The Real Climate Fix? Verena Radulovic on Corporate Action & Market-Driven Solutions

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Speaker 1
And we have very different viewpoints on many things.

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Speaker 2
But a lot of these issues are American issues. They're not Republican or Democrat issues.

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Speaker 1
Today we are excited to have Verena Regula, which with us, Verena is the vice president of business engagement at the center for Climate and Energy Solutions. And she's done pretty amazing work helping major companies step up their sustainability game, if that's what you're into. She also has a fascinating background in environmental policy, and even uses photography to tell powerful stories about climate issues around the world.

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Speaker 1
So, Verena, thanks so much for coming on today and hopefully you could tell us a little bit more about yourself and your journey.

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Speaker 3
Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it and looking forward to the discussion.

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Speaker 1
Well, we are so glad to have you. And we've done a couple a segment so far on climate change, but really, this is Mike's forte here. Being in the recycling industry. And I'm going to let him start it off and kick it to him. To ask you the first question.

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Speaker 2
So many years ago, you know, Verena and I had had a lovely phone call when I was first starting out. My business. And boy, has your journey, you know, really continued on and it's very exciting. So what I want to hear about now is kind of the work that you're doing now, today. So because we're gonna definitely get into the photojournalism stuff later and it's very beautiful photos and the stories behind them.

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Speaker 2
But I want to know what you're doing today. And I guess the the idea is, you know, helping companies find solutions that want to, you know, as Cooper said it, you know, meet certain sustainability metrics. It's not so easy. It's not so straightforward.

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Speaker 3
So, yes, it's been a long journey, but I'll start from the most current and I guess we'll work our way backwards. I currently work for a nonprofit, nonpartisan climate policy think tank called the center for Climate and Energy Solutions. We are CO2, yes, for short, a shorthand. And the mission of our organization is to transition to a thriving, just, climate resilient, net zero emissions economy.

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Speaker 3
It's a bit of a mouthful, but, since we were founded 25 years ago, we've been working with policymakers, businesses and other stakeholders and to really try to build support for, effective and ambitious climate policy. You say, well, what does that mean? We believe that for current policy to be effective, it has to be ambitious, but it also actually has to be practical and implementable.

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Speaker 3
So a lot of our work, is working with businesses. We work with a lot of fortune 500 companies to, for them to help us understand what makes sense. And in turn, we work with companies that are leaders for their sectors, even in sectors that emit a lot of greenhouse gas emissions, to try to understand who's on the leading edge of progress and what are the additional, economy wide policies that we need.

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Speaker 3
And happy to get into that kind of the interplay between business action and the role of policy.

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Speaker 2
Yeah. So what is, I guess not necessarily, you know, your typical day, right? We don't have to get into the minutia of everything. But you know what? What are some broad strokes about, you know, the things that you're trying to achieve. You guys, on a weekly basis. I know you just came off of a trip recently and I caught some stuff on LinkedIn, some very interesting topics about, sustainability throughout the supply chain and understanding all the stakeholders throughout that.

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Speaker 2
So if you want to get into that, that'd be a good time.

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Speaker 3
Yeah. So, well, a typical day is a lot of email. I'm on the phone most of the time. Working with companies to try to get them involved in our work. But also trying to figure out what other nonprofit groups are doing or different government agencies are doing. So, just to kind of create a little bit more clarity around what I do.

00:03:30:10 - 00:03:53:12
Speaker 3
We have a couple projects, that I'm, that I'm working on, that my team is working on. And as Mike said, when we think about how do we make change across industry sectors, a lot of the issues are in supply chain. So somebody might have a deep greenhouse, get a lot of greenhouse gas emissions deep in their supply chains, whether it's cement or steel or chemicals.

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Speaker 3
How do you sort of get companies who are downstream customers who eventually make products that they sell to us? How do we get companies to work within their supply chains to make reductions? And that was one of the big things that we looked at last week. We have done work with companies like Dow and Procter and Gamble and BASF, Lee and Basil, and really trying to have a conversation around like, hey, how do we really make core changes?

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Speaker 3
When downstream customers like Procter and Gamble are really interested in supporting what their upstream suppliers are doing. When we look at the industrial sector, it's a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, but also globally. And so as we think about climate solutions, some of the low hanging fruit has been solved. And we can talk about successes like energy efficiency.

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Speaker 3
Renewable energy prices have really come down. But we're finding that we're coming up against some pretty thorny issues. And we need a lot of cooperation across companies in the supply chain to make investments to bring those emissions down.

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Speaker 1
We hear a lot in the Biden administration lately, especially with this inflation happening. And they call it, price gouging and corporate cronyism. I'm curious if you're working with some of the biggest fortune 500 names. It sounds like, what kind of strategies or how were you able to convince these folks to kind of implement this? Is it that they're compelled to or they're really kind of saying, hey, we're willing to sacrifice some profits for the greater good?

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Speaker 1
How do you incentivize companies like this?

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Speaker 3
Oh, gosh, it's definitely not just us. This is an all hands on deck effort. And I think it's something that's been going on for at least the last 20 years. So what you're seeing now is a culmination of a lot of work that's been done over the last few decades. And I think there are a few things.

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Speaker 3
Number one. There's a lot of cost savings to be had when you're trying to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. And that's really when you have solutions like energy efficiency or even the cost of renewables, or some process changes in your factories that will lead to savings. Very often, some of that low hanging fruit is saving money. So who doesn't want to save money?

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Speaker 3
So in many ways, the argument there is like, you want to go and spend the money, go ahead. But there's a lot there's a lot of savings to be had. Once you get past that and we think about who who the companies want to be in a future that is constrained by climate change or where we see changes happening at a global level, where it's going to become more and more expensive to operate, a higher your emissions are.

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Speaker 3
Sometimes there are regulatory regimes in other countries that price carbon. And so if you emit a lot of emissions like you, you pay, in a year in Europe, there's an emissions trading scheme. There are some emissions voluntary trading schemes that are happening in the US. So so regulation comes in different formats. But the companies that really want to get ahead of that and be, make sure they're on the front foot and not caught on the back foot are the ones that are making investments.

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Speaker 3
But there's something else is, I think, really fascinating that I've seen over the last 20 years. And that is just pure competition. Companies really hate it when their peers do better than them. And so how so? So when we look at the climate commitments that companies have made and we can get into broader sustainability issues like circularity and recycling, but in the language of carbon, when when companies are really making emissions reductions and they're successful at it and they're able to sort of be a successful, profit driven company and, make good on their climate commitments, other peers take notice.

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Speaker 3
And then it's a race to the top, at least among the companies that care about, or at least have stakeholders that care about what they're doing. So investors, public think about all the public facing brands. I get a lot of pressure from consumers. But also companies have begun to see that it can be a differentiator for them.

