WEBVTT - Global Poverty is Solvable 0:00:15.076 --> 0:00:22.116 Pushkin, I may have Higgins and this is solvable interviews 0:00:22.116 --> 0:00:25.596 with the world's most innovative thinkers working to solve the 0:00:25.636 --> 0:00:30.876 world's biggest problems. So you know that here unsolvable. We're 0:00:31.036 --> 0:00:34.476 used to having guests who are taking on huge challenges. 0:00:34.876 --> 0:00:39.316 But our guest this episode, Shashy Bulletsoir, is not content 0:00:39.516 --> 0:00:43.156 with just one solvable. He has three. The first is 0:00:43.156 --> 0:00:47.436 electricity access. Today a billion people around the world don't 0:00:47.476 --> 0:00:50.396 have access to electricity, and that number is expected to grow. 0:00:51.836 --> 0:00:55.556 My first solvable is coming up with mechanisms to make 0:00:55.596 --> 0:01:00.756 sure those billion people have electricity. The second is it's 0:01:00.796 --> 0:01:04.076 not electricity that matters, it's what people do with it. 0:01:04.676 --> 0:01:06.796 One of the most important things people can do with 0:01:06.876 --> 0:01:12.076 electricity is refrigeration. Can say perishables, if they're growing fruits 0:01:12.076 --> 0:01:14.636 and vegetables, they can store them and take them to market. 0:01:14.996 --> 0:01:19.196 They can store sensitive pharmaceuticals. Off the seven points some 0:01:19.356 --> 0:01:22.996 billion people in the world, almost a third don't have 0:01:23.076 --> 0:01:26.196 access to refrigeration. I would love to solve that problem. 0:01:27.036 --> 0:01:31.916 The third is the dignity of sanitation and tilets. Today, again, 0:01:31.956 --> 0:01:33.876 over a billion people in the world do not have 0:01:33.916 --> 0:01:37.756 access to clean sanitation. Whether it's its home, whether it's 0:01:37.756 --> 0:01:40.796 in cities where human waste just gets it dumped into 0:01:40.836 --> 0:01:45.516 local waterways. One of my soluables is making sure everybody 0:01:45.516 --> 0:01:49.276 in the world has a decent sanitation waste treatment. CHARGI 0:01:49.516 --> 0:01:52.996 is the CEO of the Institute for a Transformative Technologies 0:01:53.036 --> 0:01:57.796 in California. Its mission is to use technological breakthroughs to 0:01:57.836 --> 0:02:04.676 transform global development, improving access from millions of people to sanitation, food, 0:02:05.196 --> 0:02:10.556 primary healthcare, and electricity. Now, the potential to harness technology 0:02:10.956 --> 0:02:17.036 to create solutions to economic, social, and environmental challenges is massive. 0:02:17.756 --> 0:02:21.556 Anybody with even a passing interest in tech or artificial 0:02:21.556 --> 0:02:26.196 intelligence has probably had that giddy feeling about these huge 0:02:26.196 --> 0:02:30.956 opportunities for developing countries to skip stages that took other 0:02:31.076 --> 0:02:35.116 nations years to get to. And it's totally true that 0:02:35.236 --> 0:02:40.476 frontier technologies today are better, cheaper, faster, and more scalable. 0:02:40.756 --> 0:02:45.436 They're even easier to use than ever before. But technology 0:02:45.476 --> 0:02:49.036 also presents an array of challenges that need to be 0:02:49.076 --> 0:02:52.276 handled with care. And Shashi Bullus where it walks that 0:02:52.476 --> 0:02:56.356 balance beam quite beautifully. He grew up in India and 0:02:56.436 --> 0:02:59.316 he believes his countrymen there should have the agency to 0:02:59.436 --> 0:03:02.476 solve their own issues, and that's a huge part of 0:03:02.516 --> 0:03:05.716 his philosophy today. He passes it on in his work 0:03:05.716 --> 0:03:09.476 in India as well as in Kenya and Nigeria. She's 0:03:09.516 --> 0:03:14.516 work at the Institute for Transformative Technologies focuses on solving 0:03:14.556 --> 0:03:18.556 problems for people living in poverty by using technology, and 0:03:18.636 --> 0:03:22.196 he hits on three solvables in this discussion, but the 0:03:22.196 --> 0:03:25.556 one he gets down and dirty with is sanitation. The 0:03:25.676 --> 0:03:30.356 World Health Organization reports that almost two point three billion 0:03:30.516 --> 0:03:36.556 people worldwide still do not have access to rudimentary sanitation facilities. 