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Speaker 1: Pushkin, you are in fact a pilot?

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Speaker 2: No? Yes, indeed, indeed, is that in.

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Speaker 1: Fact a pilot headset that you're wearing.

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Speaker 2: It is in fact a pilot hatseet, can you give.

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Speaker 1: Me a little like you're the pilot and I'm on

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Speaker 1: the plane, Just give me a little bit of that?

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Speaker 2: Uh? What am I doing? Yes, ladies and gentlemen, get

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Speaker 2: ready for takeoff? Are about to go to sustainable future?

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Speaker 2: How about that? Very good?

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Speaker 1: I'm Jacob Goldstein and this is What's Your Problem? The

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Speaker 1: show where I talk to people who are trying to

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Speaker 1: make technological progress. My guest today is Val Misikov. He's

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Speaker 1: the founder and CEO of zero Opia. His problem is this,

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Speaker 1: how can we have commercial air travel that doesn't make

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Speaker 1: climate change worse? As you'll hear, this is a very hard,

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Speaker 1: very high stakes problem. Zero Avia is trying to solve

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Speaker 1: it by using hydrogen fuel cells to power planes. The

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Speaker 1: company has about three hundred employees, and earlier this year

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Speaker 1: they had a successful test flight of a small hydrogen

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Speaker 1: fueled plane they hope will be in commercial use by

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. So how did you like? What was

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Speaker 1: how did you get to starting this company?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? So the short version is, you know, my previous

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Speaker 2: company that I co found, it grew and sold, you know,

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Speaker 2: and now is actually a basis off a one of

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Speaker 2: the largest e mobility platforms in Europe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be clear, that company was basically doing charging,

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Speaker 1: doing charging for electric vehicles.

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Speaker 2: Exactly right, right, So since twenty ten or so, I

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Speaker 2: was in sustainable transportation space as an entrepreneur. When I

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Speaker 2: sold that company and as you correctly noted, a pilot

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Speaker 2: myself for the last twenty years or so. So when

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Speaker 2: I sold that company, started thinking about what's next. Sustainable

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Speaker 2: transfer was already in the car, so to speak, and

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Speaker 2: an aviation at to that and then sustainable aviation, so

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Speaker 2: that was relatively natural.

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Speaker 1: I mean, sustainable aviation is really hard, right, Like I

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Speaker 1: feel like, you know, there's the very big picture, the

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Speaker 1: sort of the energy transition, decarbonization, and like electricity generation,

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Speaker 1: we're doing great. We can get electricity without burning fossil fuels.

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Speaker 1: We've got some transmission and some storage issues that are hard,

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Speaker 1: but basically we can we can get electricity without burning

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Speaker 1: fossil fuels. Cars We're doing really well. Ev is great,

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Speaker 1: We've we've got that one. Planes seem really hard.

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Speaker 2: Planes seem harder, exactly right, And that's why I started it, right,

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Speaker 2: because somebody's got to do it. Yeah, it's a huge problem.

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Speaker 2: It's actually on track to become the largest problem we

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Speaker 2: have in terms of sustainability.

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Speaker 1: Because we're solving the other ones and we haven't really

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Speaker 1: cracked planes exactly right.

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Speaker 2: And this is actually planes or aviation. Commercial aviation is

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Speaker 2: one of the fastest growing transportation modes worldwide. There's either

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Speaker 2: ten or fifteen percent I don't remember the exact naml right,

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Speaker 2: only ten or fifteen percent of people have flown on aircraft, right.

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Speaker 2: And obviously, as you know, people get a little bit

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Speaker 2: richer and the standards of living go up. People jump

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Speaker 2: on a plane and they want to go somewhere.

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Speaker 1: So you have the sort of rising middle class. Say

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Speaker 1: in a lot of Asia, you have billions of people

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Speaker 1: who've never been on a plane who in the next

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Speaker 1: ten twenty years they or their kids are going to

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Speaker 1: start flying the way we fly in the.

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Speaker 2: West, exactly right, exactly right. And while in the West

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Speaker 2: we're sort of you know, some Scandinavian country started as

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Speaker 2: the flight shaming movement right from Sweden and all that

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Speaker 2: we're thinking, oh, well, maybe we should fly less and

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Speaker 2: all that. That is a developed nation centric view. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: No, we're not going to shame people into not flying.

