Why is it that we read about so many inventions like this - once - and then never hear of them again?

Most countries have to import plastic along with their oil. Surely the economics of this gets worse every time oil or shipping prices rise. And more so if you account the cost of waste disposal.

There are economic incentives to scaling up these biodegradable alternatives. Are they not big enough to result in a push?

Google says global oil production is 90 to 95 million barrels per day.

That is a lot of grapevines, grapevines grow slowly, and growing grapes is the best way to use grapevines.

We read about technologies like this because science grad students have to do something, grad schools have low standards for useful work, and universities employ a lot of press release writers.

Per TFA, this is a highly manual one off process with a not-well-scaled resource - a specific type of vine cutting that can only be harvested every other year without affecting the overall vibe health.

So Id wager it's the brutal road from proof of concept to scaled production.