Combating Climate Crisis

The podcast discusses several topics related to combating the climate crisis. The first topic is about algae, which is a natural carbon collector. Algae can be used to collect carbon and store it, and it is ranked second in the world for this purpose. There is a project in Hamburg, Germany that collects energy from carbon capture in algae. The second topic is about tidal wave energy, which uses the movement of tides to generate power. The third topic is the OTEC system, which uses the temperature difference between warm surface water and cool water to generate power. However, this system is currently only used in coastal regions. The last topic is wave energy, which uses generators in the ocean to convert wave power into electricity. The speaker suggests that bigger countries should help smaller countries in implementing these climate solutions, despite the high costs involved. Hi, welcome to our new podcast called Combating the Climate Crisis. I'm one of your hosts, Addison Kodis. And I'm Michael Quesada. And we're joined by two very special people today. I'm Max Bugbee. And I'm Andrea Alonso. And we'll each be discussing four different topics on how we can combat the climate crisis in today's society. Yeah, so start off with Addy. We were kind of discussing a little bit before the podcast started, algae and how it's a natural sink and it's kind of getting destroyed by everything in the society by people, you know, oil spills and everything else. So can you just can you get a little bit to that? Yeah, absolutely. So I'll choose one of the number one sinks within the world. For viewers that don't understand that term, necessarily. A sink is a natural carbon collector within the world, essentially that collects carbon and stores it and doesn't release it into the atmosphere. Algae is ranked second within the world for collecting carbon, and is mostly found within oceans and rivers. There's recently been a really big project that's been making news headlines in Hamburg, Germany about collecting energy from carbon capture in algae. So what do you guys think about that? That's a cool, like, I don't know how to say it, but that's very interesting because if like Germans are creating this and now we're getting more algae, that's just a bit more positive thing to add for our guests, our quote-unquote sinks. But Maxine, anything to say about that? Is this only being like done in Germany? Are there other places in the world? Right now, currently it is only being done in Hamburg, Germany because it's kind of like a startup company in a sense because essentially the idea is having clear encased windows that have algae actively in them that can be used to transfer energy into the home with heating and air. So is it a window company that is putting the algae in the windows or is it an algae company that is like partnered with a windows company? It's kind of like a 50-50 startup currently. It's not too big. I would say maybe 30% of the population currently there is using it, which is still a pretty good mark and a good plan. Going further in how it can be used in like other places though, there's been some really big lead way on how algae can be used as biofuel within jets, which is a pretty interesting topic. Obviously algae can be used in numerous number of ways, but I'm not sure scientists have exactly found out different types that can be quite used yet. Do you guys think there's a future in possibly having algae in every home? Like the new like solar power in a sense? I think in the far future it would be. I think you'll first see it like on the coastal countries and cities like here in the U.S. for example, like California, all this coastal. Like I think it would make its way into like the landlocked states like Nebraska here. Do you know if like algae that grows in the lakes around Lincoln or does it have to be like a certain type of algae? Yeah it's a really wonderful question. Right now it's only one certain branch of algae that can be used, but I know some scientists within China and South Korea that are looking into genetically modifying different branches to make it more accessible for different countries. So whether that be like changing the color to make it more vibrant and easier for it to attract sunlight and capture carbon, or either just having it something that grows faster than a normal algae plant. So the algae that's being used in Hamburg, is that native algae to Germany? Yes it is. They found it actually in a small pond outside the city somewhere and they've just been like collecting it and using it which is pretty interesting. And I guess maybe one of the last things here, one of the last questions I have is how long has this algae process been taking place? Like how long has algae been like a natural sink? I would say like algae itself has been a natural sink within the whole entire world since like the beginning of time I would say. The Hamburg project has gone underway in the past like 10 years so it's still quite new along with a lot of other climate solutions, but I think there's a lot of research that needs to be still done to further update it and bring it to light in certain situations to make it available to the rest of the world. All right, moving on to our next topic. Max had some lovely information about tidal wave energy. So I guess since we're on the topic of the ocean we can move to my extensive research. So as we all know the ocean obviously stretches thousands of miles with different like wind patterns and ocean current temperatures, all that good stuff. There were kind of three main topics that I found to be most