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How Biohydrocarbons Work · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. I am welcome to
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  Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a k A compass head
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  Speaker 1: with me is Charles W Chuck Chuckers Chucky Bryant. Yes, Yes,
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  Speaker 1: Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck, Chuck, Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck
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  Speaker 1: Chuck Chuck Chuck Chuck bra Bow. We have Matt to
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  Speaker 1: guest producer. Matt again, handsome guest producer man. He's a
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  Speaker 1: dream vote, he is Pay attention, Matt. You might learn
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  Speaker 1: a thinker two. So don't be mean to Matt. Chuck.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not supporting it. I guess you want to get
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  Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, I think there's no point trying to
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  Speaker 1: be around the bush. Look like you're dragging a little
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  Speaker 1: bit today. Okay, No, dude, I'm up like uh. I
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  Speaker 1: can never think of the analogies bright eyed and bushy tailed.
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  Speaker 1: I'm up like a light switch up, like a hair
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  Speaker 1: hairclub for men. Customer terrible. Okay, Chuck, do you know
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  Speaker 1: what one of the simplest organic compounds found on the
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  Speaker 1: planet are school me. I'm about to chuck. We're gonna
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  Speaker 1: call those hydrocarbons for the remainder of this podcast, right,
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  Speaker 1: this little science. But hang with us. You might learn something.
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  Speaker 1: It is, but it's actually really exciting science. It is.
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  Speaker 1: I know, I'm aroused. I am too, I can tell alright, so, Chuck, Um,
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  Speaker 1: hydrocarbons are, as I said, very simple. It's just a
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  Speaker 1: chain of hydrogen and carbon atoms, pretty simple mixed together.
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  Speaker 1: But for all their simplicity, they pack a heck of
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  Speaker 1: a punched they do. Actually, as a matter of fact,
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  Speaker 1: they're really ubiquitous as far as the stuff we use
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  Speaker 1: to fuel our global economy goes, meaning that hydrocarbons are
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  Speaker 1: actually active ingredients in petroleum, coal, natural gas. So basically
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  Speaker 1: these are the things that give us the energy that
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  Speaker 1: we use to live our lives. Right, it's a good
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  Speaker 1: way to say it. Thanks, Chuck is at the end.
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  Speaker 1: That's it, alright, Thanks, thanks for joining us. Um, So, Chuck,
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  Speaker 1: there's a couple of problems with what we're getting our
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  Speaker 1: hydrocarbons from these days, and the first one is the
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  Speaker 1: first one is that eventually we're going to run out right,
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  Speaker 1: that's a pretty well known fact, and it's troublesome. It's
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily a fact, my friend. I don't want you
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  Speaker 1: to get unnecessary listener mail. It's actually a hotly debated topic,
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  Speaker 1: peak oil theory, which frankly I think we should do
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  Speaker 1: one on because it's actually really interesting. Right, you have
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  Speaker 1: a good article on that. Thank you, and thank you.
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  Speaker 1: I have to say, I just want to go ahead
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  Speaker 1: and say it now to Matt Baker. You know Matt
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  Speaker 1: over in development. He is actually a fanatic about energy
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  Speaker 1: in the future of energy use and exploring other ways,
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  Speaker 1: and he's actually huge skeptics. So he helped lend me
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  Speaker 1: a little bit of healthy skepticism for this one. Right,
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  Speaker 1: So it's good. He's fighting a good fight. So but
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  Speaker 1: I'm of the opinion that we are running out if
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  Speaker 1: we haven't started to already hit oil. Um, so we're
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  Speaker 1: going to run out. But we still need this stuff.
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  Speaker 1: And then the other problem is this the the internal
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  Speaker 1: combustion engines that we currently have are not very efficient.
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  Speaker 1: Now they're not we get uh the average from what
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  Speaker 1: I understand, according to the e p A about of
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  Speaker 1: the potential energy found in like the gas or the
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  Speaker 1: diesel or whatever we put into an engine actually becomes
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  Speaker 1: usable energy or energy that makes your car go down
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  Speaker 1: the road or powers your air conditioner right right. The
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  Speaker 1: rest of it's lost, all sorts of different things, heat, whatever.
