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Geoff Staneff

@gstaneff.bsky.social
387 followers 456 following 1.3K posts

Former thermoelectrics and fuel cell scientist, software and data product manager; current forestry startup guy trying to reduce the impact of future wildfires. PNW based, have visited high intensity burns this year from Northern BC to the Sierras. He/Him

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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Are they booking the revenue (growth), but discarding the emissions? That's a choice (disengenuous). Same choice Microsoft makes when it claims Use of Product is beyond their 'boundary' when providing services to drilling companies in the Permian Basin (to the tune of 50k bpd improved yield).
news.microsoft.com
ExxonMobil to increase Permian profitability through digital partnership with Microsoft - Source
Permian application to generate billions of dollars in value over the next decade and drive capital efficiency Potential to expand production by as much as 50,000 oil-equivalent barrels a day by 2025 ...
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
CeₓCo₄Sb₁₂
Ball diagram of Skutterudite's crystal structure.  There are 8 boxes in the unit cell, each with a different element in the center position arranged such that only the greater unit of 8 repeats.  In CeₓCo₄Sb₁₂ there are square rings of Antimony (light blue balls) in flat, horizontal, vertical, and missing (void space suitable for a rare-earth dopant - red balls) filling the large cobalt boxes (blue balls).  The point group is m3̅.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
Skutterudite's crystal structure is amenable to substitution and dopants, it was the mineral root for my thesis work on thermoelectric materials. Quartz is fine and all, but we explore Skutterudites for deep space power applications where radioisotope decay is the power that goes the distance.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
8 hour warning! We're in Seattle tonight at Rhein Haus at 5pm. Forestry, Startups, Robotics, Remote Sensing, GIS, Wildfire, and so forth!
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Similarity is the inverse of dissimilarity, & discarding poor matches turns each token into a universal search against all known combinations (costly). They should be good at this. They cannot tell the difference between unique & useful; a different kind of task than splitting smooth & rough.
The "Unique" Demotivational poster.  A black framed image with text at the bottom.  In a large font is the word "Unique" and as a sub-head the phrase: "Just because you are unique does not mean you are useful" The image selected for this poster shows 8 forks in a row, the third fork from the left is badly mangled, exemplifying how standing out from the crowd needn't always be the useful path.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Next Thursday Forest and Friends will be in Seattle, at Rhein Haus from 5-7:30 (Sept 24). We’ll be geeking out, enjoying the taplist, menu, and friendship while we talk forests, startups, GIS, policy, etc. I’ll be wearing a hardhat and cruising vest – feel free to walk right up and join our table.
luma.com
Forest and Friends - September 24, 2026 · Luma
As we approach the end of September, and the start of fall in the Pacific Northwest, we can start to feel the change in the air (and notice that it is getting…
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
It has taken fossil fuels (lithospheric carbon elevator) ~250 years to push the climate into clear and obvious danger. How is AI meant to act on the real world on an abbreviated ~10yr timescale? Being smart is not enough, regular smarts are ignored all the time; that's the prior.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Compressor failure on the A.O.Smith, the previous gas one lasted 25 years so this isn't presumably a lack of know-how from the incumbent. How do they plan to intervene in construction early enough to make configuration and installs easy?
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Which of the global manufacturers is theirs a rebrand of, and if not a rebrand how do they intend to provide reliability/servicing that the majors struggle with? I'm currently replacing a 6yo A.O.Smith Hybrid with a Rinnai that appears to have come from the same factory as the Bosche offering.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
A "use clustering to detect outliers" example from Data Smart can be performed physically in a 9 person class (or with marbles of 3 diameters, a box, and 2 perforated screens). It has the extra benefit of showing the outlier to sit on the median of a bi-modal distribution, instead of off one end.
