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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the two thousand twelve Toyota Camera.

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,

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Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette

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Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.

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Speaker 1: Sitting in for me, as is typical, is senior writer

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Speaker 1: Jonathan He there right, So, Chris, one of the big

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Speaker 1: issues facing the world today is access to clean, drinkable water,

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Speaker 1: and so we wanted to talk to someone who's an

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Speaker 1: expert in a particular form of processing water to make

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Speaker 1: something that isn't drinkable into drinkable water, and we have

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Speaker 1: with us from ge Eric Hansen. Eric, welcome to the

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Speaker 1: to the podcast. We're excited to have you here, and

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Speaker 1: we're going to talk a bit about desalination, which is

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Speaker 1: a process where we're removing things like salt and other

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Speaker 1: minerals from water so that you have clean drinking water

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Speaker 1: as an as a byproduct, really the other one being

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Speaker 1: the the salt, the salute. So we want to talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about the process that you guys use

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Speaker 1: over at g the things that you're looking into, and um,

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Speaker 1: how that has changed over the years. So to really

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Speaker 1: start off, what what are the greatest benefits of desalination? UM?

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Speaker 1: A great question. You know, the world today bases you know,

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Speaker 1: ever increasing challenges and stresses on water supplies. But you know,

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Speaker 1: the good news behind that is the Earth's surfaces water.

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Speaker 1: So even though less than one percent of that is

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Speaker 1: accessible as fresh water today, the rest of it is

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Speaker 1: is seawater, and we do have the technologies today to

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Speaker 1: turn that into usable water. So in fact, those technologies

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Speaker 1: have been around for a really long time. You know,

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Speaker 1: even hundreds of years ago, people would boil water, capture

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Speaker 1: the steam from that water, and use the condensation from

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Speaker 1: that that steam as purified water. So the concepts of

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Speaker 1: of desalinating water using heat or thermal technologies, those aren't

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Speaker 1: new concepts. They've been around for a while. Desalination has

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Speaker 1: been going on for a long time, and even up

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Speaker 1: through the most of the nineties, thermal technologies were still

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Speaker 1: very prevalent, albeit a little bit more advanced than just

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Speaker 1: simply boiling water, but the concepts were still the same,

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Speaker 1: heating of the water, capturing the steam, and condensing it.

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Speaker 1: In the in the nineties, different technologies started being applied. UH.

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Speaker 1: Instead of heating up the water and boiling it, what

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Speaker 1: we started doing was applying membranes, special kinds of of

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Speaker 1: very advanced filters. UH. These membranes are able to remove

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Speaker 1: the salts from the water UH with much less energy.

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Speaker 1: It takes a lot of energy to boil water, so

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Speaker 1: using membrane technologies, we've been able to reduce the amount

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Speaker 1: of energy it takes to remove the salt from water.

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Speaker 1: And over the last twenty years there have been just

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Speaker 1: a lot of advances in that in that field, which

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Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll go into a little bit more in

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Speaker 1: our conversation. Sure, making the cost of the salinating water

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Speaker 1: come down, you know, every year, right, And so you're

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Speaker 1: talking about these these semi permeable membranes. Essentially we're looking

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Speaker 1: at a process of reverse osmosis really um forcing the

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Speaker 1: using pressure essentially to force water that has various minerals

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Speaker 1: and salt in it through this membrane. The membrane separates

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Speaker 1: out the minerals the salts, and the water passes through. Normally,

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Speaker 1: when you have a membrane between a solute and a solvent,

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Speaker 1: the solvent is going to pass through the membrane until

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Speaker 1: there's a an equilibrium there and osmosis pressure is osmotic

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Speaker 1: pressure is built up. So in this case, we're actually

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Speaker 1: applying energy on one side so that we get water

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Speaker 1: on one end of the membrane and everything else is

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Speaker 1: on the other. Is that that sort of a bird's

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Speaker 1: eye view of what that technology is all about. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you described it very well. You know. One of the

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Speaker 1: biggest difference between membrane filtration and the types of filtration

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Speaker 1: that most people are familiar with is when most people