0:03:37.236 --> 0:03:40.716 Almost half of India's people don't have toilets at home. 0:03:41.476 --> 0:03:45.636 A good sanitation system can prevent environmental damage caused by 0:03:45.756 --> 0:03:49.596 untreated sewage flowing into rivers, and it can also stamp 0:03:49.636 --> 0:03:54.156 out the terrible health risks associated with open defecation, like 0:03:54.316 --> 0:04:00.196 infectious diseases, under nutrition, and even increased vulnerability to verbal, physical, 0:04:00.396 --> 0:04:04.596 or sexual violence. So there's loads in this conversation with 0:04:04.636 --> 0:04:08.636 Malcolm Gladwell, let's get into it. What's your kind of 0:04:08.676 --> 0:04:11.076 point of entry, the kinds of things you're interested in. 0:04:11.436 --> 0:04:15.156 Growing up in India, one of my most distinct memories 0:04:15.236 --> 0:04:18.796 is that we'd have foreign tourists when as foreign typically 0:04:18.796 --> 0:04:22.076 I mean white tourists would come. I live very close 0:04:22.116 --> 0:04:25.076 to Islam, so they'd come take pictures with the poor kids. 0:04:25.676 --> 0:04:30.076 I wasn't myself particularly poor, but lived around them. Then 0:04:30.116 --> 0:04:33.276 they'd go off to their ashram, the yoga retreats and 0:04:33.276 --> 0:04:36.396 so on, and it's very curious what brought them there. 0:04:36.916 --> 0:04:40.436 And when I asked them, they said away here to help, 0:04:41.836 --> 0:04:45.996 which as an Indian kid, made me feel like, wow, 0:04:46.116 --> 0:04:49.076 we must be so incompetent that we can't help ourselves. 0:04:50.276 --> 0:04:52.356 And you know, as I go back to India, now, 0:04:53.116 --> 0:04:55.476 some of the kids just died, right, it's never never 0:04:55.476 --> 0:04:58.756 made it to adulthood. Others did find, but they did 0:04:58.796 --> 0:05:03.156 find on their own. And so this idea of as 0:05:04.636 --> 0:05:07.676 an Indian, I have to do what I can to 0:05:07.756 --> 0:05:11.956 help India became very important to me. At the same time, 0:05:12.236 --> 0:05:16.276 I realized that only Pakistanis can help Pakistan, only Kenya 0:05:16.396 --> 0:05:19.716 can help Kenya, and so it became very important for 0:05:19.756 --> 0:05:23.476 me to have the sense of local empowerment, that we're 0:05:23.476 --> 0:05:26.996 all global citizens and global poverty is a global problem. 0:05:27.076 --> 0:05:30.516 But it became extraordinarly important for me to work in 0:05:30.516 --> 0:05:34.116 the context in which you're finding really good people in 0:05:34.196 --> 0:05:38.556 country and working with them to solve local problems. Describe 0:05:38.636 --> 0:05:41.116 how you got drawn into the kinds of problems you're 0:05:41.156 --> 0:05:44.596 now How did you get interested in those particular issues. 0:05:44.956 --> 0:05:47.916 A few years back I was invited to start and 0:05:48.076 --> 0:05:51.316 institute at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley to 0:05:51.716 --> 0:05:54.676 use the R and D might of the National Lab 0:05:54.756 --> 0:05:59.636 system to address problems related to poverty. And what I 0:05:59.636 --> 0:06:03.436 immediately realized was that this whole technology for good space 0:06:04.396 --> 0:06:06.636 is full of hammers looking for nails. Hey, I've got 0:06:06.676 --> 0:06:10.356 the stabulist technology. Let me go solve problems with them. 0:06:10.396 --> 0:06:15.476 And typically these result in technologies sitting on jobs. They 0:06:15.516 --> 0:06:18.916 make for great media splashes, but otherwise don't really go anywhere. 0:06:19.756 --> 0:06:23.036 So we launched a very ambitious study we call the 0:06:23.076 --> 0:06:26.476 fifty Breakthroughs. Essentially, what are the fifty most important technologies 0:06:26.516 --> 0:06:30.516 required to solve poverty over the next twenty years, and 0:06:30.716 --> 0:06:34.116 our job is to get them to life that fifty 0:06:34.196 --> 0:06:37.836 or some significant subsetup. Yeah you have this list of fifty, Yeah, 0:06:38.356 --> 0:06:40.516 tell me a little bit more so criteria about what 0:06:40.916 --> 0:06:43.196 it takes to be on the list. What we did 0:06:43.396 --> 0:06:47.116 was methodically went through every major problem that effect poor 0:06:47.756 --> 0:06:54.236 food security, health, education, human rights, gender inequity, digital access, electrification, water, 0:06:54.316 --> 0:06:58.156 and so on, and essentially said, many of these problems 0:06:58.196 --> 0:07:01.276 actually will go away with good policy and good infrastructure. 