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Speaker 3
And a lot of investors have been putting pressure on companies for a long time. So if you sort of think about that big mix, that like a soup of regulations in parts of the world, peer pressure, like see your competitors do it better. Investors asking you for it. And the cost of doing some of these improvements has come down.

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Speaker 3
And like I said, we're where we where we're hitting now is, is a place where, where cost is still there. And so we can talk about where how companies are trying to deal with that.

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Speaker 2
So it's very much a stakeholder process. Right. And everyone kind of comes on board and tries to figure out a solution that works for the whole supply chain. It's not so much a top down. This is what you have to do. You have to implement these and these are your costs. A lot of companies probably look at it as, hey, if I'm using less raw materials or I'm using less energy in my inputs, I could save a lot of money there.

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Speaker 2
But I there's some inequities in the supply chain. Right. So there's certain, components of the supply chain who have more of a burden of the costs, and it makes it more difficult to pull these things on, I imagine. Right.

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Speaker 3
Yes. And and one thing, one other dynamic to really think about is let's say you're like a very big company a and you're like, yeah. And they have a thousand customers, you know, if, if one of their customers is like, hey, we'd really like you to make this change, then I feel like, thanks so much. But if 500 of their customers are like out of a thousand are like, we really want you to do this and we're going to shift to another supplier unless you do, or we're going to help make investments in you making those reductions, or we're going to put, in our procurement requirements that like these environmental improvements, and you will

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Speaker 3
have access to working with us. We've seen this across multiple sectors. We've seen this happen in the electronics supply chain. We've seen this happen in heavy industry. So there are a lot of different ways that you get the attention of a of a supplier. But you it needs to be like kind of a, a pretty big groundswell movement, or you need to be a very, very big customer that can singlehandedly change a supply.

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Speaker 3
And, and we know a couple companies that have that power.

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Speaker 1
I think when you look at younger millennials and definitely Gen Z and heck, maybe at this point, Gen Alpha, if their parents have gotten them a credit card, I think that the consumer, the younger consumer really wants to support, cause or charitable action or an activist like action with their pocketbook. And it's very interesting that a company can't just push this by the wayside anymore.

00:10:01:22 - 00:10:19:21
Speaker 1
Like you're saying, it's not just one of your customers anymore. It's like half or more of your customers are not only asking you to do this, but they're demanding it. And that brings me to another question. Have you experienced larger companies that are really resistant or hesitant to change and say, oh no, this is never going to work for us?

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Speaker 1
Maybe we give us an example of that and why they said it.

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Speaker 3
Oh gosh, I typically the companies that don't want to do that are not companies that take my phone calls. And so, so, I would say, I would say that I don't have as much experience with them. I do have a lot of experience working with companies who I would call reluctant followers or the potential to be good followers, and these are companies, and I've seen this in, gosh, I see this in electronics, banking, cement, to some extent acknowledge other technology companies are the ones that are really at the forefront.

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Speaker 3
Of doing this. But I've seen companies that are like, we would like to be at the forefront, but we really don't want to be out to out in front because those that are out in front are willing to get criticized. They're willing to get, you know, to go first. A really good example of that is Microsoft, in 2019 or 2020, they were the first company, I think, publicly to set a net zero target or a carbon negative target to reduce the emissions.

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Speaker 3
The historic emissions. And a lot of companies were like, okay, that was from the first time that a company had made a statement about wanting to set a goal that they didn't know they could help, how they would meet it. And I really think that that action gave other companies the courage to do the same thing. But for the vast majority of companies, they would never set a goal that they didn't know that they could meet.

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Speaker 3
And so you have a lot of companies that are standing in the wings, in the shadows looking to see how they can make improvements, but they don't necessarily have the support from their board or from their C-suite to be able to go out, to really go for it. And again, it depends on the company's balance sheet. It depends on sort of where they're prioritizing.

00:12:02:09 - 00:12:22:07
Speaker 3
But but a lot of it today is reducing their financial risks, reducing their climate risk. And so for those companies that have not at least dip their toe in the water of trying to reduce emissions, they are finding themselves in an uncomfortable position because there's a lot more pressure on them to do more.

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Speaker 2
So I think I think the big talk now in the industry is really move to trying to find a universal metric. And we talked about this a bit on the episode, but Spencer, and it's really coming down to measuring carbon and carbon accounting or greenhouse, greenhouse gas accounting and things like that. So for a lot of people, this tends to go right over their head.

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Speaker 2
But maybe you can elaborate for our audience a little bit on what greenhouse gas at greenhouse gas accounting, emissions accounting and how that helps you kind of, you know, measure your progress and kind of against where you are with your competitors in the field.

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Speaker 3
So I love greenhouse gas accounting. And for everybody who's just wants to hit the snooze button when they hear about greenhouse gas accounting, my hope is that you would continue listening because it's actually the devil is always in the details. And I think where the data is really interesting is in these in the minutia. So, for those of you that are less familiar greenhouse gas accounting, one can happen at a government level.

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Speaker 3
So we think about countries that are submitting their inventories to you. And after policy process at the annual conference of parties. Like that's a thing that happens in the United States. You can go on EPA's website and take a look at the US greenhouse gas inventory and see where all the different industries, all the different sources that are causing greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

00:13:36:18 - 00:14:01:16
Speaker 3
And what you'll see is that cumulatively, a lot of the emissions are coming from buildings from you, from the power sector, from transportation and from industry. And what are those companies? What are those? Those are all made out of companies, right? Companies selling things that you and I use. So when we look at accounting, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a guidance called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol that's been around for 20 years, that's currently undergoing an update.

00:14:01:18 - 00:14:35:08
Speaker 3
But it helps companies understand what are the emissions that they are responsible for. They're physically creating in the operations facilities, vehicles that they own. Then you've got another class of measurement on how much electricity they buy. And then they try to estimate. And this is where things get squirrely fast. All of what's in their value chain. So imagine you're, you know, your phone or your computer or your car, all the components where it came from, how it was made all the way back to sort of how it was mined, the electricity that it was used, how it was transported.

00:14:35:10 - 00:14:55:12
Speaker 3
So for the last ten years, companies have been calculating or estimating or estimating what these emissions are. And and right now we're at a place where a lot of that data is largely estimated, with the exception of when you know what your suppliers emissions are. But it gives you a very good picture of what we call your hotspots.

00:14:55:14 - 00:14:59:23
Speaker 1
So and that's self-reported by the company themselves or is it an auditing firm? Okay.

