 Welcome back to Think Tech. I'm Jay Fiedel. This is Hawaii, the state of clean energy and much more in the way of innovation. What energy and what innovation it looks like for 2023? What innovations can we expect with Richard Ha, our old friend in Hilo, and Brittany Zimmerman, our new friend in Hilo. Okay, Richard Ha and Brittany Zimmerman, thank you very much for joining us today. Richard, I want to ask you if you wouldn't mind introducing Brittany, would you do that for me? Yes. Brittany Zimmerman is CEO and founder of Yamai.com and she's a high-level person that worked in the space industry. And when she looked back at the earth, she just couldn't stay there anymore. She came back and started to figure out how can we make life better here on earth. So essentially, and she can explain all this, but essentially what she does is a negative life cycle analysis approach to the way she does dealing with carbon. But I'll say that much and Brittany can explain the rest. Yeah, we're going to need to have your explanation, Brittany. We have to go further to understand what you've been doing. Tell us. Awesome. Yeah, of course. Thanks so much for having me with you today, Jay. Love being here and Richard for bringing me with. Yeah, my background, like Richard mentioned, is in the space industry. So I'm an innovator in that space. Originally through mechanical and aerospace engineering, graduate work focused on bio-regenerative physiochemical hybrid life support systems for long-duration spaceflight. So in my house, we talk about little else at dinner time. Wonderful. Fantastic. Yeah. So really what I do is I bridge the gap between the NASA scientist approach, which is nature-based solutions, R&D, and more of the NASA engineers approach, which is rotating machinery, chemical reactions, filtration systems, things along those lines. But it's my responsibility to keep humans alive in outer space conditions. So a lot of space suit, space station, spacecraft, and habitat design. So did that for a long period of time. Very early in my career was selected as the youngest NASA principal investigator and really leveraged that, brought in large amounts of funding and led teams through the development of different technologies from TRL, which is the technology readiness level one, which is just an ideal concept, and then maturing that all the way through the development cycle until something is integrated and commercialized. So did that for a great deal of time. Technologies on the International Space Station, the Artemis programs developed some habitats that are slated for visits to the Martian surface and a whole slew of stuff for the Department of Defense. And like Richard mentioned, had a pretty big existential shift and wanted to start bridging the gap between the technologies that we developed for outer space solutions and make sure that we bring those solutions here to Earth for terrestrial commercialization, right, for human betterment applications here on our own planet. So that's kind of the genesis. Wow, wow. So when you were up there in space, as Richard said, and you decided to come back down, came back down to Hilo. And why Hilo? And what are you doing in Hilo now that makes it special for Hilo? Some people say that Hilo is the center of science in the state. But I'll let you discuss that. It must be the water, you know? Yeah, yeah, it's good water. Fantastic. Yeah, so when I had my big existential shift, I decided in fact to step away from the space industry for a little while is a pretty big deal. I had a lot going on as being groomed as the CEO of a private space organization. And so with that, I brought a lot of really impressive individuals who decided to take a step forward and wanted to come with on this new initiative to focus on some of the existential issues that we're facing as humanity here. And yeah, that was extremely exciting for us. We've come together. We've grown a lot. We're over 300 graduate level experts for more than 50 different countries as a group now. And yeah, we target rebalancing carbons as our first existential issue. And we do that in some pretty innovative ways. So we extract greenhouse gases directly from the environments. We pull out CO2, CH4s, knock socks, other particulates. We do that atmospherically and oceanically at the same time. And then we also bring in waste feedstocks. So we bring in municipal solid waste. We can bring in agricultural waste. We can bring in cesspool waste, metals, plastics, glasses, agricultural waste, construction waste, industrial waste. Anything that has carbon and its molecular chain is fair game for us. That's really what we're working on balancing. So we have waste as our only input to the system. And then we do some nerdy stuff in the middle, which is mostly electrochemistry and organic chemistry. But we break those carbon chains down. And then we utilize all of those building blocks that we pulled apart to build those back into sustainable commodities. And so, Jay, are you familiar with the term biomimicry? Yes, I am. How do you like that? Yes. Yeah, I like it a lot. So that's what we do. So it's a biomimicry technology. We looked at Mother Nature and we said, Mother Nature takes waste and breaks it down and produces minerals, soils, atmosphere, and water out of it. Is there any way that we could replicate that so that we don't have a waste treatment