The Blindboy Podcast - Science Week 2019

Episode Date: November 6, 2019

I chat with two scientists about positive Climate Change approaches and solutions. Specifically Biofuel. With Jerry Murphy and Clare watson Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Blance your ankles you puss-filled prendergrests. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. I am recording this one in a hotel room, so apologies if the sound is a little bit off. We'll just do a quick sound check here. Postman, postman, postman, postman. God bless, God bless. Postman, postman. As you can see it's a little bit echoey. God bless Postman Postman As you can see

it's a little bit echoey So yeah here's the crack I'm recording this in a hotel I've got a special podcast for you this week My book of short stories Boulevard Rain

has been in shops since November 1st that's two or three days ago I am very happy to say lads it is now number one in the Irish book charts

and thank you so much to everyone who went out and got it and thank you to everyone who's given me lovely messages over the weekend saying that they're enjoying it so far alright it's still in the shops if you want to get it I

I was on the late show there on Friday night which is like I'm I'm mainly promoting the book through this podcast and through social media and I'm only doing the traditional media stuff

I'm only doing the ones that I kind of want to do so I did a piece with the Irish Times with Patrick Frayne who's a class journalist and that was great crack and then the other main one

I'm doing that I did is the Late Late Show the Late Late Show is if you don't know if you're not from ireland it's like this irish institution it's it's the longest running tv show live uh television chat show in the world it's been on tv since the early 60s hasn't stopped being on Friday nights it's this like 20 years ago it was almost as important as like Sunday fucking mass not 20 more 30 or 40 like Sunday mass in Ireland like the big issues of Ireland were spoken about on the late late show on Friday nights like the Magdalene laundry scandal broke out on the late late and it created our national discourse really

what since i was on it there on friday and this is the because i'd planned on saying to you i'm going to be on the late late and i want to mention a little bit about how important the late late is to irish culture specifically in the 60s, 70s and 80s, Gabe Byrne, who presented it for all those years, died yesterday. And it's the closest thing in Ireland you get to, like, royalty dying or something, you know? He was like kind of Ireland's granddad or something.

It's this strange kind of behemoth figure within Irish broadcasting who was at the helm of so much important discourse throughout the years. A few things I wouldn't agree with Gay Barn with, but there you go, but the man just died. I'd never met Gay Barn, that's the thing, in all my time working in television I'd never actually gotten to meet Gay Byrne because I think he retired after I started working on TV not retired but he kind of he chilled out from it a bit you know so I wouldn't have had a chance to kind of meet him so I'd never met Gay Byrne in my professional career and then yesterday I got a mail from someone I hadn't spoken to in years

lad I was back in school with wanting to confirm a story because he remembered it and he wanted to ask me if he remembered it correctly I'd forgotten about it completely but apparently yes I did meet Gay Barn in fifth year when I was in school we had a class trip up up to rte and the bus obviously stopped in in a pub or somewhere so we could all take a piss before we went to dublin i went into the toilet and bought flavored condoms i was about fucking 14 or 15 or whatever age you know and so i i had these flavoured condoms. I don't know why, I was probably just showing off or trying to make people laugh.

So I was sucking and chewing flavoured condoms the whole time that I was in RTE on the school trip. And Gabe Byrne said hello to us, said hello to this group of children. Obviously that was what he did whenever a group of children arrived. But I was there chewing flavoured condoms and apparently he gave out to me

for chewing flavoured condoms in Carson. And I vaguely recollected being chastised by Gay Barn for chewing flavoured condoms. And so that's, I did get to meet fucking Gay Barn. So rest in peace, Gay Barn. So I was on The Late Late Show talking to Ryan Tuberty, who's the new host. And I don't know, The Late Late is weird.

Like, I can't just promote the book through this podcast and through social media because I'm kind of only reaching, like, young people as such. But the thing with The Late Late lady and it shows you the duplicity in how media is consumed in ireland when i'm speaking to people on a podcast or social media these are people who like like you you've you're after seeking out this content you've made a choice to say i'm listening to this podcast today with traditional media like the newspaper and the tv or the late late it's different these people aren't really seeking out their content it's just they're flicking on the tv on a friday night so it can be quite invasive you land in someone's living room so as a result

of that then you get kind of reactionary comments and i like so I had 15 minutes you have to kind of sum things up really quickly it's it's it's an interview but it isn't it isn't it's not an interview in that it's a free-form conversation it's more you go on and yet you you speak about your points but you try and keep them concise so you can cover as much as possible in 15 minutes so I spoke about I was asked basically a state of the nation question because the late late short aware that i toured this podcast all around ireland and people ask me questions so i have an idea about what's bothering people in ireland who come to my podcasts so i said look in rural communities a lot of the questions i get asked about are mental health how do i speak

to my friend about this in dublin huge issue that i'm finding is people in their fucking 20s and 30s who have felt they've done everything right they've got a good leave insert they've got went to college got a good job they're now in a good job getting good pay yet they can't really afford to live in dublin they can afford to live in dublin if they want they can afford to rent but most of them are moving back with their parents because it's like why would i live in a box room with eight people uh developing a lung complaint from mold why would i do that i i should be living at home with my ma, or at least I have a quality of life. But the mental health effects that this is having on an entire fucking Irish generation of,

like I said, people in their 20s and 30s who feel as if they've done everything right, but now they're still living with their parents, and what that does to these people's sense of identity, their sense of self, their sense of autonomy and their self-esteem and that's worrying so i spoke about that and then i spoke about climate change so i've kind of just been getting loads of angry negative comments all weekend because i went on the late late which is fine right if it's just that man with a plastic bag is a fool or i disagree with he's a lefty fucking eejit i disagree with him that's grand that's par for the course you don't go on the late late and not expect to get critique that's fine absolutely grand all part of the game but what i don't like is you just you get it you get negative comments from really extreme right-wing accounts and that's kind of more freaky because they're what they're saying isn't critique it's much

more aggressive and irrational there's people in Ireland who genuinely believe that blind boy isn't real but instead I am like a puppet that was created by this international left-wing cabal of shady politicians and business people and that I'm rolled out onto the late, late the national broadcaster every two years as this theatrical puppet in order to convince and fool and trick the Irish people into Marxism.

And there's people who truly, truly believe that. And they truly believe that I'm rolled out to fool the Irish people into believing in the quote-unquote climate change myth. So I've been getting a lot of that shit all weekend too. And that's a little bit more unsettling. But anyway, here's the crack. I have a special podcast for you this week because i'm so there's a thing in ireland called science week right and science week is

it's it's like a thing that happens every year in ireland to democratize and educate everyone in ireland on science and what's happening in science and to bridge the gap between kind of scientists and everyone else because science kind of like everything science uh along with academia along with another a lot of things sometimes they can feel inaccessible to myself or yourself because it's an area where you have experts and you can feel like oh this isn't for me this is too uh complicated for me to understand so naturally sometimes you can disengage so science week is about it's about democratizing science and science is one of those things that should be democratized because it's not that complicated, really, to understand it.

If the expert is able to speak about it in the language of the receiver, then it becomes democratized, basically. So Science Week is about democratizing science. This year, Science Week is, the focus of Science Week 2019 is climate activism. Climate action and climate activism and all things climate. So Science Week got on to me and said, look, would you like to interview some experts who are working within the area of climate for Science Week? And I'm like, yes, please, absolutely, I would love that. So that's what I'm like yes please absolutely I would love that so that's what

I'm doing this week I have I sat down for a chat with two scientists Jerry Murphy and Claire Watson and we spoke about biofuels which is something I knew very little about but it's incredibly interesting and it's when I speak about climate change i try and i prefer to speak about action and positivity and meaning and what we can do and what we can how can how we can react to it in a proactive way rather than apathy or fear that's what i like to speak about so learning about biofuels was fantastic because it's just to sum it up in the near future how if we want to have a carbon neutral way of consuming with electricity and power you know electricity is going to come from multiple sources so you're going to have wind solar all this different crack

and then what the fuck is that nice right someone in the next hotel room is trying to insert a plug into the wall and the vibrations of this are now interfering directly through the table into my podcast so we just we just deal with it we just cope with it so look uh electricity in the future is going to come from multiple sources but one source i wasn't aware of that's kind of carbon carbon neutral in fact some say it's carbon negative is biofuels uh so that's what we're going to speak about here on this podcast before i get into it this podcast is supported by you the listener via the patreon page if you like the podcast if you like listening to it if you're getting crack off it you can support it financially by giving me the

price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast okay so if you can afford that and if you feel you'd like to do it please fucking do it's very welcome it gives me a regular source of income if you can't afford it you can listen for free it's a model that's based on soundness and it's doing great so far all right so thank you so much to all of my patrons let's get into the live interview, lads. Yart. One last thing before I get in trouble. Australia, okay. I announced a live podcast tour in Australia for February 2020.

They sold out really, really fucking quickly. There was about Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Sydney. They all sold out really quickly. They sold out in about a week. And people were getting annoyed going, look, they sold out too quickly. I'd love to see the podcast.

So I'm after an announcement now, additional live dates for the podcast tour in Australia for February 2020. Just so you get a chance to come along. So there's new dates that the tickets go on sale this week. The 10th of February, I'm going to be in Melbourne in the Thornbury Theatre. On the 12th of February, I'm in the Paddington in Sydney. And on Saturday the 15th of February, I'm going to go to New Zealand in the Hollywood Theatrewood theater i think

it's called so there you go there's new dates announced for australia and an extra one now for new zealand uh in february 2020 go to troubadourmusic.com if you want to get tickets for them and they'll go pretty fucking quickly because the last ones went in about a week so there you go god bless so i'm here with jerry murphy and claire watson jerry is a a gaseous and biofuel researcher and claire watson you work in the marai research center in county cork and the reason we're chatting here today is because it's for science week 2019 and 2019 science week is focusing on climate action so So firstly, Gerry, what is biofuels? What is it you do?