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Speaker 1: I'm very comfortable with that. We can stipulate that.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: So we have to figure out how to fly planes

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Speaker 1: without generating fossil fuels and other bad emission.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. So, and the problem there is a not just carbon, right,

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Speaker 2: which is important. So from carbon accounting perspective, aviation is

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Speaker 2: about three percent today off all human emissions, but the

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Speaker 2: actual impact on climate is at least triple that, right,

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Speaker 2: because of the high altitude emissions off combustion artifacts. Right,

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Speaker 2: So that's the particular emissions, high temperature, water vapor, all

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Speaker 2: that stuff emitted up in the atmosphere.

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Speaker 1: All the other stuff besides carbon. Carbon dioxide is particularly

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Speaker 1: bad for climate change if it happens at whatever, thirty

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Speaker 1: thousand feet above.

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Speaker 2: The good right. Right. So, as a result, already aviation

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Speaker 2: is anywhere between seven and ten percent of total human

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Speaker 2: climate impact.

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Speaker 1: Presumably, as you sort of turn to it, you think

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Speaker 1: through the different possibilities. How can we solve this? So

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Speaker 1: how do you sort of think through the different possible solutions?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and you're very right. So, really in order

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Speaker 2: to fully solve the problem and reduce the impact profile affreviation,

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Speaker 2: you have to get away from combustion.

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Speaker 1: And there are a few different options there. Right, once

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Speaker 1: you get to the long term even that is, people

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Speaker 1: are trying different things. So if we're going to stop

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Speaker 1: burning things, we're going to make electric planes, that basically

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Speaker 1: leave us with the choice of batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.

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Speaker 2: Is that we or fuel cells off some kinds, right,

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Speaker 2: So there are multiple types of fuel cells. There are

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Speaker 2: you know, fuel cells that work on methanol for example,

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Speaker 2: and things like that.

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Speaker 1: Before we get to fuel cells, I mean, we've got

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Speaker 1: electric cars. They seem cool, they work with batteries. Why

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Speaker 1: not do that for a plane?

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Speaker 2: Very good question, and we actually did this analysis relatively

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Speaker 2: early on. We say, okay, well, look at let's look

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Speaker 2: at all the transportation modes starting from personal car all

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Speaker 2: the way to commercial aircraft. Right and along the way

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Speaker 2: you have taxis, you have like small trucks that deliver

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Speaker 2: postal services, and they have big trucks, and you have

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Speaker 2: airplanes and they have you know, large commercial planes. You

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Speaker 2: take personal car that's about two to three percent off

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Speaker 2: its total weight of the vehicle is gasoline or diesel fuel. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and then you move to the other side of the spectrum,

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Speaker 2: which is commercial aircraft, you have up to forty percent

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Speaker 2: off to take off weight is fuel. So that's twenty

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Speaker 2: x difference on the energy intensity, right, And that gives

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Speaker 2: you a perspective off like, hey, how much energy do

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Speaker 2: I need to store on board my vehicle in order

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Speaker 2: to enable commercial operation or viable operation?

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Speaker 1: And just to be clear, the answer to that question

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Speaker 1: for a passenger car is not that much energy, that's right,

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Speaker 1: And the answer for a jet is an incredible amount

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Speaker 1: of energy. The jet is like by weight almost half

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Speaker 1: energy storage.

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Speaker 2: Right, gets to that point, okay.

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Speaker 1: And just to be clear, batteries even relative to regular fuel, like,

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Speaker 1: a key problem with batteries is they are not very

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Speaker 1: energy dense. You need a lot of battery to get

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Speaker 1: a little bit of energy. Big problem for batteries in general.

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Speaker 2: Exactly. So when you have you know, for small car,

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Speaker 2: your fuel is two percent off the weight of the car,

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Speaker 2: then you say, well, even if my battery is twenty

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Speaker 2: times heavier or twenty times lower energy density, it's okay.

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Speaker 2: You know, I can have a battery that's now forty

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Speaker 2: percent off the car weight, which is what you have

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Speaker 2: in you know, early teslas. Right, But it's still fine, huh, Right.

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Speaker 1: You can still make a functional car that's half.

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Speaker 2: Battery, Yeah you can. You can make a viable vehicle.

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Speaker 2: But when you start with a forty percent nothing you

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Speaker 2: can do.

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Speaker 1: You can't make a plane that's two hundred percent battery.

