(don't) Waste Water! | Water Tech to Solve the World

Ready to shake up how you think about water investments? This episode dives into the Value of a Statistical Life (VSL) and how it can be a game-changer for justifying water projects. 💧💰 We're not just talking numbers; we're talking about lives saved and the economic benefits that ripple through communities. From policy decisions on airbags to the cost of treating water, we're breaking down why the VSL could be the missing link in your water investment strategy. 📊 If you're an investor, water entrepreneur, or policy-maker, this episode offers a fresh lens on how to evaluate the ROI of water projects. Don't miss it! 🎧 👉 Got thoughts? We're all ears. Reach out and let's keep the conversation going. 🗨️ If you think we might be a match, reach out to me: [email protected] I’ll send you over my little sponsoring slide deck and we’ll take it from there! Get Amazing Day by Coldplay and over 1M + mainstream tracks here https://go.lickd.co/Music License ID: XeJAnanjZM0Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Ever seen a family drama as intense as 'Game of Thrones'? Well, Hager und Elsässer (H+E) has had its share of suitors and heartbreaks, and it's about to get more dramatic. 🤯 Get ready for an M&A rollercoaster that'll leave you hanging on to your seat. Ever wondered why H+E, a company that's been around since 1932, has changed hands like a hot potato? This video deep-dives into the tumultuous journey of H+E—its rise, fall, and limbo. 🇫🇷🇩🇪 From French conglomerates like SUEZ to German family businesses, H+E's narrative is rich in culture clashes and financial woes. Yet, something remains intriguingly 'odd' about the company. 👀 Gradiant has just walked into the arena with a fresh MIT vibe. Will they be the ones to finally sweep H+E off its feet, or are we setting the stage for another M&A tragedy? 🤔 🔑 What's Inside: A tearjerker of an adoption story that starts with Stulz-Planaqua and Hager und Elsässer. M&A Blunders & Culture Clashes: SUEZ, Degrémont, RENA - the list is long! The billion-dollar question: Is H+E's technology misunderstood or just too ahead of its time? Why Gradiant’s latest move to acquire 51% of H+E is the plot twist we've been waiting for. 💥 Don't miss out on this water-sector saga that could teach HBO a thing or two about plot twists! 🛎 Subscribe now and hit that bell! 👉 Here are the podcast episodes mentioned in today's video: SKion Water / Reinhard Hübner: https://dww.show/the-7-secrets-of-the-water-company-of-the-year-you-shall-absolutely-steal/ Aquarion / Karl Michael Millauer: https://dww.show/the-fascinating-story-of-the-man-who-has-35-water-companies-to-sell/ Supercritical Water Oxidation / Kobe Nagar: https://dww.show/is-supercritical-water-oxidation-a-solution-for-pfas-energy-more/ ⬇️ In this Episode ⬇️ 00:00 When Hager und Elsässer was up for Adoption 01:22 Hager und Elsässer's Story 03:04 Cultural Clashes between France and Germany 03:57 H+E's story (continued) 04:21 Cash Troubles and Insolvency 05:54 Aquarion: a New Hope for Hager und Elsässer? 07:29 H+E and Stulz-Planaqua followed different paths 09:29 Gradiant: the Last Hope for Hager und Elsässer? 12:04 A great M&A case study!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ J. Carl Ganter - Managing Director at Circle of Blue 💧 Circle of Blue is an award-winning team of leading journalists, scientists, data experts, communications designers, and facilitators that reports challenges and solutions to global resource issues with emphasis on the fierce and growing competition between Water, food, and energy in a changing climate. *** We're diving deep into a topic that's been swept under the rug for far too long: the media's coverage of water issues—or lack thereof. Are journalists dropping the ball, or is the water sector failing to make its case? 📌 WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: ✅ Why mainstream media often overlook critical water issues. ✅ How the water sector struggles with its own narrative. ✅ The role of specialized press bodies like Circle of Blue. ✅ Actionable steps YOU can take to make a difference! ✅ The 6-Step Framework to make journalists and Politicians Craving for the developments of your Water Story 🎙️ PODCAST 🎙️ Website: https://dww.show/podcast/ Smartlink: https://smartlink.ausha.co/dont-waste-water Full Article: https://dww.show/is-big-media-failing-us-or-are-we-failing-the-water-folks/ 👋 SOCIAL MEDIA 👋 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwwpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoineWalter7 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DontWasteWaterPodcast ➡️ Useful Links: Sciens Water: https://www.scienswater.com Circle of Blue: https://www.circleofblue.org/ ⬇️ In Today's Episode: 00:00 We Have a Water Problem 01:10 Big Media and Water Pros: Total Strangers? 02:06 Introducing: J. Carl Ganter (Circle of Blue) 04:52 How to better cover the Story of our Lifetime? 07:07 How to Personalize the Water Narrative? 08:21 The Heartbreaking Story of Pesticides in Nebraska 10:22 How to impress a Congressman on a Plane? 12:55 How to get water into local news? 14:39 What to learn from Matt Damon: The Movie Trailer Magic 15:56 The 6-Step Framework to Make your Story Stick 17:58 Sponsor: Sciens Water 19:13 What is Circle of Blue? 21:21 ConclusionHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