Yeah, what we try to look at in particular, my work is related to gas. And the reason I look at gas is that twice the amount of electricity is sold as gas. Now, when you say gas, just to democratise it, do you mean gas in general just any type of gas in general okay so if you look at ireland we will burn twice as much gas in terms of energy as electricity so i want to make that gas green yeah and we're looking at

ways of having green gas and for example um denmark at the has 20% of its gas comes from organic feedstock. So it brings you into circular economy. It brings you into, I mean, if you're down in, for example, Dingle, you could take slurry, you can take food waste, you could take seaweed, you could have an anaerobic digester and produce gas. And that gas could be used to run a little bus and that bus might go to Kenmare and you have a sort of a circular economy. And when you're producing gas, you can do things around it in a biorefinery type of way. So we'd be huge advocates, for example, of seaweed and you can take out little products from the seaweed

and that then can allow a biorefinery in Dingle and you can have graduates and you can have smart people working there. We can use things like microalgae to upgrade the biogas and then you have another product. So what we would like to see is that we'd like to see farmers producing beef, producing cheese, but also producing seaweeds and alginates and microalgae. And you have a little biorefinery advanced technology area where people now are living there and they're spending money in the community.

You've got little buses that are running around the peninsula. You were saying, Gerry, so that like already, like within our agricultural industry, within things that are happening every day in order for us to consume, that there's essentially wasted energy. There is wasted energy. Like what we would find is if you look at a slurry pit,

and we have an awful lot of cattle in this country, we have the third highest level. No, what's a slurry pit? Just for people listening from Greece. It's if you have cows, their poo goes into a tank. And that tank across Ireland, you've got these tanks full of poo. And we keep that until spring when we can spread it on the land. But what's coming off that tank all the time is methane.

And just going straight into the air. And it's going straight into the air. And Ireland has a third of all its greenhouse gas from agriculture. And that includes these slurry tanks, which are producing methane. And they're 28 times more pollutant than carbon dioxide. So an argument I would have is that if we had carbon neutral electricity, if we had wind turbines everywhere, we would still have methane going into the atmosphere from slurry tanks and from food waste and from cheese waste. So our perspective is you capture that and you can use that to displace natural gas. So just to make it really basic, so just from what i'm hearing like so one of the big fears that people have around

the like me personally right i am i have a plant-based diet like five six days a week now because of the climate to see if i was able to do it because i'd seen a un report or something that just said we all need to reduce our meat and dairy consumption by about 70%. So, because we are aware that it's producing gases that are warming the planet. So, are you proposing that there's a way these gases that are out there, warm and everything,

they can be harnessed and used as energy? Yes. And at the moment in Denmark, 20% of all their natural gas is covered by gas that was produced from slurry and dungs so they take that gas and the gas comes from sewage sludge from food waste from cheese plants from abattoirs from slurry and they convert it into biomethane which they put into the gas grid and it then displaces natural gas. So electricity started with coal and natural gas

and now you've wind turbines. So our thesis is natural gas can be displaced and it can be displaced by biogas from slurries, from cheese waste. And from grass. I mean, isn't that the interesting thing that farmers who feel quite marginalised now and they're being blamed and shamed because they have cattle. Their general practice is to grow grass really well and the grass can be used in a local biodigester. And Clare, your work researching at the MARAI

Centre, can you tell me a little bit about what is it you do? I mean my research really is looking at how you engage people in climate action and in terms of Gerry mentioned the Dingle Project so we, part of my work is supporting the Dingle Innovation Hub and ESB Networks. They are working together with the local community groups to decarbonise the peninsula.

So they're looking at all the different aspects from electricity to biodigestion. And one of the things, Jerry actually did a very good presentation to a local event down there with a bunch of farmers to show them what an anaerobic digester can do and they now are working together and they're they got some funding they're putting together a feasibility study um which will look at where or if or how um a community owned by a digester could be run on the peninsula and the idea of community ownership is that you have people involved, you know, because often local people feel very put upon

if a big multinational company comes in and they plonk something in your view or in the area that you've loved so well or whatever, or literally in your next door field. Whereas if people are involved from the beginning in discussion and in decision making and then feel that they're getting something out of it, it's much more likely to succeed.

And just before we started chatting, we were talking a little bit about, you asked me, Claire, do I get much climate change deniers in my Twitter feed? And I don't get loads, right? But mostly what I get is, I won't call them climate change deniers. I get very concerned Irish people

whose families are involved in farming, in cattle, in dairy. And I get them very concerned and they're not being aggressive deniers. What they're saying to me is, like, blind boy, have you seen this other report about cows? And it appears to be something that

I can tell it's just regular Irish people from rural communities really concerned and worried that their livelihood is going to go. And that's a very real concern. What's that like on the ground with Irish people? Yeah, I think you need, this is where diversification comes into it. You know, you need to be providing more options for people rather than just saying, look, you have to shut that down, stop that and get on with it. You know, so people, what's really interesting in Dingle is that the people who were at the initial meeting that we were part of

were actually, I mean, I was sitting beside a woman and she was talking about the future of her farm for her children. She was really worried. Now she's doing a bit of Airbnb already and she's really interested. She's thinking, oh, maybe that's where our grass can go, you know, because she got the argument about cattle not being the future but she was looking at then trying to find alternatives that would keep their

business going like what I'd like to know is like here's the thing is there a committee set up or a government department set up who's trying to provide decent alternatives and solutions to the

regular Irish farmer to go here like I tell you one thing I was chatting with Collie Ennis and he's a biodiversity expert and an insect expert up in Trinity College and he was speaking about the huge damage to the Irish environment and biodiversity

that's done from farmers burning gorse and the farmers burn the gorse because there's a grant available to them if they have arable land and we were thinking like if farmers are like it's a lot of effort to be setting fire to a field and it's dangerous it's dangerous it you really have to go out of your way if you're deciding you're setting fire to a hill yeah so if a farmer's willing to set fire to a hill for a grant, what if? But I don't, sorry just to interrupt there, Blind Boy, I don't think

it's just that they're doing it for the grant. They've always done it. So it's a practice that they've done over the years and they feel there's no other way of getting rid of that gorse and they allow the sheep then to come in and graze because what it does is it brings up a flush of green grass, well it's not even grass, marron grass or whatever it is and then they put the sheep on to come in and graze because what it does is it brings up a flush of of green grass well it's not even grass marron grass or whatever it is um and then they put the sheep on it very

often and they get a cut you know they get a feed for the sheep for a while but it's as much about um what i've been doing all my life my father did it before me and it takes time for people to learn how to change that yeah what what if and it's just me now with some hot takes could we envision a future whereby you offer a like a farmer an incentive to go how about a certain part of your land is going to be wetland how about a certain part of your land is going to be native forests with broadleaf trees that absorb carbon i mean is that something am i on the right track like the meat industry at the moment you're you're aware of these uh strikes at the abattoirs yeah the farmers aren't making money out of beef yeah and i was saying previously our 33 percent

of our greenhouse gas emissions come from beef yeah Yeah. And the farmers aren't making money. So the farmers don't make money. We've lots and lots of cattle. They're producing methane. It's also leading to a third of Irish wells are polluted. Like to me... Of Irish wells? Of Irish private wells are polluted. And how is that happening?

It comes from what we call non-point source pollution. So too many cattle, slurry runs into a water course works its way down into a well so i paid eight grand for my well to be cleaned and to have a cleaning system but to me we have an industry which isn't making money which is causing pollution there should be a way of saying to farmers you know we we will uh you should be looked after in terms of looking after the countryside, making sure the countryside is beautiful, having deciduous trees, having wetlands. I mean, the farmers aren't making money. If they'd less

cattle... If they'd less cattle, they'd still make the same amount of money because they're not making money from beef. So I think we need to... And why aren't they making money from beef? They would say that the meat industry is very much a monopoly

and the money they're given for beef isn't sufficient for them to grow the beef. So at the moment, they're striking. They're striking at the abattoir. And is this because, again, I know nothing about this, so that's why I'm asking questions. Is it because they're no longer just like selling beef to the seller? It's much more they're selling this beef to someone above, like a big... big yeah and also we expect very cheap meat at the end of the chain yeah you know so that's that's an issue the other thing though with farmers is i mean i come from a small

farm and my father had 10 cattle yeah and he loved those cattle you know so you'd see him in the evening in the in the shed and he'd be talking to them and feeding them with the straw or the hay and in the winter. And for him, his cattle were his passion. You know, so we also have to be aware for trying to shift farmers out of cattle. It's not just about a business for a lot of them. It's mad how some of this stuff, like, you know, it can be overwhelming at times because you think of just how big everything that's affecting the climate is. And then sometimes some of the things that I go back to personally to give me

a sense of solace is I look at how people used to live 60 years ago. We say one story that always sticks with me. And I mentioned a lot in the podcast is my mother said to me in Limerick in the fifties, every single house had a pig out the back garden and they went and brought this pig to the ab garden and they went and brought this pig to the abattoir once a year and that was a huge portion of their meat for the entire year and not only that the pig ate household waste so you naturally had this type of system and people

weren't they weren't using single-use plastic it was just the way things were and we know that we need to get back to a culture now firstly you can live like that now but it's usually people who are very economically privileged who can afford to live in this way where it's sustainable and environmentally friendly but i mean it's part like i don't know what i'm getting at here but i'm wondering about the word going back um i think it's about going forward. Yeah. Because I think we psychologically, and you probably understand this, is that we don't like to be told to have stuff taken off us.