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Speaker 2: And it's actually interesting point there because you know, it's

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Speaker 2: like you get into into this problem of what I

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Speaker 2: call a rocket equation, right, which is like in a rocket,

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Speaker 2: for example, in space rocket, most of the fuel is

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Speaker 2: used to carry fuel right through the through the beginning

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Speaker 2: of your ascent right.

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Speaker 1: Right, because the rocket is almost entirely fuel, right, And

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Speaker 1: so when it's blasting off, it's expending a tremendous amount

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Speaker 1: of energy to carry the fuel that it's going to

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Speaker 1: need in ten seconds to get it a little bit

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Speaker 1: higher and so on.

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Speaker 2: Exactly right, exactly, you got it. So with battery airplane

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Speaker 2: you get into the same kind of circular dependency.

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Speaker 1: So, okay, so you land on a fuel cell, let's

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Speaker 1: just do like a really basic like what is a

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Speaker 1: fuel cell?

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Speaker 2: All right? So fuel cell is an electro chemical device

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Speaker 2: that takes fuel and oxygen and converse it into electricity

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Speaker 2: through a catalyst based reaction. Right, So there is no

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Speaker 2: high temperature combustion involved and you have direct electricity production,

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Speaker 2: and that's what makes that thing very efficient.

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Speaker 1: So let's talk about end to end, the dream of

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Speaker 1: how it's going to work. Afterwards, we can talk about

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Speaker 1: sort of where you are now and what you still

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Speaker 1: have to figure out. But like when you sort of

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Speaker 1: close your eyes and imagine the world in ten years

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Speaker 1: or whatever, how's it going to work?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we are going to have hydrogen production on

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Speaker 2: site at the airports. Okay, it's a green hydrogen production

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Speaker 2: through electrolysis, local renewable power.

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Speaker 1: So the airports will have little hydrogen factories. Basically, what's

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Speaker 1: that going to look like?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's actually quite sizeable hydrogen factory.

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Speaker 1: They're not little. They're gonna have hydrogen factories, big hydrogen factory.

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Speaker 1: It's great. So what's that gonna look like?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we're going to have so let's say right now,

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Speaker 2: every large airport, a medium airport as well, they have

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Speaker 2: what's called fuel farm. Okay, so that's a separate area

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Speaker 2: dedicated to receiving, storing, processing, dispensing fuel. Now we're going

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Speaker 2: to have part of that fuel farm will be dedicated

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Speaker 2: to hydrogen production through electrolysism.

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Speaker 1: And that electrolysis, what's happening there? What is that step one?

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Speaker 2: So it's again you know a system right here. You

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Speaker 2: take water in electricity, produce hydrogen and oxygen.

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Speaker 1: Okay, okay, you're getting the electricity from a from a

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Speaker 1: solar panel or a turbine, not from burning natural gas.

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Speaker 1: So sure you've got your electricity coming from the solar farm.

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Speaker 1: You're using that electricity to create hydrogen.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a hydrogen at the airport, so it's

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Speaker 2: piped over to the airside and then it fills the

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Speaker 2: aircraft with hydrogen electric engines. Then it's used to produce

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Speaker 2: electricity on board and you operate all this aircraft less noise,

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Speaker 2: no emissions. And that's where the messaging has parallels with

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Speaker 2: the automotive, right when Tesla came in and said, well, actually,

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Speaker 2: you know, electric car is a better car because it's

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Speaker 2: so much more efficient, better torque, better acceleration, all those things.

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Speaker 2: So similar here, the electric propulsion is much more efficient

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Speaker 2: than any combustion propulsion you can have, even for the

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Speaker 2: largest engines that we have that are running on seven

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Speaker 2: eighty sevens and beyond. They are less efficient than even

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Speaker 2: small fuel cell electric engines that we fly in twenty

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Speaker 2: seat planes.

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Speaker 1: So there was a crash of one of your test

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Speaker 1: flights last year, right, tell me briefly what happened there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So mostly I would say the root cause was

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Speaker 2: a loss of power on the engine, right, so you know, duh, naturally,

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Speaker 2: otherwise we wouldn't have landed in the field.

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Speaker 1: But the real cost is bad, right, You don't want

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Speaker 1: to have lots of power in it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but you know, you test experimental engine,

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Speaker 2: so you know, and you test it through sort of

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Speaker 2: expansion of the envelope. So in this case, uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: there were some human factors that resulted in wrong points

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Speaker 2: in the pattern for the power to be switched off,

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Speaker 2: wrong altitude to be flown, and now those things kind

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Speaker 2: of compounded together, and then there are some other things.