00:15:00:01 - 00:15:25:16
Speaker 3
Noel. So this is also something that that happened in the last 20 years, companies have for 20 years has been self-reporting their greenhouse gas emissions. And one might ask why? Why would anybody do that? All right. Well, a lot of investors have been asking for years. And again, the more that companies are public about their emissions and the progress against their emissions, often they are able to tout that as a competitive advantage.

00:15:25:18 - 00:15:49:18
Speaker 3
So we live in a world where there has been 20 years of voluntary reporting, in Europe, and in California that is becoming regulated, which no, no business likes. But hey, we've had 20 years of experience. And the regulators want to start to see like, you know, how are companies tackling their emissions? But why is why greenhouse gas accounting is so important and it's important to get it right.

00:15:49:20 - 00:16:11:03
Speaker 3
And what we're finding and that's really area which I was telling you about in the supply chain, because there's such a need to reduce emissions in your value chain and particularly in like very heavy industry like chemicals, cement, other, other kinds of extractive industries that use a lot of energy, there's a need to understand what exactly are those emissions.

00:16:11:03 - 00:16:29:01
Speaker 3
And if I, as a downstream customer, want to affect those emissions, I need a more accurate picture of what they are. And if I'm going to make a financial investment in reducing them. I also need some clarity on like how I'm going to be able to count that towards my emissions reductions. So there's this whole ecosystem of people who care about this.

00:16:29:01 - 00:16:40:10
Speaker 3
But ultimately what I love about the data is it starts to show who's actually making progress and who isn't. It's the differentiator and helps you understand who's leading and who's not.

00:16:40:12 - 00:17:04:06
Speaker 1
Well, talking about leadership, I want to bring it more to the global stage and kind of ask one of the arguments that people on the right I see make all the time and ask if you can respond to that. So if the United States is working its butt off and all of our companies are here and they're all incentivized to do better and better and improve their emissions, and are we having the same expectation for countries like China or Brazil or India?

00:17:04:12 - 00:17:19:06
Speaker 1
And is there negative, contributions just offsetting all of our positive? Is there a way that we can get them to buy into it, or is it just we've got to do our part and we've got to trust them to do their part. How do you level that?

00:17:19:08 - 00:17:38:23
Speaker 3
Well, that's definitely in the purview of my teammate, who does a lot of the international work. But what I can say about that is I don't think it it's zero sum when we when we go in to these international, conference of parties every year at the UNF, triple C, there is a, every country submits their nationally determined contribution in terms of how they're going to reduce their emissions.

00:17:38:23 - 00:18:02:03
Speaker 3
Different countries have different approaches. And so particularly for the Bric countries, you know, Brazil, Russia, India, China, it's definitely not you know, they're not doing anything. We are doing something. I think there's and needs to be an acknowledgment that there's a different per capita emission per person, but also the big businesses and the industries that we're working with are also global.

00:18:02:03 - 00:18:24:19
Speaker 3
They're also working in those countries. And there's also an incentive to reduce the supply chains emissions in those countries. And so when we look at it through the lens of a company, they're looking at it at a global level. How those emissions reductions and the allocation and the and the responsibilities, that's much more at a national level conversation.

00:18:24:21 - 00:18:41:21
Speaker 3
But one, one, one area that is definitely bipartisan that both Republicans and Democrats in this country care about is the issue of climate and trade issues. So if we have if we make stuff with lower emissions and we want to sell it, we want that to have a competitive advantage.

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Speaker 1
I think one of the things, Mike, before I hand it to you, one of the things that we've covered in previous episodes, which is really interesting, is that there really aren't climate skeptics anymore. It's faded away to a very small number. I think it's even single digits now. And that's, said somebody again, who's kind of becoming more and more moderate and more and more centrist as we have these interesting conversations.

00:19:00:20 - 00:19:14:18
Speaker 1
That's actually pretty cool for me to see. And I've always been on that part. I'm an Eagle Scout and outdoorsman, and it's good that people aren't really denying that humans are having an impact here. We need to figure out what's going on. So I think we're trending in that right direction. And it is bipartisan now.

00:19:14:23 - 00:19:27:23
Speaker 2
So, so one of my favorite presidents, even though I'm a left to center guy, is Teddy Roosevelt, the great conservationist, really appreciated the beauty of the land. But I think it's also important. And we kind of touched on a little bit before is, you know, or and as well as you pointing out is it's not zero sum. Right.

00:19:27:23 - 00:19:41:21
Speaker 2
So it's these, these that the left typically wants that the far left wants an all or nothing principle. It doesn't matter how expensive it is, but a lot of these industries are critically important. So it's that balance of finding, how do we improve the supply chain without making it unprofitable, I suppose.

00:19:41:21 - 00:20:12:17
Speaker 3
Right, right. One thing that I think is really important to note, and this is this is an ethos of the organization I work for, but it's also a personal one. You have to take your wins when you when you can, and to not let the absolute perfect be the enemy of the. This is really good right now, because one of the things that we see in terms of that I've seen over the arc of the last 20 years is that if you can just move the needle a little bit, then that becomes the new norm and then you can build progress on that.

00:20:12:19 - 00:20:30:03
Speaker 3
But if you wait until you get everything, you may not get anything at all. And so how do we because a lot of this work on climate, at least in the United States. So we can talk a little bit about my, my observations in other countries, but at least the United States, there's a lot of convincing that needs to happen, but there's a lot of incremental progress we can make.

00:20:30:05 - 00:20:55:17
Speaker 3
And then if we can do that, we can begin to change culture. We can begin to change business norms and expectations. And then once that becomes part of the broader milieu, now you can actually do more progressive things. You can have more impact. What's challenging is that we are we are rapidly running out of time. And I think as we see know, this is taking place right when, Hurricane Helene, you know, took place and decimated a mountain town.

00:20:55:17 - 00:21:19:14
Speaker 3
Like, who knew? Right. So so we start to see these weird effects of climate change and that we don't really have time to to fight over the perfect. We've got to be able to make progress, and we've got to be able to move large swaths of the economy along alongside. So when you think about the top leaders, the best of the best, wonderful, let them be beacons of light to their sectors, to their customers, to their investors.

00:21:19:14 - 00:21:27:06
Speaker 3
But let's bring along a large contingent, you know, not just bring up the rear, but bring up the middle.

00:21:27:07 - 00:21:40:11
Speaker 2
Sure, sure. I guess now the question is, how does someone like you get into this kind of industry and got to where you are? Right? So, I mean, a lot of people get inspired and they get into environmental work, but, I'd say that you're in a very interesting place. How does this journey like yours start.