In a world saturated with content, what makes a good movie trailer stand out? The answer lies in a potent blend of psychology, novelty, and familiarity. Trailers like Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" and George Lucas's "Star Wars" have set the gold standard, employing a mix of well-known tropes and groundbreaking elements to captivate audiences. Marvel Studios has taken this to the next level, mastering the "novel yet familiar" approach and leveraging psychological principles like the Zeigarnik effect to leave audiences wanting more. And if trailers and teasers have proven to be a game-changer for dozens and dozens of movies, beyond the silver screen, the principles that make them compelling can be applied to our everyday storytelling, whether it's a business presentation, a social media post, or a pitch to a local journalist to "news hack" a Global Trend. By understanding the psychology and strategies behind successful movie trailers, we can craft narratives that not only capture attention but also sustain it, making our stories as unforgettable as the films they promote. And coincidence or not, if you've ever followed my advice and read the Worth of Water book by Gary White and Matt Damon - who should know one thing or two about movie trailers - the opening chapter exactly follows the 6-step framework that Phill Agnew lays out. Step 1 - Identify the Core Message That's the narrative we discussed with Carl minutes ago; in the example of the Water.org founders' book, that's the win-win-win perspective of achieving Water for all. Step 2 - Blend Novelty and Familiarity In theory, that's Star Wars combining the Hero's Journey with Space Opera. In the case of our book, that's a water charity, but combined with a bank and Nobel-prize-winning microcredit strategy. Step 3 - Cast for Impact Matt Damon, do I need to add anything here? Well actually yes, because it's not just the impact of a big name; it's also a blend of novelty and familiarity, as just explained. The well-known Matt Damon, but not cast as Jason Bourne but as an NGO founder with a high drive for impact. Step 4 - Craft the Narrative Arc Remember how Carl explained minutes ago how two pictures ended the Vietnam War? Or the heartbreaking story of the parents of the deceased football player in Nebraska? In Water.org's book, it's Matt Damon getting to know Wema along her long road to collect Water for her family. Step 5 - Zeigarnik Effect Don't close the action; let things open. That happens several times in Matt Damon and Gary White's story. But we had an even greater example with Carl's congressman story: when he says "I work in water security. And I leave it at that." the congressman can't resist the urge to get to know what happens next. Step 6 - Choose the Release Timing Wisely For the "Worth of Water" book, that was right in time to get people buzzing about it before the UN Water Conference, and guess who then got to feature in the opening segment of that Conference - probably also the only one worth watching? Along the same lines, that's word for word Carl's advice of picking the right story at the right time and constantly being on the lookout for planets aligning with that regard. So here you go, a bullet-proofed 6-step framework to get your local news reporter intrigued or to shed new light on your water innovation's impact. ➡️ Check out the entire article on how to finally build the Water NarrativeHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

👀 Think plastic straws are the ocean's worst enemy? Think again! The real culprit is hiding in plain sight—in your closet! In this eye-opening episode, we sit down with Adam Root, the CEO and founder of Matter, a game-changing company tackling microplastics at the source - i.e., the washing machine. Plus, we're diving deep into the facts, figures, and future solutions that could save our oceans. 🌊 🎙️ Featuring: Adam Root, CEO & Founder of Matter Hosted by Antoine Walter, your go-to water industry expert 📚 Topics Covered: 1️⃣ The Invisible Threat: What are Microplastics? 2️⃣ The Source: Your Washing Machine's Dirty Secret 3️⃣ Matter's Innovative Solutions: From Laundry to Legislation 4️⃣ The Global Impact: Legislation, R&D, and Education 5️⃣ Your Role: Simple Steps to Make a Difference 🔗 Links & Resources: Check out Matter's hardware filter, Gulp: https://gulp.online A big thank you to this episode's sponsor, Sciens Water: https://www.scienswater.com 👇 Why You Can't Miss This Episode: 📈 Investment Insights: Learn why tackling microplastics is not just an environmental need but a business opportunity. 🌍 Global Perspective: Understand the scale of microplastics pollution and what's being done globally. 🛠️ Tech Talk: Get the inside scoop on Matter's groundbreaking technology. 🎧 Also Available as a Podcast: Find this episode on your favorite podcast platform, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify 👉 Subscribe & Ring the Bell 🛎️: Don't miss out on our latest episodes, investment tips, and water industry deep dives. Subscribe and hit the notification bell now! 👇 Join the Conversation 👇 What are your thoughts on microplastics? Have you made any changes to reduce your microplastic footprint? Share your thoughts in the comments below! 🎙️ PODCAST 🎙️ Website: https://dww.show/podcast/ Smartlink: https://smartlink.ausha.co/dont-waste-water 👋 SOCIAL MEDIA 👋 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinewalter1/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwwpodcast/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/AntoineWalter7 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DontWasteWaterPodcastHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Tuija Pohjolainen-Hiltunen - President Industry and Water Segment at Kemira 💧 Kemira markets safe and sustainable chemistries that are part of a good life, ensuring hygiene, safe water, food safety, and more. What we covered: 🌍 How Kemira is revolutionizing water treatment with a purpose-driven approach to chemistry. 