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Speaker 1: From the Bright Ideas department. We got methane and CO

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Speaker 1: two could be harnessed to create livestock feed. How good

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Speaker 1: is this? World first? Research, upflow, business and innovation are

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Speaker 1: into this. The director is Andy Blair, who's with this. Andy,

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Speaker 1: very good morning to you. So you plug it into

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Speaker 1: the geothermal system with your microbes and it just grows?

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Speaker 2: Is that it?

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Speaker 1: Or Am I just a bit thick?

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Speaker 2: No, you're pretty much bang on, Mike. So basically, we

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Speaker 2: take the guesses that come from c simial power stations

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Speaker 2: and plart them into these bugs and they make a

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Speaker 2: single cell protein.

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Speaker 1: Can you see it happen?

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Speaker 2: Yep, we've already made We've already made it. We've made

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Speaker 2: the biomass and it exists, and yeah, it's happening.

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Speaker 1: And so what are you looking for scalability now?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're doing we're doing that test for scalability.

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Speaker 2: So how do we make it economically viable in a

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Speaker 2: big enough and a more meaningful way for a commercial

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Speaker 2: market to take it and make it sustainable?

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Speaker 1: Okay, So if you plug it in when you leave

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Speaker 1: the office, you'd leave the office at six because you're

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Speaker 1: not to work from home, or I can tell so

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Speaker 1: you leave the office at six, you plug it in.

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Speaker 1: When you come back the next morning, how much you got?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's not like that it's been plugged in

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Speaker 2: constantly to a power station and they just multiply. The

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Speaker 2: only thing that stops them from growing is lack of

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Speaker 2: food or the size of the vessel that we put

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Speaker 2: them in. So they'll just keep multiplying by as much

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Speaker 2: food that we give them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but how quickly? I mean, like you put a

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Speaker 1: sack load of food in, do you get a sack

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Speaker 1: load of biomass or ten to biomass or tea stone.

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Speaker 2: It's like replicating like for thousands and thousands of times

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Speaker 2: over w Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, they grow really rapidly. And

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Speaker 2: that's why it's such a cool technology. Biotech is so

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Speaker 2: cool is because it's not constrained by normal sort of

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Speaker 2: multiplication rates that we see in other spaces.

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Speaker 1: Okay, do the animals like it? Will they eat it?

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Speaker 1: Do you know?

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Speaker 2: Well, we've done some early testing on mice which it

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Speaker 2: and think it's just as good as the food they're eating.

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Speaker 2: But we're also working on which markets, which animal market

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Speaker 2: we're targeting, and we'll have to do that sort of

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Speaker 2: do they like it? Do they not like it? But

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Speaker 2: it performed really well in the early testing that we did.

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Speaker 1: What's it cost you to make a sackload? Do you know?

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Speaker 1: Is it tenths of cents? Hundreds of dollars?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all about dollars per kg. And we're trying

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Speaker 2: to figure that out in this step as well. So

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Speaker 2: we don't think it's going to be bulk food. We

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Speaker 2: think it's going to be meaningful little components of its

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Speaker 2: additives to feed because it's not cheap and it will

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Speaker 2: take a while to become competitive with normal bulk food rates.

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Speaker 2: So we'll be targeting the sort of high value stuff first.

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Speaker 1: That's so exciting. When do you reckon? You're going to

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Speaker 1: give it to a cow?

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Speaker 2: We reckon in about ten to twelve years, will be

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Speaker 2: commercially operating and feeding it like you'll be able to

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Speaker 2: dial it up in.

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Speaker 1: Order some and you are one hundred percent certain of

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Speaker 1: this or you're still we'll see how it goes. Face.

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Speaker 2: Well, we've made we've made the biomass. We know we

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Speaker 2: can make one hundred percent to make biomass. Now we

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Speaker 2: just need to figure out can we make it commercially viable? Right?

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Speaker 1: Well, that's exciting. Hey, tell me about your kings on

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Speaker 1: or tomorrow. Andy.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm getting an officer for New Zealand Order of

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Speaker 2: Merit for services to the GFM or industry and to women.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that incredible? So you're going to Government House in Auckland.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I'm getting all drew stuff and I'm going to

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Speaker 2: turn up and get a medal, which is really exciting.

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Speaker 1: I'll beat you. It is well done. You nice to

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Speaker 1: talk to. You, appreciate it very much and go well

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Speaker 1: with it, Andy Blair, who's Upflow Business and Innovative Director.

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Speaker 2: For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to

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Speaker 2: news talks there'd be from six am weekdays, or follow

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