I was on the Bench yesterday for meetings and, as is usually the case, I learned a little more about how wine is made. Typically when you're laying out grapevines you want to align them for sun exposure. In hotter regions, you might align them east-west to minimize the harsh afternoon son. And in cooler climates, like Niagara or Burgundy, you might align them north-south to try and maximize sun exposure.
But what I learned is that topography often takes priority over sun exposure — especially in cooler regions. In practice, this means you generally want to align the grapevines so that they follow the slope of the land. Why? Because cold air is heavier than warm air. Aligning with the slope allows cold air to naturally drain away, which helps the vines survive the winter and reduces the risk of things like spring frost.
If, instead, you aligned the vineyard rows across the slope (as opposed to up and down), well then cold air might get trapped. The same is true for water drainage. I'm told you don't want pooling. And this is why it tends to be more important to optimize for topography rather than just sun exposure, though I'm sure it gets a lot more nuanced when you really know what you're doing.
Regardless, I find all of this fascinating because it's an intensely local activity. You need to understand how the sun moves across the site. You need to understand the site contours and where air and water will flow. And then you need to optimize for these specific conditions. It's exactly how architecture used to work before we had active mechanical systems, like AC, that could do all of the work for us.
Last week, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority kicked off procurement for the new Roberts Bank Terminal 2 project by issuing a request for qualification (RFQ). Bidders now have until September 25, 2025 to submit their qualifications with the hopes of eventually being selected to deliver this "nation-building project" in the Lower Mainland of BC.
I experience this feeling on a regular basis, especially because I'm also someone who interacts and uses crypto on an almost daily basis. This week's frustration came about as I was trying to move money around from our Parkview Mountain House account in the US. We bank with US Bank and, for the record, the people in the Park City branch are absolutely lovely people.
But here's one of the things: US bank cannot interface with my mobile phone because I have a Canadian number. And because I live in Toronto, I'm also not able to download and use their mobile app. This means I cannot do rudimentary digital things like deposit a cheque (also known as checks in America). I'm constantly hamstrung and forced to do a lot of things in person. Is there really no simple solution to this?
In contrast to this, I own brandondonnelly.eth, which links to my personal Ethereum wallet. It'a also linked to my Farcaster account (Twitter-like social network), as well as many other onchain platforms and products. And it works, as expected, anywhere in the world.
If someone in Botswana would like to send me 0.001 ETH (~C$4) because they like what I write on this daily blog or they just want to buy me a morning coffee, they could easily do that by entering brandondonnelly.eth on their phone. They could also choose to do so with a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar. And when I eventually do my income taxes and I review my wallet's ledger, this transfer would show up and I would be able to categorize it accordingly.
This, to me, is very clearly the future of the global economy.
Full disclosure: I am long ETH and companies like Coinbase.
Cover photo by Ales Nesetril on Unsplash.
The contract will include the delivery of an approximately 100-hectare marine landmass (~247 acres), 35-hectare widened causeway, 1,300-meter wharf structure and berth pocket, and expanded tug basin. And when complete by the mid-2030s, the new terminal is expected to create more than 17,000 well-paying long-term jobs, unlock $100 billion in new trade capacity, and contribute somewhere around $3 billion in annual GDP.
Here's a rendering of the new marine landmass:
The Port of Vancouver is the largest port in Canada by tonnage and TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units). It's also one of the largest in North America. This expansion is expected to increase its capacity by up to 50%, which could have it leap ahead of several major US ports by the time it's complete in the mid-30s. That could place it among the top 4 container ports in North America.
It would be hard to overstate the importance of this project for Canada. The economic center of gravity for the world is steadily moving toward East Asia. In the 1980s, if you were to map and drop a pin at this economic center — according to GDP — it would have landed in the North Atlantic (between the US and Europe). By 2030, this economic center is projected to be near the border of India and China.
Already, China is Canada's second largest trading partner (after the US). And over 60% of the container trade flowing through Vancouver is transpacific. More specifically, it is trade with China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, and India. If we don't expand our port capacity and if we allow our container supply chain to become bottlenecked, well then these containers will simply shift south to the US West Coast. It's that simple.
Though this project was approved by the federal and provincial governments in 2023, it has faced stiff opposition from local community groups and environmentalists. This is partly why it took approximately 10 years. The Federal Environmental Assessment process began in 2013. And it wasn't until April 2023 that the feds granted approval with a list of 370 legally binding environmental conditions.
What this means is that by the time this project is (hopefully) complete in the mid-30s, it will have taken at least two decades! And perhaps even longer knowing how construction works. This is far too long, which is obviously why we are working to make changes to how we, as a country, green light important nation-building projects. There's no question that this is one of them, and so today I think it's important to celebrate this milestone.
It's time to build, Canada. And as fast as possible.