🤝 Why the power of partnerships is non-negotiable for Kemira's success. 💡 What sets Kemira apart: a relentless focus on innovation to solve real-world challenges. ♻️ Why Kemira is a game-changer in the circular economy, turning waste into valuable resources. 🔗 How Kemira's multi-faceted solutions go beyond just chemistry, incorporating digital tools and AI for optimization. 🎯 What makes Kemira a leader in customer-centric approaches, tackling new challenges as regulations evolve. 📈 How Kemira Beat the Odds: Navigating through COVID-19 and volatile markets to achieve impressive growth. 🌍 Why Global Reach Matters: Dominating Europe and North America while eyeing expansion in China. 🔬 What's ViviMag: Introducing new applications like phosphorus recovery and PFAS treatment. 🌿 How to Go Green: Transitioning from 60% virgin materials to bio-based alternatives. 🤖 Why ChemConnect is a Game-Changer: Leveraging predictive analytics and AI for smarter water treatment. 🚀 How Reliability Fuels Growth: Winning customer trust through consistent delivery, even in crises. 🎯 How Customer Needs Drive Innovation: Kemira's quest to replace fossil-based materials without compromising performance. 🤝 Why Partnerships Matter: Leveraging collaborations and a $500M growth accelerator to fuel bio-based product revenue by 2030. 🌿 What "Walking the Talk" Means: Moving beyond buzzwords to make concrete steps in sustainability and decarbonization. 📊 How Metrics Define Success: Aligning personal KPIs with business targets for a win-win outcome. 🌊 Why Water is the New Cool: Observing a surge in industry excitement and collaboration, especially in digital solutions. 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Have a look at Kemira's website 🔗 Come say hi to Tuija on Linkedin ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Kemira makes a $500 Million biobased bet ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

🌊 Welcome to a Water Experience Like No Other! 🌊 In this exclusive episode, we're diving deep into the world of water tasting with none other than Milin Patel, THE Water Sommelier. But this isn't just any tasting session; it's an experience that will elevate your understanding of H2O to new heights! 🗽 Where It All Happened 🗽 I had the incredible opportunity to meet Milin during New York's Climate Week, specifically at the "Rethinking Water" conference. This enlightening event was organized by the Columbia Climate School and Sciens Water, and let me tell you, it was a game-changer! 🙏 Special Thanks to Sciens Water 🙏 I owe a HUGE thank you to Sciens Water for inviting us to this transformative event. Your commitment to reimagining the future of water is nothing short of inspiring. I'm so honored to be a part of this journey with you. 🧠 Wanna learn more about Sciens Water? 🧠 Sciens is a fundamental research-driven investor that identifies pockets of opportunity in the water sector that benefit from long-term macro factors but are uncovered, under-researched, and misunderstood, and consequently under-capitalized by the capital markets. Sciens makes control investments in the U.S. water infrastructure and related companies where it can generate both yield and capital appreciation through the application of value-added strategies developed through over 25 years of private equity investment experience. ➡️ Check them out ➡️ https://scienswater.com/ 🥤 What's Inside 🥤 A comprehensive backstory to Milin Patel, the Water Sommelier The art and science of building vocabulary to elevate the Water Experience (especially from Tap) When to appreciate your tap water and when to open a fine water bottle Milin's top picks for the most exquisite waters you've never heard of ... And so much more! Come say hi to Milin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milionh20/Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Ann Perreault - Vice President for Strategic Marketing & Growth at Evoqua Water Technologies with 🎙️ Joshua Griffis - Director of Technology & Innovation at Evoqua Water Technologies 💧 Evoqua is a global leader in helping municipalities and industrial customers protect and improve the world's most fundamental natural resource: water What we covered: 💧 How net water positivity is the new gold standard, making a splash beyond just offsetting usage to actively generating more water. 🤝 Why strategic IP development safeguards the partnerships Evoqua is building in the industry, making it more than just a game of patents. 📈 What the real playbook behind Evoqua's acquisitions reveals: it's not just R&D expenditure but a broader, synergistic growth strategy. 🤝 How synergy supercharges tech: Joshua and Ann discuss that when two technologies collide, they often create something greater than their individual parts. 🎯 What every water business needs to grasp: Customer needs are like shifting sands, and understanding emerging trends and problems is key to hitting the target, says Ann. 📈 Why mergers and acquisitions aren't just Wall Street buzzwords: M&A is woven into Evoqua's strategy as a critical channel for forging significant partnerships, according to both interviewees. 