00:21:40:13 - 00:21:56:20
Speaker 3
Was definitely unique to me, and I would I don't know if it could be like re-engineered, I do think, and people told me this all the time and I was like, gosh, I really hate it when people say this, but like it, it is true. It's like a mix of luck and grit and and clarity of thought about what you like to do.

00:21:56:20 - 00:22:09:13
Speaker 3
And then sometimes those things come together in a good place. So I can share a little bit about where I, where I, how I started out and where I ended up. But it's definitely not, I think, a typical path.

00:22:09:15 - 00:22:26:08
Speaker 2
I think that's I think that is an important part. So I do want to dig into a little bit. Let's hear a little bit about your past, because it just to give people an idea, you know, when I first grew up, I wanted to be an astronaut and Egyptologist. I went to school to be a physician's assistant. I finished with a degree in psychology with a concentration in neuroscience, and now I work in electronics recycling compliance.

00:22:26:14 - 00:22:43:17
Speaker 2
I think our generation is the nonlinear generation, and it's not necessarily you climb these steps on this ladder to get to where you are. I think it's all part of broadening your experiences. And then, as you said, really clarify. Your thought is what drives me, what you know, what makes me passionate about something and and how can I translate that into my work every day?

00:22:43:17 - 00:22:46:07
Speaker 2
So yeah, we'd love to hear a little bit about how you got here.

00:22:46:09 - 00:22:53:06
Speaker 3
Well, and, Mike, I'd like to hear about you at some point, too, because the neuro, whatever you just said in the middle of that, that's definitely, you know, non sequitur to where you got.

00:22:53:06 - 00:22:55:20
Speaker 2
You sure we could dig into that for sure.

00:22:55:22 - 00:23:15:15
Speaker 3
I did want to be an architect when I was a little kid. Because I love buildings. But but I, I think as a young person, before I finished college, I, I knew I wanted to do environmental work because I had had this experience of being lucky to visit a rainforest when I was a teenager. I grew up in Queens and New York, which I love.

00:23:15:17 - 00:23:36:08
Speaker 3
I love that I'm from New York City. But I didn't have a lot of trees in my life. And when I was a teenager, I had the opportunity to to be in an environment that really transformed the way I see things. It just was beautiful. And I wanted to be involved in ways to protect it. And at the same time, I knew I wanted to work in film and photography, and I just didn't quite know what that would look like.

00:23:36:08 - 00:24:03:18
Speaker 3
But I, I figured at one point they would weave together and they eventually sort of did, but I, I got involved in doing environmental work. I studied political science in college. I had done some environmental internships, but I landed in a job early in my career at an organization called the Environmental Law Institute, and this was a think tank that did work on environmental law, but it exposed me, really was one of the first times it exposed me to the role of business.

00:24:03:18 - 00:24:26:21
Speaker 3
And I was working on a project that was looking at the role of banks in lending project finance to mining companies, and including pollution prevention in the lending terms. So if I'm if a big mining company wanted to get a loan from the big banks, they had to have measures that would make sure that they wouldn't have tailings.

00:24:26:21 - 00:24:48:15
Speaker 3
You know, being in community, you know, being, flooding communities that they would have, good pollution prevention measures. And at the time, you know, mining was often a pariah in, in the environmental movement, mining and big dams. 20, 30 years ago, it was still very much, one of the ways that that that environmental movements, took shape against companies.

00:24:48:15 - 00:25:12:13
Speaker 3
And so this was my first exposure to how could you leverage business relationships for good and to really have one industry affect another one when you didn't have national or international legislation that required, you know, certain industries to do certain things? So that was my first exposure to saying, all right, well, what could how could industry affect one another for good?

00:25:12:15 - 00:25:34:04
Speaker 3
I went and studied in grad school, environmental policy and international development. I always just wanted to work in countries that were more emerging economies or less wealthy countries, and to find ways to to do environmental preservation there, because a lot of our for fragile ecosystems are often found in the global South. Not always, but that was sort of my my feeling at the time.

00:25:34:06 - 00:25:52:03
Speaker 3
And like many young people who are coming out of school, I could not find a job. It turns out a whole lot of people wanted to work in that field, and that's only exploded and gotten, you know, even bigger. But I think that's great because there's so many other kinds of jobs people can do now in this field, which is terrific.

00:25:52:05 - 00:26:14:16
Speaker 3
But I got a job at the EPA, which was one of the best experiences, working for government. And like, that's how I got involved in electronics recycling. So here I was wanting to work on renewable energy and fragile ecosystems, and I ended up working on recycling computers and found out that I really loved it. So that was just kind of an an entry point.

00:26:14:16 - 00:26:20:09
Speaker 3
And then I can pause, but I can talk about how a long, circuitous route led me to here.

00:26:20:11 - 00:26:34:23
Speaker 1
Well, I'd like to hear a little bit about your experiences traveling, and I think it has to do a lot with the, electronics recycling. When you traveled to Peru and India and Indonesia, could you speak to us a little bit about your photojournalism in those countries?

00:26:35:01 - 00:26:57:16
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I, still working at the EPA. And this was my night job, so, my, my non day job. So I, I about ten years ago, I picked up my camera. So remember, I wanted to be a photographer. I've been sort of doing it since I was a teenager, but I picked up my camera partly in the sense that somebody once told me, no one's going to just give you permission.

00:26:57:16 - 00:27:22:04
Speaker 3
You have to just do it. And I was going to invite you to do this. If you don't have a lot of experience doing it, so you get that experience. But I had wanted to for years tell the story of, you know, we would see all these stories on on electronics, scrap recycling in certain parts of the world that painted a very gloomy situation.

00:27:22:06 - 00:27:38:17
Speaker 3
And having worked on this issue, I knew that it was gloomy, but there was a lot of work being done behind the scenes to try to make this better, and I didn't know how, but I figured, well, let me go to two places. One that is not as well known Peru, because a lot of the focus is on Africa or in India.

00:27:38:19 - 00:28:04:02
Speaker 3
And then let me go to India, where there's been a lot of work being done and to see if I can tease out other stories or be able to show visually or through storytelling, what I knew was a more complex and deeper layer. I chose those two locations, partly because I had contacts in them. Indonesia was an invitation to go, actually for work for EPA.

00:28:04:04 - 00:28:27:19
Speaker 3
They invited me to speak about my experiences that I did in my non EPA time. And I had also had a chance there to look at, some of the, the plastics recycling that was happening. But really what drove me was when you think about the way that materials, the physical stuff that we use every day, where it ends up, how it gets used, how it gets made, how it gets remade.

00:28:27:21 - 00:28:50:05
Speaker 3
I knew that there were certain pockets of the world. When we think about electronics, scrap eventually make their way. If you think about a giant drain or it eventually comes down, eventually it ends up somewhere. And in Latin America, you know, Peru had a very large reuse, sector. It was a country I knew and, you know, contact there, a professor there, and I spoke Spanish.