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  Speaker 1: But one of the one of the ways that energy
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  Speaker 1: is lost is through unburnt u or incompletely burnt hydrocarbons, right,
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  Speaker 1: that comes right out of the old tail pipe. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and what happens chuckers Well, I was talking to Emily
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  Speaker 1: about this last night, trying to break this down in
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  Speaker 1: my research, and basically the easiest way to say it
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  Speaker 1: is these petroleum based fuels um burn less efficiently because
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  Speaker 1: they're more complex. And that's really all there is to it.
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  Speaker 1: Things like ethanol. If you if you looked at the
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  Speaker 1: what's it called, not the helix, but the little the bond, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the bond. It's actually just when you look at the
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  Speaker 1: two compared to each other, they're very much more simpler. Sure,
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  Speaker 1: so that that's really all there is to it. It
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  Speaker 1: burns cleaner because more of it gets burnt initially, there's
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  Speaker 1: nothing left over, right, So we burned these these these hydrocarbons,
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  Speaker 1: and when we separate the bonds, it creates this, uh,
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  Speaker 1: this reaction where we get energy, right, But if all
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  Speaker 1: the bonds aren't broken, then you have some that, like
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  Speaker 1: you said, come out of the tail pipe. And let's
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  Speaker 1: say you have a carbon atom that interacts with the
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  Speaker 1: air and it gets an oxygen molecule attached to it.
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  Speaker 1: All of a sudden you have carbon monoxide, which is bad. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: Ozone is another one, right, which is not to be
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  Speaker 1: confused with the ozone in the stratosphere of the ozone layer.
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  Speaker 1: It's actually good thing. It is no and it actually
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  Speaker 1: is the same thing. It's just to times and where
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  Speaker 1: it is exactly right. Um. And then of course you
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  Speaker 1: you also have um carbon atoms attached to one another
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  Speaker 1: make soot. So there's a there's a lot of problems
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  Speaker 1: with hydrocarbons the way we're using them right now, but
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  Speaker 1: there are solutions to this problem, exciting solutions. Yeah. Again,
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  Speaker 1: I'm arounded by these. Yeah. I was talking the same
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  Speaker 1: thing to Emily last night about this, that there are
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  Speaker 1: actually a lot of different ways that we can make fuel.
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  Speaker 1: It's just that the system we have in place has
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  Speaker 1: been there for so long. It's kind of with the
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  Speaker 1: politics and everything, it's just well entrenched. So all these
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  Speaker 1: new methods are you know, it's kind of an efficient
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  Speaker 1: system because it's been in place for so long, and
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  Speaker 1: all the systems are in place, so starting up these
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  Speaker 1: new methods is kind of expensive and it's extremely expensive
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  Speaker 1: time consuming. Plus, you know, we've gotten like you said,
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  Speaker 1: we've gotten really good at extracting oil from the ground. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: even from the sea floor. Remember when we did the
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  Speaker 1: Huuans Oceans podcast. We've gotten really good at getting oil
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  Speaker 1: out of the earth right right, because we've been doing
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  Speaker 1: it for so long. Now, all of a sudden, it's
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  Speaker 1: becoming painfully clear that we need to come up with
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  Speaker 1: another solution and fast or else. If we have hit
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  Speaker 1: peak oil already, we're our global economy is gonna come
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  Speaker 1: to a screeching halt and then hopefully we'll have enough
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  Speaker 1: momentum to pick it up with minimal um stoppage. But
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  Speaker 1: probably not. We're probably gonna be in big trouble because
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  Speaker 1: we we I think we waited a little too long.
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  Speaker 1: Hopefully not. I'm not much of an alarmist, really, but
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  Speaker 1: I don't think the world's gonna end in I don't
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  Speaker 1: think so either. But okay, so what's what's leading the pack? Chuck?
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  Speaker 1: Could it possibly be bio hydrocarbons, yes, Josh, and what
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  Speaker 1: are the Oh you tell me genius. Alright, Jerk, I'll
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  Speaker 1: tell you what a biohydrocarbon is. It's a hydrocarbons derived
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  Speaker 1: from plant life, right, converting plant sugars essentially, which is
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  Speaker 1: not necessarily just sugars either. We'll get into that later.
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  Speaker 1: It was just one of the many. Yeah. See, this
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  Speaker 1: is where I started to get confused. I know, let's
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  Speaker 1: just let's just put it out there, Chuck, come on,
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  Speaker 1: laid on everybody laid on me. Well, I mean like,
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  Speaker 1: there's the Chuck was frustrated earlier because we're researching this
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  Speaker 1: and he was like, what is going on? Like is that?