0:07:02.756 --> 0:07:06.076 But there is a sub class of these problems, so 0:07:06.156 --> 0:07:09.476 which a new generation of technologies is required. Those elogies 0:07:09.556 --> 0:07:14.716 currently don't exist. What are dose Yeah, And then, as 0:07:14.716 --> 0:07:16.556 we did in mapping, we said, well, some of these 0:07:16.556 --> 0:07:19.036 technologies may come to life on their own simply because 0:07:19.036 --> 0:07:22.516 of market forces. So a low cost smartphone, for instance, 0:07:22.956 --> 0:07:25.516 today you can get a fifty dollars smartphone, and I'm 0:07:25.556 --> 0:07:27.836 sure pretty soon you can get a twenty five dollars smartphone. 0:07:28.436 --> 0:07:31.876 On the other hand, you have problems that are so complex, 0:07:32.516 --> 0:07:35.116 problems that don't have strong enough market forces, like a 0:07:35.156 --> 0:07:38.916 milliaria of vaccine. So what we do is we've taken 0:07:39.316 --> 0:07:42.316 a class of problems in the middle where you don't 0:07:42.316 --> 0:07:44.516 have to spend fifty million dollars to solve it. You 0:07:44.516 --> 0:07:47.196 can solve each one with two to five million dollars. 0:07:47.476 --> 0:07:50.396 We also categorize these problems on the basis of commercial interest. 0:07:50.876 --> 0:07:53.156 If this is a problem in which a global company 0:07:53.196 --> 0:07:56.476 can make money solving, chances are it's going to fix itself. 0:07:56.516 --> 0:08:00.036 Again like the smartphone. So that's further that's exactly, so 0:08:00.116 --> 0:08:03.156 two dimensions. Really, one dimension is how complex is it? 0:08:03.436 --> 0:08:06.116 The other dimension is what's the commercial attractiveness. Yeah, if 0:08:06.156 --> 0:08:09.276 it's if it's commercially attractive to global companies like like 0:08:09.396 --> 0:08:13.276 g or Apple, problem is going to be solved. On 0:08:13.676 --> 0:08:16.156 At the other end of the spectrum, there are problems 0:08:15.956 --> 0:08:19.236 it's simply are not financially viable. So a lot of 0:08:19.276 --> 0:08:22.436 things related to human rights, for instance. So we again 0:08:22.476 --> 0:08:24.956 focused in the middle where we said, look, there are 0:08:24.996 --> 0:08:29.116 companies based in Kenya, based in Pakistan, based in India. 0:08:29.236 --> 0:08:33.836 They actually would love to build financially sustainable businesses with 0:08:33.876 --> 0:08:37.236 these technologies, but they don't currently invest the R and 0:08:37.276 --> 0:08:39.756 D to bring those technologies to life. So what we 0:08:39.796 --> 0:08:42.836 do is we take philanthropic money, figure out a way 0:08:42.876 --> 0:08:46.076 to make those technologies to life, demonstrate the financial and 0:08:46.156 --> 0:08:49.116 business viability of these technologies, and then work with those 0:08:49.156 --> 0:08:55.676 companies to launch businesses. So let's start with refrigeration. Walk 0:08:55.756 --> 0:08:58.956 me through. I know nothing about it. My notion about 0:08:58.996 --> 0:09:01.876 refrigeration is a five hundred dollars plug in refrigerator. It 0:09:01.916 --> 0:09:05.036 seems to me at first plush, how on Earth. Would 0:09:05.076 --> 0:09:07.676 you make such a thing practical for a very, very 0:09:07.676 --> 0:09:11.156 poor community. So let's talk about refrigeration in two stages, 0:09:11.836 --> 0:09:18.116 first the electrification, then refrigeration for electricity. The current paradigm, 0:09:18.236 --> 0:09:21.876 at the historic paradigm has been let's build these large 0:09:22.476 --> 0:09:27.476 electric infrastructures, let's have fossil fuel based generation and turn 0:09:27.516 --> 0:09:30.876 the switch on. When we started looking at the electrification problem, 0:09:31.236 --> 0:09:34.916 we realize that if you're a far flung village, it's 0:09:34.996 --> 0:09:36.836 very hard to