we're producing of our own? And so that's what we do. We produce four commodities in our system. We produce a mineral, which is a net negative alternative to concrete. Pretty cool stuff. Let me see. I usually have some here. All right. So we make some of this. This is entirely made from on island waste. Nothing mined, nothing imported. Really beautiful stuff. No release of any greenhouse gases in its production. And its mechanical properties are the most, if they're far superior to traditional concretes. And you can build houses with it. Houses, roads, tarmac, sidewalks, precasts, block, anything you traditionally make with concretes and cement products right now. So it's really, really good stuff. We've been working with some of the DOTs and some of the leading industry, ACI and other folks in evaluating a lot of these materials. And it's really exciting. We went through trial mixing. And it's actually the strongest material that they had tested at that particular DOT in terms of pavements. So it's really, really beautiful stuff. Cool. Richard, how do you keep up with Brittany? I'm having a little trouble doing that today. But how about you, Richard? Well, I just see the big picture. I don't understand all this stuff. But when she talks about lifecycle analysis, and it's really common sense for the average, for me anyway. But yeah, hard to keep up with the technical stuff. I can't do that. I got him to admit it. He keeps up better than he likes to let on. I know. That's the story of Richard. That's why he's so lovable. So Brittany, what's the common denominator, the secret sauce that flows through all of this science and technology you're talking about? Is it the biomimicry or something else? What is it that enables you to do this, this, this, this, and this? Right. So yeah, this, this, and this. We make the concrete, make a bio to our product. We make green hydrogen. And we also make potable drinking water. Those are the four byproducts of our system. And really, I would say the secret sauce is a system of systems approach. My background being in the space industry, when you're on a spacecraft or you're in long duration spaceflight, every single molecule is so precious. You can't jettison that or lose it from your system because you don't have the ability to rendezvous or get a lot of those materials back. So you have to put in the resources and the time and the energy and the innovation to figure out how to really respect those and recycle those things. And so we've applied that same methodology here and really modeled it as a closed loop system. And we think every single molecule in the entire system and our system is the whole planet Earth, right? Is extremely precious. And so we take care of all of it. We don't optimize off of one specific parameter. We look at all of them simultaneously. So it's a way of thinking. It's a way of seeing the world. It's a way of seeing the universe, which is interesting. And once you adopt that way of thinking, you're really expanding the universe or at least expanding your way of looking at it and you're expanding how you apply the science to it. But let's go to you and the big island and Hawaii in general. Where's the intersection between the things you've been doing in the space industry and the things you have identified here that need the technology? Yeah, absolutely. So when we piloted our facility, we did that on the continental mainland and honestly, Hawaii wasn't really in the vision at that point in time. And when we realized how effective what we had developed was, as you can imagine being from 50 different countries, I was pulled in a lot of different directions. Everybody had a really good reason why we should develop the full scale system in their particular country. And so in order to remain a contiguous and pulled together team with a common vision, it was really important for us to come together and decide that we would allow it to be a data-driven decision instead. And we built up a tool and that tool evaluated a whole bunch of things that we thought were really important, right? We looked at the socioeconomic impact of developing different technologies. Is this a software tool? Yeah, we built it up. It's a GIS package. It's a software tool. It's software built with GIS. Yeah, and a decision down select matrix pulled together, that's correct. It's not like a wrench or anything. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yes, it's a software package. Okay, okay. Custom design, that's right. Got it, got it. It was a magic Ape ball, I guess. So yeah, it was really important for us because we looked at the cost of energy in places worldwide, right? We looked at places that were dealing with a lot of water poisoning issues or access to clean water. We looked at places that had a very fertile soils historically that had been depleted, right? Things along these lines. And so we built it up. We built all the mathematics into the tool and we said, you know, we're pretty sure, everybody's pretty sure their country was gonna land at the top of the list somewhere. So we shook hands and we ran the analysis and the results came out and we thought the tool was broken because the top 70 some locations were all islands. And so we tested the tool. We tried to figure out where the break was. Turns out the break was actually in our minds. It wasn't in the tool and just