🔝 10 Climate Bites to Read this Week

⚖️ PodSnacks observed MLK Jr. Day on Monday.

👋 Welcome to this week’s roundup of PodSnacks.
🎙️ Discover selected quotes from 8 recently covered episodes.
✅ Save 4 hrs 42 min of listening by reading these entire PodSnacks.

⚡ Carbon & Energy

Podcast: My Climate Journey
Episode: Changing Forestation with Blockchain Technology (Original Title: "Startup Series: Open Forest Protocol")
Hosts: Jason Jacobs & Cody Simms
Guests: Fred Fournier & Michael Kelly | Co-Founders | Open Forest Protocol
Category: ☁️ Carbon Reduction
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 45 min | 🗓️ 01/13/2022

Selected Quote:

[5:15] MK: “From my angle […], Open Forest Protocol is really a digital system for coordinating the preservation and reforestation and […] for that matter, all things in terms of the ecosystems evolved in forests, in a distributed manner. So what we're really trying to do is to build a system on a global level, where forests from all around the world can be preserved, can be funded, and can be supported so that they stay in the ground, they don't get cut down or burned or destroyed or commercialized.”

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Selected Quote:

[15:58] AH: “My understanding with electric aviation is that that could really be a great solution for shorter flights. I think up to 50% of the flights in the United States are […] within the range that could be serviced by electric battery powered airplanes. […] But for the really emitting airplanes that are sending us to Africa to Australia, those are likely […] to need the drop in liquid fuels, which is why biofuels and sustainable aviation fuel is so important.”

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Podcast: Carbon Removal Newsroom
Episode: “Climate Reparations & Carbon Removal”
Host: Radhika Moolgavkar
Guests: Dr. Holly Jean Buck | Assistant Professor in Environment & Sustainability | University at Buffalo &
Chris Barnard | National Policy Director | American Conservation Coalition
Category: 📄 Policy
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 31 min | 🗓️ 01/14/2022

Selected Quote:

[21:56] CB: “On average, future generations have done better economically, had more resources, better quality of life, life outcomes, etc, than past generations. And so the question is, how much should we sacrifice today, our generation, in order to prevent runaway climate change for future generations, with the understanding that they will probably be better off than we are anyway? And so there's a really interesting discussion around this. And I read this quote from a climate scientist called Brian O'Neill the other day, and he said, “We're generally in the climate change field, not talking about futures that are worse than today.” And the kind of underlying assumption within that is that climate change could be bad, yes. But even with how bad climate change could be, the future will probably still be better than the present in terms of longevity of life, like educational outcomes, poverty levels.”

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Podcast: Redefining Energy
Episode: “The Missing Hours: In Search of 24/7 Carbon Free Power”
Hosts: Gerard Reid & Laurent Segalen
Guest: David Scaysbrook | Co-Founder & Managing Partner | Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners
Category: ⚡ Renewable Energy
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 27 min | 🗓️ 01/16/2022

Selected Quote:

[13:13] “We're an investor and operator in biomass and hydro and geothermal, but they're just very locationally specific [which] is the issue. [They] don't offer us a 24/7 solution in many of the places where we need it. Data centers are one of the biggest areas that we're focused on, because the customers need 24/7 power, and they want it to be net zero, they want to be carbon free. And so finding what we call the missing hours is the biggest conundrum right now in renewables investing for a 24/7 objective. [There are] six to eight hours of the day that need filling, and batteries will only take you so far. And longer duration storage offers potentially some solution to that. But the missing hours is the issue hanging over the sector in delivering to its potential.”

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💧 Water

Podcast: Solving Water
Episode: “The Search for the Next Breakthrough Technologies & Product Innovations in Water”
Host: Amanda Holloway
Guest: Dave Flinton | Senior Vice President | Xylem
Category: 🔬 Research
Apple | Spotify | 🕰️ 21 min | 🗓️ 01/10/2022

Selected Quote:

[9:42] “We just recently revamped our Xylem Innovation Labs. It's kind of our early stage, technical incubation team […]. And so we've got a number of strategic themes that we look at based on customer needs and gaps in our portfolio. So for instance, one of the big customer needs is around decarbonisation. Everybody is interested in reducing their carbon footprint, having a more sustainable operations. And so one of the themes in that […] early stage technologies scouting group is around carbon reducing technologies. […] One of the other pillars inside of that early stage technology group is around advanced treatment. If you look at our treatment portfolio, it's fairly limited. […] And so if you think about all of these emerging contaminants, like PFOS, lead, etc, those are going to require more advanced treatment technologies. And so that is […] a gap in Xylem’s overall portfolio.”

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Selected Quote:

[9:41] “We've observed that a lot of the big lead in drinking water crises that have happened in the United States have happened in predominantly African American communities. […] And so we wanted to see whether we could confirm if something similar was happening in Illinois. […] And what we found is, when you look at the 50 communities with the most known lead service lines in Illinois, you see that they contain 95% of the state's known lead service lines and they also include a disproportionate percentage of the state's black and Latinx residents. […] Illinois’ black and Latinx populations are twice as likely as white Illinoisans to be living in one of these communities that contains nearly all of the state's known lead service lines. 65% of the state's black and Latinx populations are living in those communities. Meanwhile, only 30% of the state's white population are living in those same communities.”

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Selected Quote:

[22:56] EB: “Bottled water is about 600 times the price of tap water. Liquid Death is about 2,000 times the price of tap water. […] And even with […] these just outrageous price differences in mind, […] it really gets back to this issue of people just not trusting their municipal supplier. And that might be completely justified in a lot of parts of the world, […] but in these luxury markets, like the US, it's just kind of outrageous that people have this perception. […] There was a consumer report survey from 2019 that […] 34% of US consumers regularly avoid tap water if they have the opportunity to. […] 17% don't drink any tap water.”

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Selected Quote:

[10:32] “We have different kinds of […] cleaner […] machines. One of them [is] for oil and diesel, and things like that. And then we have […] another model for floating sludge, because in wastewater treatment plants, it's really difficult to get rid of the floating sludge. It's basically bacteria and the wastewater treatment plants don't want to have that. And then we have another one that we are going to develop further to take care of floating plastics. And we are not going to focus on the ocean […], because that's […] quite difficult to take care of. So why don't we try to focus upstream, close to the industry and make the industry take more responsibility? So we help them to do that.”

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🏆 Top 8 Climate Bites to Read this Week

⚡ Carbon & Energy

💧 Water

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