extend the grid to where you are. 0:09:37.196 --> 0:09:40.636 You have to build what's called a solar minigrid. And 0:09:40.996 --> 0:09:43.996 in India we did some math in terms of the 0:09:45.316 --> 0:09:48.516 three years back, what is the cost of a solar minigrid, 0:09:49.036 --> 0:09:51.516 what is the translate into in terms of per month 0:09:51.756 --> 0:09:56.156 utility bills, and what can people pay If a family 0:09:56.476 --> 0:09:58.996 is earning three to five dollars a day, which is 0:10:00.156 --> 0:10:04.076 not a typical for the average Indian household, the cost 0:10:04.156 --> 0:10:07.876 of electricity with a solo minigrid was twice what people 0:10:07.876 --> 0:10:11.356 can afford to pay. In addition to that, if you 0:10:11.396 --> 0:10:13.436 want to build a solar mitigrate in a village of 0:10:13.556 --> 0:10:16.036 a thousand people, you'll take you two or three months. 0:10:16.716 --> 0:10:20.396 So our mission became can we reduce the cost by 0:10:20.476 --> 0:10:24.356 fifty percent and can we dramatically reduce the installation time. 0:10:25.356 --> 0:10:30.596 So we sought out the three or four people who 0:10:30.636 --> 0:10:32.596 consider it to be the leading experts in the world 0:10:32.836 --> 0:10:36.996 from the developing world, and over the course of two 0:10:37.036 --> 0:10:40.476 and a half years, we built such a system and 0:10:41.076 --> 0:10:43.796 almost on the one one of the questions we asked 0:10:43.796 --> 0:10:46.516 ourselves as great, if you build this technology, who will 0:10:46.516 --> 0:10:50.076 take it to market? And there was one company that 0:10:50.196 --> 0:10:54.596 jumped out Data Power. As you know Data as a 0:10:54.756 --> 0:10:58.796 huge conglomerate in India. They have presence in multiple sectors. 0:10:59.716 --> 0:11:02.236 They are also a company that is a long history 0:11:02.236 --> 0:11:05.956 of doing the right thing, investing in social businesses, thinking 0:11:05.996 --> 0:11:09.596 about profit only as an afterthought, and electrically ality is 0:11:09.636 --> 0:11:12.236 not going to be widely profitable, even if you go 0:11:12.276 --> 0:11:15.556 to Switzerland or Lichtenstein. So they're thinking was can we 0:11:15.596 --> 0:11:19.316 get a company that has staying power that can whatever 0:11:19.396 --> 0:11:23.556 we design procure the stuff using massive economy. The scale 0:11:24.476 --> 0:11:27.236 has the respect of the government and communities around the 0:11:27.276 --> 0:11:29.636 country so that they'll trust them to do the right 0:11:29.636 --> 0:11:33.636 thing and can really move the economic muscle. Put in 0:11:33.756 --> 0:11:35.996 hundreds of million dollars to do this at a massive scale. 0:11:36.676 --> 0:11:39.876 So we brought them to the table in twenty sixteen 0:11:40.276 --> 0:11:45.196 and as of late eighteen, we had built the system 0:11:45.236 --> 0:11:48.996 to their satisfaction. So as we speak, we are in 0:11:49.036 --> 0:11:51.756 the process of launching what would be the largest electrification 0:11:52.236 --> 0:11:56.516 event in history. So they've agreed to do ten thousand villages, 0:11:56.596 --> 0:11:59.796 twenty five million people. We're actually talking about this same 0:11:59.836 --> 0:12:02.956 project in another episode of Solving. So it's lovely how 0:12:02.956 --> 0:12:06.156 these two things dovetail. I'm cused the scale of this. 0:12:06.596 --> 0:12:10.276 So you're talking about one of these solo It's costs 0:12:10.356 --> 0:12:13.596 how much I'll give you a cost in terms of 0:12:13.716 --> 0:12:16.956 per what for a full system which includes the panels, 0:12:16.996 --> 0:12:20.476 the batteries, electronics, and the one to two kilometer grid 0:12:20.756 --> 0:12:24.036 plus smart meters. It costs a dollar fifty per what. 0:12:24.596 --> 0:12:28.156 So for a village of thousand people, it's about forty 0:12:28.156 --> 0:12:31.036 five thousand dollars. Oh wow, that takes me as an 0:12:31.036 --> 0:12:34.076 incredibly low number. It is. It is affordable, but still, 0:12:34.116 --> 0:12:36.076 you know these are very poor people, right, we still 0:12:36.116 --> 0:12:39.116 have to make the math work. So the flip side 0:12:39.116 --> 0:12:42.476 of this is energy efficient appliances, right, because you could 0:12:42.516 --> 0:12:45.956 have electricity at whatever costs you have them at, but 0:12:46.076 --> 0:12:48.796 if you if your appliances are consuming much more than 0:12:48.796 --> 0:12:51.836 they should, your monthly bills go up. Right, So that's 0:12:51.876 --> 0:12:55.836 where energy efficient and affordable refrigation comes in. If people 0:12:55.876 --> 0:12:59.956 were to use an existing fan, in existing run of 0:12:59.956 --> 0:13:02.996 the mill fan, they'd pay much much more than they 0:13:02.996 --> 0:13:06.036 can afford. Certainly, if they would use an existing fridge, 0:13:06.076 --> 0:13:08.796 let's say, let's see got used fridges for one hundred bucks, right, 0:13:09.156 --> 0:13:11.996 there's no way they'd be able to afford electricity. Therefore, 0:13:12.196 --> 0:13:15.036 there's no way they'd be able to afford refrigeration. Do 0:13:15.076 --> 0:13:17.956 these ideas, what are the chances they all trickle back 0:13:18.436 --> 0:13:21.596 to the developed world? For example, you have this modular 0:13:22.116 --> 0:13:28.276 mini solar grid. Why if I'm a rural community in 0:13:28.276 --> 0:13:31.996 North America somewhere, is there a point at which we say, 0:13:32.036 --> 0:13:34.356 can I have that thing that you've already installed in India? 0:13:34.476 --> 0:13:38.116 Does it move the other direction? It can? I don't 0:13:38.156 --> 0:13:41.796 believe the minigrids themselves will, because we're optimizing them for 0:13:41.836 --> 0:13:44.636 people who went three to five dollars a day. Yeah, 0:13:44.676 --> 0:13:50.076 and so that comes with certain limitations. In the US, 0:13:50.196 --> 0:13:52.796 for instance, people are willing to pay a lot more 0:13:52.836 --> 0:13:56.196 than that. And so I'm sure some version of these 0:13:56.236 --> 0:13:58.876 technologies will come back. There's one that I'm particularly excited 0:13:58.916 --> 0:14:02.196 about that that I'm quite certain will come back. Remember 0:14:02.316 --> 0:14:06.076 we talked about waste treatment. Do you know that earthworms 0:14:06.156 --> 0:14:10.156 love eating human poop? Terms out that one of the 0:14:10.196 --> 0:14:13.356 problems we work on a scanentation and waste treatment, sewage treatment, 0:14:13.556 --> 0:14:18.556 and we had concluded that it's going to be impossible 0:14:19.196 --> 0:14:22.756 going forward to build out that kind of sewage treatment 0:14:22.836 --> 0:14:25.276 for a billion plus people to billion plus people around 0:14:25.316 --> 0:14:30.476 the world, and composting toilets currently in the West are 0:14:30.716 --> 0:14:37.116 ridiculous expensive, ridiculously complicated. Turns out that earthworms actually like 0:14:37.276 --> 0:14:41.836 human waste. But if you simply take a drum of 0:14:41.836 --> 0:14:44.516 earthworms and put human waste in it, built around because 0:14:44.836 --> 0:14:49.676 the matter is so dense, a few British scientists you 0:14:49.756 --> 0:14:52.316 put if I had a I'm not sure I understand this. 0:14:52.876 --> 0:14:56.076 So let's take two tanks. One tank has cowdang. Yeah, 0:14:56.276 --> 0:15:00.076 the other tank has human waste. Cowdang is a lot 0:15:00.156 --> 0:15:03.196 less dense. This is a lot more fibrous material, so 0:15:03.236 --> 0:15:06.716 the earthworms will define in that tank. In the other tank, 0:15:06.876 --> 0:15:10.316 human waste is significantly more dense, right, so they just 0:15:10.356 --> 0:15:15.996 cannot breathe it's not an aerobic process. So some scientists 0:15:15.996 --> 0:15:18.316 in a couple of British universities, I think well Ower 0:15:18.356 --> 0:15:21.316 a decade back, had figured out that if you create 0:15:21.356 --> 0:15:25.116 a layered system, and the way this layered system manifests 0:15:25.116 --> 0:15:29.556 itself in the toilets rebuilding is imagine. Imagine you have 0:15:29.596 --> 0:15:32.596 a tiny outhouse. You're in a village. You have a hut, 0:15:32.596 --> 0:15:35.476 and outside that hut is an outhouse that's let's say 0:15:35.476 --> 0:15:38.556 four feet by four feet and you know, seven feet tall. 0:15:39.756 --> 0:15:43.076 Right behind it is a drum that's