how we perceived the world around us. So ended up being correct and that was a really big eye opener for us. And so we started focusing specifically on how we could bring the solutions to islands which meant we had to change what we had been working on a little bit to be more compatible with island implementation. And so we worked on that and I had two folks on the team who had been with us the entire time and they grew up in Hope IE and they made a really strong case. Jay, they said, you don't need a visa to travel there so you're not limited by time. You understand the language. You understand the banking system, right? You understand the law and the corruption that does or does not exist. And all of those things will be issues in a lot of the other places that we decide to build but at least they won't happen, you know at the same time as we're working on building our full scale implementation. Well, let me ask you two questions about what you said. Number one is you talk about a team and it's the donning on me that the team is not necessarily in Hilo. The team is everywhere. You're covering a lot of countries. There's almost 200 countries in the world. How many of them have your team members in them? Between 50 and 60. Wow. Yeah. Are there scientists? All kinds of things. Scientists but also non-technical as well. We have a lot of people in policy and education in equity and culture studies in business and strategy and finance, all that stuff. We're talking about ambitious projects here. No kidding. The other thing you mentioned was something about islands, you know and we know that Hawaii is a special place because it is an island and it's a great laboratory. Emphasis on the word laboratory because you have a sort of controlled environment here and you can study things here, you know within that controlled environment and learn faster and better and more and so forth. We haven't talked about it in a while but this has a lot to do with the science at UH treating Hawaii as a laboratory. Is that what you've found that islands yield special venues for science for this kind of technology? I think it's easier for people to conceptualize a closed loop system on things that are physically isolated in the way that an island is isolated. So I think that helps, right? When we look at designing spacecraft, for example it's very easy to isolate the system because you have the vacuum of space around you. On earth, right? Really the Karman line and the differentiation between earth and space is really our boundary but that's bigger than a lot of us are thinking often. So I think the island provides a really nice analogy for that that makes it easier for us to kind of think about closing the loop and really look at what the inputs and outputs are and what our boundary conditions are. So I think it provides exactly that Jay, a really nice maybe it's a laboratory but maybe more of a demonstration than anything else. Okay, okay, thank you for that. And you talk to them, you talk to them all the time. How do you talk to them? And do you have large groups, small groups, combination? You've got to strap your brains together in a project in an approach like the one you've been describing. How do you strap the brains together? Yeah, so we work mostly virtually, right? Because we're in over 50 different countries so we come together. We have things we call subsystem teams or concept breakout groups and those are of all different sizes. Really depends on the things that people are ambitious about and passionate about and how many people it takes to tackle a lot of the things that each of those subsystems are doing. So we mostly communicate, we have different platforms, software packages that we communicate through but we also utilize of course a lot of Zoom, telephone and email as well. And if it's real time, it means you have to cope with time zones, right? Yes. How do you do that? A lot of our meetings are duplicated so we have a meeting that is great for the Eastern Hemisphere and one that's really great for the Western Hemisphere. And it's all in English, am I right? It is, primarily in English. We do have a French club though or a philosophy club also but a lot of French speakers. Well, that goes back to my last question based on what you were saying a minute ago and you described the problem that you had some kind of barrier and you realized that it was a thought process barrier that you were missing something and you had to figure that out and then you got past that. Can you give us a little detail on what the barrier was? Why it was stopping you and how you managed to get past it? I think it is an organization or as an individual of anybody who's trying to solve issues. It's the responsibility of the captain of that specific ship to foresee a lot of obstacles and make sure that those obstacles are removed or at least small enough to surmount right once the team gets there. So we have a pretty interesting way of tackling different problems on the team. So one of the ways that we particularly do that is we look at what issues we're facing whether that be financial whether that be technical whether that be social and we start having conversations with people who are the best in the world about it. So we reach out and we contact those individuals and we usually have a few of them who end up joining the team and spearheading