Exactly. Or we don't do that. Yeah. Or you need to, people have a fear of going back to the dark ages because some of that time was tough for maybe different reasons. That's the thing. My man wouldn't have had shoes like. Yeah. So the other, on the one hand, you have a pig out the back but on the other hand someone's dying

of typhoid and there's no... We have shifted hugely in terms of well-being. Well, some of us have, you know. And we have to be clear, I think, to be saying to people that we're talking about a vision for the future. You know, that will be sustainable and

will probably have a lot of co-benefits that we don't even know will come out of it. But we certainly, I mean, I think our lives nowadays are very stressful. You know, we're rushing here and there. There's so many deadlines. We feel under pressure. People are having mental health effects because of the pressure, I think. And I would love to see a future where a lot of our energy

is coming from a local source. So whether it's a biodigester green in the biogas or it's a solar panels in a smart grid because in Dingle the ESB networks are looking at how you make the electricity network for the future you know so but a lot of it's going to be possibly selling energy to each other being part of cooperative there's a really good quote from a climate scientist called Mike Hume. And he takes the Kennedy quote and he says, ask not what you can do for climate change,

but ask what climate change can do for you. So what inspires me is actually, this vista of climate change coming down the track, or some of it is already here, it's actually making a shift for the better. So we're going to shift into a future, hopefully, where we work better together. We're not constantly at loggerheads, we're learning personally to deal with other people who have different beliefs to us. And

we're trying to work to solutions. Because one of the things Gerry and I were talking about on the train coming up was, there are so many different views and mindsets out there. You know, so you might talk about something like biogas and I come from the environmental movement, you know, so I would have had years kind of campaigning on various different things. But I have to accept that, you know, in the environmental movement and myself included, we were very black and white on the solutions. That's bad. This is good.

But with climate change, we're going to have to look at this mix. There may be a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of the other, and not all of them are going to be pure. You know, they're not going to be 100% clean. Some of them will be bridging fuels. They'll bring us from here to here, and then maybe we'll shift to there. But it's about being able to, it's being self-aware enough to know that actually I have to broaden my mind here a little bit. You know, I have to start thinking and maybe understanding where other people are coming from and trying to come to some common ground.

Gerry, sorry, just a quick one. Actually, no, go on, what's your point? To me, there's loads of opportunities in climate. You know, to me, there's loads of opportunities in climate. Yeah. I would always say to my class, like, when people are striking on a Friday, they're striking for things to be done better. Yeah. And I would teach engineers.

And the Marais Centre that Claire and I are members of, we have 200 researchers who are looking at… What is the Marais Centre? The Marais Centre is a Science Foundation Ireland-funded centre. Yeah. And we have 200 researchers. We're across all of Ireland. We're in Trinity, UL, Galway. We're across all of Ireland. We're in Trinity, UL, Galway. We're headquartered out of the ERI and UCC. But there's 200 different researchers looking at everything to do with energy, climate and marine. And what's really nice about it is

that there's no one answer. You know, and if we do a piece of work, we'll have a microbiologist, we'll have an electrical engineer, we'll have a process engineer, we'll have a social scientist and we look at the problem in its entirety. Holistically. Holistically and there's no simple solutions and what I find is that when you look at solutions across the planet there's all different ways of doing things. I

work a day a week for the International Energy Agency and that involves a little bit of travel and looking at how things are done but there's a farm in Denmark and it's an organic farm. So this guy was really stressed about climate and he was really stressed about being told that he was causing pollution. So what he started off doing, he's no weed killer, and he developed this little thing where three or four people lie down,

they pick weeds at the back of a tractor. But then there's no fertiliser because fertiliser is made from natural gas. And he had cattle on straw and he was producing milk. So he had a dung and dung doesn't have great fertilizer value. So he built a little biogas plant. And when you put the dung in there, you get gas, but it also makes this liquid biofertilizer. Okay. And a problem with going organic is the first year you're organic, you're not officially organic and you have no fertilizer.

So your yield halves and you've half the yield for the same price. You're almost bankrupt. And then the second year you can be organic. So by making fertilizer from his dung, he had a fertilizer that was free from fossil fuel. But he's now certified as a carbon negative milk. So he's now gone to this idea of I have no weed killers. I have no fertilizers. My yields are very, very good because I'm making this. The reason he's a biogas plant is to make

fertilizer because the bugs in there convert all this nitrogen to stuff that's amenable to the soil. So he's making fertilizer. He sells biogas. He's got organic milk, which gets twice the price of normal milk. And he's got organic crops. And I find, as I travel and look at all these scenarios, every solution is different. And that's what Marai looks at. There's many, many, many, many different ways of doing things. One thing I'm quite impressed with, in London, they're looking at buses running on hydrogen. And what they're looking at is they have offshore wind. And the wind, if you build an offshore wind plant, which some people are very happy with

yeah but you have to build a transmission line so ireland's going to have offshore winds maybe off the east coast yeah people probably won't be too annoyed with that but if you start building power lines across the country straight away people are going to say if it's visually there this is visual oh i might get cancer oh there's radiation so there's other solutions such as electrolysis we can make hydrogen so you can make hydrogen from the wind hydrogen goes in the bus actually yeah that's one thing i'd like to ask about now i know very here's the little bit i know about hydrogen right and the back of a serial packet version that's you can run an electrical current through water and that will turn into hydrogen fuel and

then when it burns that turns into in back into water when you burn it. Yeah. And it's one of these things where it sounds too good to be true. Like, what's the deal with hydrogen? Is hydrogen fuel, is that within your remit? Is that within the biogas? Yeah. Again, within Marai, we look at every solution possible.

Like hydrogen fuel cell cars. Yeah. How far are we from that? Is it economically possible? Is it... We would see hydrogen for buses and trucks like to me, I drive an electric car. Yeah, like fully electric? Well, what I have is a plug-in

hybrid, so I get 40 kilometres on the plug-in and then it becomes a hybrid, but I travel 30 kilometres to work. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm not using any petrol except if I were to drive to dingle for a weekend yeah yeah but i have basically i have no fuel bill it's it's running on electricity and i do see these electric cars being they're great to drive yeah and you get a grant from the from the government and they're very very comfortable and you get free parking in town

and you get free electricity they're fantastic But what we find difficult is trucks. If you've got an articulated truck, say going from the west of Ireland over to France, that would need about a 16-tonne battery. So to me, when you're looking at trucks, then you're looking at hydrogen. Or you're looking at methane. So the wind turbine can produce hydrogen to run trucks. Or you could have a creamery in the west of Ireland,

and all of the by-products in the creamery could be converted to methane, and that could run the truck. So we would see gas and that gas can be liquefied or can be compressed to run trucks. Here's the other simple question, right? So

if tomorrow all of a sudden we decide to start using biofuel or biogas, like do you need to change the engine in your car? Do you need to change the engine in your gaff? Like, how does it work? Can you just start pumping seaweed gas into someone's house

and it starts working where natural gas worked yesterday? Yes. So the methane you produce from biogas is methane. It's CH4, which is the same as natural gas. But, for example,

Wright Brothers and Ballymena, who were slightly getting into trouble, but they were making the hydrogen buses for London. So our perspective is... And where are they getting their hydrogen? It will come from a wind farm in... But how does a wind farm turn into hydrogen?

The electricity is put into electrolysis and it's split, so you get hydrogen and oxygen. So the hydrogen then is put into the bus and the bus will run on a fuel cell. And are they running that electricity through seawater or...? Well, you'd have a cable coming ashore and then the cable would go to electrolysis

which is basically a piece of process equipment that passes a current through water and you get oxygen and oxygen has an economic value and you get hydrogen

and the hydrogen then would go into buses. And it's rocket fuel essentially, isn't it? It's fantastic. I mean, it's, there's no emissions. Like one thing

i would be quite cross and i get cross quite often in dublin bus now they're looking at plug-in buses that'll be hybrid diesel now i've as i said i have a plug-in car i get 40 kilometers and typically i drive 30 kilometers to work and yeah so i'm not using petrol but if you have a bus that does 400 kilometers a day and it's a plug-in hybrid, at some stage you're on to diesel and then you're back to air quality. And again, in our centre, air quality is very important because I was talking to Claire on the way up. I'm trying to be good and it's very hard to be good. So I have an electric car.

But I'm aware that 70% of the electricity in Ireland comes from coal and natural gas. So my exhaust is out in County Clare. It's at Money Point. And then i decided i have a bit of land so i i have trees planted lots of trees and in a storm one comes down i chop it up and i have two wood stoves and i'm thinking hey i'm great but i'm not now because you got air quality so whenever you look at a problem we try to look at it from a multi-faceted perspective what you're talking about there is is a lot of what I get online I don't get a huge amount of climate denial but I get a huge amount of apathy

from people who just go what's the point they just go even if I buy an electric car in the morning they need it to have a giant ship to bring it over I hear people going even if I convert to veganism and I do it for the good of animals, a lot of foxes were killed by the truck that had to deliver my tofu to me.

Do you know what I mean? So people have a sense of apathy. But like, how do we, how do we, actually one thing you said there, Gerry, right? What the fuck is going on that so much of our electricity is coming from coal? That sounds really archaic. Why is, why? What the fuck is going on that so much of our electricity is coming from coal? That sounds really archaic. Why? Well, we're hoping that will be phased out. Money Point, which is not far from here, is a one gigawatt coal-fired power plant.