useful in our world today. That would be the tidal wave energy, the OTEC system which stands for ocean thermal energy conservation, and then the last but surely not least would be our wave energy. And just to kind of explain each one of those briefly here before you guys, I'm sure you guys have questions, the tidal wave energy is used off of like coastal cities like I said earlier with the algae system that you had mentioned. But long story short the tide moves up and down according to the moon and all of that and with that doing so the water gets sucked into these big generators and these small tubes which force the water to go faster and faster, which then in return like powers these huge generators that can power I mean not like huge cities like California but like a good population of the coastal region. My second one is the OTEC system and that is only found in like coastal regions. So when I was doing my research the main place that I talked about was like the Bahamas and Costa Rica. And for this OTEC system to work you have to have a 20 degree difference in Celsius. So 20 degrees Celsius change in like temperature of the water and the way that works is like where you have the top warm surface water and then the bottom like cool water. It uses like the difference in the temperature to also generate these like huge generators I guess in a sense. The only downfall to that though is that it's only being used right now in coastal regions because like here in the U.S. we don't we aren't fortunate enough to have like that 20 degree temperature year round. So that is the only downfall to that one. But finally the last one and the most reliable one is our wave energy. So as meteorology has gotten better and better we can also predict like movement waves, currents, and all that good jazz. So as we're able to predict that we can predict where to put these generators and these generators are set up literally in the middle of the ocean where waves are just crashing into the generator causing power which is then fed back to like generator plants that are on land to power houses, buildings, you name it. Wow that's a lot of interesting stuff in one topic. Going back to the OTEC system of you saying there needs to be a 20 Celsius difference I think that translates to about 75 degrees Fahrenheit for our American viewers. But do you think there would be any way to like artificially create that environment per se like how I could bring in algae from Germany and like use that here is there any way that you could artificially create that environment in like lakes any way? I definitely think you could. I think there are systems it might be like reversed so for the lakes here in Nebraska the top water during winter and like lakes and ponds are the coldest and then the bottom is the warmest. So if you had like I don't know it probably wouldn't be generators at the bottom of your lakes and ponds but if you had like warm water if you could generate warm water to like you know be warm enough to portray that 20 degrees Celsius change you'd have the warm water on the bottom and then you'd have that cool top layer. So I definitely think it's a possibility but I would say someone smarter than me has to create that. Yeah that'd be really interesting. My mind also immediately went to like the Ogallala Aquifer that we have here in Nebraska which is one of the biggest underground water storage areas within the world essentially and I think that maybe that's an untapped market that we could go into be really interesting. I most definitely think it is I mean there's there's got to be a way. One last final thing that I will mention the only downfall with the OTEC system is it is very pricey. So with that being said I think that bigger countries have to help the smaller less fortunate coastal countries like Haiti and I mean Costa Rica is already using the OTEC system but I'm sure they could use help putting more of these systems around. But I think the bigger and more fortunate countries like the U.S. and China should definitely pitch in and like I was telling all of you guys before the podcast started I don't think there should be like a price limit when it comes to combating the climate crisis because like that's literally our future that's our grandkids our great grandkids like our whole generation that's our whole bloodlines future so I think if everyone on earth now puts in a few dollars a few extra dollars a month or a week whatever you're fortunate enough to give I think that goes unsaid. Yeah not to cut you off or anything but yeah you're talking about the prices like we shouldn't have a price cap on it it's it's kind of hard to because it goes a lot into politics I mean you have the Republican Democrats it's hard to get like that bill from I mean because we're sending so much money to the military especially the war that's going on in Ukraine we have we're just spending a lot of money and going to more and more and more debt so it's going to be harder to get that that bill especially if something expensive as OTEC and everything you were talking about but it's it's going to be harder to get that bill just I don't know. Yeah I would agree with you there I mean taxes are are a lot each year especially for low-income houses but maybe that's something where it's just like a tax that everyone's kind of forced to pay but I think it would have to be something that's based off of your income and your workplace so that you know you're not stressed about it because that's the last thing we need when combating the climate crisis is you know you gotta try and stay level-minded I guess would be a good a good