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Speaker 1: think of a filter, they imagine a barrier of some

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Speaker 1: kind with one stream of water flowing into it, things

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Speaker 1: being removed by that barrier, and then one stream of

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Speaker 1: water flowing out the other side, and then after a

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Speaker 1: while you have to do something to get all this

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Speaker 1: stuff you've removed off that barrier. So membrane technology doesn't

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Speaker 1: exactly work that way. You still have a barrier and

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Speaker 1: it's the membrane, but in membrane technology, the feed stream

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Speaker 1: is actually flowing across the membrane, so you have one

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Speaker 1: stream in, but then you're applying pressure, so some waters

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Speaker 1: making it through the membrane, and that's the purified water

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Speaker 1: without much salt in it, and all the salt, all

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Speaker 1: the salt is staying on the other side of the membrane.

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Speaker 1: So in membrane technology, instead of one stream in and

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Speaker 1: one stream out, you actually have one stream in but

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Speaker 1: two streams out purified the saltier stream, so that salt

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Speaker 1: here stream the brine. I know that that has caused

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Speaker 1: some problems in the past, simply because Brian, you know,

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Speaker 1: what do you do with that after you've gone through

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Speaker 1: the desalination process? Now, Brian, because it has this concentrated

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Speaker 1: amount of salts and minerals, and it's actually denser than

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Speaker 1: sea water. So if you were to simply dump that

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Speaker 1: Brian into the sea, then it would it would sink

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Speaker 1: to the bottom of the sea floor where it could

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Speaker 1: potentially cause damage depending upon the environment that you're in. Uh,

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Speaker 1: can you talk a little bit about some of the

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Speaker 1: approaches to to take care of that problem. I know

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Speaker 1: there's some about mixing the brian in with other water

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Speaker 1: that's going to be running into the sea, so it

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Speaker 1: it dilutes it. So I mean, if you step back

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Speaker 1: and look at the desalination process, you know from from feet, uh,

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Speaker 1: it can simply be considered really part of the normal

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Speaker 1: water cycle, the hydrological cycle. So yes, there's water with

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Speaker 1: more salt going back into the ocean, but the water

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Speaker 1: that's purified and it is then used ultimately that goes

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Speaker 1: back into the ocean as well, whether it comes through

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Speaker 1: municipal wastewater and sanitary sewers and it's treated you know

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Speaker 1: in many other ways. You know that water all does

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Speaker 1: essentially return to the hydrological cycle at some point. So

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Speaker 1: you know, from a high level, the mass balance is fine.

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Speaker 1: The oceans aren't going to get saltier because of this

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Speaker 1: because we are returning the purified water back to the

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Speaker 1: oceans at some point as well. So really the the

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Speaker 1: more immediate concern is just that very point at which

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Speaker 1: you're introducing the brine back into the ocean, and depending

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Speaker 1: on the characteristics of the seabed and what's living in

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Speaker 1: that area, UH, sometimes there are special considerations that are taken. UH.

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Speaker 1: And you know, there are many different ways you can

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Speaker 1: return the brine back into the ocean. You can just

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Speaker 1: have a pipe that puts it right into the ocean.

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Speaker 1: You can create an elaborate grid of pipes underneath the

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Speaker 1: seabed to uh, to blend it a little bit better.

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Speaker 1: There's a number of different methods and UH, even though

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Speaker 1: the salination may seem like a niche to some people,

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Speaker 1: there are actually quite a few specialties within it. And UH,

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Speaker 1: you know, really thinking through how the brine is going

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Speaker 1: back into the ocean and how it's going to affect

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Speaker 1: marine life is uh is quite a science in itself.