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Speaker 2: But mostly I would say human factors.

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Speaker 1: And nobody was hurt, right, that's right, that's right.

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Speaker 2: So, and the the entire system, you know, the hydrogen storage,

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Speaker 2: the fuel system, the hyders and fuel cell and all that,

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Speaker 2: we're safe throughout the whole sequence. There was no leakage,

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Speaker 2: there's no anything.

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Speaker 1: I know, you know, you kept working on everything after that,

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Speaker 1: And I understand you had a test flight earlier this

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Speaker 1: year that was something of a milestone.

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Speaker 2: Yes, so that was our third prototype. We've flown smaller

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Speaker 2: planes before with our systems. This is our latest design.

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Speaker 1: And how big is it? What was the plane that

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Speaker 1: flew this year?

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Speaker 2: It's a twenty seat aircraft?

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Speaker 1: And is that do you hope to have a twenty

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Speaker 1: seat plane in commercial use in the foreseeable future?

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Speaker 2: So that's type of a plane. That size of a

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Speaker 2: plane ten to twenty seat is our first launch target

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Speaker 2: in two years twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: And so does two years mean you mostly have it

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Speaker 1: figured out and you just have to get regulatory approval?

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Speaker 1: I mean just I'm sure it's not just, but like,

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Speaker 1: do you basically know how to build that plane now?

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Speaker 1: Are you confident that it works?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Pretty much, pretty much. We were finalizing the design

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Speaker 2: of the engine to submit certification in the next six months.

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Speaker 1: Do you do you have to fly it for thousands

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Speaker 1: of hours or something? I mean, I imagine those regulatory requirements

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Speaker 1: are quite stringent. A whole new kind of propulsion.

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Speaker 2: We have to operate the engines for thousands of hours,

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Speaker 2: we don't necessarily have to fly again. And that's part

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Speaker 2: of our approach is that we work with existing aircraft types. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: so our initial business model go to market is retrofitting

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Speaker 2: the existing fleets. So we go to the operators and

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Speaker 2: we say, hey, you got a fleet of hundreds of

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Speaker 2: these aircraft, we can repower them with a better engine.

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Speaker 2: Because while aircraft themselves last for thirty forty years in

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Speaker 2: commercial service, especially in the small aircraft space, they go

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Speaker 2: through multiple sets of engines over that light time. Huh.

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Speaker 1: So it's like, hey, you're going to need a new

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Speaker 1: engine for this plane anyways, let me sell you one

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Speaker 1: of these fuels, right yeah, And is it right you

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Speaker 1: have some number of orders.

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Speaker 2: For correct those is that right? Yeah? Yeah, about fifteen

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Speaker 2: hundred engines on pre order right now, so, oney, five

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Speaker 2: hundred or so, and I think four out of top

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Speaker 2: ten airlines worldwide are customers already with those pre orders,

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Speaker 2: about ten billion dollars worth of you know, pre order revenue,

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Speaker 2: future revenue.

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Speaker 1: So what has to happen for you to actually sell

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Speaker 1: those engines, to get those engines to those airlines?

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Speaker 2: Oh, we have to get them certified, and we have

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Speaker 2: to deliver on the performance targets that we have committed

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Speaker 2: to with these airlines, right, which means that we have

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Speaker 2: to develop certain amount of power so that that aircraft

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Speaker 2: can take off in a certain distance and climb at

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Speaker 2: a certain rates and all that. Then we know we

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Speaker 2: can do it.

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Speaker 1: You also need to get the infrastructure in place at airports,

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Speaker 1: right Like that seems.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the infrastructure is actually everybody gets hung up on that.

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Speaker 3: But we think that I'm interested, yeah, yeah, no, but

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Speaker 3: everybody everybody is, okay, So, but we think that infrastructure

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Speaker 3: is a really the easier part of the equation here

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Speaker 3: Right in the.

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Speaker 2: US, the total number of all commercial airports is just

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Speaker 2: four hundred four hundred locations, and one hundred of those

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Speaker 2: airports account for ninety five percent of the traffic.

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Speaker 1: Right, The answer is, you don't need that many.