00:28:50:05 - 00:29:20:13
Speaker 3
So that was an easier and a less trodden, less trodden field. India was an entirely different animal. And in many ways, the images that I took there are not that different from the other images that you'll see. But I did have a chance to go really deeper into some of the homes of the of the workers that were, dismantling electronics, the back alleys, and to spend a bit more time there and really understand where these markets were going and where they were coming from.

00:29:20:15 - 00:29:51:09
Speaker 3
One thing that you don't see in my, in my photography is around that same time, I also traveled to the Netherlands and I went and visited a very, very large electronic scrap recycler and saw where all of this material that was coming from places like India, eventually made their way back for their final recycling and disposal. When we're talking about traveling, I was just so curious to see where these materials actually ended up and where the narrative matched with what we were talking about in policy making circles.

00:29:51:11 - 00:30:09:09
Speaker 1
That's very interesting and really interesting to see the comparisons between all of the different countries. And I actually, I bet you there's like a group of anti activists or anticline that people that go to India and Indonesia and photograph all the negative aspects of it, but I think in your work you focused more on the industry that's, burgeoning itself up.

00:30:09:09 - 00:30:25:22
Speaker 1
Right. And, and growing from a grassroots kind of campaigns. I want to say that when you guys both talk about electronics recycling as kind of a layman, it does go a little bit over my head as to what exactly are we talking about? So could you just help me and our listeners understand that a little bit?

00:30:26:03 - 00:30:30:22
Speaker 2
It's as equally complicated for us as it is for the layman, don't you.

00:30:31:00 - 00:30:35:10
Speaker 1
Because we're recycling electronics. Okay, that sounds good, but what exactly is involved?

00:30:35:10 - 00:30:45:23
Speaker 2
I think a good direction would be, right now, Verena, maybe we could talk a little bit about the linear economy versus circularity and a little bit about the interconnectedness of the world and how informal recycling kind of plays a big role in that.

00:30:46:01 - 00:31:22:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, but I think I think to answer the question about what is electronics recycling? You know, it used to be called electronic waste. And then people like, you mean like when I delete my emails, I'm like, good point. But no, I mean the physical stuff, the physical things, which is actually becoming more and more nano is becoming more and more, you know, dematerialized it's becoming less about the physical component you have in your hand and much more about what's in the cloud or what's happening with I like, like the physical things that we have in our hands are becoming smaller and more compact as the years go on, and that's just the amazing advent of

00:31:22:17 - 00:31:40:17
Speaker 3
technology and Moore's Law doesn't seem to have hit a limit yet. But when we look at an electronics recycling, the linear versus circular has like, I'm wondering if you want to sort of just maybe frame it and then I can kind of take from there.

00:31:40:19 - 00:32:02:14
Speaker 2
Sure. Right. So linear economy is when you extract something and it moves through a supply chain and that becomes waste and gets dumped off at the end of it. Whereas a circular economy is to try to reduce incidences of waste and how much we can always recover and put back into the value or the supply chain. So it's, it's and, and kind of tying into informal recycling, you might think like, oh okay, I'm done with this computer.

00:32:02:18 - 00:32:21:20
Speaker 2
It goes into the trash. But it actually a lot of times it, it might get exported to another country and they'll either be able to refurbish it because the labor costs are very low, or they have a very large supply of obsolete computers that they can pull parts from and put them out. But for a lot of folks, you know, in the developing parts of the world, they might not have access to technology otherwise.

00:32:22:00 - 00:32:30:03
Speaker 2
And these waste products from these developed nations actually could be very serviceable units for communities that don't have access to that.

00:32:30:05 - 00:32:38:08
Speaker 1
Wow. So they're literally reusing the electronic devices. I was picturing it more as maybe melting down circuit boards and like the same way you might recycle glass or plastic.

00:32:38:13 - 00:32:58:19
Speaker 2
To a degree, right? There's metal, there's materials recovery, but then there's refurbishing. And I'll let, Verena take the reins from here soon. But my favorite phrase about my industry is the dirtiest refurbishing operation is still cleaner than the cleanest recycling operation. Right? So you're always going to do less harm to the environment in a refurbishing scenario versus even the best of the best recycling.

00:32:59:00 - 00:33:12:09
Speaker 2
And then the dirtiest recycling plant is still cleaner than any mining facility out there, the cleanest mining facility there is. So it's all about trying to push, you know, recovery and maximize reuse up as much as possible.

00:33:12:11 - 00:33:40:05
Speaker 3
I think that what what is interesting is it is bringing this idea into an American cultural context. Part of it is that, you know, our country is so big, we have so much space, and we are very divorced from seeing where our stuff is made and seeing where it goes. I remember being 11 years old, and my mother decided to pull off the road and go visit a municipal waste recovery facility on the way to the beach, because it would be a fun field trip.

00:33:40:05 - 00:34:01:01
Speaker 3
And I was like, we would 11 year old gets that. But I just remember just seeing this like giant weight, like mountain of trash. And there was like a crane that was like dangling a little mattress and you're like, this is just there's just these mountains of of of garbage that just disappear. So I encourage everyone to take the children to a landfill because it will change your life.

00:34:01:03 - 00:34:26:14
Speaker 3
But so what I think, I think is when I think about the linearity of things, like we make things, we throw them away, we forget about them. But I think to what Mike's point was, when it comes to a durable good, like an electronic product that is portable, that is very expensive, that that took a lot of engineering to make, you know, we in our society, we will always get the new technology when it comes out.

00:34:26:14 - 00:34:56:08
Speaker 3
And so and in some ways, and this is deeply maddening, is when companies, we feel that they might create planned obsolescence. So you have to get rid of it or you have to upgrade it. But there's a whole world out there that doesn't think the way that we do that really values recovering materials, reusing them. And what we find is that a lot of material and this is a challenge with, with the sector is that some some stuff is junk and it goes to parts of the world that can't be used.

00:34:56:08 - 00:35:18:08
Speaker 3
And then they have that problem. They have to deal with it and they have to get rid of it. But some of it, a lot of it can. And these vibrant repair, communities all over the world, and you have it here in the United States, too, but you have it in other parts of the world. And when you go to places like in, in, at least when it's shown up in a lot of photography in Ghana, in India, in China, I saw this in Peru.

00:35:18:08 - 00:35:40:02
Speaker 3
This is really all over the world. But you have a lot of these repair shops and a lot of the recycling that is done melting, you know, everything from, you know, fixing a computer to sort of melting down a circuit board is done in what is known as the informal sector. This is often the and the shadows or these are businesses that are skirting, you know, government registrations.