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Speaker 1: But you know, there's been a ton of progress on

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Speaker 1: that really in just the last ten years. And you know,

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Speaker 1: I think in nearly all cases we're now able to

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Speaker 1: come up with with special schemes and the right technology

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Speaker 1: to blend U without harming marine life. Fantastic. Uh. Well,

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Speaker 1: moving on to another question, what what's the greatest barrier

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Speaker 1: to adoption of desalination? I mean, why, uh, what's keeping

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Speaker 1: this technology from being more widespread it and used in

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Speaker 1: more areas of the world. You know, I think there

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Speaker 1: are you know, you could probably classify it into two

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Speaker 1: different barriers. One of one of them is, uh is

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Speaker 1: more perception. Uh. You know, there are some areas where

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Speaker 1: the public still isn't really that on board with it yet,

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Speaker 1: just for you know, things they've read in the news

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Speaker 1: and their own ideas about it. Other parts of the

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Speaker 1: world are doing this uh often, you know, in the

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Speaker 1: Middle East or in Southeast Asia. You find de cell

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Speaker 1: plants all over the place. They have largely solved all

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Speaker 1: the environmental issues that people should be worried about. Um.

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Speaker 1: You know, but some people are slower to adapt than others,

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Speaker 1: and it takes a while to to come to terms

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Speaker 1: with with some of that mentally. UM. So that you know,

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Speaker 1: that's a harder problem to solve. The easier problems to

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Speaker 1: solve really are are the energy problems. Because when you

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Speaker 1: do desalination, it isn't the cheapest way to get water.

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Speaker 1: If there's other uh subs lies of water available to

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Speaker 1: you UH that don't have so much salt in them,

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Speaker 1: they're most likely going to be less expensive than desalination.

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Speaker 1: So today people are doing desalination really only in areas

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Speaker 1: where they don't have a lot of other alternatives, where

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Speaker 1: they're in a water scarce area and they simply need

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Speaker 1: to do it. So driving down the energy cost is

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Speaker 1: really the primary goal and desalination, and it has been

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Speaker 1: for the last twenty years, and there have been a

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Speaker 1: lot of different improvements over the last really fifteen years

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Speaker 1: that have really made progress in driving that down UH,

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Speaker 1: and they're in a number of different areas. Obviously, the

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Speaker 1: amount of energy that you need to drive the salt

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Speaker 1: out of the water is a big deal, and you

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Speaker 1: can lower that through advances in the membrane chemistry, so

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Speaker 1: actually improving the membranes. You can do it through advances

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Speaker 1: in the efficiencies of pumps UH, and you can also

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Speaker 1: do it through advances in energy recovery devices. So there's

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Speaker 1: a you know a number of different areas that people

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Speaker 1: are working on. And then in addition to that, you know,

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Speaker 1: simply the operation of these plants. You know, it requires

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Speaker 1: a the amount of manpower just to keep these things running.

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Speaker 1: So we've also been making a lot of improvements and

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Speaker 1: innovations in the pre treatment to these plants. So as

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Speaker 1: as the pre treatment to the water gets better, they're

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Speaker 1: lower operating costs as well. So lots of different levers

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Speaker 1: to pull in order to lower the operating costs. You know,

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Speaker 1: I was wondering a little bit about the equipment itself.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the process itself seems pretty uh, pretty straightforward,

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Speaker 1: but um, you know, is the is the equipment itself large?

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Speaker 1: Does it take up a lot of space or or

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Speaker 1: does it require a lot of high pressure to make

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Speaker 1: it work? Yeah, that two different things. In terms of size.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't take up really any more space than a

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Speaker 1: traditional water treatment plant for the same capacity would. But

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Speaker 1: the big difference is pressure. The more salt that have

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Speaker 1: dissolved in any in any given amount of water, the

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Speaker 1: higher the osmotic pressure of that water, something Jonathan referred

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Speaker 1: to in his earlier explanation. So the more salt, higher

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Speaker 1: the osmotic pressure, the more pressure you need to apply

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Speaker 1: to the water to drive the salt out of it.