🌍 How Evoqua's footprint is more global than you think: Contrary to popular belief, Ann implies Evoqua's global presence is often underestimated. 🔍 Why profitability is not an end but a means for Evoqua, enabling them to engage in ambitious, industry-shaping initiatives. 💡 How innovation is the new black: Ann emphasizes that sustainability isn't a sideshow; it's the main act, embedded at the core of impactful innovations. 🎯 Why "de-risking" is your new buzzword: Both speakers agree that helping companies "de-risk" by doing the heavy lifting on feasibility and validation can fast-track adoption. 🤔 What failing fast really means at Evoqua: If you're not failing, you're not learning—this mantra isn't just for startups; it's infiltrating the big players too. 📊 How the Product Vitality Index is your new KPI: Forget conventional metrics; Ann suggests that measuring where your revenue comes from in terms of innovation investment is where the future lies. 🎯 How customer insights aren't a one-and-done deal: Diving deep to truly understand customer problems can reveal the nuanced layers beneath. 🌍 Why location flexibility enriches talent pools: restricting staff to physical locations is yesterday's news, says Perreault, when a world of talent is just a Zoom call away. 📈 What scaling your operation really takes: The journey of scaling a function often throws more curveballs than you initially thought. 🌿 Why sustainability is more than a buzzword: it's about achieving homeostasis with your environment for the long haul, not just slapping a green label on things. 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Have a look at Evoqua's website 🔗 Come say hi to Ann on Linkedin 🔗 Then make sure to also connect with Joshua on Linkedin ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Evoqua applies Open Innovation ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Open Innovation is not the only link between last week's conversation with Max Storto from the Xylem Innovation Labs, and this week's deep dive with Ann and Joshua. Indeed, in just a minute, we'll delve into a paradigm-shifting model we touched on last week: Open Innovation. To ensure we have a common understanding of the term, Open Innovation fundamentally alters how companies think about their innovation process. If you remember my conversation with Glenn Vicevic from Veolia, he defined Open Innovation as Innovation that's not closed. We had a good laugh, still, it's true: the Idea is to break open the former R&D silos, to enter the age of porous boundaries and shading frontiers, where external ideas and technologies flow into the organization, and internal ideas flow out into the broader ecosystem. Long before this got to be a thing in the Water Sector, we've seen companies like Procter & Gamble, flipping their R&D approach to connect with external innovators. They sourced ideas from around the globe, leading to breakthroughs like the Swiffer. To take a more techie reference, consider how Apple's App Store empowers an army of developers to build upon iOS, creating value for both Apple and the broader user community. It's a win-win scenario, optimizing resources, and accelerating market-ready solutions. But why is this a pivotal discussion for the water sector? Open Innovation could be the key to unlocking new technologies, sustainable practices, and financial models that address pressing water issues - you know, the ones that just got evaluated as a multi-trillion dollars business opportunity by CDP - if you missed that one, go check my YouTube channel for more. But for you listening to this, why does all of that matter: well, companies that successfully adopt Open Innovation practices could leapfrog in growth and impact. They could be faster to ride trend waves, have a more efficient use of their capital, put technology adoption on steroids, and if you're a regular of this podcast, you know how that's the game changer. Hence if, for sure, everything can't be painted in pink, and silver bullets still don't exist, getting a glimpse of the way Evoqua leveraged open innovation strategies to inspire your own innovation approaches is quite a generous gift from Ann and Joshua, which really didn't hold back when it comes to sharing. You'll leave this episode understanding the vital metrics and benchmarks to assess Open Innovation opportunities, as well as actionable tips for investors, in-house strategists, and entrepreneurs keen to leverage this model before it becomes an industry norm. Remember, if you appreciate the value shared today and for free, you can help me out tremendously by sharing this episode with a friend, a colleague, your boss, or your team, if you're new here make sure to subscribe, I insist, it's entirely free, and it helps me to keep getting incredible guests on that microphone. Last word before we take off, if you're in New York on the 19th of September and you like free sharing of incredible water value, you may want to join the Rethinking Water Conference at the Forum at Columbia University, the link is in the description, and I'll be there the entire day to record some more interviews. Come share a recycled wastewater beer with me in the evening, and I'll meet you on the other side! ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Evoqua deployed Open Innovation to turn the tides!