Did you know that healthcare and biotech facilities produce more emissions than the airline industry? While medical innovation saves lives, it comes with an environmental cost. Meet Sam White, an innovator tackling this challenge by revolutionizing how biotech waste is recycled and transformed into new products.
This conversation explores:
- How a simple recycling solution is turning biotech waste into valuable products
- A groundbreaking cooling technology helping 95,000 farmers in India triple their income without relying on diesel generators
- The future of energy storage that could enable wind and solar to operate as reliably as nuclear power
- Why small, local innovations might be the key to fighting climate change
Join us for a practical look at how climate technology is transforming industries and creating sustainable solutions for our future.
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Watch the episode here
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Listen to the podcast here
About Sam White
Sam is a co-founder of several companies: Greentown Labs (the largest climate tech incubator in the US), Nano-Ice, Promethean Power Systems, and Greenlabs Recycling. An entrepreneur with a passion for enabling rapid growth and global deployment of new technologies. But most importantly, a father who constantly thinks about the impact of climate change on his kids.
His learnings have been published in the World Economic Forum, Xconomy, NASDAQ, and Boston Business Journal.
All of the start-ups he co-founded are scaling with new management and he is currently focused on scaling up GreenLabs Recycling, where they are making life sciences more sustainable by recycling their non-hazardous plastic and manufacturing lab products hyperlocally.
Motivation and Inspiration
Where others see insurmountable challenges, entrepreneurs like Sam see opportunities for transformative solutions. Sam finds motivation in the people around him, particularly the passionate entrepreneurs he encounters at Greentown Labs. He’s also inspired by the book The Material World, which explores the history of material use and its impact on society.
Revolutionizing Biotech Recycling
When China stopped accepting waste in 2018, the biotech and pharmaceutical industries faced a crisis. Perfectly clean lab plastics – from pipette tip boxes to media bottles – were being sent to landfills or incinerated. GreenLabs Recycling emerged to bridge this gap, developing a transparent, local solution that achieves high recycling rates.
Unlike traditional large-scale recycling operations, GreenLabs Recycling takes a different approach. They focus on small-scale, industry-specific solutions, employing human sorters and turning waste directly into new products. The result? What once sold for 35 cents per pound as raw recycled plastic now generates $12 per pound as finished products.
This innovative approach not only reduces waste but also provides transparency in the recycling process, as scientists can see their plastic waste being turned into useful products.
Exciting Innovations in Green Tech
- Energy storage: Form Energy is developing revolutionary storage technology using iron oxidation, enabling 14-day energy storage compared to lithium-ion’s typical four hours. This breakthrough could make wind and solar power as reliable as nuclear or natural gas plants
- Micro-nuclear: Bill Gates is investing in micro-nuclear technology, which has the potential to provide clean and reliable energy.
- AI and the power grid: The increasing demand for energy from AI applications is driving innovation in the power industry, leading to new solutions for a more efficient and sustainable grid.
The Future of Climate Tech
Sam is optimistic about the future of climate tech, highlighting the role of incubators like Greentown Labs in fostering innovation and collaboration between startups and corporations. He believes that the future of climate tech lies in a multitude of smaller innovations addressing specific problems, rather than relying on a single breakthrough technology.
While government support may fluctuate, local action and corporate adoption continue to drive progress.
The climate crisis demands multiple solutions working in concert. From biotech waste recycling to revolutionary energy storage, from cooling technologies to sustainable packaging, each innovation contributes to a larger transformation. As Sam and the companies he has co-founded demonstrate, sometimes the most effective solutions start with seeing opportunity in overlooked problems.
Key Takeaways
- Recycling can be profitable and transparent: GreenLabs Recycling demonstrates that recycling can be a successful business model while also promoting transparency and environmental responsibility.
- Collaboration is key: Incubators like Greentown Labs play a crucial role in fostering collaboration between startups and corporations, driving innovation in the climate tech space.
- Small innovations can have a big impact: The future of climate tech lies in numerous small-scale innovations that address specific problems, rather than relying on a single solution.
- The importance of local action: Individuals and communities can make a significant impact on climate change by taking action at the local level, such as composting and supporting sustainable businesses.
Call to Action
While the challenges of climate change are daunting, Sam’s work and insights offer hope for a more sustainable future. By supporting innovative companies, taking action at the local level, and staying informed about emerging technologies, we can all play a role in addressing climate change.