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  Speaker 1: Are we looking at ethanol? Are we looking at camelina? Like?
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  Speaker 1: What are we what which catalyst works best? And we
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  Speaker 1: both figured out that what's going on is no one
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  Speaker 1: has this magic bullet yet, right Chuck, which actually makes
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  Speaker 1: the whole thing that much more exciting. Is kind of
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  Speaker 1: like watching a horse race, like, have has the technology
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  Speaker 1: been developed yet? We just need to make it more efficient.
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  Speaker 1: Is there a plan out there we didn't we haven't
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  Speaker 1: even heard of that's actually going to rescue the world. Well,
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  Speaker 1: maybe a little hint for the I know, I like
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  Speaker 1: that one, the Patagonian one. Yeah, but there's research on
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  Speaker 1: all kinds of fronts, which is the which is the
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  Speaker 1: good part. So like you said, it's kind of a race,
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  Speaker 1: you see, you can do it the cheapest and most efficiently,
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  Speaker 1: uh and the quickest. There's there's one that's already pretty
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  Speaker 1: well established. That's cellulistic ethanol and Chris Putt and I
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  Speaker 1: actually did a podcast many many moons ago on that,
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  Speaker 1: but I want to have a quick refresher. And also, um,
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  Speaker 1: I think biohydrocarbons is pretty much interchangeable with the word
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  Speaker 1: biofuels from what we can tell right, um. But with
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  Speaker 1: cellulosic ethanol, all it is Uh, it's it's ethanol which
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  Speaker 1: you can use to power and engine, especially when it's
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  Speaker 1: been modified to be powered by ethanol. Um. And it's
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  Speaker 1: just created by fermenting extracted sugars from cellulose and lignant,
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  Speaker 1: which provides structure and and shape and form to sell
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  Speaker 1: walls of plants, like the plant stands up thanks to that. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And basically what they do is they throw a bunch
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  Speaker 1: of this and it's called biomass feedstock. When it's used
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  Speaker 1: to make ethanol. Right, They throw it in this vat,
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  Speaker 1: throw some microbes in there. The microbes go to town,
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  Speaker 1: eat this stuff, make these biproducts waste products, and then
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  Speaker 1: they're they're catalyzed with other enzymes and they go through
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  Speaker 1: this process and process and out the end comes the
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  Speaker 1: two final products, which are water and ethanol. Right. And
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  Speaker 1: actually there's a real advantage to the because we're already
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  Speaker 1: throwing away four thirty million tons of plant waste every year.
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  Speaker 1: We're just thrown it away saw dust with chips, stock
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  Speaker 1: stuck in the thing. Yeah, but stuff we just can't use.
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  Speaker 1: We can if we make cellulistic ethanol out right, right,
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  Speaker 1: it's just garbage before, But then you know, once we're
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  Speaker 1: using it, like I said, it becomes biomassive feed stack.
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  Speaker 1: Here's the problem. You were saying earlier that it's it's
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  Speaker 1: a very expensive process. It's I said, it's not very efficient.
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  Speaker 1: These are all extremely accurate. And the reason why is
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  Speaker 1: um Like those microbes I mentioned that are changing the
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  Speaker 1: cellulose into sugars to be fermented, those die after a
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  Speaker 1: very short period of time and they have to be replaced.
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  Speaker 1: So that's an added cost right indeed, Okay, Indeed, microbe
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  Speaker 1: replacement is actually that's a very expensive process. Microbe replacement.
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  Speaker 1: It's a killer and it kills you every time. And
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  Speaker 1: plus also remember I mentioned that the two end products
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  Speaker 1: are water and um ethanol. They mix together really easily,
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  Speaker 1: which is good. No, it's not, no, no, because then
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  Speaker 1: you have to extract the ethanol from the water, which
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  Speaker 1: is costly and time consuming, and it's an added step.
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  Speaker 1: Right yeah, what they're trying to do with some of
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  Speaker 1: these processes is limit these steps, which makes it obviously cheaper.
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  Speaker 1: Plus also, even once you do extract the ethanol from
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  Speaker 1: the water and you are transporting ethanol, uh say, to
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  Speaker 1: your local gas stations via pipeline the way we do
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: it with oil now we try we shoot it through pipes.
