinct within a single century, is kind of nuts. It seems that the half-life of a commercial banana variety is less that 50 years. The only reason we still have commercial bananas today is because of the rather deep genetic diversity in bananas the earth continued to possess in the 1950’s. That genetic diversity is significantly diminished today.
If we value the banana market as a perpetual annuity with the 2023 growth rate of 7% and a discount rate of 3%, the net present value of the banana market to the citizens of the world is approximately $3.5 Trillion.
How much is it rational to spend preserving this perpetual annuity? Anyway you slice it, the answer is very big… and very much bigger than is currently being spent to preserve the genetic diversity of the banana today.
What was the value of the American Chestnut tree? Hard to say, but it is clear that the loss was massive. I've read estimates that the American Chestnut provided (as fodder) something like 10% of the energy for the pre-extinction American transportation system as well as a substantial winter food source for all kinds of livestock, game and people. Just as transportation energy the yearly value of the American Chestnut would have been about 2% of US GDP.
- Figure out a way to parameterize joints
- Create an automated evaluator that uses finite element analysis
- Evolve joints with a genetic algorithmNo. You can't simply use whatever joint you want and expect the glue to deal with the (sometimes enormous) forces applied to it.
A good craftsman would not choose a joint that would see such high stresses.
Additionally if the glue is chosen and applied properly, the wood that the glue adheres to should fail long before the glue.
That said, glue is not as simple as it may seem. There are many different types and proper surface prep and application makes a huge difference to ultimate strength.
For example, many people will mix 2 part epoxy until it "looks mixed" which for a clear epoxy happens pretty quickly. In truth, the resulting bond strength is far more closely related to the amount of mechanical energy that has been transferred into the mixture than the visual uniformity.
Lots of ways to go wrong with glue... but a good craftsman should be well aware of these.
I would caution anyone thinking of doing joinery this way to consider whether it's actually suitable for the application. I was at a coffee shop once where absolutely every chair in the place was starting to fall apart. The reason was that the joinery was all some variation of half-lap, which doesn't constrain the movement of the pieces in all of the directions that matter. Once the glue failed, the chairs started coming apart.
I would also add that the corner joints meant to replace dovetails or a box/beehive joint are unsightly with all the required dogboning and will not improve aesthetically with the addition of glue. I would further point out that there are already quick ways to cut dovetails or box joints with a router quickly and efficiently. It would be hard to convince me that there's a truly useful role for cutting an uglier version of a box joint on a CNC.
Source: am a furniture maker who does some CNC work.
With the exception of the joints labeled "...with key" these joints are all very remote from the types of joints used in traditional Japaneses temples which do not use glue.
These are mostly western style joints, which are also very beautiful and useful, but generally expected to be assembled with glue.
Great resource!
To little, to late? Maybe.
Surely very little, surprisingly late.
There are so many great reasons to distrust "The Science"... perhaps the greatest is that without powerful and persistent skepticism, science simply isn't science. Questioning and skepticism is profoundly fundamental to the scientific process. "Trust the science" or worse yet "Believe the science" are statements that are about as destructive to the foundation of science as one can get.
The whole point of science was that everyone has access to the true nature of the universe which we can discover through theorizing and experimentation. Empirical experience is the great equalizer that puts the Arch Duke of Where-and-What or the Highest of High Priests the on the same footing as, say, Joseph Preistly or Benjamin Franklyn. Questioning and skepticism must be accepted from all quarters. To say that only the most select, distinguished and credentialed can be admitted to the discussion smacks of priesthood and aristocracy.
The argument that we need to re-persuade the people to trust in science is missing the point by such a wide margin as to be a symptom of the problem.
It is more or less the same as fretting that people aren't going to church so much any more.
The science should not be trusted. The science should be tested. Those who say "Trust the science" have completely lost the thread.