For more insights on why local action is so important, check out our episode with Nobel Prize-winning Economist Simon Johnson.
Links
- Sam White – LinkedIn
- Greenlabs Recycling
- Greenlabs Recycling – LinkedIn
- Greenlabs Recycling – Instagram
- Greenlabs Recycling – Facebook
- Greenlabs Recycling – Twitter
- Promethean Power
- Nano Ice Cooling Necklace
- Greentown Labs
- The Engine
- GE Vernova
- Veolia
- Form Energy
- Sublime Systems
- Atacama
- The Material World
Transcription
This interview has been transcribed using AI technology. While efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, the transcription may contain errors.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to the Futurist Society, where, as always, we are talking in the present, but talking about the future. I have a really special guest for you today. Sam White is an innovator in the space of climate technology and green technology, which is very much in the news today, and it’s very in vogue.
So Sam, I know you’re doing a lot of interesting things with recycling right now, but you have a whole history in this space, and I’d love to hear more about that. But let’s talk about recycling, because I think that’s the most pertinent. We’re in the center of biotech right now, and you’re actually recycling a lot of the lab waste that’s being used in the area.
So tell us a little bit more about that.
Sure, I’ll give you a little history on why it’s become a big issue today. First of all, healthcare and biotech is a big part of this, puts out more emissions than airlines. They put out more emissions than shipping.
And it’s because of all the waste and the energy-intensive machinery that is required to keep the freezers going and all the experiments running. And a lot of people don’t talk about that side of healthcare and biotech because it’s all about medicine, but it has a big impact on our climate. And in 2018, I don’t know if you remember when China decided to stop taking our waste.
When China stopped taking our waste, the biggest collateral damage came to the biotech and pharma space because single-stream recyclers, they were hauling all the single-use plastic from biotech and pharma, and they sent it to China. When that stopped, they stopped recycling anything that looked like a lab product, including perfectly clean plastic, like the packaging for the pipette tips. Those pipette tip boxes just end up either incinerated or in landfill.
The media bottles, again, it looks like a lab product. It’s not gonna be recycled today. So GreenLabs Recycling is trying to bridge the gap by not only recycling, because I know a lot of your viewers and you yourself have some pessimism around does this plastic actually get recycled into products?
So I have brought with me something that kind of helps us answer that question around transparency and recycling. So what we do when we collect all this plastic is we have a manufacturing line in Levenster, Massachusetts, where we have a mold, where we manufacture this benchtop waste bin for scientists to be able to deposit their tips. They open the slider, and you’ll notice if you look carefully at all the streaks, we don’t add any coloring, and every box comes out a different color, depending on the mix of colors from the pipette tip boxes that we’re recycling.
So for those of you guys who are just listening in, it’s a box that’s very similar to a lot of the biohazard boxes that are predominant in biotechnology, and the outside has this modeled appearance almost like tie-dye because of all of the different, assuming plastic’s coming from it and being made into the box, is that correct?
Yeah, that’s right. It’s like a sharps container, but we didn’t wanna go through the regulatory hurdles of calling it a sharps container, and the scientists love it because they can now see what their plastic is getting turned into every day.
So I’m a big optimist when it comes to technology. I consider myself a techno-optimist, and I hear so much pessimism around recycling, even though it’s this thing that’s been around for so long. A lot of my friends that are in the green tech space say that the amount of, the percentage of stuff that actually gets recycled is so low, and they’re really almost disillusioned with the whole recycling process.
Can you just give us a little bit more insight into recycling at large, and maybe even biotechnology recycling, to give us a little sense of hope around the recycling process? Because I know it sounds so intuitive that, okay, rather than create new technology, and use it and throw it away in a landfill, we can reuse that, and it becomes better for the environment, but the actual adoption of that practice is not as rose-colored as I would think it is as a human person. So you being in the industry, can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yeah, in general, the whole industry is focused on large-scale recycling, and that requires expensive equipment for sorting. It requires a huge amount of space for putting the different resins in its place, and then shipping it all over the world, because the margins are so small, and the price that you get for the different resins, whether it’s PET or polypropylene, it fluctuates depending on how much they’re producing, how much plastic they’re producing from petroleum, how much plastic they’re getting from recycled plastic, how much, China is a big player in determining that price point, because they used to take our waste, now they have their own in-country capacity, so the price for what you get for recycled plastic really tanked last year, so it’s all about huge volumes to be able to make money in this space, and when you’re talking about such huge volumes, it’s hard to get insights on what percentage of that plastic gets recycled. With Green Labs Recycling, we’ve tried to completely reverse everything about recycling.