Stick figure recreation of a stick figure diagram in the book Data Smart, showing the members of the fellowship of the ring arranged by size.  There are 4 tall folk, 4 short folk, and 1 folk of middle size: Gimli, Dwarven Outlier.  The example develops a physical intuition for using clustering techniques to detect outliers, and subverts the usual concept of an outlier by making clear the outlier can exist at the median value and not just well above or well below the distribution.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
I always liked Data Smart because instead of coding in the latest tools it developed the algorithms in excel. The kludgy awkward constraint meant you got to understand what each algorithm was doing as you built it up in small parts. Maybe there is a physical analog to lean on in your domain?
strandbooks.com
Data Smart: Using Data Science to Transform Information into Insight
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Halite, because Geologists believe you should eat one small rock each day. Alternatively Graphite, but only talk about graphene, fullerenes, nanotubes, and carbon black (because minerals are definitionally naturally occurring, not artificial nor worked forms). Halite - Graphite is the dream final.
theonion.com
Geologists Recommend Eating At Least One Small Rock Per Day
BERKELEY, CA—Calling the average American diet “severely lacking” in the proper amount of sediment, Geologists at UC Berkeley recommended Tuesday eating at least one small rock per day. “In order to l...
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Replaced the previous post, apparently the preview card is cashed with the post and it had a prominent calendar related typo.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Wow, end of August already! Forest and Friends is on, later today, from 5pm-7:30 at Cascadia Pizza in Bellevue WA. Come talk forestry, climate, startups, smoke, and fire - it is especially relevant as this fire season churns along. Short notice, but hope to see some new folks!
luma.com
Forest and Friends August 27, 2026 · Luma
Oops.  It is already the end of August and the last Thursday of the month.  That means it is time for Forest and Friends… later today.  Yeah, this is the…
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
School starts for the kids on Monday and Tuesday and I'm already living in dread/that future week! I've update the invite info, we're still in August here on Normal Human Earth. Hopefully it propagates?
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GrumpyUncleSean🔥 @grumpyunclesean.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
1/4 Fast fires don’t just burn more area. They can also change what comes back afterward. In a new Science Advances paper led by @coopecology.bsky.social, we looked at how rapid wildfire spread relates to burn severity and postfire forest recovery across western and boreal North America.
doi.org
Faster, bigger, more severe: Extreme wildfire spread sets the stage for forest ecosystem change in western and boreal North America
A relatively small number of rapidly spreading wildfire events burn disproportionately large areas. But beyond area burned, do fast fires produce distinct postfire ecological outcomes? Here, we measur...
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
The reductio ad absurdem comes quickly: 1) The largest material output of human activity is CO₂ 2) Negative Emissions proposes to create a larger industry ex nihilo 3) The operation of that new industry depends on human activity Sure, it would be nice if everything were different, I guess?
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
That's even being extraordinarily generous, Gorgon is a carbon positive sequestration facility and ... not working so much as intended. @timinclimate.naruresearch.com.au had the Gorgon breakdown here.
timinclimate.medium.com
Gorgon carbon capture and storage project: The failure of the world’s largest CCS facility
After decades of abject failure, these days even the most enthusiastic proponent of carbon capture and storage can at best mount a muted…
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Jonathan Coop @coopecology.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
Our new paper assesses relationships between wildfire rate of spread, area burned, and severity in western + boreal North American conifer forests 2012-2023. Take home message in the title: faster--> bigger--> more severe. With @grumpyunclesean.bsky.social, @jessforplanet.bsky.social and more! 🔥🧪🌍
science.org
Faster, bigger, more severe: Extreme wildfire spread sets the stage for forest ecosystem change in western and boreal North America
A relatively small number of rapidly spreading wildfire events burn disproportionately large areas. But beyond area burned, do fast fires produce distinct postfire ecological outcomes? Here, we measur...
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
This is quite comprehensive for symbol lookup in a variety of fields. It has your Z and ℤ and ζ. Common math ¾ ≠ ∞ and chemistry CO₂. It even has 4 categories with arrows, for when folks need to really make their point ↬ I always have it at the ready, even if I build the stoichiometry manually.
symbolsalad.com
Symbol Salad
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Thanks, this site is always useful! I see you've got recent fire perimeters, satellite detections, and air quality reports... over a very wide range. How do you keep that map so snappy with all those layers? If you are taking requests, cumulative smoke exposure (by season) was a great chart.
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Nathan Santo Domingo @nsdwx.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
I haven't been doing as great a job sharing the Smoke Blog this year, so I'm going to start! Today's post has a lot of good info in it from smoke/heat safety to indoor air quality tips to when the smoke will start to clear. #wawx #wawildfire #SmokeReady 🔗 wasmoke.blogspot.com/2026/08/smok...