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Speaker 2: But we you know, we were not attempting to build

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Speaker 2: all the infrastructure as well. Right. We have partners like

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Speaker 2: shel for example, is a major investor in zero Audia,

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Speaker 2: and they are looking to bring hydrogen infrastructure to these

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Speaker 2: airports as well. But we work with them in the

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Speaker 2: back end. We aggregate that supply into our business model,

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Speaker 2: and when we go to the airlines, we are the

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Speaker 2: one stop contract.

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Speaker 1: In a minute. What validis colleagues still have to figure

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Speaker 1: out to get their first hydrogen fuel cell on a

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Speaker 1: commercial plane. That's the end of the ads. Now we're

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Speaker 1: going back to the show. You mentioned that the engines

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Speaker 1: have to meet certain performance specifications. Are you there yet

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Speaker 1: on those?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? On the performance, we're we're almost there. We get

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Speaker 2: the we get the actual power, we get the efficiency.

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Speaker 2: What we're working on now is mostly around weight reduction

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Speaker 2: for the engine. The engine is going to be about

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Speaker 2: twice as heavy as the turbine engine that it replaces,

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Speaker 2: so you take some trade off on the range of

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Speaker 2: the aircraft, but not nearly as much as you would

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Speaker 2: have to do with batteries.

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Speaker 1: So these planes won't be able to fly as far

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Speaker 1: as a jet fuel powered plane. So you're hoping to

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Speaker 1: launch in small planes in a couple of years, and

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Speaker 1: I know you want to eventually get to big planes,

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Speaker 1: to the big commercial jets that you fly across the

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Speaker 1: country in, or fly across the Atlantic in, or whatever.

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Speaker 1: What is hard about about scaling in that way? What's

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Speaker 1: hard about going from where you almost are now to

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Speaker 1: where you want to be in ten years.

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Speaker 2: Two things, two main things from the technology standpoint. One

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Speaker 2: is we need to move from a sort of typical

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Speaker 2: low temperature fuel cells that are used in the cars

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Speaker 2: or types that they're using cars, to higher temperature fuel

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Speaker 2: cells that are optimized for aviation.

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Speaker 1: And so why do you need to develop essentially a

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Speaker 1: new kind of fuel cell to fly bigger planes?

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Speaker 2: Right? Because the more bigger planes require disproportionately more power too, right,

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Speaker 2: So they're generally faster. Right, So all those jets they

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Speaker 2: fly much faster, which means the power levels are significantly higher.

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Speaker 1: So a plane that's twice as big requires way more

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Speaker 1: than twice.

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Speaker 2: As long, more than twice as much power.

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Speaker 1: But that's hard, that's hard. You can't just build a

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Speaker 1: bigger fuel cellar.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, the reason that's hard with the current type

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Speaker 2: of a few cells, at least currently using automotive is

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Speaker 2: because when you scale power, you also scale the heat

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Speaker 2: production because no, no system is one hundred percent efficient,

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Speaker 2: so you have the heat that you need to remove

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Speaker 2: from the system. And that, yeah, that's right inefficiency. And

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Speaker 2: now for low temperature fuel cells, that heat is thrown

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Speaker 2: off at low temperature and it's difficult to remove it because,

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Speaker 2: for example, a good hot environment example is Phoenix, Arizona,

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Speaker 2: in the middle of a summer, it's fifty degrees celsius

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Speaker 2: on our runway, sometimes even more so. Your fuel cell

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Speaker 2: typical fuel cell in a car operates at about sixty

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Speaker 2: sixty five celsius internal temperature. So you now have sixty

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Speaker 2: five versus fifty. That's not much delta that you can

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Speaker 2: use to cool it, right, because if you're if your

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Speaker 2: ambient temperature is the same as your core temper you

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Speaker 2: cannot cool it right. And so what do you need

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Speaker 2: to do is you need to either you know, have

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Speaker 2: humongous heat exchangers or radiators, right, which is prohibitive because

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Speaker 2: then if they weigh a lot, they introduced drag and

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Speaker 2: all that. Or you can increase the temperature off the

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Speaker 2: fuel cell, right and just even small, relatively small increases

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Speaker 2: of temperature give you very significant benefits. So our inniuce

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Speaker 2: technology is operating instead of sixty five seventies degrees cells

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Speaker 2: is it operates at one eighty to two hundred C.

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Speaker 2: But it's if you if you take again an example

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Speaker 2: of Phoenix, right.

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Speaker 1: Basically it can be air cooled the hotter, it runs.

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Speaker 2: Just cooled. Right.