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Speaker 1: So take for example, the middle East, in the Gulf,

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Speaker 1: in the Middle East, that's really some of the saltiest

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Speaker 1: water in the world. So on on detail plants, they're

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Speaker 1: we're running them as high as eight p s i,

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Speaker 1: which is pretty high pressure. Uh. In other parts of

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Speaker 1: the world, like say the Caribbean, the water is a

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Speaker 1: little less salty, still absolutely seawater, but it's not quite

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Speaker 1: as stalene as as the Middle East. So there you

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Speaker 1: because it has slightly less salt, you can use slightly

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Speaker 1: less less pressure. Now, are these plants often um sort

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Speaker 1: of piggybacked onto other plants like power generation. That was

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Speaker 1: wondering if there was a lot of cogeneration going on

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Speaker 1: with desalination plants. Yeah, that's a great question. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: this is actually one of the reasons that g is

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Speaker 1: is uh, you know, so active in this market. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's just an inex Uh. There's a there's

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Speaker 1: a obvious tie between energy and water. So to produce energy,

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Speaker 1: you know, power plants need water to produce energy. Infect

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Speaker 1: almost ten percent of all global water withdrawals go to

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Speaker 1: the production of water, so that's a pretty significant amount. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then the reverse of that is to desalinate water,

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Speaker 1: you need energy to do it. So power plants and

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Speaker 1: deesel plants are are are very linked. In the past,

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Speaker 1: when the technologies were more thermal based, that was another

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Speaker 1: advantage of tying the plants together because many power plants,

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Speaker 1: especially power plants in the past, had a lot of

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Speaker 1: waste heat, so they could use some of that heat

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Speaker 1: uh for the thermal desalination. Power Plants today are much

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Speaker 1: more efficient, so there isn't so much waste heat coming

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Speaker 1: from them. Uh. And the membrane technologies come to a

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Speaker 1: point where really that's the propolan technology for desalination. So

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Speaker 1: we're not seeing them tied together as much anymore because

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Speaker 1: of waste heat from the power plant, but we are

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Speaker 1: seeing them tied together simply because the power plant needs

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Speaker 1: water uh and the decail plant needs power. Excellent, So

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Speaker 1: what is GE doing to make desalination more feasible to

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Speaker 1: address water scarcity issues? So we're working in a number

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Speaker 1: of different areas. We've worked a lot in the past

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Speaker 1: on the membranes and uh, you know, there are really

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Speaker 1: some very high quality membranes now used in desalination. Uh.

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Speaker 1: They're not an entitlement yet. There are still some games

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Speaker 1: to be made there. UM. But they're they're getting close.

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Speaker 1: The membranes are very efficient today. UM pre treatment is

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Speaker 1: very important. So when when we talk about membranes and

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Speaker 1: how they take this all out of water, they're great

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Speaker 1: at taking the salt out of water, but they aren't

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Speaker 1: great at taking suspended solids out of water. So you

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Speaker 1: don't want to put salt or sticks or stones or

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Speaker 1: anything like that into a membrane. That's bad for it.

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Speaker 1: So pretty much every membrane plant in the world has

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Speaker 1: some kind of pre treatment in front of it to

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Speaker 1: take the suspended solids out before it gets to the membranes.

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Speaker 1: UH and G has been leading in this area as well.

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Speaker 1: We have some terrific advanced prefiltration another type of membrane

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Speaker 1: called an ultrafiltration membrane, and it it provides really superior

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Speaker 1: UH suspended solids removal, so that the water that gets

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Speaker 1: to the the reverse us most of the membranes is

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Speaker 1: as clean as it can be, still salty, but it's

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Speaker 1: had everything else removed and that makes the life of

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Speaker 1: those membranes lasts a lot longer, which in turn lowards

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Speaker 1: the overall cost of ownership UM. Then the other pieces

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Speaker 1: of the pumping side there are a lot of different

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Speaker 1: kinds of pumps in the marketplace. The most fishing types

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Speaker 1: of pumps are positive displacement pumps. If you think of

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Speaker 1: pumping water, you can imagine you have a fixed geography

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Speaker 1: fixed geometry of water. The most efficient way to raise

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Speaker 1: the pressure of it is just to push on it

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Speaker 1: um and that works today in in relatively small sizes,

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Speaker 1: but as plants get larger and larger, uh, there aren't

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Speaker 1: so many good positive displacement pumps. So instead what people

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Speaker 1: use their centrifugal pumps. So that's more like spinning the water.