those efforts for us. So instead of trying to gain the new skill in terms of trying to tackle something we haven't tackled before our philosophy is really bringing people in who have the expertise who have tackled similar issues in the past. So we do. The term multidisciplinary applies here. This is really talking about all the disciplines, aren't you? Yes. Yep. Okay, I mean, that's pretty interesting and I am wondering how you apply that to Hawaii but before we do that I wanna ask Richard a question. Richard, how is Brittany doing? It's, I think she's doing really well. Yeah, so, and you know with our focus being on how can we make life better for Kierke and Malia to publish today 25 years in the future. And what she's doing is in parallel with that to our efforts. So it makes life better for them. So I think she's been great. Hey, how am I doing in forming questions for her? Hey, you're pretty good, man. Just checking up with you, Richard. So Brittany, let's talk more about the intersection. You know, what I get from this discussion is there are, you know, you could solve any problem is I don't know if you've had contact with Stanford and design thinking, you know, it's your thought process and takes you into solving the problem. But the first thing you have to do is identify, accurately identify the problem. Yep, correct. You wanna solve a problem that's really a problem, you know. And I'm thinking that from the discussion so far we're talking about energy, renewable energy. We're talking about carbon, of course. We're talking about climate change. We're talking about global affairs and you know, global collaborations, global science, if you will. And I suppose we haven't even scratched the surface here by identifying those things because if we sit sort of like the Stanford design thinking and we try to identify the problems there are so many problems in the world today. And my personal view is that we can solve them all or at least we can make advances on them. And the secret is, what I'm gonna call it, sincere technology, you know, altruistic technology, which I think I hear you talking about. So talk about the problems, you know, like that you could identify in Hawaii, like energy, like how the thought process and technology could help the state of Hawaii in terms of its aspirations to get to clean energy by 2040. Yeah, that's a great question, Jay. So we're very circular, right, in terms of what we're trying to do. And so when we started tackling how to balance carbon, we realized you can't actually turn the knob that adjusts carbon without affecting water cycles, without affecting agriculture, without affecting energy, right? All of these things are very intertwined. So that's why you see solutions that are really system level approaches, touching all of those arenas, because we're taking all of them into account. So right, as the first problem we were trying to focus was identified as balancing carbons, right? We have excess carbons in our atmosphere, but we need those carbons in our soils, right? They're fantastic for us in our soils. We're a carbon-based life form. So it's not a war against carbon, it's just, hey, we've put some of them in the wrong places. Let's see what we can do to put them back where they need to go. In doing that, right, we ended up developing solutions that help with affordable housing, that help with sustainable building materials, things along those lines, right? As a sequestration methodology for the carbons. We ended up producing our biochar material, right? Our biochar material is about 88% carbon, and that really helps sequester carbons in the soils, which is where they're needed, but additionally helps with food security, reducing our reliance on synthetic fertilizers, heavy chemicals, things along those lines, reducing, making other crops more drought resistant, things along, you know, things in that arena. So that's more of in the food sector. So we really target a lot of that. And then additionally, we do water, right? That's a byproduct. So that starts tackling a lot of the problems that Hawaii is facing in terms of replenishing and recleaning a lot of the waters that have been damaged due to many different human activities, and also working through water treatment, desalination, things along those lines. So the sea levels rise, and as our production of gray and black waters increased. We also then finally touch, well, not finally, I guess there's two more. We also touch more of the green energy side of things as we produce very, very large amounts of green hydrogen. This is very important, right? Cause we do it very scaleably and we can paint with 30 hydrogen prices in the production of the green hydrogen. So that helps a lot. And our process is also auto-thermic. So we're an off-grid solution, right? And in the breaking of these bonds, we produce a lot of heat, right? Exothermic heat. And we do co-generations. We're actually translating that excess heat into electrical energy, which powers our entire system. So it's renewable in a different type of a way. And then finally also waste management. Right? Waste management is a really big problem on all of the islands that I've visited. So having a place that can't, all of that waste can be diverted so that it's not being buried, leaching, having to be shipped off islands, all of these things that we're currently doing as