way to put it you don't want to get too far in your head and start thinking that it's not possible to change your future because it's one penny or one system away from changing. Yeah I would really agree with both of your comments on that going back to what you were saying further Max about larger countries having a goal about helping smaller lower economically stable countries in a sense of helping them more so like grow further I think it's a really big problem that needs to be addressed I think there's either some social or economic issues that further underlined those some those kind of things and earlier on Jerry you were talking about some of those further social issues that need to be addressed so I'll let you take that away. Yeah well actually when you think of solutions to the climate change you don't really tend to think about education and family planning as being one of them but it's actually a pretty important one that it's not hard and it's not as expensive to work with. So for starters population growth and climate change are actually directly linked in the way that the more people we have is the worse that the climate change is because of all the emissions that we are releasing and having access to family planning would help reduce the population as well as education if you have if we have a better education systems there would also be less chances for having as much poverty as we have right now. So to ask you a question about that hypothetically let's say you meet someone who really thinks that procreation is good for the environment and as you told us and it makes sense that the more people you have on this world the more CO2 is going to be given off the more greenhouse gases are going to be emitted so I totally understand that but hypothetically let's say you meet someone who is a strong believer that I don't know let's say each couple if they're able to has to have at least three children what would you say that in return? I would say that they would have to think about the future of the children they want because honestly just bringing them to this earth it's affecting their own future and everyone else's future so yeah it would I don't think that would work out and especially because having modern contraception and all those methods to prevent the growth of population is actually ranked seventh out of the 100 most sustainable solutions to global warming um so I would really encourage families to think about all that while they're thinking of the amount of children they want to have. Do you think there could be like a compromise made between like a family who thinks procreation is the way to go compared to contraceptive contraceptives and you know being careful with the the world that their kids are being brought like do you think it'd be all right if a family had three kids but in return those three kids had to take like a climate change crisis climate crisis class from their first grade year to their eighth grade year or like maybe all four years of high school? I think that would be fair because if the parents weren't responsible enough to think about their future I feel like at least the kids should be able to think of what they could do to improve um but I also don't know if parents would be okay with having their kids um learn about that so I guess they should think about what their um what their options are. I guess I should have uh maybe not necessarily a class I may have worded that wrong but I mean all of us grew up learning that littering was bad and that it affected the climate but we never really understood like the ideology of that and how deep it truly is to not litter so do you think there needs to be like maybe like more commercials just advertising like the true depth of climate crisis and what it could look like in I don't know say 50 years 30 years even? Yeah I think it'd be a good idea because um as you know a lot of well kids are really um influenced by what they see and um their environments so I feel like if they would see things like that more often they would um think about what's actually happening and what they can do to fix it. That's a really honestly brilliant idea that I haven't really heard much about in climate change um in the past 20 years it's been mostly focusing on solar energy, wind energy, and and harnessing stuff that's just more sustainable for the environment but I think um geopolitical standpoints and family planning really have a key part in how climate change can be affected and effective like within society today which is really a good topic like Max was saying earlier I think there's really no um max budget on how much we should be spending on that and I think that would be a great way to address it further in the future so. And having a question for Andrea um you say that it's having more kids and everything it's it's a bad not a necessarily bad thing but it doesn't help the climate crisis um does this like having more kids mess with the economy as well such as like having more necessities clothes um you know forks and utensils people use on a daily basis we need more of that so production for all that it just creates more you know carbon emission um like what are your thoughts about that? Yeah I think it um definitely is um a problem um because the more kids you have is the more resources you need and um more things that are being just brought out into the to the atmosphere atmosphere and like all the emissions that are being released um yeah so I think it is a problem. Well I was talking to Max about um my little solution earlier um going with efficient ocean shipping ocean uh shipping it has