What, like, is it cheap? Like, is there even coal in Ireland? They're bringing it in from Poland, I'm guessing. The coal comes from Poland. And the reason, I remember before I was quite annoyed that Engineers Ireland argued to keep it as coal for security of supply. They were afraid if we have natural gas coming from a pipe in Scotland, if someone broke that pipe

we would have no electricity. So coal was there, but my understanding is it will be phased out quite soon. What you need with electricity is we have lots of wind turbines, they're fantastic. They're not the most reliable as in they depend upon wind, aren't they? So when it's not windy you need something else and you need something dispatchable that you can turn on and turn off and again at the moment that's natural

gas what we're hoping is that we can provide green gas so that you can have all these whiskey residues and food waste residues and slurries that we can make biogas and you can store that biogas until the wind stops blowing and then you produce electricity from that methane. So you can store it, you can ramp it up, you can ramp it down. But typically because we are an island, we're not like Germany or France, we're not that well connected. We're building an interconnector at the moment to France,

which would be a gigawatt. But Ireland uses around eight gigawatts. So we have a shared electricity grid, a shared electricity grid with France. And again, France has a lot of nuclear power. So there's potential for us to be using that nuclear power in Ireland. Yeah. And there's potential for us to send the wind power back into France. But that gives us some security.

But we do need something you can turn on and turn off and that like PV or solar electricity is only by day yeah it's not by night wind is only when it's windy offshore wind is interesting because it tends to be windier out there we expect them operating 60% of the time but I suppose what we look at in Marai it's complex like it's not just wind it's not just PV even I do a bit of work for the IEA and we're looking at India in the future and they reckon India

will be covered in PV yeah because one of the questions I was asked on Twitter was like another thing that I get is Asher Ireland's tiny

who gives a shit what about China what about India what's happening there because I know India and China use a huge amount of coal to generate their electricity I mean I know it's outside of your kind of remit

because you're dealing with Ireland. I spend a lot of time in China. Yeah, what's going on over there? I mean, are they conscious? Are they aware? They are. I mean, well, I suppose when I'm over there, I'm dealing with academics,

but there's more electric buses made in China than the rest of the world put together. And solar PV. And I'm sure even last week I saw, because again, one of the limitations of electric vehicles is for the average person, for someone who's in their early 20s out of college and they are even looking at a car,

they're looking at a car from 1998. And electric cars are, you want to be able to afford them. China, I did see last week, are after making the first proper affordable electric car. There's one in India as well which is very cheap.

Riva, is that that? Yeah. I mean the trouble is you've got kind of social norms as well that people don't want to necessarily be driving something that looks a bit wacky. Or has no sound. People need to have this call of an engine. Turbo charged, whatever. But I think

the electric car has now become sexy, I think. And, you know, the, what's the car company? Tesla. He was wisely, actually, I think. He priced his early cars very expensive. And so he then had them, he advertised that the stars were driving them to the Oscars or whatever. So he actually hit the top of the status ladder first

and now he's moving down and becoming cheaper. The difficulty is if you start providing a cheap model of something straight off, then people may not cotton on to it. I mean, it's unfortunately the way we operate. Exclusivity. Well, we like to be up with the trends and with the fashions. So I think as a society, we have to be somehow shifting the fashion trends,

what is acceptable and what isn't, you know. And we need to be, I've heard you talking in your podcast a lot about emotions, you know, about kindness and compassion and empathy. We also have to be looking at our value system. You know, we need to be taking on the values that care about climate change, that care about human survival and, you know, the future of the planet or whatever. And if we change our value system, then we're more likely to want to make the shifts. So the people who are saying to you, listen, why bother? And what about China? It's a little bit

of a let out clause. Yeah. You know, because it's very easy to say we're a small country but the truth is we are leaders in something we're leaders for instance in dialogue like the Citizens Assembly there are other countries looking at how we did that the fucking smoking ban, we're the first smoking ban plastic bag tax and you know they have some research to show that we we're the most popular, the plastic bag tax is the most popular tax in

europe and they reckon if you took it away from the irish people we'd kick up yeah you know so i mean we are able to shift and to change sure i did a podcast there last last year because again and it was in response to the same thing people were saying sure we're tiny we're ireland and i was making the point it's like we can what we can do is lead by an example, because Ireland's, like, our carbon footprint might be pretty small compared to larger countries, but our cultural footprint is massive. And one of the proposals that I put last year in a podcast was,

we have this thing called St. Patrick's Day, and it's celebrated everywhere, and it's already green. Why don't we as a country start moving the ideology of St. Patrick's Day and it's celebrated everywhere and it's already green. Why don't we as a country start moving the ideology of St. Patrick's Day away from going on the lash and instead going that this is our new green national holiday and we as Irish people who put a diaspora

all around the world are now going to try and use our cultural influence to change the world with this St. Patrick's Day thing. I mean, right now as well, like if we're such a small country, we've also got Halloween. Halloween is hours like. The Irish come up with Halloween. So we have these. Yeah, we've got these cultural holidays all around the world. So when people say we don't have a huge carbon footprint, we have a cultural footprint that's gigantic.

And people love the Irish. I mean, the soccer, you were talking about the soccer supporters, you know, we are a nation that people respond to. And I think you're right, that we have to be creative in what we do, and we have to include as many people as possible in the actual designing

of these ideas. But what I find inspiring at the moment is I do think our government is beginning to get it, know yeah and you hear the um the the the minister Bruton and the teacher talking about we were laggards you know that we are laggards and they're admitting that we're doing really badly I mean I think that's always the first step to actually put your hands up and say listen we're not doing what we should be doing but there's this sense that we can now become a leader and that's us like That's the Irish fear. We go from the worst in the class to the best in the class.

And I think we somehow may be able to do a bit of that. But there's a few things that concern me. I mean, one thing I'd like to know is, like recently, obviously you can see the government is responding to, because of the recent elections and they saw how many people decided to vote green. And the young people, in fairness.

They were able to see that people are caring about this now. But then, like Leo a couple of weeks ago, and it was really disappointing, so he gave this huge announcement about they were going to plant all these trees in Ireland, but then it turns out they were Sitka spruce trees, which benefit more the logging industry rather than native deciduous trees.

And peatlands, he was going to plant them in deciduous trees. And peatlands. He was going to plant them in the wrong place. And peatlands too instead of re-wetting the bogs. And when I saw that, I didn't feel that like they were being disingenuous. I felt that like, Jesus, you're not informed. Because if anyone who knew their stuff was present, they'd go, hold on a second, lads.

What you're doing, I can see you're trying to do something good. like that's what freaks me out who's there up at the people who are making decisions experts saying your your heart's in the right place but here actually listen to a scientist please like is that called lobbying i mean whose job is that how do we as normal people ensure because it's all good for us as human beings to be getting informed as civilians. But ultimately, who's in the ear of the people making decisions and how do we get the right people into their ears? one thing we're always wary of is we're not lobbyists. Yeah. And everything we do is from peer review press.

You know, we study, we write papers, they're assessed. And we do talk to the government quite often. And I do think they listen to us. But there tends to be a sense of they employ a well-known management consultant. Yeah. Typically with an American background who crafts something and it's produced. And that seems to be... And then we argue about it. Like, one thing I love about...

I'm from West Cork, you know, and I've noticed that when I have friends over, they're always blown away by, in the restaurant, you have all these photographs and it's like Jamie's oysters from Oysterhaven. Yeah, yeah. You know, Frank's... Oh, Cork's great for that.

So we have all... Like, you can see in the wall where all your food is from and it's that it's sort of a slow food movement it's and all my international buddies

are saying this is fantastic is that I'm going to tell you a roaring hot take now that I have about that in West Cork

I heard that West Cork became very heavily populated by kind of European hippies in the 50s and 60s

because someone said to them in the event of global nuclear catastrophe West Cork is one of the safest places I live in Ballydahob or near Ballydahob so I'm safe enough is it right because I do

when I look at West Cork and I see little small industries small farmers and Cork West Cork has always been very much ahead of the rest of Ireland in terms of environmentalism

and being conscious of being small producers and things. Is that that hippie European influence? There's definitely diversity in West Cork, isn't there? You know, I mean, there'd be a lot of different people with different views

and I think there's an acceptance of that. Yeah, and it's like little farms are producing yogurts. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen.

Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six.

It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The first omen. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th when the Toronto Rock hosts the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now

to guarantee the same seats for every post-season game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. Jam on the moves, MacEllen. I think that's fantastic. So rather than... Well, for the first time it's given Ireland a real food culture,

which we never properly had. Because we never had good food, yeah. No, no, no. But if the farmer does that on the farm, the farmer's making more money from the farm because my concern is, I go to a restaurant and you're looking at a steak as 28 euros.

Yeah. And you're looking at a bit of cod as 30 euros. And I'm thinking, a guy stuck a line in the water and got a cod. He's getting 30 euros. And the farmer, who's had two years of raising the cow, is getting... I'm thinking a guy stuck a line in the water and got a cod he's getting 30 euros and the farmer who's had two years of raising the cow is getting

I'm always wondering how do they decide prices on a menu and why is fish more expensive than beef and to me if the farmer can make yogurt on the farm rather than having a tanker taking away milk

if he can say I'm going to make ice cream I'm going to make milk I'm going to sell it from my farm into my local village and there's a slow food movement that's how farmers make money and one thing I'm going to make ice cream. I'm going to make milk. I'm going to sell it from my farm into my local village. And there's a slow food movement. That's how farmers make money.