It’s small-scale, it’s focused on a particular industry, life sciences, we have humans who are sorting the plastic, we work with Minuteman Arc to bring us fantastic people to help with the sorting, and once it’s sorted and granulated, we put it into injection molding, and we have videos of raw footage of this granulated plastic getting heated and being poured into the different cavities to make the sharps container, and it’s not a professional video, because we want to show that recycling can be transparent. You can see what the plastic is being turned into, and I think it’s really powerful, because it’s not only important for transparency and recycling, but we’re making some good money on this.
We used to sell this plastic at 35 cents a pound, now we sell this product at $12 a pound. So, and now that we’re manufacturing product using recycled plastic, you all of a sudden look at climate change, which is causing drought, which is causing shipping issues in the Panama Canal, political issues that make the supply chain of importing a lot of products very challenging, and this is a, I hope it serves as a model for the future for manufacturers to start thinking about, well, maybe I can make this cheaper in my backyard using recycled plastic.
Yeah, so I love that. I think as someone who’s a follower of this tangentially, zooming out, what I see across many different industries is this idea of becoming more local, becoming more niche, and rather than it being a production of scale, you’re able to offer profit for people, including your own business, because it’s such a bespoke product, right? And so that’s awesome.
I like the fact that you’re focusing on biotechnology, because living in Kendall Square, the center of biotechnology, I see it all the time, and it’s nice to hear that that kind of stuff is happening.
Yeah, so we were shocked at the demand for this product, not just because it’s useful and the utilitarian part of it, but just the message that they’re purchasing something that is more sustainable. So we’re shocked at how much demand there is for this product.
That’s awesome. I know that in the traditional recycling, it’s not like that. There’s a good portion of that that goes to a landfill, and I hope that different innovations can happen similar to your company that’s able to overcome those hurdles from a large-scale production standpoint.
That’s awesome. No, I love that. The idea of climate tech is so much more than recycling, though, and I did want to speak with you about kind of your history being in the green tech space.
I know that you helped co-found one of the largest incubators for green technology. So tell us a little bit more about that, and then I also want to talk about where do you see the innovation coming from? What are you most excited about in this space?
Sure, so yeah, back in 2010, we were deploying a new cooling technology as part of a startup called Promethean Power. Long story short, there’s a big issue in India where 230,000 milk-producing villages in India only get seven hours of power in a 24-hour period, and we developed a type of battery that instead of storing electrons, we’re storing ice. And today, we have over 95,000 farmers being able to cold-store their milk without diesel generators, even though they have only seven hours of power.
And we have this cooling technology that enables all these farmers to triple their income. They’re investing in more cows. The Nestles of the world, the food processors, are being able to collect more quality milk, and there’s less pollution in these villages because they’re no longer using diesel generators.
So it’s a quadruple win for the consumers, the processors, the environment, and the farmers. And from that, when my soon-to-be wife got a sabbatical from Brigham Women’s down the street, she came to live with me in India. And when you go outside in India, it’s like a wall of heat.
And I grabbed some cooling prototypes that we’re initially using in Mumbai, in our warehouse, that we weren’t gonna use. And I found, imagine you’re walking down the streets of Mumbai in India, and there are tailors on the street making clothes or fixing clothes. And I asked one of them, could you wrap these spheres in this fabric?
And so that created a company called Nano Ice Cooling Necklace. And I’ll give that to you. It’s still cold from the freezer when I took it out an hour ago.
Yeah, so for those of you guys who are just listening in, he just handed me this pack of almost like beads, but they’re still cold. And we had been setting up at least an hour and a half before. So pretty interesting stuff.
So I’ll hold that up.
Yeah, you can put this on.
Okay.
Stretch it over your head.
Okay, like this?
Yeah, over your neck. Because the blood that gets to your brain is right at these arteries. Yeah, that’s cool, man.