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Speaker 1: The water that gets thrown to the outside has a

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Speaker 1: higher pressure. So you know, we've been working developing a

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Speaker 1: new pump which is a positive displacement style pump, but

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Speaker 1: it's much larger than other positive displacement style pumps on

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Speaker 1: the marketplace. That's a pretty new product for us, but

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Speaker 1: we expect that within the next year we're gonna start

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Speaker 1: seeing more of more of that pump out in de

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Speaker 1: cel plant and that's going to knock as much as

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Speaker 1: another ten percent of the energy off, so that when

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Speaker 1: we get that fully commercialized, not in the marketplace, it's

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Speaker 1: gonna lower the electrical costs by about ten percent more,

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Speaker 1: which is really significant when you're talking about, you know,

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Speaker 1: the cost of desalination. Sure. So, so that's where it

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Speaker 1: leads into what do you see as the future of desalination?

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Speaker 1: Where do you see us going in another few years,

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Speaker 1: like another decade or two decades. Yeah, that's a great

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Speaker 1: question and a hard question because there are many many

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Speaker 1: technologies out there today. Uh, you know, I I think

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Speaker 1: most people in the industry, myself included, really see reverse

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Speaker 1: osmosis as continuing to be the most prevalent technology for

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Speaker 1: at least the next five or seven or ten years. Um.

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Speaker 1: It's certainly possible that some other technologies could could come along,

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Speaker 1: and you know, honestly, if there are other technologies that

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Speaker 1: will dramatically lower the cost of desalination, that would be

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Speaker 1: great for the planet. Um. But I I you know,

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Speaker 1: I think over the next five or seven years, what

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Speaker 1: we're going to see is people figuring out how to

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Speaker 1: link the cell plants more to other renewables. So already

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Speaker 1: we're starting to see people thinking about how do you

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Speaker 1: combine a de cell plant with wind turbines and a

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Speaker 1: wind farm, or how do you combine a de cil

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Speaker 1: plant with a solar farm. You know, it turns out

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Speaker 1: that a lot of places in the world, the neat desalination,

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Speaker 1: places that are water scarce, are also places that have

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Speaker 1: quite a bit of sun. So there there's some nice

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Speaker 1: natural links between you know, combining solar with de cell.

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Speaker 1: In some ways, there's also challenges because you know, in

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Speaker 1: addition to having on his sun, you know, some of

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Speaker 1: these places also have a lot of sand and it's dusty,

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Speaker 1: and and dust and solar don't don't always pair so well,

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Speaker 1: but dust coats the panels and may become less efficient.

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Speaker 1: But you know, now we're talking about some pretty um

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Speaker 1: discreete challenges. You know, people are doing us now, they're learning,

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Speaker 1: they're getting better at it. There's not a lot of

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Speaker 1: solar plus D cell or wind plus D cell out

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Speaker 1: there today, but I think in the next five to

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Speaker 1: ten years we're probably gonna start to see a lot

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Speaker 1: more about Yeah, it's really exciting and to give our

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Speaker 1: listeners an idea of the impact that these sort of

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Speaker 1: technologies have made so far. Uh, it wasn't that long

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Speaker 1: ago that the estimated population that could not get access

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Speaker 1: to clean water was around twenty but according to the

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Speaker 1: World Health Organization, they had a two thousand twelve report

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Speaker 1: which took numbers from two and took a look at that. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they said that it's is still a massive problem. Still

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Speaker 1: seven million people lack access to safe drinking water, according

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Speaker 1: to this report, and that's a you know, that's a

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Speaker 1: sobering number. But the silver lining here is that that's

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Speaker 1: that's half of what it was before, so that the

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Speaker 1: numbers of people who are getting access to safe and

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Speaker 1: water there on the rise, which I mean, that's obviously

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Speaker 1: the way we want to see this trend go. So

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Speaker 1: it's exciting to see this sort of technology combined with

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Speaker 1: the efforts of other organizations out there dedicated to making

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Speaker 1: sure that that people across the world get access to

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Speaker 1: this water. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. You know, one

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Speaker 1: of the statistics that that I often hear is that

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Speaker 1: today it's one and every six people today doesn't have

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Speaker 1: access to clean water, which is, as you said, really

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Speaker 1: a sobering number. Um. You know, I think there's an

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Speaker 1: interesting combination here where you read a lot about this today.