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Speaker 1: That's that's like a fundamental kind of engineering problem that

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Speaker 1: you have to solve is making a hotter fuel cell.

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Speaker 2: That's right. So that's one. The second one is for

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Speaker 2: large aircraft, you need to go from gaseous fuel storage

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Speaker 2: to cryogenic liquid storage of hydrog on board because other

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Speaker 2: you cannot store enough. Basically, So those compressed gas cylinders,

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Speaker 2: while they're super simple, super safe, all those tanks, right,

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Speaker 2: they're heavy because they need to contain that huge pressure.

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Speaker 2: So you know, best in class right now is only

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Speaker 2: eight percent of your fuel tank system is fuel. Ninety

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Speaker 2: two percent is tank.

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Speaker 1: Okay, oh wow, so that's the tanks you're putting on

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Speaker 1: the twenty seat plane. It's mostly tank.

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Speaker 2: It's mostly tank.

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Speaker 1: It's brutal, right, that's brutal.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Now what helps is, of course, hydrogen

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Speaker 2: itself is three times better energy density than jet fuel,

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Speaker 2: and then with fuel cell you use it twice as efficient,

380
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Speaker 2: so you're sort of six times better than jet fuel.

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Speaker 1: But I'm still bummed that your tank full of hydrogen

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Speaker 1: is ninety percent tank and ten percent hydrogen, right, That

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Speaker 1: makes me sad, that's right.

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Speaker 2: That's right. So in order to move from that, you

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Speaker 2: have to go cry agenic liquid, which is low low

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Speaker 2: pressure storage, so you don't need those you know, hue.

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Speaker 1: But it has to be super cold. Is probably has

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Speaker 1: to be super cold.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to you have to be super cold.

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Speaker 2: But there, you know, people know how to store those things, right.

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Speaker 2: AT's the vacuum insulated yours? Right, Yeah, like a thermos. Yeah, yeah,

392
00:21:23,996 --> 00:21:28,836
Speaker 2: exactly right, a thermos, Yeah, carbon composite thermos. So then

393
00:21:29,036 --> 00:21:33,796
Speaker 2: most off your tank is actually fuel right by weight,

394
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Speaker 2: and that's that That changes the dynamics quite a bit,

395
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Speaker 2: and that that's how you you're going to make airplanes

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00:21:41,116 --> 00:21:45,876
Speaker 2: go potentially even further than today's kerosene planes, right if

397
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Speaker 2: anybody can handle more than twenty hours on the plane.

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Speaker 1: So you need much much colder fuel and much hotter

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Speaker 1: fuel cells.

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Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, that's right, which is actually a very

401
00:21:56,516 --> 00:22:00,236
Speaker 2: very interesting point because you can then use you know,

402
00:22:00,476 --> 00:22:05,476
Speaker 2: to marry that cold. Yeah, you can cool the hotter

403
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Speaker 2: fuel cells with colder fuel and get additional efficiency.

404
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Speaker 1: Tell me the ways in which shifting from gaseous hydrogen

405
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Speaker 1: to very cold liquid hydrogen is hard? Sounds hard? Is

406
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Speaker 1: it hard?

407
00:22:17,836 --> 00:22:21,676
Speaker 2: Yeah? It is? It is hard. The reason it's hard

408
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Speaker 2: is because there is virtually no history of vehicle use

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Speaker 2: of liquid hydrogen, right for propulsion, Right, So.

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Speaker 1: I mean hydrogen is Look, I've gone this whole time

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Speaker 1: without saying Hindenberg, I was trying not to say it,

412
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Speaker 1: but hydrogen is very reactive. It blows up, right, I mean,

413
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Speaker 1: is that a concern when you're talking about this new

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Speaker 1: kind of fuel, or.

415
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Speaker 2: Well, with any fuel, you have this concern, right, Garrison

416
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Speaker 2: blows up, gasoline blows up, all any anytime you have

417
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Speaker 2: significant amount of energy stored, you're gonna you know, you're

418
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Speaker 2: gonna have issues, right, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So does that become a challenge when you're trying to

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Speaker 1: store hydrogen in this way that it hasn't been stored

421
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Speaker 1: in vehicles before in this shift?

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00:23:04,716 --> 00:23:06,436
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, yeah, So you have to you have to

423
00:23:06,556 --> 00:23:11,916
Speaker 2: basically design the the the safety system around it that

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Speaker 2: manages it correctly as possible. Liquid hydrogen is used in

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Speaker 2: the industry a lot, right, So the industry knows is

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00:23:19,556 --> 00:23:23,916
Speaker 2: stationary applications, you know, pharmaceuticals, and so people know how

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Speaker 2: to do it.