And so it turns out that people with autoimmune diseases that heat really impacts them more than anyone else. And the correspondence that I have with people who say it’s changed their lives, they can garden for the first time without worrying about the heat. They can take walks for the first time without worrying about the heat.
It’s remarkable what a simple little innovation can do for people who are suffering.
That’s super interesting. And I like that about a lot of the green tech that I see. It’s that these small little changes that are happening that have this profound impact.
And I feel like it’s much more of the innovation that we think about with American innovation, like somebody starting this up in their garage and it becomes this big company. Nowadays, a lot of those technological spaces have been dominated by large corporations. And although we are progressing with rapid technological change, I don’t think it’s happening in the same way as it once was.
And I think that green tech, at least from my perspective as somebody that’s an outside observer, is still this respite for American innovation the way that I think it is. Like a handful of smart people getting together and changing the world. Do you feel the same way?
I don’t. Yeah, you mentioned American innovation, but it is really when you are starved of a certain service or something that where innovation really comes to fruition. Like if you live in Kenya and you have a need, you start innovating, you start inventing things.
And same in India. When there’s a desperate need, you invent something to fill that need. So we’re not, personally, in those desperate kinds of situations, but at a larger scale that you’re talking about, the GE vernovas of the world are relying on the startups from Green Town Media.
Oh, geez. There’s a green tech media that a friend of mine started, but the incubator that you’re referring to is called Green Town Labs. It’s become the largest climate tech incubator in the country, and there they see a problem and they start innovating to come up with a solution.
And Green Town Labs combines corporates like GE Vernova and Beolia, who want to partner with these startups to bring these new technologies into their supply chain, which is an incredible marriage that Green Town provides. And the same thing is happening with companies like The Engine in Cambridge, where their motto is tough tech. Both organizations, right within a 10-mile radius of each other, are taking in all of these graduates from Northeastern, Harvard, MIT, BU, that have the innovations.
But once they graduate, where is the infrastructure for them to continue to develop these technologies? Well, these two organizations have become the landing pads for these graduating students to prove out the technology and partner with these larger corporates that are part of these incubators to bring it into their supply chain. And just to give your listeners some hope about some examples that are coming out of Green Town Labs, there’s form energy that, when we think of batteries, we think of lithium-ion batteries, but they’re taking iron and controlling the oxidization, the rusting of iron to somehow be able to build out really low-cost storage.
We’re not talking about four hours that lithium-ion does. We’re talking large-scale, 14 days of storage to complement wind and solar. There is a company called Sublime that the cement industry is so energy-intensive.
You need to mine for limestone. You need huge amounts of thermal energy and heat to produce cement, and they have figured out an electromechanical process to, sorry, electrochemical process to eliminate that thermal energy need and eliminate limestone. And they’re going to turn that industry on its head and make money doing so.
There’s an earlier-stage company called Atacama. When you talk about recycling, the reason why it’s so important that recycling is successful is because all of our plastic comes from petroleum, either oil or gas. And one example of plastic is the thin-film packaging that you always see when you get your Amazon package.
You cut out the thin film, and there’s no way to recycle it. It goes into the trash. Well, Atacama is going to be manufacturing that thin-film plastic from what?
Recycled cardboard and biomass. And when I talk about biomass, an example is when a company, a food processor is manufacturing peas. There is waste, protein waste, that comes off of that manufacturing.
So they’re going to use that waste combined with the recycled cardboard in order to manufacture translucent plastic packaging that does not involve petroleum anymore.
Let’s zoom out for a second because I feel like a lot of the innovations that you’re mentioning are very specific, but right now, Los Angeles is on fire. And it’s, you know, many people would say that that’s a direct result of climate change. Where do you feel is the biggest need for climate technology?
Like, how do you, and do you feel like, was that just a mismanagement of resources? Like, what was the, what was some climate technology that we can look for and say, okay, if we implement this, that kind of stuff may not happen anymore?
Mm-hmm. It’s really, it’s not a silver bullet from one technology, it’s gonna be a combination of nuclear, wind, solar, and storage is gonna be a big part of that solution. When you talk about the grid, you’re, you used to produce that energy from coal transition to natural gas, and now we’re thinking more and more around, you know, where do we get that generation?