00:35:40:02 - 00:35:57:08
Speaker 3
They're not tax necessarily. That doesn't mean that they're poor. And you can have a very thriving informal sector, but it's just it's part of a larger fabric in that particular society that you have a lot of UN registered or undocumented businesses that are operating in the shadows.

00:35:57:10 - 00:36:15:11
Speaker 2
So I think a fun story to kind of paint a picture of how granular, the recovery of the refurbishing operation, folks can, can better understand it. So then it goes on in my industry, we have the bottleneck of the semiconductor. And can you can you create enough to meet the world's demand and supply? So there's actually a thriving recovery operation.

00:36:15:11 - 00:36:40:09
Speaker 2
The little, ram chips that are on top of your, your Ram sticks that go on your computer, those are often recovered and repurposed in new electronics because for all intents and purposes, the semiconductor works, it meets certain specifications. And that just is just a tiny little fraction of what could be done out there. And I think it's really amazing because there is, thanks to companies like I fix it in the mission that they're pushing here is we're becoming more aware of what we can fix and how to fix things.

00:36:40:09 - 00:37:00:05
Speaker 2
But, you know, as Verena said, the world doesn't always think like we do. They're more, you know, innovative in certain ways and creative in recovering these things. So it might be a tiny little electric motor out of this particular component that you throw away, but that electric motor is still functioning. I can repurpose it. And all of a sudden I have this new widget I made from these, you know, Frankenstein parts together.

00:37:00:05 - 00:37:17:06
Speaker 2
And it's all part of this larger picture of really, like, how interconnected the world is. And I think, to speak to it, you know, we talk about, oh, only 9% of the plastic is recycling in the US. And waste drives me crazy because that is so much potential. There, there are companies all over the world that would love to get Ahold of that stuff.

00:37:17:06 - 00:37:30:15
Speaker 2
But I guess as we work, in this industry, is is economics is really what it boils down to that if it's not profitable, it doesn't happen. So I think we're trying to create better supply chains to recover these materials or reduce the waste. At least.

00:37:30:17 - 00:37:48:19
Speaker 3
And that's just to add to add to that really quickly. I mean, we think about labor costs, like if you're carefully picking apart something, it's going to be a lot more expensive to do that in the United States than it is in another country. And then another issue that's coming about which I'm not sure recycled electronics is the answer here.

00:37:48:19 - 00:38:13:07
Speaker 3
But when we think about the new technologies that are coming, a clean energy future, an electrified future, a lot of that depends on critical minerals and mining to make that go. So here we are again. We're back to mining. And so what is the role of all this stuff that is valuable but is highly engineered. Can you back engineer.

00:38:13:09 - 00:38:35:12
Speaker 3
How do you recover those materials so that you actually have more of a supply globally? Because right now you got you have a lot of supply chain bottlenecks that are related to this issue. And so in some ways, when we look at these particular materials, they take on a new sheen, if you will. And we think about living to a future that has new technology.

00:38:35:13 - 00:38:55:14
Speaker 1
I work in the elevator industry, which has plenty of electronic components and boards and stuff like that, and they're always failing. But as I've been in this industry for a decade, I've seen the evolution of the equipment and the electronics have become more and more modular, where they're just simply not repairable or why even try to repair it.

00:38:55:15 - 00:39:13:21
Speaker 1
They take the entire system away and put a brand new one in, like unplugging an iPhone and putting a new one in. And to me, they always seem so wasteful. We just throw it out. I, I'm sure we put it through some recycling, program, but. Right. There's just so much waste. And it's this, societal convenience that I think everyone's after.

00:39:13:21 - 00:39:41:22
Speaker 1
And how do you balance the the sustainability and the renewable energy and forcing the consumer, though at the same time, to enter your circular path, it's almost hard to get the buy in from the consumer. It seems like I do want to bring it back a little bit to my right wing roots here, and I do hear all the time that a common argument is that climate change is kind of part of this natural cycle, where human activity may or may not impact it.

00:39:41:22 - 00:39:55:22
Speaker 1
But of course, we naturally go in this sine wave up and down. So when you hear that, I'm sure your skin crawls and I'm wondering how you would respond to that, or how would you appeal, maybe to a right wing voter who is a very skeptical person?

00:39:56:00 - 00:40:41:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, I hear that a lot. And because I am not a climate scientist, all I can do is point to the data. When we look at the data, this spike in temperature change is so dramatic over the last century that if this is a natural part of the cycle, we should still be worried like it's happening. And I think one of the things that going back to greenhouse gas accounting and looking at emissions, if you look at the numbers and if you look at what happens when you put a, a heat trapping gas into the atmosphere in massive quantities, it has a greenhouse effect, which is a scientifically proven thing, then you can deduce,

00:40:41:17 - 00:40:59:02
Speaker 3
hey, we are putting a lot of emissions in the atmosphere. So I think either you can look at it from the point of view as like look at the data and look at how much for contributing and look at the greenhouse effect. And you know, it does follow the logic does follow that, that the temperature is getting warmer.

00:40:59:02 - 00:41:43:23
Speaker 3
Or if you think it's a natural cycle, still look at the data. And that spike is really significant. And if that spike is happening in your lifetime, you're still feeling the effects of it. So I think I often wonder when people say that, I wonder what's really behind it. Because when we think about acknowledging that that climate change is a naturally occurring thing that is exacerbated by manmade activity, and that we are finding ourselves accelerating and making it worse by manmade activities, I often wonder if underneath that question is a fear of of, and the fear of being like, what will I lose if I have to make a change?

00:41:44:00 - 00:42:14:22
Speaker 3
Or or will I be able to be comfortable in my home, with my air conditioning, with my lifestyle will have to give anything up? And I think what I find really interesting about where we are now in seeing companies having made progress on reducing their emissions, where they remain profitable, and seeing that we're on, kind of a the edge of, of a new era where we have new technologies that can give us both, that can give us the lifestyle that we're looking for.

00:42:15:00 - 00:42:32:04
Speaker 3
This is the argument that other countries often make. They're like, you know, you're comfortable. So should we, you know, you want to have a certain standard of living. So do we. And I think that we I think we have to acknowledge that, that everyone has a right to, to be able to have the things that, that, that would give them, you know, a peaceful, healthy lifestyle.

00:42:32:06 - 00:42:44:13
Speaker 3
And so, so when I hear that question about climate skeptics, I'm often wondering, do you feel like you have to give something up? Or is there something that you're holding on to that is that is causing you to say that?