three feet in diameter, 0:15:43.676 --> 0:15:47.916 three feet in depth. The bottommost layer is just rocks 0:15:47.956 --> 0:15:51.356 that you'd find locally. Then you've got gravel, which you 0:15:51.356 --> 0:15:55.476 can also find locally, and then sand, which some variation 0:15:55.516 --> 0:15:59.276 of it you can find locally. So that takes up 0:15:59.436 --> 0:16:02.356 about twelve to eighteen inches. Right, then you've got a 0:16:02.436 --> 0:16:04.956 three or four inch layer of the earth rooms and 0:16:05.076 --> 0:16:09.796 some sort of organic matter. Right, So that is the 0:16:09.836 --> 0:16:12.756 digestion mechanism for the toilet. How much do you think 0:16:12.796 --> 0:16:15.596 something that that would cost. It's one kilogram of earthworms 0:16:16.396 --> 0:16:19.556 twenty five bucks. In my drama, I have how many worms? 0:16:20.076 --> 0:16:22.316 One kilogram of worms? Let's say it's a thousand words, 0:16:22.356 --> 0:16:25.436 thousand rights. And I would ask a totally naive question. 0:16:25.996 --> 0:16:28.516 If you start with a thousand worms, how quickly do 0:16:28.516 --> 0:16:30.716 you have more than a thousand worms? Does the population 0:16:30.836 --> 0:16:34.036 sort of multiply? Do they self generate more and more worms? Well, 0:16:34.076 --> 0:16:37.156 the thing about pretty much every species except humans is 0:16:37.156 --> 0:16:40.116 the optimis the population based on the resources I see. Okay, 0:16:40.276 --> 0:16:42.716 so what happens is if you don't use the toilet, 0:16:43.236 --> 0:16:46.756 the population goes down. You can go almost six weeks, 0:16:46.836 --> 0:16:49.876 two months without using the toilet at all, right, and 0:16:49.996 --> 0:16:52.996 even after that the eggs state doornament. So once you 0:16:53.036 --> 0:16:56.156 start using it again, the population grows. So, yes, you've 0:16:56.156 --> 0:16:58.996 got about a foot and a half of available space. Right. 0:16:59.036 --> 0:17:00.836 So let's say a family of four is using this 0:17:00.956 --> 0:17:03.476 toilet with the tiny dram. How long do you think 0:17:03.476 --> 0:17:05.796 it takes to fill up? Longer than one would think? 0:17:06.196 --> 0:17:09.836 Is my answer? Very astute. Yeah, it takes eight years 0:17:09.836 --> 0:17:11.876 to fill up. Because what the worms do is they 0:17:12.156 --> 0:17:15.196 there's obviously law of conservation of masks. They convert a 0:17:15.196 --> 0:17:17.316 lot of it into into C or two, which is 0:17:17.396 --> 0:17:20.276 much better than methane, which is what would happen ordinarily, 0:17:20.916 --> 0:17:23.396 and then they chew up the stuff into tiny, tiny 0:17:23.516 --> 0:17:27.196 little particles, and in the process they destroy ninety nine 0:17:27.236 --> 0:17:30.116 plus press into the pathosions. So essentially it gets washed 0:17:30.116 --> 0:17:32.916 away into the soil. But you wouldn't drink it. But 0:17:32.996 --> 0:17:35.476 if you drank it, drank the affluent, nothing would happen 0:17:35.476 --> 0:17:38.556 to you. Wow. Wait, So what happens is the waist 0:17:38.636 --> 0:17:42.156 goes in the top is it and it filters down? Correct? 0:17:42.556 --> 0:17:45.596 And where are the worms? Are they throughout the base 0:17:45.796 --> 0:17:47.756 or are they? Why is it that the presence of 0:17:47.796 --> 0:17:51.316 this base diminishes the density of the waist. One thing 0:17:51.356 --> 0:17:54.076 it allows the worms to do is they can they 0:17:54.076 --> 0:17:56.156 can spend time wherever they want. If it gets too 0:17:56.196 --> 0:17:59.196 dense above, they can go below. The second thing is 0:17:59.236 --> 0:18:03.836 that by adding these layers you're dramatically increasing the surface area. 0:18:04.076 --> 0:18:09.076 So as the waist filters down, the biofilm gets depot 0:18:09.316 --> 0:18:12.996 a very very large surface area. So whatever pathogens the 0:18:13.036 --> 0:18:16.036 worms don't kill off die off in that process? Is 0:18:16.076 --> 0:18:18.676 the drum in the ground and the and the waste 0:18:18.716 --> 0:18:21.796 is going directly into it? How is this configured? Imagine 0:18:21.836 --> 0:18:25.236 the typical commode and usually in the context you work 0:18:25.276 --> 0:18:28.156 and it's it's a squatting toilet. Right, you have the 0:18:28.276 --> 0:18:32.196 little u pipe that goes from the commode and then 0:18:32.236 --> 0:18:35.756 it dumps under the ground into this drum. Oh see 0:18:35.756 --> 0:18:38.276 the drum is buried. Yeah. Yeah. The point is after 0:18:38.356 --> 0:18:40.516 eight years you might have to revisit this, but in 0:18:40.556 --> 0:18:43.996 the medium to long term you install this and it's 0:18:44.076 --> 0:18:46.076 no must not us. You're not digging up the drum 0:18:46.076 --> 0:18:48.996 at any point. Or that's correct. Yeah, we have run 0:18:49.076 --> 0:18:52.876 into some problems. So two years back, India had horrible 0:18:52.916 --> 0:18:56.836 monsoon range and in one of the villages the worms 0:18:56.876 --> 0:18:59.996 drowned simply because there was two feet of standing water 0:19:00.076 --> 0:19:02.236 for a couple of weeks. So things like that can happen. 0:19:02.316 --> 0:19:04.316 How do you know when all your worms are drowned? 0:19:04.636 --> 0:19:07.916 Does it start to back up? It starts to smell. 0:19:09.316 --> 0:19:11.876 One of the really good things about these toilets is 0:19:11.916 --> 0:19:15.356 that there's no smell. They're't of lives. In fact, most 0:19:15.356 --> 0:19:19.516 of the users they don't care about the pathrision destruction value. 0:19:19.636 --> 0:19:22.156 What they care about is, hey, wow, I can have 0:19:22.196 --> 0:19:24.716 a toilet that doesn't smell. How can it not smell 0:19:25.516 --> 0:19:28.996 simply because of the biological process here right, So I 0:19:29.076 --> 0:19:32.636 have this video that I love showing essentially it's a 0:19:32.756 --> 0:19:36.996 camera in one of these drums, and it's over the 0:19:36.996 --> 0:19:39.796 course of twenty hours, and if you just look at 0:19:39.796 --> 0:19:42.236 the footage at normal speed, you don't see anything. What 0:19:42.356 --> 0:19:44.396 you do notice is that a couple of hours after 0:19:44.436 --> 0:19:50.516 somebody defecates, the stuff disappears. If you significantly increase a speed, 0:19:50.556 --> 0:19:52.636 what you see is that the earthworms are doing what 0:19:52.716 --> 0:19:55.196 earthworms do, which is they're rolling the soil over right. 0:19:55.556 --> 0:19:57.996 And so as a result of that, within two hours 0:19:58.036 --> 0:20:02.076 after somebody defecates, the stuff is actually already better than soil. 0:20:03.076 --> 0:20:06.996 How widely has this system been deployed in India? On 0:20:06.996 --> 0:20:09.396 one hand, it is the most widely said linked to 0:20:09.396 --> 0:20:11.996 alet technology for the four On the other hand, it's 0:20:11.996 --> 0:20:14.796 a tiny number. It's like seven thousand or so, and 0:20:14.876 --> 0:20:18.236 we've been figuring out one of two directions to going. 0:20:18.916 --> 0:20:21.796 Turns out that there's a much larger scale version of 0:20:21.796 --> 0:20:24.836 this that we've used for treating raw sewage so as 0:20:24.836 --> 0:20:27.356 I mentioned earlier, and a lot of cities in the 0:20:27.436 --> 0:20:30.876 developing world, which is just dumps into local water wagement 0:20:31.156 --> 0:20:34.876 and that causes all sorts of problems from esthetics to 0:20:35.516 --> 0:20:38.596 health and so on, and so in the city of Pune, 0:20:38.916 --> 0:20:43.716 which has a bunch of such sewage pipes. We've tapped 0:20:43.716 --> 0:20:47.476 into one of them and have a larger scale version 0:20:47.516 --> 0:20:50.236 of this earthworm. Larger scale, how big is it? You know, 0:20:50.316 --> 0:20:53.236 it's the size of half football. Can you do this 0:20:53.316 --> 0:20:56.876 at any scale in principle yes, My sense is that 0:20:57.436 --> 0:21:00.516 as it gets larger, rather than simply growing it, we 0:21:00.556 --> 0:21:02.716 may just have to go through your So what's happened 0:21:02.716 --> 0:21:05.316 to the word? It's doing very well. So that is 0:21:05.316 --> 0:21:07.996 actually the thing we're most excited about right now, simply 0:21:08.036 --> 0:21:11.676 because now you can go into a city and over 0:21:11.716 --> 0:21:15.956 the course of a year build out the sewage treatment 0:21:15.996 --> 0:21:19.396 