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Washington State Dept of Natural Resources @wadnr.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Please stop flying your personal drones over wildfires. They can ground or collide with our firefighting aircraft, disrupting time critical firefighting and threatening people’s homes. Your photos are not worth someone’s home. If you fly, we can’t.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Model-Based Testing says hello. These tools really encourage you to polish your turds rather than flush them, it'll never tell you this or that was a dumb idea and you should take a step back. Classic management vs. leadership: Doing things right vs. doing the right things.
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Meade Krosby @meadekrosby.bsky.social · 01/08/2026
Hard to see this when resources and communities in Eastern WA and OR are already stretched thin dealing with existing fires. Large swathes of Washington east of the Cascades face a “Particularly Dangerous Situation” with this Red Flag Warning - rare, dire language from the NWS.
kiro7.com
‘Extremely critical’ fire danger Saturday in central, eastern Washington
As August begins this weekend, a very serious fire weather threat will develop east of the Cascade crest due to strong westerly winds and low humidity.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
Wish there were more details here. Bonneville power has been wrecking havoc with interconnection projects all over the place and DOGE fired staff there even though they were self-funded positions. There were plenty of other locations, indeed a project for the Yakama was similarly stalled/stopped.
propublica.org
The Department of Energy Promised This Tribal Nation a $32 Million Solar Grant. It’s Nearly Impossible to Access.
Washington’s Yakama Nation received both the grant and a $100 million federal loan. Held up by a series of bureaucratic hurdles, the funding could expire before the government lets the tribal nation t...
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
In a very real sense, the economics shouldn't be allowed to decide. They literally aren't with existing coal, oil, & gas infra propped up via direct & implicit (boundaries drawn to externalize env. impacts) subsidy. What is bad about overbuilding? You don't make as much return on equity?
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Jim Whittington🔥 @jimwhittington.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
The PNW took another hit of lightning. 20 new fires in WA and 26 in OR. Of those, 8 turned into large incidents, giving WA 9 large fires and OR 34. Existing PNW fires saw 133,443 acres of growth Friday. 14 IMTs are committed across the two states. 2/
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
We're go for Forest and Friends, Thursday in Bellevue WA. Fires and smoke making the news now, it'll be top of mind for sure as we've had a few weeks with lightning bursts, but we've got a lot of forestry and forest health to talk about. Photo of a pyrocarb to the north by @brad604.bsky.social
luma.com
Forest and Friends - July 30, 2026 · Luma
Welcome to fire season in the PNW!  I’m sure you’ve seen the smoke, felt the heat and wind, and heard the thunder that comes with copious dry lightning on our…
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Mike Flannigan @mikeflannigan.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
Graphs showing cumulative area burned and carbon emissions in Ontario. Note in terms of area burned 2021 is the top spot but 2026 is top spot in terms of carbon emissions. Both are correct. The reason for this is that the 2026 fires are more severe - consumed more biomass (greater depth of burn).
Cumulative area burned (hectares) in Ontario.Cumulative total carbon emissions from wildfires in Ontario 2003-2026
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Don't sleep on Lime-Cucumber. I didn't believe the hype; that was a mistake.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
When validation is on the server, they decide what goes into the product. Without a long-term stand alone install, like their LTSC, they can change the way the app works at will. You can't work without authenticating and authenticating introduces the risk they'll make an update you don't want.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Do you have a local install (e.g. 2019 or earlier, on physical media), or a cloud version (o365, cloud, app-store, subscription)? If you are using a cloud version your options are limited. Working offline might give 30 days, but you are gated already. Office 2021 LTSC might do what you need.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
*Commercial* being super important here, we've had RTGs on probes, rovers, and originally satellites, since the 60s. I don't like cubesats, with a ½-5 year operating lifetime and up to 25 year orbital hazard. We shouldn't be in the habit of throwing junk into LEO, don't want to get locked in.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Capability quotas and performance code rather than project by project inspection. The law of triviality is real; planning cycles can take 5-20 years for projects running several months – that’s from a multi-generational push to make government the problem. Administrative discipline is a solution.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
The public realm needs to be able to get big things done quickly. Not by suspending the rules but through selecting the "most good with the least bad" option available at each decision point capable of meeting the performance and service expectations set by civic oversight. Less micromanagement.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Private infra already outruns civic, slowing civic infra further with more review relative to private makes current infra-decision making even worse. We got the Eisenhower freeways through our cities via civic outsourcing. We’re seeing it with behind the meter power for data centers right now.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Infra only looks permanent when we draw the boundaries to make it look permanent. To the point, we should consider lifecycle in more decision making. We should, through Civic process, set quotas and performance goals for services provided rather than litigate specific project implementations.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
Look at your state budget, how much is devoted to road maintenance? Infra isn’t permanent or inevitable once in place unless we make it so with continuous contributions of our wealth and often health. We should make it even easier to unmake our past mistakes, common, celebratory.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
20y is more than a political cycle, but just barely enough time to see some policy effects in practice. When will aligns, we can change/remove infrastructure. Cars in Amsterdam, every corporate tech headquarters in the US ever, the (newly, again) free flowing Klamath - change is all around us.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
We have an asymmetric risk of further miring public works in planning jail. Our civic participation system is veto oriented. Infrastructure has a narrow range of project viability: a 20-year commitment is needed to make the financing go on an asset with 50-year physical lifetimes (concrete+steel).