00:42:44:18 - 00:43:02:08
Speaker 1
Right? Like, unless you're the owner of a fracking company or your whole family works on an oil rig, you know, you're not really giving up too much directly. You might just in fact, you're saying that these carbon effective processes actually lower costs in many cases. So I was gonna say, oh, maybe it costs a little more to accommodate this, but in many cases it probably doesn't.

00:43:02:08 - 00:43:07:15
Speaker 1
It just fits into this, this economy that's working in this market that's happening. And,

00:43:07:17 - 00:43:23:03
Speaker 2
Yes, it's definitely front loaded costs. I would probably say. Right. So it feels like we got to put a little bit upfront, but then we realize the dividends later and it's that kind of delayed gratification or the results, you know, later down the road is what kind of puts people off because they feel uncertain if they're going to see it.

00:43:23:03 - 00:43:31:01
Speaker 2
But, I can at least speak to our industry is we're starting to see improvements in efficiency, really, you know, turning to dollars at on the bottom line.

00:43:31:03 - 00:43:47:23
Speaker 3
And for those technologies that are expensive nowadays, that that that do cost more. I think the question that I would have again, and to your point, you know, if you're a company that is very entrenched in the current system, you got two options. You can either be on the front foot and think about how you want to pivot your industry.

00:43:48:01 - 00:44:11:19
Speaker 3
You can make an active choice not to and party until it's over. And then, you know, get your dividend out that way. The thing that I think is really but does does more a lot of attention and has warranted a lot of attention is what do we do about the communities that are really dependent on fossil fuels? I mean, those are those are, you know, families, those are communities, those those people have worked hard.

00:44:11:21 - 00:44:38:08
Speaker 3
How do we honor their contribution to the society we have now and help them transition into a future that is also thriving? So I think it's really important to make sure that that that people that aren't left behind, and I wonder sometimes too, if, if without that alternative option for people, they're going to to stay entrenched in, in, in, you know, in maintaining what they have and it might come across as like, well, I don't believe climate change is real.

00:44:39:01 - 00:44:58:01
Speaker 1
I everything you're saying, it's just making me think of we just just a few days ago, we had the longshoremen strike and they're one of their major contingencies is to stop all use of automation. And it's to me like, what are we in 1984? This is backwards. We need more automation. These guys need to find new jobs. And then I'm thinking, wait a minute.

00:44:58:01 - 00:45:23:14
Speaker 1
In 2016, Hillary Clinton got in deep water because she said, hey, we got to teach these coal miners how to code. But today in 2024, I'm thinking to myself, these longshoremen, we need automation. We better teach these guys to have better jobs or other jobs or more futuristic jobs. And why isn't the union leaders helping them do that instead of fight this fight that is ultimately a losing battle, and it seems like a very strong tie over to this.

00:45:23:14 - 00:45:42:18
Speaker 1
Like there's very few holdouts left, and we really just need to encourage and help them to bootstrap, frankly, into a new industry or into a new future industry. My Mike and I have talked about it in the past, where you look at a chart in the 1800s, 80%, 85% of people were farmers or agricultural workers. Well not anymore.

00:45:42:18 - 00:46:05:16
Speaker 1
Now it's less than ten and the people are still alive. The economy, the country, it still exists. So it is definitely an aspect of modernization, featurization and not staying stuck in the past. Now, those oil rig workers and those fracking employees, of course they are going to have to find something different. But I think it is comes at a at a good, good, you know, trade off.

00:46:05:16 - 00:46:08:06
Speaker 1
Right. Save the protect the parks,

00:46:08:08 - 00:46:22:19
Speaker 3
And just to add to that, Charles, one thing that that I think is, is important is and then to add to that, what is the role of federal or state policy to help that? How do we create the enabling conditions for businesses and industries to make those changes?

00:46:22:22 - 00:46:23:12
Speaker 1
I love that.

00:46:23:17 - 00:46:49:11
Speaker 3
Where do we need to get industry an off ramp, a financial off ramp, and keep people and communities whole? And where do we sort of create the right incentives so that they can they can switch over. I'm really interested to see if we really have an electric vehicle turnover in the next two decades. Everybody who's a mechanic on an internal combustion engine, they're going to have to learn how to use computers, because that essentially is what an electric vehicle is.

00:46:49:11 - 00:47:15:05
Speaker 3
It's a computer on wheels. So what is the how does the workforce change? And that's, I think, what I find so fascinating about the issue of climate change very quickly, when you might be looking at emissions, you're very quickly talking about jobs, workforce, trade, competitiveness, you know, to to be because we have to solve this issue, you also have to be able to solve for the other things because they might those might be roadblocks to to actually reducing emissions.

00:47:15:07 - 00:47:34:06
Speaker 1
Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. I mean it is it's a it's a top down bottom up everything kind of approach. And I like what you said where you just kind of have to slowly move the needle. And will the clock run out on the climate before that noodle moves far enough. I guess that's the that's the battle that you guys are fighting right now over what you're doing.

00:47:34:06 - 00:47:37:17
Speaker 1
So, Mike, what else are we missing today?

00:47:37:19 - 00:47:55:01
Speaker 2
So I guess just the one final thing I want to say is, you know, where do we go from here? You know, so it's not too much of, this top down regulatory schemes, right? This is these are partnerships. This is not, you know, one leader, you know, leads an entire industry, a sector, I guess. How do we come together?

00:47:55:01 - 00:48:16:01
Speaker 2
How do we find common values to really move forward as as a country and even just an international society. Right. People don't like the idea of globalism, but I don't know how you disconnect it from this point. These materials are critical materials. They're not, you know, uniformly distributed throughout the world. And there's certain industries and certain countries that have leading edges on on developing and manufacturing in certain ways.

00:48:16:05 - 00:48:19:00
Speaker 2
So how do we tie it all together?

00:48:19:01 - 00:48:23:09
Speaker 3
It's definitely more than just three of us here. So,

00:48:23:11 - 00:48:25:05
Speaker 1
Oh, come on. We were going to do it today.

00:48:25:06 - 00:48:45:11
Speaker 3
No, but I think, Mike, you raise a really a really important point and an important question because I think it does feel overwhelming, like how do you actually make an effect change? I do think that it does happen. One company when one sort of group at a time. But I want to kind of bring it back to the question around storytelling.

00:48:45:12 - 00:49:19:08
Speaker 3
And that's I come back to that because if we can continue to tell good stories of solutions that work, to humanize them and to sort of make the connection between how reducing our emissions and reducing our impacts on climate change is actually very human story, and it can positively impact people's lives, both in reducing the negative impacts of a changing climate, but also that you can create a forward looking, more innovative, leading economy.