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00:23:24,356 --> 00:23:24,716
Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Right, it's just that now we need to make it lightweight,

430
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Speaker 2: We need to certify through the aviation certification standards. Right,

431
00:23:31,556 --> 00:23:33,236
Speaker 2: So that's that's significant challenge.

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Speaker 1: What you're doing is hard. Clearly, if it doesn't work,

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Speaker 1: I hope it works obviously for you and for everybody.

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Speaker 1: But if it doesn't work, like, what do you think

435
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Speaker 1: is the most likely reason it wouldn't work?

436
00:23:45,636 --> 00:23:50,316
Speaker 2: Frankly, I don't. I don't see the reason there. I

437
00:23:50,356 --> 00:23:51,476
Speaker 2: don't see the reason.

438
00:23:51,916 --> 00:23:54,556
Speaker 1: That's the classic entrepreneur angle. Right, it will work.

439
00:23:55,116 --> 00:23:57,436
Speaker 2: But you know, I'm a I'm a physicist as well.

440
00:23:57,516 --> 00:23:59,716
Speaker 2: Back around and we have you know, a good number

441
00:23:59,716 --> 00:24:01,076
Speaker 2: of scientists on the team, and.

442
00:24:01,196 --> 00:24:04,476
Speaker 1: Y, I mean there are things like execution risk, right,

443
00:24:04,516 --> 00:24:07,196
Speaker 1: there's there's the like first principles of things that should

444
00:24:07,196 --> 00:24:11,116
Speaker 1: work don't work in the world because of idiosyncratic reasons.

445
00:24:11,356 --> 00:24:13,836
Speaker 2: Right right, right, right, So there is always that, but

446
00:24:13,996 --> 00:24:17,396
Speaker 2: from the sort of physics and science perspective, there are

447
00:24:17,436 --> 00:24:20,796
Speaker 2: no there are no real barriers and and and the

448
00:24:20,836 --> 00:24:24,876
Speaker 2: thing is, you know, we like society, we have to

449
00:24:24,876 --> 00:24:28,516
Speaker 2: make it work. It is becoming larger and larger part

450
00:24:28,516 --> 00:24:31,996
Speaker 2: of the problem. So it will happen, which means that

451
00:24:31,996 --> 00:24:35,116
Speaker 2: it's a huge opportunity to be taken. And that's uh,

452
00:24:35,236 --> 00:24:36,156
Speaker 2: that's what we're doing.

453
00:24:38,716 --> 00:24:42,036
Speaker 1: In a minute, the lightning Round, including the metaphysical lessons

454
00:24:42,076 --> 00:24:54,116
Speaker 1: of a physics PhD and cold plunges. Now let's get

455
00:24:54,116 --> 00:24:56,116
Speaker 1: back to the show. I just want to do a

456
00:24:56,196 --> 00:25:02,156
Speaker 1: few sort of lightning round semi random questions to finish.

457
00:25:02,276 --> 00:25:04,876
Speaker 1: You have a PhD in physics from Princeton, and I'm

458
00:25:04,916 --> 00:25:10,516
Speaker 1: curious what studying physics taught you about the fabric of reality.

459
00:25:12,476 --> 00:25:15,076
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, that the the best approach to

460
00:25:15,156 --> 00:25:19,276
Speaker 2: things is a really first principle approach to not get

461
00:25:19,316 --> 00:25:22,516
Speaker 2: clouded and how how things were done, but look at

462
00:25:22,516 --> 00:25:26,716
Speaker 2: the look at the core. On a more metaphysical sort

463
00:25:26,716 --> 00:25:35,516
Speaker 2: of side of your question, I think any scientist that

464
00:25:35,996 --> 00:25:39,916
Speaker 2: is sort of real scientists will tell you that it's

465
00:25:39,916 --> 00:25:43,756
Speaker 2: pretty clear that we don't know most of what there

466
00:25:43,836 --> 00:25:48,196
Speaker 2: is to know, right. So sometimes it might be you

467
00:25:48,276 --> 00:25:51,036
Speaker 2: might have had a temptation to say that, hey, we're

468
00:25:51,036 --> 00:25:55,556
Speaker 2: we're in this you know, advanced state of society or

469
00:25:55,716 --> 00:25:58,436
Speaker 2: human knowledge, that we know most of the things know.