And one thing I despair with is that I cycle a lot. I love cycling. And I live in Kinsale. Well, I live near Kinsale. It's my closest town. And Kinsale is beautiful in the winter. But in the summer, it's full of cars. And I'm thinking, it's like the smoking ban. I can imagine in 15 years''ll have a photographic and sale full of cars i mean in the winter when you take out the cars and you're walking up the street

and there's a little restaurant and there's a coffee shop and and you're walking on the street as opposed to the summer when it's bumper to bumper to bumper and they're like i i think what's missing in the irish countryside is a public transport system little small buses and this leads back to what we were looking at in Dingle. You know, if there was a local community producing produce, the end product went to a digestor, the digestor produced biogas, the biogas goes into the small bus. Like my dad, I had a lovely father who loved talking and his health sort of left him in his late 60s.

But he loved to talk and he was lonely. I always feel if you put my father in a little bus and he drove around Noval and all these little areas and he picked guys up and he brought them to the pub

and he chatted to them and he went around again and he drove them home and he went into Kinsale and he went out to Noval and we don't do it I mean a bus comes to Noval once a week

The irony of that as well Gerry is like not only is is it environmentally friendly but it's also the impact on social and cultural issues. And my dad's from West Cork as well, right? And what he used to tell me about when he was a kid. So one of the issues that in rural communities that people are facing is it's the sense of isolation.

And loneliness. Loneliness and isolation. And a lot of it is because of drink driving. Like people used to go to the pub and used to drink. And that's obviously a terrible thing. And I'm not saying let's bring back drink driving. But my dad used to tell me stories about before drink driving, when lads would go to the pub and there was a donkey cart out the back.

They'd climb into the cart and the donkey knew the way home. And then I was thinking, why can't you have these electric pods full of drunk old men just floating around the countryside you know what i mean but like yeah you can also bring back i mean yeah because i agree in politician a couple of weeks ago he started saying you know people in the country shouldn't be using cars but people were very angry about it because it was such a dublin-centric view just going do you not understand what it's like down here? Yeah, yeah. It's a tough one because, just back to the, okay, you lads aren't lobbyists.

Do lobbyists exist? Are there lobbyists in Ireland who's, like, and I'm assuming lobbying then, it has to come from some type of investment. Like, how do we make, I love hearing about the things that you're talking about. I love, when I get anxious about the climate I love to hear that you can make

an environmentally friendly gas from shit that's already been produced but then I go that's all well and good, how do we make it happen how do we start doing it next year but you know how every individual can is that you lobby your local politician and you make sure you vote

so we become the lobbyists. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there are lobbyists. Environmental groups would lobby all the time and there would be industry lobbyists, you know, I mean, we're not quite like America yet, but there are people lobbying.

But the individual can vote. I mean, I think that's the greatest bit of power that we have. And I think in the next election, it's going to be very interesting, you know, because I think there will be definitely a green swing. And that's where people can be involved.

I'm always amazed, as I was saying, I live near Ballet de Havre. And so whenever anyone comes to my door looking for a vote, I do talk to them about climate change. And I have to say, I'm surprised at how little they know, usually. Yeah, they do. The Citizens' Assembly that you mentioned, I think that would be fantastic to look at agriculture and have a Citizens Assembly. Yeah. And there is going to be another round, I'd say, because it was so successful. We've had two rounds, two Citizens Assemblies now, and we should be having a third one. But what was really interesting about this Citizens Assembly, they spent two weekends looking at climate change.

They looked at a number of issues and climate change was one of them. But they made 13 recommendations. So there were about 99 people in a room you know and they were they were chosen from by a polling company so they were representative of the population of Ireland and they made 13 quite far-reaching recommendations on what should be done about climate change what the government should do and then a joint Oireachtas committee was set up so that was from representatives from the different political parties came together in a room for about eight months and they had people like us because i was at one of the presentations they they invited anyone and everyone to present to them over an eight month period to help them work

out how do you implement the citizens assembly recommendations and they put together a far reaching report actually we were all quite surprised at the end of that and they did that collaboratively it was the different parties all in a room together you know it's quite fascinating to watch and then out of that came the government plan which was launched in May. Now in fairness it got watered down a bit and people would have been critical about some areas but what they did do is they changed the governance system yeah so that's much more robust now. So, I mean, there's going to be pressure on local authorities, on the different agencies to step up to the plate. There's targets and there's timelines now, which we wouldn't have

had before. So I see that as being quite hopeful. But then it's back down to us as people to make sure we get the right politicians in there in the next round so that they can do more of this. Educated politicians. Yeah. One thing I'd like to touch on, again, like taking it back to the negatives that I hear online when I try and mention anything about the climate. Another negative I get is, Asher, that's only a lot of bullshit that's made up to give us more taxes. Right. But, I mean, here's what I'd like to know.

Because we live in a a capitalist society right a lot of the what gets things moving often is when you go there's going to be jobs created there's going to be money made like i might have people listening to this who have money who are investors like do you see a future whereby people can start really investing in these alternative forms of fuel and it's creating jobs and it's moving small economies? And it's like it's one of the things with the Green New Deal over in America. It's you remove the fossil fuel industry or you remove, we'll say, the way the dairy industry works and the meat industry works in Ireland. And people going, but shit, my livelihood depends on this. How do you put in the alternatives where it's like, no, you might actually end up having a new livelihood, new communities could form.

How does that work? I mean, is there investment happening in biofuels? Are people knocking on the door? There is. I mean, one thing I do find is that uh within the mara center uh the model we have is that it has to be industry relevant and industry have to put money into the center so we would work for example with the sb yeah and the sb came from the fossil fuel industry we work with ervia and gas networks ireland which again would be seen as the fossil fuel industry

but like if you look at say just to be non be nonspecific, Chevron or BP or Shell, they're huge. Yeah. They're absolutely massive. I gave a talk not so long ago, and a lady from Shell came up to me and said, this is phenomenal stuff. Yeah. And their perspective is that if there's going to be a liquid fuel, we're going to own it.

Okay, yeah. So, like, if we do produce a liquid biofuel, Shell would see itself as the people who would sell it,fuel Shell would see itself as the people who would sell it or Chevron would see it as the people who would sell it so to me there is a need to work with the fossil fuel industry we would look at offshore floating wind turbines for example this is a an area that's really relevant in that you

can go to deep waters and have a wind turbine that's sticking up in the air a blade the width of Croke Park on rounded circles and the people who have that expertise is people who run oil rigs so to me you've got to deal with the fossil fuel industry and look at what they do and take their expertise and make it green and make it the thing is there jerry what would what would terrify me about that about big money coming in right is just they tend to think of everything in terms of how can i make the least amount of

most amount of money possible the least amount of effort most amount of money possible with the least amount of effort. And I know, like, critiques that I've seen of biofuel, right? The critiques that I would have seen is, we'll say, huge amounts of, if you were to make massive amounts, massive amounts of deforestation in order to grow a certain crop. Yeah, that is a...

Palm oil, is that the one? Palm oil in Southeast Asia, and we have sugarcane in Brazil. Sugarcane, yeah, that is true. Palm oil, is that the one? Palm oil in Southeast Asia and we have sugarcane in Brazil. Sugarcane, yeah, that was the one because I know that in Brazil they've been using biofuels for quite a long time. Ethanol.

From ethanol, yeah, from sugarcane but then people are saying but sugar clear in the rainforest to make it. So, and that's, some people have that kind of taste in their back of their mouth about biofuels.

And are worried that it was taking over from food crops. Yeah. There is a way to do this. We had a discussion about that at one of our meetings in Brazil. I was out in Brazil talking about this. And they were saying sugarcane doesn't like wet, doesn't like rain. Yeah.

So sugarcane isn't in the rainforest. But then what happens is you grow sugarcane and you displace cattle. And then the cattle go into the rainforest. it always tends to be this domino effect and then people say well cattle are in the rainforest stop eating meat and then they say well don't fly i mean it becomes it's very difficult to be good and i heard your podcast on on worrying about uh climate anxiety and getting on a plane i mean planes will not run on electricity. Like this MAX Boeing that's just been built. I just came back from a flight and the plane was built in the late 80s.

Like the planes that are built now will be in operation in the next 25 years. They're going to run on liquid fuel because at the moment they run on liquid fuel. So there has to be a liquid biofuel or else we don't fly. And to me, again, it's difficult to be good. I mean, if you're going to fly fly it's going to be a liquid fuel if it's a liquid fuel where is it coming from yeah

is it coming from a crop is it coming from high like hydrogen is a great source of liquid fuel so if you've wind turbines you can make hydrogen and the hydrogen then can then go on to a liquid fuel but what are the critiques of like i again i'm just going from some agent on the internet but i've heard like if a hydrogen bus blew up, it would take three blocks with it. Do you know what I mean? It depends on the engineering. Is it safe?

Well, what is safe? I mean, you know, is it safe to fly? I mean, I get off a plane, I think, oh my God, it's up there in the air. I mean, the technology is there. And again, I mean, you know, all of the technology that we use has gone through a process and typically what happens is there's an accident and then we see what happened in the accident we

make things better so we see that new Boeing Max I mean the reason is the Boeing Max the Boeing Max is a plane that was built by Boeing that was going to be the most efficient plane yeah I was going to have big engines and the problem with the engines they were bigger than the normal engines so if you put it on the wing it would scrape off the floor so they put put it on top. Yeah. So it's on the wing. And that changed the stability. And what happened in the two plane crashes, one was in Ethiopia, I think, is that the centre of gravity changed, and there was a bit of software that would help the plane to tilt.