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Agreed. The charitable reading of celebrating the success of the New Deal is harder to accept than nostalgia for inequity (e.g. the Second Gilded Age). The calendar starmap (background motif) and statuary meant to celebrate human science, endeavor, and achievement is nominally positive.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 02/07/2026
Hoover Dam Visitors Center. Winged Figures of the Republic. www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam...
usbr.gov
Hoover Dam | Bureau of Reclamation
Bureau of Reclamation, Lower Colorado Region. Official Bureau of Reclamation Web Site for Hoover Dam. Information provided about the construction of the dam, how it works, and how to take a tour of th...
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Kevin J. Kircher @kevinjkircher.com · 30/06/2026
New paper! Housing increasingly has big devices that run natively on Direct Current (solar panels, EVs, batteries, motors on heat pumps and air conditioners, etc). What if we connected them on DC, rather than today's AC distribution + lossy AC/DC conversions? 🧵 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Schematic from the paper, showing three residential power distribution system configurations that connect solar panels, a battery, and a heat pump.

Left: In a conventional AC system, the DC power from the solar panels is inverted to AC, the rectified back to DC either to charge a battery or power the heat pump's motor. The variable-speed heat pump motor rectifies the AC then inverts the resulting DC back to AC at a given frequency to drive the heat pump compressor at a desired speed.

Center: In the system we implemented in our test house, the DC solar power passes through a higher-efficiency DC/DC converter that implements Maximum Power-Point Tracking, then through another DC/DC converter that controls battery charging or an inverter that drives the heat pump's variable-speed AC motor.

Right: An ideal DC configuration includes a heat pump designed to run natively on DC. The only converters in this configuration are the DC/DC converters that control the solar power output (MPPT) and the battery charging.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
What is it with the citizens initiative processes that brings the dumb? If I don't agree with the initiative (paying you to collect signatures) I'm not going to sign and I will vote against it if it makes it to the ballot. That's not "an unwillingness to support democracy," that's my civic duty.
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Dr. Samantha Montano @samlmontano.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
When's the best time to drop the 20,000 word analysis of the FEMA Review Council report you've been working on for weeks? I don't know but I am going with *checks notes* 9:00pm on a Friday night. Cheers, kids! www.disaster-ology.com/blog/femarev...
disaster-ology.com
FEMA Review Council Report Analysis — Disasterology
If we have not met, here are my credentials: I have been involved with disaster work for 20 years beginning with the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the levee failure. I worked maj...
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
There are three instances of misconduct here: 1) Dispute about author order (opinions can vary) 2) Pre-emptive Conf. submission w/o consultation (clear and obvious) 3) Retaliation (clear and obvious) Don’t worry about being wrong about this. Do check up on your support network - people are messy.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Once they make it clear what their organization stands for others can react. If you were worried this was minor misconduct the mistakes were not of a type an experienced collaborator makes. As they say the cover-up is worse than the crime, so too here. The retaliation makes it a major escalation.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
Culture is simply what we do around here. This is a shitty bit of current culture; it won’t change on its own. Will the other administration(s) do anything about it? That’s not the important part here. They won’t have the opportunity to make their standard clear without the complaint.
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Geoff Staneff @gstaneff.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
You aren’t the first, aren’t alone. If you are in a place to go hard, do it without fear. One goes hard into conflict not for oneself but for the others on your team who cannot. If you are not in that position of security: let it pass, or find someone to serve as enforcer on behalf of others.
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