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ xStorto - Lead Innovation Analyst at Xylem Innovation Labs 💧 Xylem is one of the largest water and wastewater technology companies globally and follows the simple motto: "Let's solve water" What we covered: 🤝 How the Xylem Innovation Labs explore partnerships with early-stage technology providers to enhance offerings and improve portfolio stacks 🚀 What the main tracks within Xylem Innovation Lab entail, from the commercial accelerator focusing on client growth to the early-stage incubation program and open innovation ecosystem targeting specific water-related issues. ⚽ How Max likens his role in scouting potential technology providers to a talent scout in sports, seeking the most promising innovations that align with Xylem's capabilities and customer challenges. 🌍 What main challenges Xylem's customers face, such as decarbonizing the water sector, industrial treatment solutions, decentralized treatment, and addressing contaminants of emerging concern like PFAS and microplastics. 🌊 Why Xylem is looking into areas like digital workforce solutions and flooding issues, aiming to find innovative ways to address these significant concerns in the water management industry. 🎙️ How Max Storto's dynamic and multifaceted role at Xylem brings both planned goals and unexpected chaos into his daily life. 🗳️ Why political work with the Iowa Democratic Party led Max to engage in grassroots conversations, touching on critical water issues in both local and federal contexts. 🚰 How the state of water networks in the U.S., including boiling water notices, reflects challenges in infrastructure investment, public awareness, and income inequality. 📊 How Xylem Innovation Labs aggregates customer-facing team information, interprets data, and involves business units to prioritize decisions, fostering a united approach. 🚀 What makes Xylem's accelerator program unique: sourcing from grants, accelerators, internal recommendations, VCs, and conferences and inviting companies to apply, ensuring a focused approach to innovation. 🤝 Why Xylem's relationship-building with startups is key: no equity taken, a mutual NDA, building trust, and aiming for long-term commercial agreements to foster a truly collaborative partnership. 🚀 What distinguishes Xylem's process of carefully select from 3 to 400 invitations, leading to 40-50 applications for a handpicked 10-count accelerator cohort, ensuring alignment with innovation priorities. 🧠 How Max's role as a market analyst at Xylem intertwines with engineering teams, aiding in financial analysis and business case development for revenue projections. 🌍 What the Xylem Innovation Labs' role in global R&D is, including their part of the R&D package, and how they complement the company's existing product development efforts. 🌱 How innovation with impact at Xylem is characterized by a focus on sustainability metrics and diversity and their efforts in alleviating water challenges and reducing carbon footprints. 👔 Oxford Collar, Decentralized Work Environment, fostering long-term growth, mutual trust and partnership, commercialization over investment, selling solutions vs taking equity... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Max on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Xylem Innovation Website's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on Xylem's weirdest move ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Suggested episodes: 🚀 My interview with Sivan Zamir 🔋 My conversation with Austin Alexander 👔 My short catch up with Patrick Decker

Max Storto is Lead Innovation Analyst at the Xylem Innovation Labs. Xylem is one of the largest water and wastewater technology company globally and follows the simple motto: "Let's solve water" A bit more than one year ago, I invited Sivan Zamir on this microphone to discuss the Xylem Innovation Labs, Xylem's shiny, fascinating, and intriguing move into the start-up accelerator world. That has been a well-received episode but also one that sparked quite a lot of conversations. You know, Xylem is a listed behemoth; everybody is well aware that they have to make money! So when they mention that they will help water industry companies to 10x their customer base, that they will fund pilots with the Trial Reservoir and fund other water accelerators with, for instance, Imagine H2O, it not only raises an eyebrow but also generates a ton of questions. And usually a very logical deduction: of course, they will have a great positive impact on these companies' path, but they will also reward themselves by taking stakes and equity in these companies, hence turning a pretty straightforward positive return on investment. Now that's where it gets even more intriguing, because, in my process of getting a better understanding of the mechanics of the Xylem Innovation Labs with its scout, Max, I actually uncovered something we had not discussed at all with Sivan last year: Xylem doesn't take any equity in its incubated partners. Zero. And it doesn't stop there: they don't even expect these companies to be exclusive or tied to Xylem in anything beyond a simple NDA - which is merely more there to protect the start-ups than the water giant. So, for a layman like me, it's hard to get the strategic sense of that move. Until you shift your internal software and realize that what Xylem is pursuing with its Innovation Labs is not investment, it's R&D. And a bit like in a Google versus Apple approach you would see in tech, their bet here is that adopting an open innovation strategy, is actually the most impactful and the best use of their money for the water ecosystem, yes, because I believe Patrick Decker when he tells me he wants his company to have a positive