about 6.7 gigatons of carbon emissions every year um it costs so so so much money I think it's cost about I would say the last two years about one trillion dollars so far um with thousands of oil oil tankers going around the world shipping all these different things clothes utensils um just shoes you know every little thing everything everyday things but yeah we we have we have uh different solutions for that such as like slow slow steam ships to help reduce the carbon emissions. Yeah going back to tying together yours and Andrea's topic I think well just all of ours in general I think there would be a really good reward system in a sense of having more economically sustainable goods such as slowing down shipments of goods to a more sustainable level social and family planning like having a carbon coin in a sense of either paying families um in tax breaks or in physical goods for lowering their economic and carbon footprint. Yeah um it's definitely with the economics and politics of everything else but we have different technologies um it's the study's been going on for some time around six seven years the best scenario we have is implementing about one trillion dollars or 93 930 billion dollars into this technology and it's supposed to decarbonize about nine gigatons of carbon emissions but the financial part of it is really what is hard because there's only about 17 technologies like identified and the cost of it is it's not the the payout is not as what we want it to be but it's definitely what we kind of need because it'll cut out a lot of carbon emissions and slowing these oil tankers down it's going to help with carbon emissions yeah about 6.6.7 to to 9.83 gigatons of carbon emissions like I think on a scale what I looked at it's that's tremendous like I think that's more than a little bit less a little bit more than fossil fuels like fossil fuel burning places. That was a really lovely discussion I think we all had um tying all this together in a sense about the globalization of the world and how it all connects whether it's the ocean socially economically. And it's really controversial because maritime transport is a backbone of international trade going back to I would say about 1400s with Christopher Columbus sailing all the way from Europe to North America. That was a very diverse topic you discussed but we'll be right back after this sponsored message by Allstate. Some people just know there's a podcast about that those are the people who know to choose Allstate. Big tea drinker yeah there's a podcast about tea he knows and he wants you to know too. I was listening to a podcast on if dogs know their dogs there's a podcast about that just like he wants you to know about Allstate. There's a podcast about fly fishing called why is that person doing that it's called Tea-rific. Are you listening to a podcast? Yeah it's about multitasking. Some people just know there's a podcast about that those are the people who know you're in good hands with Allstate. Welcome back to the podcast I just want to say thank you to Allstate for sponsoring us today. Once again we're just one of those podcasts if you know you know. All right one final question to wrap us up today so what do you guys think personally is the best solution that we've discussed today? It can be your own topic what are you guys thinking though overall? I don't want to be biased I do think some of my ideas though were pretty well constructed and they are already being implemented. The only downside to that is cost but like I said I don't think there should be a cost when combating the climate crisis so with that being said I'm going to go with probably one of my three but I did like Addy how your topic of algae I did like how that's I mean you can just grow algae yourself probably if you have like a small pond or I mean yeah just a pond probably not a stream in your backyard but I love how that's a renewable and sustainable source of energy. Anyone else have ideas? I did like your solution and all your research but it sounds very organized and as you said there's no there shouldn't be a cap on battling climate crisis but I did like yours very well organized and I think it's one of the better ones we should put a lot of more research and effort into. Yeah I think for me it would be the algae one just because it's like it doesn't seem like it takes a lot of work to start implementing it. Yeah they cover all of the I think all topics are equally really well versed and I think mine probably needs a little bit more research before it's like further implemented but Andrea's could definitely be and put it on more social economic level further than mine. To finally wrap up this podcast episode I think the big takeaway was that there are just so many helpful ways to impact climate crisis in a positive way. So as a family or as just a single being I think if you pick one topic stick with it research it and then donate money or try and get involved no matter what the topic is it's going to go it's going to go a long ways you know towards your future towards your family's future. Yeah I think bringing awareness is a really just important message overall that I think we spread throughout this episode of just informing you on each topic whether that be family planning the ocean it just depends on what you think you can do at the time and that's all right. With that being said we'd like to thank all of you for listening to our first podcast of our first series combating climate crisis. Thank you for joining us today and we will see you guys in the next one and before we go just remember stay positive with the climate change