infracturate a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the cost probably 0:21:19.436 --> 0:21:22.596 one temper the cost of what cost you if you 0:21:22.836 --> 0:21:25.316 if you built a conventional system. If you compare this 0:21:25.436 --> 0:21:27.596 in the West, suppose you were going to build out 0:21:27.596 --> 0:21:30.796 a sewage treatment down the road from where we are now. 0:21:31.476 --> 0:21:33.596 Is the ratio the same one tenth or is it? 0:21:33.836 --> 0:21:35.716 I'm just I'm curious about the kind of state of 0:21:35.756 --> 0:21:39.516 the art Western style sewage facilities. What is the what 0:21:39.556 --> 0:21:41.596 are the costs of those compared to something like this. 0:21:41.836 --> 0:21:43.556 I couldn't give you a dollar number for that, right 0:21:43.836 --> 0:21:46.476 but if you just look at the components of the cost, right, 0:21:46.516 --> 0:21:49.516 so the earth worms kind of grow themselves, meaning that 0:21:49.596 --> 0:21:53.316 you just have a large ditch with sewage and there 0:21:53.356 --> 0:21:57.076 are thems that reproduce. The rest of it is almost 0:21:57.156 --> 0:22:01.516 zero infrastructure, So you've got no concrete. You know, if 0:22:01.516 --> 0:22:04.516 you go if you walk into a typical sewage treatment plant, 0:22:04.516 --> 0:22:07.196 you've got lots of power. You've got pumps because the 0:22:07.236 --> 0:22:09.596 way we treat waste right now of the area them 0:22:09.676 --> 0:22:12.636 there the ways, right, so none of that is required. 0:22:13.236 --> 0:22:15.716 It runs on a tiny solar panel just to pump 0:22:15.756 --> 0:22:18.036 the stuff, and the rest of it is just the worms. 0:22:18.356 --> 0:22:20.716 So the amount of land is the same, but you're 0:22:20.756 --> 0:22:23.596 not spending anything on motors and pumps. You're not spending 0:22:23.596 --> 0:22:26.476 anything on large concrete structures. So this is one that 0:22:26.516 --> 0:22:29.796 you expect to move from that could well, you think 0:22:29.836 --> 0:22:33.476 be popular in more developed countries. It could be. It 0:22:33.516 --> 0:22:35.556 could be. So give you an example of something that 0:22:35.636 --> 0:22:38.636 came up which I would love to explore. I don't 0:22:38.636 --> 0:22:41.676 know if the current regulatory environment allows for that. In 0:22:41.916 --> 0:22:45.316 the state of Alabama, Lounges County, it's a largely African 0:22:45.356 --> 0:22:51.116 American community, the rates of worm and round worm infection. 0:22:51.596 --> 0:22:55.276 They're comparable to the developing world, and the sanitation infrastructure 0:22:55.276 --> 0:22:57.956 there is non existent, and the state of Alabama is 0:22:58.316 --> 0:23:01.596 just not bothered to build it out, and so a 0:23:01.636 --> 0:23:06.476 lot of the old septic tanks they just dump into 0:23:06.516 --> 0:23:09.556 the soil there. A place like that is perfect for 0:23:09.596 --> 0:23:13.476 this kind of setup. Obviously, given that the US is 0:23:13.996 --> 0:23:17.636 much more of a litigious society than India is, we're 0:23:17.636 --> 0:23:21.236 actually much more careful about liability protections and so on 0:23:21.236 --> 0:23:25.116 and so forth, and it's not yet clear what the 0:23:25.196 --> 0:23:27.756 regulatory environment is, so composting toilets and a lot of 0:23:27.836 --> 0:23:30.236 and turns out in the US, it's a county by 0:23:30.276 --> 0:23:32.476 county thing around the country. So some counties are fine 0:23:32.516 --> 0:23:35.196 with it because they don't have a large enough population 0:23:35.196 --> 0:23:37.596 and most of them live off grid anyway, and it's 0:23:37.636 --> 0:23:40.956 just an alternative to septic tanks. But other counties are 0:23:40.996 --> 0:23:46.676 much more stringent about it. But if that switch flips 0:23:47.036 --> 0:23:52.156 where counties, particularly rural counties, recognize that this is a 0:23:52.316 --> 0:23:55.636 much more environmentally sound way to do things, with the 0:23:55.676 --> 0:23:58.956 appropriate checks and balances to make sure we're not polluting 0:23:59.356 --> 0:24:01.636 the ground and polluting the waterway is as suspect something 0:24:01.676 --> 0:24:05.796