And it has to come from cleaner sources than something that’s coming out of the ground that is finite. So a big gap, one of the ways that is going to fill that gap is distributed generation, solar, and storage. If you can tap all of the areas, one of the, let me take a step back.
A big problem with deploying these new technologies, NIMBY, not in my backyard. And so if you can utilize the space where you’re going to be using the energy, those are buildings, right? And so there are innovative technologies and financial mechanisms to rent space on your buildings.
So you can take 800 buildings, deploy solar and storage, and that replaces, you know, Three Mile Island nuclear generation. And so all these things combined are going to be needed to take out the… The effects of climate change.
Yeah, basically to replace fossil fuels. And if we don’t replace fossil fuels going into the environment, we’re not going to be able to stop or at least make a dent on climate change.
Yeah, I hear that. And I agree that energy is probably the part that I’m most hopeful about. I mean, we have a fusion reactor being built just a few blocks from here.
I’m really hopeful that we’re going to be able to fix the problem of energy causing a lot of the climate change. But right now, like we’re in it, right? We’re seeing the effects of it.
So I don’t know if there is, climate technology is happening that is a little bit more geared towards the end result of it, right? Like, I mean, the… And not only…
Like, are you talking resilience?
Resilience, but like also desalination plants, right? I mean, if that’s something that is a technology that’s being built about it, as somebody who’s an outsider, I might not have the same kind of insight that you do being in the space. You know, I look at California and the wildfires it’s experiencing as my lay person understanding, but my background is not in climate technology.
I look at that as like a water problem, a resource allocation problem, an administrative burden problem. And I don’t know if there’s going to be a silver bullet, but I know that for a lot of the climate change, as in the temperature getting warmer, I’m very hopeful about fusion. What are you hopeful for, kind of like the end human impacting results of climate?
I don’t know. Yeah. I really don’t know. I don’t think anyone, one person knows how to answer that. I think… That’s a tough question.
Yeah, it is a tough question. And I really wish I had an answer. A few years ago, it’s like, we’re so reactive.
A few years ago that one of the wildfires, it was caused by a utility company. Their transmission wires caused that fire. And so all eyes on utilities and how to make the utilities safer and put the wires underground and have more distributed energy.
And these fires recently in Los Angeles were caused by something unrelated. And so you’re trying to put out literally, figuratively than literally putting out fires in terms of solutions and causes. And the answer lies in many different solutions.
And I think my mindset coming from this incubator, Greentown Labs, is more around multiple technologies resolving specific problems rather than a fusion resolving, you know, 90% of the problem.
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear that. I hear that. And I think that that’s probably how most technological progress happens.
It’s like a war of inches, right? Yeah. And it’s just interesting to see it happening directly now, as opposed to being this hypothesis that people talk about.
And that’s something that I feel like, you know, I don’t know if I have the answer either. But it’s something that I look towards people who are in the industry, and I want to know what they have to say about these kind of end result impacts of climate. But all that being said, like, you know, if we were to take whether it’s like the end result impact, or the beginning, the beginnings of climate change, like what are you most hopeful for in the climate tech space?
Like, you know, I, I feel like everybody in biotech is just so interested in genetics right now. It’s like so in vogue, if you were to talk about, you know, AI or robots, like there’s very specific things that people are just like a buzz about. What’s the buzz in climate tech?
Like, what are people talking about? What are people excited about?
Yeah, I think people are excited about storage and innovation in storage. I think people are excited about, you know, the AI is, is causing the whole power industry to rethink about, you know, how are we going to double the capacity of the grid, just to be able to provide power to these hungry servers, running AI applications, and that is going to force innovation. And I think I’m most excited about the innovations that will come from that desperation that we’re now seeing to double capacity on the grid.
Some innovations that I don’t know what’s coming down the pike, but other innovations like Bill Gates is really focused on, you know, micro nuclear, and I’m excited about that. I’m excited about the storage capacity that is coming from companies like Forum Energy. I’m excited about just this need that is, look, over the next four years, we, we all are probably the, the people who are listening to your, your podcasts are probably pretty scared about, you know, the policies that are going to be put in place, the lack of financial support for climate tech.
But what I’m seeing lately is that people are, are starting to take more action because they know that they can’t rely on the federal government anymore. And so we all have to do our part locally to make our own, own changes. More, more people are going to be composting, um, more people, uh, like scientists are going to look for innovations in recycling, like green labs, recycling, and, and new products that they can, they can purchase that are more sustainable and less harmful to the climate.