Yeah. But there was a problem. But this plane is seen as highly efficient. When they sought the problem with the centre of gravity, and Ryanair were going to buy loads of them, lots of companies are going to buy them. But that plane, when it arrives, will very efficient in terms of of use of liquid fuel but there's going to be lots of them and they're going to be here for another 20 or 30 years

what are they running on and this is I mean to me like the ideal scenario is that we have local food little towns we're cycling we're all staying together but once you get on planes i mean my carbon footprint is dominated by flying yeah and if any family take an overseas travel you can forget all about the electric cars and the walking that plane journey is a huge source of carbon so i think it's something we need to figure out ourselves i do you think it's going to become more expensive because you would hear people people saying that actually we're not going to be able to afford to fly like we do now well Well, I mean, again, a part of the issue that we're seeing with the reason flying is causing so much hassle is that it has become incredibly cheap. Again, the 50s and 60s, flying used to be a luxury.

There's a lot of stuff that we take for granted. Like I was looking at 500 grams of beef shouldn't cost five quid. If you look at the amount of water that goes in, the amount of food that goes in, it just shouldn't. We've become accustomed to this, unfortunately. That's why I was trying to get people to look at start eating insects. Like the amount of water and food that goes into an insect for a vast, larger amount of protein.

And the thing is, for seven years, we were all eating horses and we never even knew it. But that horse scandal, the meat scandal, where we were all eating horses. So I think knew it. Do you know about that horse scandal, the meat scandal, where we were all eating horses? So I think we'd start eating flies very easily. It's just protein. But also, do we have to learn to respect things? You know, so actually give something a value.

So not take flying for granted anymore, not take eating meat, you know, and actually look at our lifestyles. I think we're all able to kind of shave off some things in our lifestyle. As it happens, I don't need to fly. So I don't, I'm not like Gerry at this high level. Yeah. And the work I do is actually very Irish based. And I don't have, George Mambio, he's this, again, guardian journalist.

He talks about love miles. So a lot of people in fairness in West Cork, they'd have families, you know, living somewhere else. So they do have to visit them or their elderly parents or whatever. So who am I to judge that? You know, but I'm lucky I don't have to do that so in my lifestyle I can fly very I mean I haven't flown for about two or three years um so I think it's about us all looking at where we're at and what we can actually change I am now looking at driving I do drive too much you know I drive a Prius but that's not brilliant I know that and you know I'm trying to to cut it down by working a bit more at home I'm doing a great thing which actually I love is

I'm buying from charity shops you know so I'm I mean that's really fun like there's nothing like a good bargain that that makes you cheer you up for the day but but as Gerry's saying it's looking at where what we eat and where we where we get our food. And I think back to you saying that, you know, you're getting these kind of cynical comments and the naysayers. I mean, I don't know how you shift people's mindsets, but I think if those of us who feel we need to talk about climate change, that's one of the things. Over the last 10 years, this kind of theory came around climate silence

so that we were actually afraid to talk about it to mention the words so what you're doing is brilliant you're bringing it up on your podcast and you've a million listeners actually hearing you talk about climate change so that's really important but we then need to be talking about what we can do so people need to know they can do something there is a you know back to the the climate anxiety it is very easy to become anxious because the problem seems so big and it seems so out of our reach what can i do what turning off the light switches what's that going to do you know but the truth is if you if

like billions of people do things then that all does add up actually absolutely but it also helps shift back to the social practice and the social norms. If enough of us change what we do, then that becomes the norm. You know, so we need to be looking at part of that. And the young people, in fairness to them, they're beginning to do that. They're looking at their lifestyles. And, you know, Greta trying to lead by example. There's something about leadership.

We need leaders. So that's good if the government are beginning to act and we see business people taking steps. We need to see that. But we also have to have leadership from the ground. Town planning is a big thing. I mean, of course, yeah. I hate driving. I have an electric car, but I don't like driving. I love cycling. And this year I bought an electric bike. Now I'm about 30 kilometres from work. And what the electric bike does is it cuts in when you go below 25 kilometres per hour. I'm cycling along at 28, 29, and then I hit a hill. There's no hill.

What an electric bike does is there is no hill. So it's like you're cycling on the flat all the time. And I found the range I cycle has gone off the scale. I'm cycling for 60 kilometres. It's a beautiful way to travel. It's a great way. But the other thing as well with that, Gerardine, it's something I try and promote on my podcast.

I do a lot of cycling as well. I try to get across the idea to people that a lot of the conveniences that we have in our everyday life, right, these other conveniences, are actually creating a feeling of meaninglessness. And this meaninglessness is then driving a sense, depression, anxiety. And it's a vicious cycle. It's a vicious cycle, yeah. But, actually, excuse the pun, of meaninglessness and this meaninglessness is then driving a sense of depression anxiety and

it's a vicious cycle it's a vicious cycle yeah but actually excuse the pun but cycling is something i use here's the thing i say to people when i get if i get a if i have to be somewhere and i get up in the morning and i have to i look out the window and i go it's either cold or it's wet or it's warm i am now making decisions about what will I wear because I'm getting on a bicycle. So there's now a journey and a sense of meaning in my day. Then I go out there and I'm nice, warm and wrapped up and I'm cycling. I'm getting the adrenaline going and the wind is in my face. And now I'm engaging with the environment.

Like if I cycle somewhere and I've had to think about all this stuff. Whatever stress I'm facing in the day it means fuck all because I started with such meaning whereas if you just straight up get into the car turn on the heat, people can get into the car, arrive at their destination and they don't even know how they got there

this meaningless way and then you're not resilient towards the stress of the day it's like taking a cold shower a lot of the stress in the day. It's like taking a cold shower. A lot of the stress in the world is related to that mobile phone and looking at social media and reading about Brexit and you get in the car and you put on the radio and you hear all the bad news and you hear about Brexit.

I find in my one-hour cycle to work, you've got your headspace and you can think about things. You can't look at the phone because there's things going on around you. You have an hour where you're really meditating because you cannot have a conversation with someone. You can't read a phone. And I find my eyes are looking at infinity. My headspace is clear. I get into work.

I feel fantastic. And then I'm thinking I'm cycling home and that's my tree. So I have an hour and my cycle is from the edge of a city into a very nice coastal area. And I love the cycle home. I find this sense of wellbeing. And I look then when I'm in the Netherlands or Germany and all these people are cycling and they're cycling around the place, like being in a car in traffic, stopping, going, listening to bad news. It's the well-being. And one thing we do find is the level of anxiety amongst people in university

and I'm sure everywhere else. I mean, we've lots of students who are saying we're suffering from anxiety. I think if you can have exercise, if the town planning is such that you get on a bike, you can cycle someplace, as opposed to being at work, getting in a car, listening to Brexit, listening to Syria, listening to hard things, sitting in traffic, getting home. But isn't it also about taking the time to do that?

You know, back to this thing, we're so rushed so you have to drive from A to B quickly and get there, whereas actually the cycle is like you're giving an amount of time to that particular action, you know. And as well, your unconscious mind knows that you're doing something good for your body yeah and we always reward ourselves for that and the other thing too crucially one thing we have to realize about the human condition is that humans thrive

on storytelling and journey that's how anything we you know you look at religions across across the world folk traditions we need to have a sense of story and journey. And absolute and utter convenience removes story and journey. When people say to me, oh, I see you're eating plant-based six days a week, I love it because now it's after giving me a new story and journey. If I'm thinking about my chili con carne, instead of the convenience of it's a few spices and journey. If I'm thinking about my chili con carne, instead of the convenience of

it's a few spices and some minced meat, I'm now reading the backs of different types of beans and lentils, and I now have a new journey with conflict. Set up conflict resolution. We all need that in our day. Set up conflict resolution. Convenience removes it,

and you remove that, we don't have meaning. You don't have meaning, your mental health starts to go to shit. And you're also learning a new skill, and you remove that we don't have meaning you don't have meaning your mental and you're also learning a new skill and you're achieving something you know you're creating a good diet for yourself so there's a sense of well-being even from that it's it's one thing you always say that climate deniers it's like even if it was a lot of bullshit the solution is just making everyone's lives better yeah yeah because that that's what i think is really important and i'd say these to my

students in that like the problems that are raised by climate and have got a huge publicity because of the Friday strikes, like it all leads to a better world. I mean if we decide we're not going to have petrol cars, we're not going to have diesel emissions in the city, we're going to

have cycle lanes, we're not going to fly it much, we're going to have local food food we're not going to be eating burgers that were brought in from we're going to eat local good produce it's all good yeah it's all good i mean the solution to climate change is to have a nicer life to be more relaxed to cycle to eat good food not to fly but the thing is there and what the thing is there jerry is we like i agree with you 100 but again another cynicism comes in and i can see it is it's it's a money thing right now to live in that way to eat locally sourced organic to be conscious that your clothes weren't created in a sweatshop you need to have a lot of money

so like how do we move society towards a place where sustainable living is actually the easy affordable thing I mean one of the things that because I'm a fan of Extinction Rebellion but a few of the things they did recently were very tone deaf in particular

the way they protest pennies the thing protest pennies. The thing is, the pennies, yes, pennies are not great in the environment. You look at where the cotton comes from, you look at pennies clothes that were made in Bangladesh.

Absolutely, I don't agree with what pennies are doing. But by protesting in pennies, it was kind of tone deaf towards the type of people, very poor people in Ireland need to shop in fucking pennies. It was kind of tone deaf towards the type of people, very poor people in Ireland need to shop in fucking pennies. It's as simple as that.

It provides good quality clothes really quickly and cheaply for people who have no other alternative. And it can turn people off. I mean, what's needed in order for, let's just take Ireland, for these things to become affordable?

What are the systematic changes that need to happen? And let's just, I mean, food even. I worry a little bit about carbon tax. And one of the reasons I worry is that, you know, we have these grants at the moment for electric cars, which I have availed of. It's typically 10,000 for the car and your home charger. We also have grants for, well, we had grants for deep retrofit.