470
00:25:59,156 --> 00:26:02,396
Speaker 2: In fact, you know, we don't know most and probably

471
00:26:02,796 --> 00:26:05,556
Speaker 2: we don't know even one percent of what there is

472
00:26:05,596 --> 00:26:12,396
Speaker 2: to know. And it helps to be have a little humility.

473
00:26:12,956 --> 00:26:22,156
Speaker 2: Why cold plunges, Yeah, so, uh, let's see. Actually the

474
00:26:22,196 --> 00:26:27,036
Speaker 2: real the real answer is probably uh, testing the theory

475
00:26:27,196 --> 00:26:31,956
Speaker 2: that human body is capable of anything pretty much.

476
00:26:31,996 --> 00:26:33,596
Speaker 1: Well, we know it's not capable of anything.

477
00:26:33,676 --> 00:26:37,556
Speaker 2: Well, you know, or rather much more than you expect.

478
00:26:38,596 --> 00:26:41,316
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about your cold plunge game.

479
00:26:41,916 --> 00:26:45,636
Speaker 2: Well, we have a little di y thing. Okay, it's

480
00:26:45,676 --> 00:26:49,836
Speaker 2: a it's actually a fish dank cooler and it against

481
00:26:49,876 --> 00:26:53,676
Speaker 2: it gets what are too nice three degrees you know, Celsius.

482
00:26:53,316 --> 00:26:55,716
Speaker 1: It's just barely about freezing, very cold.

483
00:26:56,036 --> 00:26:58,996
Speaker 2: That's right, that's wrong, very long in that water, five

484
00:26:59,036 --> 00:26:59,796
Speaker 2: to ten minutes.

485
00:26:59,916 --> 00:27:04,436
Speaker 1: That's much longer than I would have expected. What was

486
00:27:04,476 --> 00:27:07,516
Speaker 1: the worst moment you had in an iron Man triathlon?

487
00:27:09,636 --> 00:27:17,116
Speaker 2: Mh well, uh, I decided in the in the second

488
00:27:17,116 --> 00:27:22,156
Speaker 2: half of the run, I, in my infinite wisdom, I

489
00:27:22,196 --> 00:27:26,516
Speaker 2: had a water mix with some fuel mix. So I

490
00:27:26,516 --> 00:27:28,556
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, I'm not going to carry it. I'm

491
00:27:28,556 --> 00:27:30,676
Speaker 2: gonna be efficient. I'm not going to carry my water

492
00:27:30,796 --> 00:27:33,116
Speaker 2: with me. I'm going to drink it all right now,

493
00:27:33,316 --> 00:27:36,356
Speaker 2: right as over a leader of water. And and that

494
00:27:36,396 --> 00:27:38,756
Speaker 2: caught up to me, you know, through the through the run.

495
00:27:38,836 --> 00:27:39,756
Speaker 2: So that was not pretty.

496
00:27:39,876 --> 00:27:42,316
Speaker 1: That was the best moment in an iron man the bike.

497
00:27:43,156 --> 00:27:44,956
Speaker 2: I love the bikes. I don't. I don't actually have

498
00:27:44,996 --> 00:27:47,876
Speaker 2: a car. My wife has a car, but sometimes I

499
00:27:47,916 --> 00:27:51,436
Speaker 2: borrow it so I bike everywhere. So that's my favorite

500
00:27:51,756 --> 00:28:08,236
Speaker 2: part of the UH of any Triathlonkov.

501
00:28:01,476 --> 00:28:05,316
Speaker 1: Is the founder and CEO of Zero. Today's show was

502
00:28:05,316 --> 00:28:08,396
Speaker 1: produced by Edith Russelo. It was edited by Sarah Nix

503
00:28:08,516 --> 00:28:13,436
Speaker 1: and Rob Smith, and engineered by Amanda k Wong. I'm

504
00:28:13,476 --> 00:28:16,396
Speaker 1: Jacob Goldstein. You can find me on Twitter at Jacob Goldstein,

505
00:28:16,476 --> 00:28:20,996
Speaker 1: or you can email us at problem at Pushkin dot fm.

506
00:28:21,196 --> 00:28:23,716
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another episode of What's

507
00:28:23,716 --> 00:28:30,196
Speaker 1: Your Problem