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Speaker 1: You know, ten years ago you didn't generally see water

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Speaker 1: articles in mainstream media, and today, you know, every week

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Speaker 1: you're going to see an article in mainstream media talking

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Speaker 1: about water scarcity, and you know, it is a serious

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Speaker 1: problem and it is alarming. But the plus side of

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Speaker 1: this publicity is that they're more entrepreneurs, more large companies

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Speaker 1: like GE, just more people out there starting to think

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Speaker 1: about what are some possible solutions, uh, And there's lots

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Speaker 1: of them. You know. The salination is a great example

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Speaker 1: of ways that we can solve water scarcity. Water reuse

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Speaker 1: is another great example of ways that we can solve

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Speaker 1: water scarcity. Water reuse is just taking water that's already

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Speaker 1: been used for one purpose, uh, and treating it and

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Speaker 1: cleaning it up and finding a way to use it

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Speaker 1: for another purpose. So, you know, I think all the

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Speaker 1: current press that we hear about water scarcity is actually

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Speaker 1: helping to feed a pipeline of new innovations and new

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Speaker 1: ideas that will actually help solve the problem in the

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Speaker 1: long rust. Fantastic, Eric, Uh. That that's a great look

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Speaker 1: at the desalination process and what g E is doing

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Speaker 1: to to really push this technology forward. And we really

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Speaker 1: appreciate you coming on the show and talking with us.

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Speaker 1: It's been a really educational experience for me and especially

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Speaker 1: as as as liberal arts majors whose background and engineering

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Speaker 1: is saying, Wow, that's cool. Uh, it's really great to

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Speaker 1: get people like you on our show to talk about

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Speaker 1: this and and give our listeners this uh this sort

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Speaker 1: of Uh look, is there anything else you would like

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Speaker 1: to say before we wrap up? Well, you know, Jonathan Chris,

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Speaker 1: I'd just like to say thanks, thanks for having me

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Speaker 1: on the show. Um. You know, at GE, we're doing

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Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting and innovative things to solve

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Speaker 1: the very problems that we were just talking about for

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Speaker 1: the last half hour. Uh. You know, one of the

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Speaker 1: great things about being in this kind of business is

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Speaker 1: when you come up with innovations, you can actually see

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Speaker 1: that they're helping people. Uh. So you know, it's it's

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Speaker 1: a rewarding business to be and GEE is very committed

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Speaker 1: to it. We're investing a lot and solving problems today

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Speaker 1: and in the future and and uh, you know, I

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Speaker 1: love talking about it and I'm really excited about where

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Speaker 1: this can all go over the next Thank you so much.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, Eric, and and uh, We're always glad to

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Speaker 1: have people who advocate that sort of mindset to to

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Speaker 1: really get people interested in science, technology, engineering. These are

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Speaker 1: areas that are they're they're leading the way to the

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Speaker 1: future of what our world is going to be. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, if we have students out there listening, feel

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Speaker 1: free to let us know. Tell us what you are

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Speaker 1: interested in, let us know what what areas we should

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Speaker 1: cover in our future podcasts. You can let us know

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Speaker 1: by sending us an email that addresses tech Stuff at

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Speaker 1: Discovery dot com, or drop us a line on Facebook

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Speaker 1: or Twitter. You can find our handle at both of

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Speaker 1: those locations. It's tech Stuff hs W and Chris and

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Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon for more

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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics because it hostaff

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Speaker 1: works dot com. See, guys, I told you we talked

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Speaker 1: to you again really soon. That really soon is right.

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Speaker 1: And now I'm just reminding you that we have our

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Speaker 1: So send us those pictures of your modifications, your tech ideas,

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Speaker 1: steampunking everything in sight, put on your goggles and show

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Speaker 1: that to us. We can't wait to see them. Brought

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