Yeah. So if you want to have, and I know Claire has this, it's fantastic. You insulate the house to the nth degree and you turn over air and you have almost free heat. Yeah. But it costs about 40,000 for the house. An electric car costs about 40,000 for the house and an electric car costs about 40,000. And my concern is that in terms of equity, the government is expecting us to have a million EVs

and a million houses that are deep retrofitted. Yeah. And if you have an EV, like, and you have a deep retrofit house, carbon tax is irrelevant. Yeah. But that's 80,000 per house if you do both. And there's a million houses, that's 80 000 per house if you do both and there's a million houses that's 80 billion for the country people don't have that and like that's a million decisions

that may not be made so if the government's idea is that we will have deep retrofits and electric cars and people will buy them and if the people don't do it well then we miss our climate targets and i'm concerned that you know I don't pay any excise on my diesel because I'm using an electric car. So the carbon tax on diesel will have no effect on me. And the carbon tax on kerosene will have no effect on Claire because of her home heating.

But there's going to be, and I always have this idea in my mind of a young policeman and a young nurse who are travelling into Dublin and the kids are in creche and they're both in diesel cars. They spend an hour and a half in traffic, they can barely afford a mortgage, and then there's a carbon tax and they can't do deep retrofit and they can't do electric cars. And I'm worried that carbon tax can affect those

who are not able to deal with climate. And one of the things I would look at is that, you know, I see in Denmark quite often they have, again, I'm going back to biogas, but they have green gas in the gas grid. So you'm going back to biogas, but they have green gas in the gas grid. So you just make a phone call and say, can I have green gas? And it costs you a cent a kilowatt hour more, as opposed to finding

40,000 to build a deep retrofit. So I'm worried that, like, by changing, by the government expecting us all to change our own infrastructure, it's going to cost us. Exactly. And people are just like, no way. And this is where I see biofuels or biogas

by changing the fuel that has less effect. Like the most environmentally effective... It sounds like a really convenient solution for the average person. We're probably unaware, but when you're putting, if you put diesel in your car or if you put petrol in your car, at the moment, it's about 8% biofuel.

We're unaware. And what the government did, they mandated the oil industry, you have to have this amount of biofuel in your petrol or diesel. So everyone out there at the moment putting petrol or diesel in their car, about 8% is biofuel. And we didn't make a decision. We're unaware. We're not paying for it and it's produced in your car it's produced the greatest greenhouse gas savings in this country is biofuel carbon neutral what you need to do is you need to do uh sort of a life cycle analysis yeah and some is

and some isn't okay it depends on the source just a big question question let's just say tomorrow morning right could Ireland run its cars off biofuel created in Ireland or what percentage of biofuel, like right now what you envision, how many

cars in Ireland or what percentage could be run off biofuel created in Ireland? We have done this analysis and our perspective is cars will be electric. I think it's a very good suggestion. It's going to happen. So is it more industry you're looking at? No, we're looking at haulage. So one of the things we looked at is trucks.

And it's about 25-30% of all energy and transport is trucks. So it's the transport that you think the battery's just going to be too big that electricity is not a solution for this particular transport I think at the moment for example Volkswagen now is building a massive factory and it's going to be the ID

ID is the car and it's going to get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper so I believe that electric cars will be dominant and they will become cheaper And you will be able to get second hand ones Yeah, that's what needs to be I mean look, taxi drivers the majority of taxi drivers and other things are driving around in a hybrid of some description or an electric car, you

know. But our perspective is it's the trucks. Like I was down in Castle Gregory and there's Trulie Bay oysters and they're putting oysters in the back of a truck and they're selling them to Scotland, to France. Like that truck isn't going to be electric. So we're really, really looking at, you know... What about ships as well? Can biofuels work for ships?

They can. Because ships are pretty nasty, aren't they? One of the issues with ships is they tend to run on the worst possible fuel. The cruisers have to go. They're the worst, aren't they? It's a particular type of fuel that's just rotten. It's the lowest of the low. It's bunker fuel.

It's shocking. Unprocessed. And when we've all these, where we work down in Ring of Skiddy, I'm looking across a cove. It's a beautiful place. And all these cruise liners are coming in. And I'm thinking, air quality. Yeah. And there is, for example, now in Norway, there are ferries that are running on biogas and fish waste.

Wow. So they fish waste. They make biogas. They turn into a liquid. How do you mean is that fish is shit or is that like it's fish fish farms dead fish they digest them convert it into biogas and they have a one of the things that's coming into the states and into rotterdam is they want ships to run on lng which is liquefied natural gas when you come into the

harbor because there's no um a particulate matter from liquefied natural gas but you come into the harbour because there's no particulate matter from liquefied natural gas but in Rotterdam they're now looking at liquefied biogas so you have to have a biogas you liquefy it you put into the engine and when you're in the harbour that's all you burn because therefore there's no air quality emissions and there's no carbon and then we go back out into the deep sea you then go back onto the bunker fuel when you're 100 kilometers offshore. Just for the benefit of my listeners, right, because I've a lot of varied listeners listen to this. So I know I'm going to have farmers listen to this. I know there's going to be people who might be working in the cheese industry.

Firstly, to my listeners, what list of people should be aware and interested in what you're speaking about, biofuels? And secondly, if they're like, wow, is this a new stream of income for me? What steps should they do? I would think, like again, I would not be an advocate of planting thousands of hectares under a crop and making a biofuel. I would not be an advocate of palm oil, biodiesel or, but to me, what we have in abundance in this country,

we have an abundance of slurry. We have an abundance of slaughter waste. We, we, we slaughter 2 million cattle a year. There's a lot of waste associated with that. So you mean like offal and things that just aren't going to get eaten? Belly grass is in particular,

when you kill a cow, there's about a hundred kilograms of grass in it. Wow. And we kill 2 million a year, so you're looking at 200,000 tons of belly grass, and it's very amenable for anaerobic digestion. I'm looking at the cheese industry, I'm looking at the whiskey industry.

And what do you do with that, Gad? Do you put that, like... You put it in a steel tank. Yeah, how does the... Let's just say, now, in the morning, someone donates 1,000 cows' stomachs full of grass to you. What do you do with those cows' stomachs to turn it into something that fuels a truck? It's actually a very simple process.

You have a tank which is airtight and you'd have a storage of around 25 days and you'd heat it to about 38 degrees Celsius. Now how do you heat it or does the heat itself? Well, the gas that comes off about uh five percent of that can be used to heat the digester what they do as well as if you put it underground if you build it in the ground it's warmer it's insulated so a lot of digesters are actually underground you don't actually see them so you have it underground you put in the belly grass it takes on average 25 days and gas comes out i was in in a lovely town in Sweden by the name of Linköping. It's about 150,000 people

and they had a slaughter industry and what they did was all of that belly grass goes to a digester. They pipe the gas 4km. 80 buses run on the belly grass. Air quality is good. No importation of diesel. So that's a circular economy.

You're taking a waste product, you're displacing diesel, great air quality, and it's a closed system. What I love about that, you can put a big box around that town and all their buses are running on something that was produced,

and it's... And something that was going to be there anyway, and would have just gone up and heated the environment. Another kind of question is like like so often when we hear about how to improve the world someone always pipes up and mentions a nordic country that seems to be doing it well already and we go jesus they really have their shit together up there how how did like that just to take that that village in sweden like how did that happen what what was it politicians was it people? How did they

end up running their bloody bosses off cows' bellies? We're just looking we'd love to have that but we don't know how to do it. One thing that's neat is you need people to talk together. I mean what they realized up there, I remember I was up there at the time as around 2002 2003 and the guy was saying

to me, oh you've taken smoking out of your pubs and you're so proud of each other and then you walk down the street with your children and you've got these massive exhausts at the height of your children and they're sucking in those diesel emissions we've taken smoking out of the streets this was his thesis

so you had a number of drivers, one they didn't want to have particulate matter in the town, they didn't want diesel buses, two they've all this belly grass, they have a slaughter industry there's blood They didn't want to have particulate matter in the town. They didn't want diesel buses. Two, they have all this belly grass. They have a slaughter industry. There's blood. And they were saying to me, what do you do with that in Ireland?

And my understanding is that when we have belly grass, in particular, we plough it into the land. And he said, you'll pollute your water. Yeah. And I'm saying, but… Killing fish. You know, we are polluting our water. So they have a system that removes environmental pollution, it stops wells being polluted, it's producing a biofuel from something

that's a residue, and it's displacing diesel, and they have a circular economy and people are employed in this area. And when we go to Sweden, I think what they have in Sweden, they have municipalities, they have little local districts, and what I've noticed is academics tend to work a day a week in industry, so there is this idea of

academics, municipality and they look at their problems in totality so they're looking at air quality and agriculture the irony here sorry I have a point the irony here is that

if you look at how the smoking ban came in within the context of Irish culture it's very specifically Irish because how the smoking ban came in within the context of Irish culture, it's very specifically Irish because, because I remember when it came in, the two huge, I won't call them lobbies because they're not lobbies in a particular way, but two groups that are massively influential in Ireland, farmers and vintners. And when someone said, if you're smoking in your pub, you can sue the owner of the pub, the vintners just said, well, I'm not getting sued for that. And immediately, really quickly, it came in.