quote-unquote solutions. Unfortunately, we're doing a lot of incineration also, which releases additional toxins into the environment. This provides a methodology and a mechanism to help alleviate the concerns in all of those places and all of those arenas simultaneously. Richard, did I mention about the pop quiz at the end at the end of this program? You might be wondering what my function is here, and what it is is I advocate for the rubber slipper folks. So I wanna make sure that the folks are being considered and Brittany can give you an idea. You know, like for example, she spent a lot of time in many different places on this island. If she explains that to you, you get a better sense of her attempt to make sure it's a bottom up approach as well as a top down approach. Yeah. Well, what I get is it's taking a look at the entire environment, taking a look at the elements of our lives together on the planet and rebalancing them. You know, it's sort of like you see the floods in the Pacific Northwest, and then you see the droughts around the Colorado River. So in one case, it's too much water. In the other case, it's too little water. And as the science would have it, you try to rebalance that. So you have the right amount of water in the right place. And then you can do better agriculture and your cities and towns aren't destroyed. And that may be adaptation, which isn't necessarily a solution to climate change, but at least it makes life easier for humanity. And so, I mean, I think I hear you saying rebalancing, identifying all these elements that may be too much or too little, or that can connect and collaborate with each other and make life better without any risk. And so in Hawaii anyway, we do have energy issues. We do have aspirations of clean energy. We do have energy that's too expensive, even in the big island, we need to make a decision. I'm just presenting problems to you, all that Stanford design thinking. Are these all within your wheelhouse, Brittany? Can you provide science that would address all of these things and agriculture? Don't forget agriculture. We need to grow food here. Richard knows, he's a farmer in his heart and soul. He'll never stop. But Query, does your science address these things and connect these things and give us solutions on these things? Yes, Jay. And so very simply, we process waste and we take that waste just like Mother Nature does and we break it down to do very simple things. We clean the air, it cleans the water. It gives us a place to recycle the waste without a waste stream being generated. It helps provide energy and it helps make extremely healthy soils. So those are the things that we do. That's the simple version of the science all kind of tied up with it. So where are you on the continuum? I imagine you have a website, UMet, is it? Did I pronounce that right? UMet. UMet, it's French. I'm good, I'm like French. UMet.com. Yes. OK, well. That's correct. And so I could look at that website and I could see some of the discussion around these ideas. But how far down the track are you? How close are you to making working models that actually effectuate these ideas on the planet? And how far are you from commercialization where you can make them economically sustainable? Yeah, absolutely. So we've already piloted the facility. We're past proof of concept. We ran our MVPs. We third party verified everything. We're already producing material, all of the materials. So we make, I don't know if it's biochar. This is biochar called black gold. So we produce all of the stuff already. We do it at a smaller scale. So what we're working on right now is more of the commercialization scale here in Hawaii. We've been working with the local communities, the state and with the county here on Big Island to find specific locations, make sure any issues are addressed, that the communities involved start having conversations around that. So that's where we're at. We're right now finalizing a location and looking at what permits need to be held and doing what we can in those arenas to address the problems for all the different communities. Because like Richard said, I've visited a lot of them. I've lived in almost all of the cities, making circles around the Big Island here. So just trying to make a solution for everybody. Now I want to ask you a question where you have to whisper the answer. OK, I'm ready. You have patents? Yes. Tell me. International patents, yes. International patents, are they provisional or are they final patents? They're PCTs. Visional patents all within what, two years old and all that? Yeah, so it's past provisional. It's not provisional anymore. So after you go through provisional, then you go to the next stage, right? And so the next stage for us is in the international realm. So the PCT is that international protection. So we essentially have 18 months and we have to decide which of the countries we want to be doing business in and operating in and protected. So that's what we're doing. Well, do you like all your patents? Because sometimes people take patents out that they find out. We love them. You love your patents, OK? Love them. Have you hoped your patent today? Yeah, I have a little shrine. Give my offerings each day. So what about affiliations and connections? And for that matter, media. Because it's not essential for what you're doing, because you already