Uh, so we’re all taking more action knowing that we can’t rely on, on government over the next four years.
Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if they’re as mutually exclusive as, as, uh, most people think. I know that there is a trend away from, from climate focus, but I feel like as a, again, an outside observer, I’m seeing a lot of parallels.
Like when you’re talking about the need for more energy, now you have all these people looking to green technology to provide that energy. So, uh, so much, I feel like, uh, the green space is changing human behavior. And so that is going to come not from like, I’m making this decision because it will benefit the climate, but I think it’s going to become, because like, just like you said, we have to make this decision and be like, we’re getting to a point with all these different, uh, needs that we have as a society that we start having, we’re getting the place where we have to make that decision.
So, I’m very optimistic about, about the green space. I mean, just from my own personal life, I see even people talking about it, right? I mean, when you were growing up and I was growing up, uh, it was kind of like this, this fringe aspect of science, this fringe aspect of technology.
And now it’s such a motivator for all different aspects of technology. So I do think that it’s going to, it’s going to get better. And it’s nice to hear from people like you that are actually making it better, but we actually are coming to the end of our time.
And at the end of our time, we always have three very general questions that we have for all of our guests that are coming on. Uh, the first of which is, you know, I, a lot of my motivation for what I’m doing and also what I’m interested in comes from science fiction, which is, uh, specifically utopian science fiction. And I look at all of those amazing, different paradise visions of humanity.
And like, I want that, you know, and that’s something that I’m so hopefully trying to work towards and, uh, inspire others to, to make those connections and make those steps towards that brilliant future also. But where do you gain your motivation from? Is it there a specific, uh, thing that you look towards or is it more of like a general thing?
Uh, what makes you devise all of these different climate technologies that you’re working on on a regular basis?
I get my motivation from the people around me. Uh, and every time I, I, I get a coffee at Greentown labs and I meet another founder and I ask how progress is going, it goes into so many different conversations, uh, that end up supporting one another, uh, in a, in, in the innovation process, uh, in the innovation, uh, trail. And I, I’m hopeful that, uh, as, as, as a community where we’re all supporting each other and, uh, and, and in turn supporting, uh, the climate.
Yeah, no, I think that’s a very salient point because so much of innovation throughout history is because different people are talking to each other and sharing ideas. And that’s something that, you know, incubators, I feel like, especially I’ve never participated in one, but it’s, it’s cool to see that happening at your incubator.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I’m reading this book called, uh, the material world, uh, you know, how, uh, how the sand is used for building semiconductors and, uh, the, the, the industrial revolution was created by the, the, the steam engine, right? And the steam engine was, was enabled because there was one person who was passionate about steel and another person who needed pumps to, for, for mining. Uh, and those two people got together and they were able to build a steam engine with the steel, uh, that, uh, withstood the, the kind of pressure that, uh, these pistons were putting on the device.
And it, it is a example of what you just said. You can’t do it alone. You, you need the support in, in society.
Yeah. And, and it’s, I’m sure it’s just such an interesting part to be, uh, associated with, right? Like you have this idea of building a business, but then you also have just like the camaraderie and the socialization that you experienced in the incubator itself.
I can see how that could be super motivating.
Yeah. And commiserating as well.
Yeah. So second question, where do you see climate technology in 10 years? Like, or where do you hope that it goes in 10 years?
I, I hope that the, the innovations that are happening, uh, that are being developed are end up in the supply chains of larger corporations like GE Vernova, which is right down the street, uh, Veolia, uh, all the corporates, uh, that are, uh, supporting, uh, the Greentown labs. They’re, they’re all hungry to, to deploy new technologies. And as soon as, um, the, the corporates and the startups are working together in, in this, uh, huge supply chain, that’s when we see the impact of, uh, of these innovations.
And, uh, for me, the, the, I try to, to laser laser, have a laser focus on, you know, what, what’s going to drive the most improvement over 10 years in climate tech. And that is when corporates deploy new technologies coming from climate tech.
Yeah. No, I, I, I wonder what that looks like in reality. Like when you’re saying that you’re going to have these larger scale corporations that incorporate this, is this just like more, um, recycling based society?