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  Speaker 1: Refined gas, we shoot it through pipes and it's separated
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  Speaker 1: by columns of water. Will be like gas water, gas water,
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  Speaker 1: gas water. You can't do that with ethanol. We have
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: to come with a completely new technology for it because
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: it'll just mix with the water and the stuff that
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: comes out the end would have to be extracted again,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: right right, So there's a bunch of challenges to cellulistic ethanol. Really,
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  Speaker 1: what it comes down to is it's just too expensive
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  Speaker 1: to replace oil right now. Okay, so again, what's the solution? Well,
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  Speaker 1: which one? Let's let's start rapping. What do you want
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  Speaker 1: to talk about? Camelina or camelina is like the the
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  Speaker 1: wonder plant, right, Well, perhaps camelina is Uh, if you
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  Speaker 1: want camelina should go to Montana first, or Idaho was
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  Speaker 1: at the other Origi grower, but yeah, Montana seemed to
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  Speaker 1: kind of stand out above the rest is like the
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  Speaker 1: big potential producer for camelina, right right. One of the
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  Speaker 1: cool things about camelina is gonna be grown in a
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  Speaker 1: rotation with wheat crops. Yeah, we grow a lot of
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  Speaker 1: wheat right Actually, um, it's been shown and it's fallow.
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  Speaker 1: You use it on the fallow land, right and right now,
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  Speaker 1: they just let weeds grow in a huge tract of
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  Speaker 1: wheat crop land. But if they were placed with camelina, actually,
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  Speaker 1: when they plant wheat the next season, it has about
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  Speaker 1: more increased yield than when they just use weeds this season.
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  Speaker 1: Before you want to talk yields, camelina yields roughly double
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  Speaker 1: what soy yields. And soy you know, is the wonder
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  Speaker 1: plant everyone knows. And the oil that Camelina produced is
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  Speaker 1: more cold resistant than your average biodiesel and resistant drought
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  Speaker 1: resistant since it grows in marginal lands as well, it
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  Speaker 1: requires very little fertilizer or insecticide. So that's huge too. Well,
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  Speaker 1: it sounds like this is the answer. Wait it gets
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: even better, chuck more. Um, to get the Camelina oil
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  Speaker 1: that's used to produce bio hydrocarbon fuel, right, Um, you
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  Speaker 1: actually have to crush the plant matter and then you
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  Speaker 1: extract the oil. The stuff that's left over actually makes
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  Speaker 1: an excellent livestock feed, so you've got all that extra
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  Speaker 1: income right there. Right. Yeah. Well, they've done some studies
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  Speaker 1: on the emissions from let's say jet fuel made by Camelina.
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  Speaker 1: They call it green jet fuel, and there is an
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  Speaker 1: eighty four point four percent savings compared to regular petroleum
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  Speaker 1: jet fuel in greenhouse gas emissions. Right yeah, that's that's
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  Speaker 1: way huge. Uh. And if you're talking biodiesel and exhibits
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  Speaker 1: savings of over regular das over petroleum based desil and
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  Speaker 1: even more. You said that they were doing tests with it, right,
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  Speaker 1: they're actually conducting real flights with it. So of fifty
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  Speaker 1: percent jet fuel like petroleum based jet fuel and fifty
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  Speaker 1: um biojet fuel green jet fuel. That's awesome, And so
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: it's actually keeping the plane aloft and I believe more
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: energy efficient. Yeah, well, nobody wants to use you know,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: no matter how environmentally friendly a fuel is, everybody's gonna
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: hate it if planes crashed and you and when you
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: fill it up with it. Right, and we're talking about Montana.