00:49:19:10 - 00:49:40:05
Speaker 3
I think that that it's literally like the building blocks of how we can start to make change in a more systemic level. So the more we can hear about success, the more that, for example, with companies, the more that they see what their peers are doing, the more they're willing to do it. The more countries might have opportunities for cooperation, the more they see success, the better off we will be.

00:49:40:06 - 00:50:14:16
Speaker 3
But I do think it's slow work, and that's what's difficult about it, is that you have this longer arc that you're looking at. But we are at a point in time where particularly and Charles, you said this earlier with different generations, there's more and more acceptance of climate change as a problem. And just a contrast that, one of the things I did a couple of 15 years ago now is I went and did a, short term assignment with the British government when I was working for the US government, and it was so eye opening because to to work with Europeans and to see how they approach things differently, they're in part approaching things

00:50:14:16 - 00:50:40:10
Speaker 3
differently, which is often in contrast to them. American policymakers may approach things, but their society is has a different ethos, has a different communal understanding of what the problem is and a willingness to to make those changes and to make those improvements. And so as we begin to change our cultural norms, as more policymakers in Congress begin to see that this is something that all of their constituents, both on the left and the right, care about.

00:50:40:12 - 00:51:07:21
Speaker 3
And if we can really leverage innovation and the market, which is I think we do very well in the United States to really make change, then I think we'll start to see improvements. But using the power of storytelling, using case studies, using examples, and really engaging with like those that make decisions, whether you're an investor, whether you're a member of Congress, whether you're a CEO of a company, there are actors in this game that can make change.

00:51:07:21 - 00:51:17:02
Speaker 3
And I think accessing them and interacting with them and giving them the good stories, I think is in part, you know, part of how we how we get there.

00:51:17:04 - 00:51:47:06
Speaker 1
Well, beautifully said. And today was definitely eye opening for me. I've learned a lot about a sector that I don't feel gets enough coverage, and I think it's due to this Partizan knee jerk reaction to the right wing hears climate and they turn the channel. And it's pretty much a shame. But maybe to get us excited is there as a last thought, is there anything that's like on the horizon, whether it's a new piece of technology that we don't know about or a new initiative that you guys are running, what is something that you're personally excited about to see over the next six months or a year?

00:51:47:08 - 00:52:05:12
Speaker 3
I'm very excited about lots of things. I think I'm excited to see, but I'll leave you with I'll leave it with three. The first thing I'm excited about is to see more companies collaborating to reduce their emissions in their supply chains and doing and find creative partnerships. So we see a few in the chemical sector.

00:52:05:14 - 00:52:32:00
Speaker 3
We've seen a few in the in the aviation fuel space. But I'm I'm excited to see more and more of these kinds of collaborative partnerships and things like trucking or maritime fuels or, you know, industries that that are further deeper into the into the supply chain. The second thing I'm excited about is bringing into the conversation how do we adapt and build resilience in a changing world.

00:52:32:03 - 00:52:53:13
Speaker 3
And still try to reduce our emissions? How do we have that both and conversation, and what is the role of companies in helping to build resilience and adaptation in places like Florida, North Carolina? But really, in many ways, no place is going to be untouched by climate change. So what's the role, the private sector, in helping to build that?

00:52:53:15 - 00:53:25:01
Speaker 3
And then when it comes to new technologies, yeah, there's a lot that's been talked about with like things like direct air capture and hydrogen and carbon capture and storage and long duration energy storage and sustainable aviation fuel and other zero, excuse me, zero or lower emission fuels, I should say. So I think looking at the kind of the suite of new technologies is coming out and seeing who's going to be a frontrunner, who is going to which, which technology is going to take off and thrive because of the Inflation Reduction Act.

00:53:25:01 - 00:53:48:11
Speaker 3
We're seeing a lot of investment. So I think we'll start to see in the next five years which ones, which ones are commercialized. The point where they're everyone's using them, you know, where are we where we were with wind and solar 15 years ago, where wind and solar is just permitting is what's blocking it, but permitting is what is limiting, greater, construction.

00:53:48:11 - 00:53:59:05
Speaker 3
But the technology is there, the savings are there. The the ability to generate energy is there. What's the new set of technologies that is going to power our future? So that's what I'm excited about.

00:53:59:08 - 00:54:12:05
Speaker 1
Well, Mike, maybe you could shed some light. We were debating over text last night. A pretty heated debate, but you sent me something about the, IRA had just funded the first nuclear power plant, and it's finally produced its first, energy. Is that accurate?

00:54:12:09 - 00:54:31:13
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I there's there's a conversation changing around nuclear, which is good because it's that the nuclear of 1970s or even, you know, Chernobyl that is that's a long past. The technologies have come a long way. They're either smaller in scale or they're safer. And just the general concepts of them are less likely to go critical and blow up in your backyard like Three Mile Island.

00:54:31:13 - 00:54:55:00
Speaker 2
But there really is it's it's one of the most potent technologies that we have in our toolkit is nuclear energy, because it is carbon free. You know, once you get to the actual energy generation point and it's a powerful baseload, which to to get a little complicated is you have you have on demand, you know, renewable energies that come when either the sun is shining or the wind is blowing or geothermal when you can access the heat pumps.

00:54:55:00 - 00:55:11:09
Speaker 2
And then also there's, you know, tidal energies, all those things are not inconsistent. And then now we have to get battery technologies to capture them, whereas nuclear can start replacing our petrochemical and coal, you know, powered, you know, generation facilities starting as soon as they turn on. Right? So that's the exciting part about it.

00:55:11:11 - 00:55:18:06
Speaker 1
Awesome, awesome. Well, very. Now before we go, where can people find you? And where do you want to direct our listeners to find you?

00:55:18:07 - 00:55:39:07
Speaker 3
Oh, gosh. You can go to my organization's website, which is, cts.org, and you can learn more about the center for Climate and Energy Solutions. My website for photography, which I have not added things new in a while, is the Ragout photography.com. On LinkedIn? I'm not really on formerly known as Twitter. But.

00:55:39:12 - 00:55:42:16
Speaker 1
We won't hold that against you. Neither is Mike. Actually.

00:55:42:18 - 00:55:43:05
Speaker 2
Hardly.

00:55:43:05 - 00:55:56:13
Speaker 1
So, but that's awesome, guys, we're going to put the links down below. Verena, thank you again so much for your time. This was an eye opening for me, and hopefully we can have you back on when maybe, more stuff happens in this field, and we'd love to have you. So thank.

00:55:56:13 - 00:55:59:21
Speaker 3
You again. Thank you so much for having me here today. I really enjoyed the conversation.

00:55:59:23 - 00:56:10:06
Speaker 1
Well, this has been elevated. Thoughts.