Is this going to be like, you know, less, um, less extraction of resources because we’re reusing that stuff? Like what, what do you, what do you mean by that?
So just an example of, of form energy. Uh, if, if the problem of wind and solar is you can’t produce 24 seven, then these large scale 14 day storage solutions enable you to use wind and solar as just as, just as reliably as you would a nuclear plant or, or, or a plant run operated by, by natural gas.
Yeah. So definitely more of an energy mix would be, would be really great for, for everybody.
Yeah. And so this example, uh, GE Vernova invested in form energy and, uh, that combination is going to be really powerful because for the GE Vernova is a powerhouse in electrifying the world and incorporating this type of storage will make, will make an impact.
So last question, uh, you know, as someone who’s in medicine myself, I feel like a lot of the different technologies are interesting to me as an outside observer. I feel like specifically, I just can’t get enough of robotics. You know, I can’t wait until we have a human type butler that’s able to, you know, wash my dishes and fold my laundry.
So I just can’t get enough of it. What technology other than climate tech for you is something that you’re super interested in and you just can’t get enough of? You’re just like really interested in.
Good, good question. Before I answer it, I have to ask you a question. Um, when I had my hernia operation, the first thing I thought the day before is, I hope my doctor got good sleep.
And then I think about, well, a robot doesn’t need sleep. And because of the variables of a human being, of a doctor needing sleep or having a bad day, I think, God, when are, when are robotics going to take over that, that operation?
Yeah. So, so right now when we’re talking about robotic surgery, we’re really talking about telerobotics, which is just like a video game, right? Like I use certain instruments that allow me to remove any handshake that I have, you know, allow me to get into corners that I might not be able to get into with the dexterity of my hands.
And so that is present right now. And in specific fields, it’s become very popular, you know, like robotic assisted surgery and general surgery has become a really burgeoning field. Uh, I think the idea of a robot doing it independently, number one scares a lot of people because even in the best of hands, you can have complications.
And I think also number two, when it comes to, um, the ability to think laterally, you know, the creativity that’s required for surgery, because no two human beings are the exact same. I think that’s something that it’s going to be a while for robots to take over, like the decision-making process of like an internal medicine physician, where you come in with a rash and you can think about all the different differentials and prescribe something that is most likely boils down to statistics, right? Like it’s more statistically likely that you have this versus that.
So it’s much easier for AI to replace something like that. The decision-making portion of that diagnosis is, is going to happen, but when you’re talking about true robotics, like hand-eye coordination, the ability to use your brain and figure out what’s happening, you know, especially in situations like, let’s say like a nick and artery or something like that, the ability to respond to that rapidly. I don’t think that robotics are anywhere close to the point where we’re going to be able to do that.
Um, and there’s also the question of liability, right? Like who’s liable if a robot makes that complication happen? So I think human beings are going to be very in demand for surgery for a long time.
Um, you know, famous last words, right?
Yeah.
But I think telerobotics is going to be really interesting to watch because I know that it definitely, uh, corrects for all of those things that you talked about. Like if I have poor sleep and I’m drinking coffee, my hands are shaking. I might not be at a hundred percent for that patient as opposed to a patient that I’ve like slept well and I’ve done all of these other things.
So, so there are robots out there that help correct for them. Um, but it’s the other portion of this conversation is efficiency and to set that robot up, to put the patient in the exact position where the robot has the ability to see it in 3d space that takes a little bit longer than a human being just walking in and going at it. So, so I don’t think it’s going to happen anytime soon for the full robotic component.
I think telerobotics, you know, there’s a good chance that in 10 years a lot of surgery will be done with telerobotics.
Right. Right. And what happens when a surgeon doesn’t get sleep?
With telerobotics?
With actual operations.
Oh, right now. Um, I mean, I think most surgeons know their limits enough because there’s such a, there’s such a, um, a negative punishment if you, if you mess up, right. I mean, the liability aspect, medical malpractice, or even, you know, any sort of complication, you know, it’s in the back of everybody’s mind.
So I think that most surgeons would, would cancel the first patient if like they were up all night because they were violently vomiting.
Right. Right.
Like, I don’t think that very many people would go in, in that type of situation. Um, I think, you know, we are pretty good at, at knowing our own limits just because of like the negative aspects. I mean, you’re always going to have bad apples out there, but I think the most surgeons went into the field not to make a lot of money.