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  Speaker 1: The state of Montana alone could support between two and
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  Speaker 1: three million acres of this stuff, producing how many millions
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  Speaker 1: of barrels of oil? Well, two hundred to three hundred
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: million gallons of oil a year. Here's the rub that
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: farmers grow education. They don't know a lot about it
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  Speaker 1: at this point. They don't. But even if every farmer
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  Speaker 1: in Montana we're producing the maximum amount of camelina oil
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  Speaker 1: every year, right, three million gallons a year, three or
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: four I think. See. The problem is is here in
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the US we use twenty one million barrels of oil
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  Speaker 1: a day. So even if Montana produced the maximum muld
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: of camelina oil, we use it up as a nation
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: in just a few days, tops, you know what I'm saying.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: That's a huge problem with that. Plus also camelina goes
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: through a much similar process or a similar process to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: um cellulistic ethanol. They've got these extra expensive steps, right,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: So clearly we've got the we have the cleaner burning
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: fuel part down right, because it's producing simpler biohydrocarbons, so
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they're burning more efficiently and they're they're burning up completely,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: so there's fewer emissions, except there's carbon dioxide emissions still, right,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: and a truly perfect alternative fuel. The two waste products
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be water and uh, carbon dioxide. The problem
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: is we're still emitting carbon dioxide, right, Actually hydrogen would
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: be the way to go, sure, but yeah please yeah,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: So that you just scoffed, so like that. It was
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a pretty clear scoff, wasn't it. So um, we still
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: have this this hurdle, and one of them is the
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: making a fewer step process, which would be inherently less expensive,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: right right. Are you talking about the mystery fungus? No, yes, sure,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: not a mystery fungus, but super fungus. Well, that's that's different.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's like just going to the source to
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: find uh, you know, I don't know, maybe some sort
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: of fungus that produces diesel on its own without any steps.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: Shall we talk about that? Is there such a thing?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: I think? So they have found this in uh, Patagonia,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: is that right in the rainforest? And it is called
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: help me out here, io clad cladium roseum. I think
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: that's probably pretty close chuck cladium roseum or g roseum. Yeah,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: let's just call it that, or g ros or just
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: drows let's call it g roseum. And they've discovered this
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: fungus kind of by accident or not kind of accident,
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: very much by accident, which is the best part. Yeah,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: they were running around the Patagonian rainforest exposing tree fungus
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to antibiotics to see what happens, right, a bunch of hippies,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And what they found out was this g rose e
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  Speaker 1: um grew in the presence of these gases when everything
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: else was dying away. So you kind of went, hey,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: what a good stuff exactly? And then they looked a
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: little closer and what, well are you saying? The best
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: part is that you can grow this in labs. Sure,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: that's one part. I think The best part is the
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: fact that this thing naturally excretes diesel. Well, sure, diesel fuel.
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: There's a fungus out there that excretes what we would
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: just call diesel fuel, which is nuts. That's what you're
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: going the obvious round. I thought, Oh, yes, a talk
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: about like cutting steps out. I mean, you just exposed this, uh,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: this stuff to antibiotics, right, and it starts producing diesel
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: directly from cellulose, yeah, but from eating on a tree, right,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: And like you said, they've already managed to to reproduce
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: it in the lab right right, and they call it
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: mica diesel. Yeah, and yeah, they can create this stuff
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: in the lab. It's crazy, which you know this this
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: is one of the big exciting things about g. Rose
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: e um. Well plus also g roseum, as if it
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: couldn't get any better, produces potent antibiotics as a byproduct
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: as well and introducing diesel and animbiotics. Well, so why
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: don't we just go this route? I think we should
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: bow down to the g. Roseum master, which will clearly
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: dominate the human race within the next fifty years. And
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: this is only like six months ago that this they
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: figured the stuff out. It's a brand new dawning of
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: a new age. Maybe, well it was twelve months ago
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: they found out, but it took him six months to
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: get out of the forest, and they were running the
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: whole time to tell everybody they were Yeah, they kept
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: falling down. Yeah. Yeah. So what I want to know, Well,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: the good part is that they can actually manufacture it,
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: because that's what I was worried about. Was cool they
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: found the saying, but it's in the rainforest. So then
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I thought, well, that just means you're gonna start raping
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: the rainforest. Yeah. I thought the same thing too, And
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: I have to say I was to see that they
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: synthesized it already or and that's awesome, figured out how
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: to manipulate it science exactly precisely. Also, there's a there's
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: a movement of foot to cut out extra steps in
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: the ethanol process or you know what converting camelina oil
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the usable um diesel fuel. Uh, and that's using different
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: kinds of catalysts um. There are these guys that M
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I T that are using um metals like platinum and copper.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: I believe right to to catalyze these things. What what
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: happens is basically from what I understand, and again this
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: is m I T. And I definitely did not attend
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: M I T. A bunch of dummies, Yeah, what are
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: you talking about? Um? Basically, you take this uh this um,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: this cellulistic ethanol, say right, and you run it over