impact, but also the best path to growth for Xylem itself! And a bit like the App or Play Stores have been great growth factors for Apple and Google, Xylem's future partnerships with the companies it strategically groomed may be significant commercial assets in a world of water challenges that are not getting easier or simpler. You'll see that this is just one of the many gems we uncovered while opening the hood and exploring the Xylem Innovation Labs engine with Max, Max who, by the way, has been an incredible sparring partner able to cope with great openness with my sometimes annoying wittiness, I had great fun to record this one, so I'll stop ranting and let you have great fun listening to it. ➡️ Check out the entire article on how to grow 10 wonder kids from 5 to 50 customersHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Alice Schmidt, MBA lecturer, Adviser to the European Commission, and non-profit organizations like Extinction Rebellion, Protect our Winters, and Chair of the Board of Endeva e.V. with 🎙️ Claudia Winkler, CEO, and co-founder of Goood Mobile, Europe's first B-Corp Certified telecom provider, and a Founding Partner of Adjacent Possible Network. 💧 Alice and Claudia had been with us for their first book "the Sustainability Puzzle," and are back for an in-depth exploration of the AI world and its potential impact on Societal Progress and a Sustainable Future. This is the topic of their second book: Fast Forward, written with Florian Schütz and Jeroen Dobbelaere. What we covered: 📚 How Alice and Claudia's "Sustainability Puzzle" hit the zeitgeist by guiding both sustainability newbies and experts through the multifaceted realm of eco-responsibility. 🔬 Why their new book, "Fast Forward," hones in on technology, one of the six puzzle pieces from their first book, to spotlight its transformative potential for sustainability. 🤖 What Claudia sees as the agnostic nature of technology and why Alice casts a skeptical eye on the good intentions behind big tech, 🎯 How both authors urge active participation in shaping AI's direction, suggesting that collective input could steer technology towards a more equitable and sustainable future. 🤖 How Alice and Claudia disagree on the role of tools like ChatGPT, revealing a tension between AI as a utilitarian augmenter versus a potential risk to trust. 🌐 Why both emphasize AI literacy, advocating for the masses to engage with tools like ChatGPT in order to make well-informed decisions. 🚀 Why ChatGPT's viral success is likened to the smartphone revolution, ushering in mass-market adoption of AI technologies and sparking important societal debates. 🎓 How Schools Aren't Necessarily the AI Saviors and What Lifelong Learning Means in the AI Age 🚨 How AI Could Be Its Own Worst Enemy and Why Big Tech Needs a Leash: 🤖 How AI's Multifaceted Analysis Outsmarts Human Limitations 💼 Why Regulations Don't Suffocate Innovation, They Guide It. 🤑 How Money Talks, Even for AI 🌱 Optimism in the AI-Ecology Nexus 🤖 How AI is personalizing Claudia's life and revolutionizing smart cities, making them more livable and sustainable. 🌊 What Tuvalu's digital twin reveals: a poignant, almost meta response to climate-induced existential threats that also sheds light on the term "ecological racism." 🎯 Why stepping into the AI world varies by individual: It's all about awareness, understanding the bigger picture, and leveraging a human-centered approach for universal benefit. 🗳️ How the democratization of AI and active participation in decision-making could be a marker for Alice Schmidt's vision of positive societal impact. 🤖 Why Technology is Finally Joining the Sustainability Conversation: Claudia is optimistic about the growing convergence between sustainability and technology agendas, indicating a maturing landscape. 📖 Claudia's 14-year-old son's ChatGPT book, Parents being the Unsung Heroes in AI Education, Neom as a double-sided sword, Betting big on Circularity, Playing the Long Game with Conferences... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 ➡️ Send your warm regards to Alice on LinkedIn ➡️ Then do the same with Claudia on LinkedIn as well ➡️ Get to know the two new brains that worked on "Fast Forward:" Jeroen and Florian ➡️ Check out the entire article on AI prompting a Sustainable Future ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected]

Here's the secret: I'm not a one-man band. Yes, I lied all that time. Did you really believe I could push a podcast interview out every week for 163 weeks in a row, all by myself? Of course not. The Don't Waste Water Corporation is a hefty team of 22. But here's the catch: I'm the only human. Let me introduce you to my crew. First, there's my editing manager, a robot called Descript. In his AI team, we've got the Scribe, which turns all my recordings into text. Pretty standard so far, but it becomes swiftly cooler with the Grammar Maniac. If I record this: "So, what's the uh, name of your book?" The Maniac identifies the filler words and gets them out of the way. In that same team, the Chopper chops out every word, and so if I were to say something as stupid as: Colmar is not the nicest place on earth, I just have to select the wrong word as you'd do in your text editor, and delete it. Job done! The work is then handed over to the Audio Engineer. Because sometimes a guest or me, may record on a poor microphone or noisy environment. And you certainly don't want to hear what a poor microphone or noisy environment sounds like. In more difficult cases I escalate