It’s a calling, right. And so with that calling, there comes a certain sense of responsibility to their patients.
So I think most surgeons would stop if they haven’t had enough sleep.
And also, you know, I mean, I know that this is kind of an unpopular opinion, but we’ve also been trained to operate in worse conditions, like in residency, like you’re not sleeping a lot. You know, like I’ve, I’ve, I’ve even had, um, certain surgeons that I worked with that, um, you know, the surgery was 24 hours long, you know, uh, uh, I remember specifically in residency neurosurgery, uh, operation that I was in that was 24 hours long. And we were moving a brain tumor.
Like we couldn’t take breaks. And that guy was, you know, uh, one of the, the, the best surgeons that I ever worked with. Like he asked me to take a break and I didn’t want to, to be the one that walked out first.
So like the we’re operating until 24 hours, he let his physician assistants go and be replaced. Um, but the point is, is that I think that there are people like that, that can do stuff like that, you know, I think that they would, uh, they would be the first person to say, this is outside of my scope or they would create a system that it was safe. Like maybe they would have people that switched in and out, but like lots of surgeries, especially complicated surgeries that happen, you know, just up the street of Brigham, uh, very long surgeries systems in place to make sure that it’s safe.
Yeah. Interesting. Thank you for that perspective.
Yeah. I feel like it’s a, um, you know, it’s a multifactorial, um, thing to say, like if my, if my surgeon doesn’t have enough sleep.
Yeah. So back to your question, uh, around what, what technology or technologies, uh, I’m most excited about. So lately I’ve been, I generally like, uh, the idea of utilizing what we have in front of us to replace something bad.
And, uh, when you, when you look at all the plastic wrapping that we use, uh, if we can produce that without petroleum, uh, I think those kinds of things get me excited to reuse something, uh, like cardboard and, uh, in peace, uh, or, uh, producing a product like this sharps container from the material that we have in front of us. But lately I’ve been obsessed with, uh, the, the transition of putting solar on your home, uh, without committing to putting it on your roof because so many people are, are in that mindset of, Oh, I can’t put solar on my roof right now because my roof is probably going to last another five years. What if it goes longer?
Is there a intermediate step that can, that we can all take, uh, that to just be able to take a few solar panels, charge a battery and have that battery charge your electric car, keep it really simple. And there, that does not exist today. Uh, and we started this conversation around what is the big thing I’m most excited about that is going to solve climate change.
And I reduce it to millions of small innovations are many, many innovations rather than, you know, one large innovation. And I think there, that’s a need for me, uh, cause my wife won’t let me put solar on the, on the roof. And if I can’t find a company that can produce a, you know, a new system that uses three solar panels that goes into a battery and from that battery charge my car, I’ll make it myself.
Yeah. That’s cool. Just like I did with the, with the necklace.
Yeah. I’m very interested in that and all the best to you and creating that new technology, but outside of climate tech space.
Oh, outside of climate tech.
Sorry. Like, you know, like for example, for me, like I’m interested in like the medical robotics aspect of it so much as like, I can’t wait to have a personal robotic assistant able to like, you know, water my plants. And like, what are you, what are you looking at on your newsfeed that you’re just like, Oh, that looks so cool, but it’s not related to what you’re doing.
Sure. Um, let me think about this. Um, lately I, I just took a, a foiling lesson in San Diego with my, with my kids foiling.
It’s a, it’s, it’s, so there’s kiteboarding where you take a kite that you’re, you’re harnessed into. Uh, but foiling is, uh, simply a, a kind of a surfboard that has a, a secondary surfboard under the water. And as the kite that you’re holding drags you across the water, that the whole board lifts up on the secondary foil underneath hydrofoil.
Exactly. And I took a lesson and I’m really passionate about using that the next time we go camping in Maine.
That’s cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
That’s awesome, man. Um, well, listen, thank you so much for being on the show and thank you so much to our listeners, our subscribers. We really appreciate all the support that you’re giving to us.
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Do you ever want to just say, don’t press that like button? Please don’t.
Uh, yeah.
Because everyone says that. And you know, I would say, you know, put some humor in it.
Yeah.
So they actually do it.
Definitely do not press that like button. I don’t want you to press the like button. Have a great day, everybody.
Bye.
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