Interesting Links for 18-01-2013

[andrewducker]

• Mobile operator 3 are censoring political satire as if it was porn.
  (tags: censorship uk phones )
• Some impressive tech came out of this year's CES. I'd like to try at least four of these.
  (tags: technology thefuture )
• How do you manage geeks? (It turns out, a lot like, well, everyone else.)
  (tags: geeks management )
• Dysaethesia Aethiopica -

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

The corn ethanol vs photovoltaics helps to confirm what I’ve long thought - if you can get efficiency of 10-20% and plug that straight into the appliance you are going to beat something with single digit efficiency and which requires a distillation process to access the energy.

I’m a little unhappy about more efficient photosynthesis through genetic engineering.

First off - it’s such a key component of plant competition that I find it hard to believe we could improve on it significantly and still remain with in the structures of plants.

Secondly - if we can then I’m a bit worried about a super-efficient plant growing all over the world.

[alitheapipkin]

Corn ethanol is a crappy biofuel. And when he says improving the efficiency of photosynthesis is a pipe dream, he means the chancing of it happening are basically nil in our lifetimes. Genetic engineering has not proven to be the magic bullet plant scientists thought it would be. (And speaking with my ecologist's hat on, plant competition is a hell of a lot more complicated than just the efficiency of photosynthesis. )

[danieldwilliam]

I absolutely believe you when you say plant competition is more complex than photo-synthesis efficiency.

I’m imagining a world where nettles or wild micanthus say were twice as efficient at photo-synthesis as every other plant and thinking that doesn’t sound like a good place to be, all other things being equal. I’d be interested very much on your insight on this because I’m sure I’m over simplifying.

Agreed on corn ethanol. When the carbon reduction figures started coming in at really low I sort of lost interest in it.

That’s what I understood when he said pipedream.

[alitheapipkin]

It isn't a good place to be no, but current GM plants don't seem to be showing signs of producing super weeds AFAIK - without actually checking the literature, which I admit I'm not up to date on given I'm not working in the field anymore and was a soil rather than plant scientist anyway.
Even plants do not live by sunshine alone. Nutrient availability, pollutants, selective grazing pressure etc etc can have big impacts, and taking over bare ground very successfully is very different from invading an existing stable plant community.

Also, we already have super weeds to some extent - look at japanese knotweed for example. A lot of these issues depend on whether these plants are already native or not.

In short, it's complicated and I could look stuff up and write an essay for you but I need to get back to work and that isn't my job anymore :)

(Also, sorry about stating the obvious re: pipe dream, I misunderstood your comment about it and am an expert at stating the obvious!)

[danieldwilliam]

I guess that quite a lot of GM plants are being modified for food yield directly (?) or for disease resistance.

I would much rather someone state the obvious than not. I’m a big fan of showing one’s workings.

The list you have kindly given is sufficient for me to see where you are going and to concur with your relatively expert opinion. I thank you.

[alitheapipkin]

Drought resistance is also a major area AFAIK, although I may be biased because people in my old department actually worked in that field. I know most rice and soya is GM these days but without doing some hunting around I'm not sure whether the primarily purpose is yield or not.

Glad to have been a help :)

[naath]

I don't think those calculations are including the cost-of-manufacture (which includes an energy cost) for solar PV; which might make it less favourable. This is not to say that I like corn ethanol biofuel as an idea either.

[danieldwilliam]

Which does make a difference.

I wonder what is happening to the energy inputs required to make solar panels. Are they coming down or are they static?

[naath]

Down a bit I think; because the technology is improving etc etc but they are still high. And some of the other inputs are AIUI not the most environmentally friendly of things...

(Solar powered electricity doesn't have to be PV; but it is the best option for micro-generation. I'm not sure how things like "use mirrors to focus the sun's energy onto a big vat of something you heat up and use to run a turbine" is working out)