And I'm seeing here, like, farmers are really, really powerful. Politicians around the country will listen to what farmers want. So I think this is the key right here to get this across. It's letting farmers know this will somehow hurt your pocket or you can earn some money what i what i would love is is the farmers assembly you know we've had the citizens assembly i would love a farmer's assembly because we're listening all the time to farmers who are making no money off beef where we're looking at farmers striking outside abattoirs i live in a rural community and there isn't a lot of money there

no i i really feel that this country could have an assembly related to agriculture. And to me, into that, you would bring in biorefinery, you'd bring in biotechnology, but you'd look at farming. I mean, what they did, and I'm nervous to say this, back in 2010 in Denmark, they were saying in 2030, we will not spread slurry on the land. And in 2020, half of the slurry can't be spread in the land because we've polluted wells and we've polluted watercourses. But that wasn't taken as a sort of an isolation. They then said to farmers, we will fund

you to have big slurry tanks and ideally you'll cover them, you'll have anaerobic digesters. And they had a plan. I mean, to me... And the farmers then could have confidence in the person. Yes. And the farmers realised that, look, I'm going to get compensated so I can build these slurry tanks. There's going to be incentives.

To me, Ireland needs an agricultural convention where we discuss for two or three years how does farming survive in climate? Because I know the farmers are really struggling with being told, you're bad, you're producing methane, the cows are belching. I think we need to have an assembly

dominated by agriculture. This is what freaks me out as well. I know that anti-climate change money is being funded through targeted advertising on Facebook and Twitter, the same way with Trump and Brexit.

I feel that farmers are a vulnerable group to that because a lot of climate change denial I see coming from dairy farmers. And I put out a call on Twitter. I think the GAA could play a huge part in this. I think GAA is sports. GAA is doing everything you're saying. Absolutely.

Because farming and GAA, it's part of the same system. It's that rural thing. And I'd love to see more. Like I speak about climate change. My audience is mostly kind kind of i'm kind of sometimes preaching to the converted it's kind of arty people people who are aware of it i'd love to see some sports stars coming out and going i'm gonna have a chat with the local farmers i'm gonna let them know this is not just this huge thing to tax you to take away your industry there's alternatives to improve your life. And as you're saying there, if bee farmers are already not making money,

here's other ways. Like, I mean, how do you find speaking with farmers in your job, Clare? I mean, I think if you go back to Dingle, if you kind of work with people on a solution. So, I mean, the group of farmers who are involved in the feasibility study around the biodigester are really enthused,

you know, because they can see some hope in the solution, you know. And I think it's about engaging people. It's about not criticizing. I do think, I mean, I said it earlier, farmers feel very criticized, you know, and we're very quick to say no meat, meat has to go. But, you know, without respecting what that means to a farmer who is a dairy farmer. One thing that intrigues me, I mean, I think farmers, ironically, because they own land, are actually a major, have a major future in this climate battle, you know,

because you can grow whatever is needed. But trees is another area. And the interesting thing is that the land value plummets if you grow trees wow so yeah and i mean that has to be addressed so obviously there's not incentive to having that because i would be thinking like if you've got a farmer yeah give him a grant to have a little bit of natural forest or to re-wet a bog that isn't being used yeah yeah no somehow that has to shift because farmers are saying well if I wanted to resell this area of trees I won't get so much money you know and there's also a kind of a norm which says that you're not necessarily

such a good farmer if you if you plant if you take your put your grass into trees there is a sort of a isn't there there's a status thing around you know I'm a good farmer if I'm managing cattle or I'm growing whatever trees is is down the list and I'm growing whatever. Trees is down the list. And I mean, in some way, that has to shift, I think. So farmers don't feel they're early adopters or they're doing something that other people will criticise within their own farming community or will look down at them. So is grants a basic solution? Is government incentivising grants?

Like, here's one thing I've always wondered. I do feel that farmers are very aware of and like the idea of geothermal energy. You just tend to hear a lot of someone with a farm goes, I've put a big thing down into the ground. And they get something back. And they get something. And so do PV on sheds.

Yeah. And it's a keeping up. I think there's a keeping up with the Joneses element too. Like, if someone who has a farm finds out that the farm down the road are making money from a slurry piss with this gas, it has spread fairly quickly. But they're very entrepreneurial. And one thing I loved about working in Dingle is we met lots of farmers down there and there was this company, Netfasa. And what they were looking at, so this evolved from talking to the community. And this is why I think it's very important to to start with the farmers with the community like

they had this idea of having little chips and the chips would say look this land needs nitrogen or this land doesn't need nitrogen or if you bring a tractor in here it will poach that the the wheel will leave a big mark and having little chips in the slurry tank saying look this slurry tank is going to overflow next week so we need to take that slurry and put it in a digester. So they had this idea of a sort of a smart agriculture that an internet of things was tying all these farms together, telling us what areas needed fertiliser, what areas didn't, what were wet,

which slurry tank would overflow, which wouldn't. And in effect, and I think this is where Ireland can do great things because we've really adopted software. Yeah. You know, I could see a whole software system running around Dingle with a community digester deciding when to take slurry from which farm, when to put digestate back on the land, whether it goes into a bus, whether it goes into a combined eat and power system. And then the idea of a biorefinery. But it could all be automated. I can see farmers on smartphones figuring out, like, which piece of my land needs to be fertilized, which doesn't.

But I think we have to prepare for this. This is something we have to look forward to. And again, we need to look at the idea of a biorefinery because I would love to see seaweed farms. You know, if you're down in Cahersiveen or, you know, you could have fish, you could have seaweed, you could be making products. And that's actually growing seaweed. I mean, I think some people feel that, oh, it's seaweed. Yeah, but you have to own a bit of the ocean then. What's the crack with that like?

There's a project in the west of Ireland called At Sea. And I suppose what we're looking at, we're looking at having a fish farm in the ocean. Okay. And around the fish farm, you grow seaweed. So there's little membranes and you can roll it off the back of a ship. It's full of spawn. So there's little membranes and you can roll it off the back of a ship. It's full of spawn.

So when the fish produce excrement, the seaweed uses that excrement to grow. So you've got pristine waters. Aquaculture. You've got lovely seaweed. And I mean, if you go to China, they eat seaweed all the time. And what's the benefit? Like, obviously, okay, so people eat seaweed, people take baths in it. But are you saying seaweed can be used for biofuel as well?

I'm saying that the seaweed belongs in a bio refinery. So for example, my daughter's vegetarian. Yeah. And she cooks, so she won't eat cheesecake. She won't eat jellies. She won't eat the things they put on top of hot chocolate. Yeah. So we're always looking for alginate, and alginate comes from seaweed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you want to make cakes that are jelly-like, you get alginate from seaweed. Then there's polyphenols. So there's lovely little ingredients in seaweed. Then there's polyphenols. So there's lovely little ingredients in seaweed. So our idea is that you have a fish farm and fish has 10 times less greenhouse gas per calorie than beef, for example. You then put seaweed all around it and the seaweed cleans the water.

And then the seaweed is brought ashore and you take out the alginate, you take out the polyphenols and then the residue goes into the digester with the slurry and the food waste. And you now have an industry and it's used for medicine isn't it? Yeah there's fabulous products in it's used to produce laxative

from it's saccharine iodine as well so seaweed is a phenomenal ingredient that we ignore so like alright so I currently control my household the decomposable household waste into a special bin and the council takes it away

and then if you want you can go to the council and they'll give you free compost. Is it possible for people with their potato scraps and whatever for the local council to be turning that into biogas? Oh God, yes. Yeah? Yeah, I mean in England I think it's about 80-90% of food waste is digested and biogas is produced. So are the rates ahead of us with this?

Yes, they are. And what's interesting, they only started around four years ago. Like, to me, the penny is mightier than the stored. Yeah. Like, if it's written down, thou shall digest food waste. Yeah. It has to be done. Yeah. shall digest food waste, it has to be done. We have this law already, I think it's

conurbations of greater than 500 people. You have to source segregation of food waste. So you want to, like when I go to Italy on holidays, they have a little bin outside the door. It's a small bin. It's collected every day. It's taken away and it goes to a food waste digester and it produces biogas.

I watched a presentation recently where this guy has developed his own biodigester in the garden. So his own food gets chewed up in a masticator thing in the sink. It goes off into this little homemade egg. Clonacilty. Yeah, it's fascinating. So it's this big kind of egg that's all insulated and whatever. And then he has this blue plastic kind of container that the gas goes in.

And then it feeds back into fueling his cooker. Oh, wow. Isn't that fantastic? That's fantastic. Are we behind, lads? Is Ireland behind compared to other countries? Like, we are the laggard of Europe, according to our Prime Minister.

Which, for an agricultural country, is disgraceful. But you see, in a funny way, I mean, I don't think it's always negative to be at the end of a line. You're actually coming to the point of action when the technology is developed. Yeah. Sometimes if you start something too early, you get the bad technology and it backfires, you know. Yeah. So we're actually joining, we're joining the race at a good time.

Yeah. Where maybe it's cheaper or it's better technology. Yeah. Because I had buddies, I know people who got solar panels 10 years ago and they ended up

getting things that were designed for Spain and they said it was a waste of money and it didn't work. But now, the solar panels you get

are for Nordic countries or whatever and it's like, this actually works and it's good. And it's cost effective. Yeah. We've hit the one hour mark

now lads, so I think we wrap it up claire jerry thank you so much i love chatting about that it was great and i can't wait to put this one out to the listeners so thank you so much thank you blind boy appreciate that that was very enjoyable uh thank you so much to those guests for giving me their time to have that chat i learned a lot and it made me feel quite hopeful I like hearing scientists with some

positive stuff with hope and regarding climate action alright em I will talk to you next week

fuck off yart I love you. © transcript Emily Beynon rock city you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation night on saturday april 13th when the toronto rock hosts the rochester nighthawks at first ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play. Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com.