it to Adobe Enhance Beta. And in last resort to iZotope's Neutron or Ozone Smart Assistants. Back to Descript: the Audio Engineer has a quite dangerous colleague I very seldom use, but if needs be, I can emulate any voices and have them say whatever I want. For instance, here are two sentences from Alice. Can you find out which one really belongs to today's interview? Now, this is for sure an audio podcast, but also a YouTube video. And would you like to watch me speaking if I avoided any eye contact with you? Well, if that was ever to happen, I'd be just one click away from having the rectifier bring back my eyes where they should be. Yes, that one is a bit scary. What if I lean back a bit too much in my chair and go out of focus? Topaz AI brings me back to sharpness. And what if I stumble? No wait. And what if I stumble? Not the right dynamic. And what if I stumble? Gling automatically picks my best take! Then, if I want to lure you into listening to a great interview, I can say it. But if I say it with subtitles, statistics say you're more likely to follow my advice. That's Captionator's job. And while I record horizontally, getting the word out is more efficient in Vertical mode - but nothing to worry Final Cut's AI always prompts my best profile. And if I don't have time to edit the best quotes myself, OpusClip does it for me! A cool episode needs a cool title: My ideas are not always top-notch thankfully, Coschedule loves to rate them and propose improvements. While YouTube requires me to provide at least a decent thumbnail to distribute my content, I often have a hard time finding a relevant picture or illustration to promote a water or lithium topic. In these cases, I ask MidJourney for a solid basis and Photoshop Beta for added context. Finally, while TrueSync, ColorLab AI, Insta 360 Studio, Leia Pix AI, and many I'm probably forgetting here have been sporadic members of the team but didn't stick in the long run, I've recently hired ChatGPT to compile the key episode highlights you'll find in the show notes and on the Don't Waste Water website. Last but not least, all my English copy is written in Grammarly, which detects that "English" should take a capital letter. Yes, I know, you don't hear my grammar mistakes, so why bother? Well, my prospective guests have to read my emails first, and you only have one chance to make a good first impression. Why do I tell you all of that? First don't worry, if you were to use any of these tools, I wouldn't get a cent. This wasn't an ad with extra steps. No, I'm telling you that to highlight one of the ideas Claudia and Alice develop in their new book: AI may be neither a threat nor a waste, but used right, a way to enhance humans.

with 🎙️ Paul Martin, Chemical process development expert & founder of Spitfire Research. 💧 Spitfire research is a Process development consulting company for a decarbonized future, where Paul acts as an antidote to marketing hopium and a tireless advocate for a fossil-fuel-free future. This episode is a section of my Hydrogen Deep Dive What we covered: 🧪 How the thermodynamics and fundamental properties of the Hydrogen molecule turn it into a false hope of decarbonization strategies 🌡️ How given the way it's produced, hydrogen actually is a decarbonization problem 🪶 How Goethe is right: hope's preferable to despair unless hope needs the laws of physics to stop applying ⚡ How the biggest problem with green hydrogen production is not its water impact but its energy consumption 🏭 How hydrogen barely moves today, and what that reveals about the difficulty of using it as a transportation fuel 😒 How producing small amounts of hydrogen from wastewater treatment plants is fully doable, yet barely desirable 🦘 How optimizing the production of green hydrogen requires very specific geographic properties, and where that applies 🌬️ How the World barely features half the renewable production capacity needed if we wanted to just switch from gray to green hydrogen 👃 How the Hydrogen economy may well be the false nose of Fossil Fuel Companies to keep striving in a decarbonized world 📈 How Turquoise hydrogen production makes a lot of sense, already today, but has a limited market potential for its byproducts. 🧑‍🔬 How turning Biogas into Hydrogen sounds like a very weird thing to do. 🔬 How electrolysis processes don't really allow to valorize the oxygen byproduct today, and why. 🚚 How Hydrogen is an amazing good and tool, just not to be wasted as a fuel 🌍 How the European Union and the UK daydream about Hydrogen, and how it may be a last resort solution for Japan and South Korea 🔋 How batteries are not perfect but have a clear path to scale 🏚️ How to be serious and earnest about decarbonization, states shall start with relevant policies 🍏 How we shall start with the low hanging fruit when putting hydrogen and decarbonization in the same equation 🦌 Canada tackling carbon taxes, CO2 prices as business enablers, Hydrogen promoters being useful idiots, Hydrogen as a sunk cost fallacy, Hopium... and more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 ➡️ Get the Full Story (including an infographic and full transcript) ➡️ Read Paul's best hydrogen articles ➡️ Contact BlueTech Research: [email protected] on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Saad Dara - CEO and Founder of Mangrove Lithium 💧 Mangrove Lithium produces battery-grade lithium hydroxide or carbonate from a wide array of raw sources What we covered: 🔄 How Mangrove Lithium, initially focusing on water treatment and desalination, found the ideal product-market fit within the lithium industry. ♻️ How the circularity of chemicals, environmental benefits, and potential for zero-emission processes play a crucial role in Mangrove's approach to lithium conversion. 