have a global network. But it's probably helpful if you want to advance some of these ideas and projects here in Hawaii and to have a network in Hawaii. And that means what? The university? It means media connections? Appearances like think tech. Are you laughing, Richard? Stop that. So how far down the path are you with that? Because we want to know more about you and we want the state to know more about you. Well, thank you. Yeah, we don't do too much on social media. For us, we really love organic relationships. So that's why I'm boots on the ground. I spend most of my day out in the community meeting new individuals, business owners, community leaders, visiting as many different places, like I said, on the island as possible to get a good feel for what the issues being faced are. In terms of affiliation, we have relationships with, are doing work with, or at least in communication with, a lot of different groups here all the way from the universities. So we do some work with the UH Hilo, the extension programs, UH Manoa. Just started relationships up and spoke with the community college here also. And then additionally, working with the NRCS offices, the USDA offices, more on the agricultural side of things, working with the Hawaii DOT, as well as some other state DOTs. We are working with some of the local nonprofits, building relationships there, some of the conservationist groups, local construction groups. I could go for a really long time. Yes, affiliations and partnerships are important. I have about 500 people I'd like you to meet. Wonderful. I would like to meet all of them. Are you publishing? Pardon? Are you publishing? Publishing what? Books, articles, white papers. The answer is probably on all of them. Good, good, good. Yeah, you have anything that I could get on your website? Should I go on Amazon? Where do I read your stuff? I can send it to you personally, Jay. So I would encourage anybody to reach out directly to the team. There is a contact form on the website. But I am the most communicative both through email and through LinkedIn. So if anybody utilize just LinkedIn. And my email address is my first name, Brittany at YMAYUMMEG.com. So easy to find. And so Richard, I asked you earlier to introduce Brittany for the show. Now I'm going to ask you to make a summary, a summarization of all that we have learned with her and from her today. Go. Yeah, well, what impresses me about what Brittany does and I'm looking at it from the point of view of a farmer, yeah? And also representing Rob the Slipper folks. And she does that in a really, really good way. So it's easy for people to understand what it is she wants, is trying to do. Because this can get people lost, yeah, this whole thing. But she does a really good job of explaining it. And that's why I'm so committed to supporting her. Because like I said, our mission is to make life better for Kiyuki and Malia, one generation from now. And that's what she's doing. Yeah, your treasure for us, you've got to keep going. One thing that strikes me, though, is that, assume for a moment with me that in some ways Hawaii is a laboratory. And what you're learning and doing here would be useful, say, on the mainland, where they have grouts and floods and the like and agricultural problems and what have you. And Richard doesn't know this, but they also have Rob the Slipper people on the mainland. And I have you thought about taking the benefit of your labor, the fruits of your labor, through the mainland and trying to help people there in the same way. Once you've established the systems you're talking about here, Hawaii. Yeah, and not just the mainland, but the entire world, Jay. So really focusing on Hawaii being the first place so that they can be the leaders in sustainability. We're working on a scale right now that would actually remove more greenhouse gases from the environment than the entire island actually emits. So being seen as the first modern civilization that can operate in a negative fashion in very short order could be a very big light, not only for islands in the United States, but for groups worldwide. So we're really looking at bringing that to as many places as we can thereafter because with between 40 and 50 locations worldwide, we could actually be removing all of the anthropogenically released carbon dioxide or all of the CO2 that humans emit. So that's what we're shooting for. Well, OK. I mean, it sounds like saving the world or at least going in that direction anyway. And I hope we can get there, at least in substantial part, in the near term because we are very threatened existentially by climate change. But once you do that, once you save the world, Brittany, OK, and it's clear, more than most people I know, you are going to do that. Are you going to go back to space? I think as a team, you've decided we will tackle whatever the next most pressing existential issue is. So we'll see what that happens to be. If it's space related, then yes. And if not, then I'm staying here. OK, well, first the world and then the galaxy, Brittany Zimmerman and Richard Hart. Thank you so much, you guys, for coming on the show. Really appreciate the discussion. And speaking for Richard, he really appreciated the discussion, too. Right, Richard? Oh, absolutely. Yes. Thanks for being here. OK, Aloha. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.