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: these catalysts that are very high heat, so like you
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: have ultraheated platinum. And what happens is when it goes over,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: it actually converts the chemical composition of the ethanol or
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: not the ethanol, the the main ingredients used in ethanol,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: the cellulose, let's say, um, and it converts it into biohydrocarbons.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Right there. There's no other steps. Actually there are two steps,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: but they're actually very quick and um it's thousands of
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: times faster I understand than microbial fermentation. You can produce
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: this stuff constantly, and it can be recycled exactly. The
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: catalyst can be reused because you're not using microbes, you're
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: using metal, and platinum stands up to heat pretty well, right.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: Even better, the stuff that comes out on the other end,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the usable fuel, actually separates from the other biproducts, so
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: it's just sitting there on top making extraction easy. And
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: the stuff that remains on bottom is actually highly usable
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: in the manufacture of plastics too. So it seems to
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: me like We're getting closer and closer and closer. The
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: problem is is I think, um, we humans tend to
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: rest on our laurels. We know how to get oil
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: out of the ground. I don't. I don't see any
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: oil missing. What's the big problem? Until it all up,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: it's going to take someone of real prominence to come
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: out and be like you idiots were in big trouble
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: for anybody to wise up and really start funding this stuff.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: But if if some great thinker needs to come along
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and demand it, who maybe you? I demand that everyone
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: start funding this stuff, right, and then say, and you
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: are as you're being handcuffed. That's fine. Sure, I've been
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: handcuffed before and I don't doubt it. So that's bio
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: hydrocarbons that it? Sure? Well, I'm very impressed, dude. You know,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: chemistry and maths stuff kind of flies over my head.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I did my best to hang in there. But you
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: did great, Chuck, You did great. So, Chuck, we don't
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: have anything to plug. We're done with biohydro carbons. That
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: can only be one thing, my friend listener many exactly. So, Josh,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna call this Italian listener mail because it
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: comes from an Italian. Uh might throw in a word
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: or two in there. He doesn't say anything about the punts.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So this from Stephan in Italy, and this is in
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: regards to our propaganda podcast which was just recently. Really yeah. Uh.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: He wants to point out that, first of all, I'm Italian,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: so sorry for the bad English. His the Prime Minister
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of Italy, Silvio Silvio Bert Berlusconi. He is apparently quite
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the propagandist, is what this Stephan says. And he says
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: here we can only dream about propaganda being illegal. I
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: want to argue, I don't want to argue through a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: Riduccio at Hitler hum. But the current situation Italy is
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: worse than Nazi Germany. That's what he says. I didn't
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: realize the chuck you're gonna give the Italians after its Well,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: maybe you don't want the Italians. The night is what
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: they call him evidently, and he says, yes, the k
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: and I p HT is what the Italian media calls
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the Prime minister. And he owns all private free televisions
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and has shares and I think he means TV stations,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and he has shares in the paper viewings. So being
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: the Prime minister, he can influence the public TV channels.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: He illegally became the owner of nearly every publisher or
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: newspaper in the country, and he sues everyone who allows
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: himself to criticize him little Italian influence there on the
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: speak uh, he says, there are plenty of cases of
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: phone interceptions and or admissions that he influenced people in
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: some news and or journalists are being ridiculously one sided.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: You never hear anything bad about the government or the
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Prime minister, and protest stars in opposition are always displayed
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: as fools. So basically it sounds like Italy is in
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: some big trouble over there. So he goes on for
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: a while, but I'll just kind of skip down to
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: the end. There are two free news sources in some
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: radio stations that we have called radical radio and the Internet.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: But they're working on some laws to ban blogs and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: already have some in place to sense or certain sites.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: So I just wanted you to know there's probably the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: best modern day propagand you will find Stephen in Italy,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: and Stephen, they're coming for you as we speak. Yeah, sorry, Stephen,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: but I think that Chuck and I both say, hats
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: off to you for being the voice of Oh, I
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: don't know reason over there in Italy, Chuck, I feel
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: like we're complicit and smuggling information out of Italy and
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: then broadcasting it around the world. I didn't realize it's
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: like this. I've been to Italyan. I thought it was
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: a pretty cool place. I didn't get that sense. But
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: did you also know did you see that one email
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: from a listener in China who said that our blog
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: is outlawed there? Yeah, I like being banned. That is
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the coolest thing I've ever heard. We're like right there
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: with the Ali Lama. Sure, yeah, all right, Well if
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: you want to compare chucking out of the Dali Lama, um,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: let us know what's going on in your country, or
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: just to say hi, You can send an email to
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com, but don't
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: get caught. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: is it how stuff works dot com. Want more how
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: stuff works, check out our blogs on the house stuff
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: works dot com home page. Brought to you by the
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you