🌀 How Saad Dara spun the company out in 2017, completing his PhD in 2020, and is on the path to commercialization, aiming to co-locate and operate systems with lithium production companies. 🚀 How the simplicity and flexibility of their operations sets them apart, with the ability to change feedstock and product quickly, offering more choices in a volatile lithium market. 🛠️ How their secret sauce lies not in membranes but in the cathode, providing unique value in energy consumption and purity, a major differentiator in the industry. 🔄 Why their approach appeals to both small and large producers, offering a standardized, modular system that fits various scales, potentially serving as a cooperative refining platform. 🌏 What makes them stand out in the global market is the possibility of bringing lithium refining to regions like North America and Europe, potentially altering the current China-dominated landscape. 🔋 How their technology could redefine the lithium market by being a perfect fit for cooperative refining, an innovative model that could support smaller players as they grow. 📐 How modularity in plant design allows flexibility, optimizing both CAPEX and OPEX, from 3000 to 15,000 tons per year, and the thoughtful combination of modules based on needs. 🤝 Why taking a holistic and consultative approach to the supply chain, working side by side with partners, leads to a more successful and optimized process. 🌋 What differentiates the company's electrochemical approach from other market players like Vulcan, and why their system is simpler and safer to operate. 📈 How focusing on demonstrating a 3000 tons per year system can remove market skepticism, and why operating at a commercially relevant scale and time period is crucial. 💡 Why strong backing by BMW iVentures and Breakthrough Energy Ventures highlights confidence and credibility in the company's innovative approach - and how Bill Gates is cool (ok, I'm the one adding this) 🤖 What makes Mangrove’s “boxes” unique and how they are working to prove their efficiency and effectiveness in real-world applications. 🎤 How the conversation unveils the company's vision, backing, synergies, and future plans, providing a multi-dimensional insight into the world of lithium processing and innovation. 🏢 How Lithium Valley emerged I coin a term for Vancouver's status as the lithium company capital, with a mystery Saad chalks up to community development. 🤝 What makes competitors collaborators: Saad discusses the complementary fit between Saltworks and Mangrove Lithium, shedding a competitive light on the cooperative spirit of the industry. 📈 How to get started with Mangrove Lithium 🎤 What makes the flexible model appealing: Saad explains Mangrove's customizable models for providing technology or production services, reflecting the company's adaptability in the growing lithium industry. ♻️ Why all lithium sources are vital 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Saad on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Mangrove Lithium's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Mangrove Lithium is a Jewel in Bill Gates' crown ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected]

Saad Dara is the CEO and Founder of Mangrove Lithium. Mangrove Lithium develops an innovative approach to Lithium Refining which is using electrochemical processes to reach battery grade from diverse raw sources. The decarbonization of our World oftentimes resembles a set of Russian Dolls. First, we needed electric cars, so the manufacturers started shifting their internal combustion lines to EV ones. Then, batteries were on the critical path, so the World frantically built Gigafactories. As a result, Lithium became the bottleneck, and over the next decade, we'll try to catch up. But in doing so, we may well bump into the next problem: missing chemicals. Don't roll your eyes too fast: I do know that Soda Ash, for instance, is pretty commonplace and shouldn't be an issue. Except if you are in the middle of the high Andes, and especially on the Argentinan side, where dozens of junior lithium companies are currently cutting their teeth. If you don't have enough Soda Ash, you can't refine your Lithium Chloride to Carbonate, and why is that a problem, well, that means you have to truck large volumes of concentrated brines away, and reach a place where chemicals are available. Not a big deal? Well, except if you compound in the absence of paved roads around most of the Salars that will enter into production in the next years, or simply the fact that bringing a truck up to an altitude of over 4'000 meters is not that easy. While I was up in Olaroz, Cachi, and Jama, I crossed two different trucks in two different places that had rolled over onto the side of the road. So again, I'd say, not a piece of cake. But if evaporation ponds are so efficient in the high Andes, it's, of course, thanks to widely available solar energy. Something energy companies start to leverage by installing solar farms. So what if it were possible to use that electrical energy right where it's produced, to refine the concentrated brines that evaporation ponds output into battery-grade carbonate or hydroxide? Well, some companies have started to explore that electrochemical road, and you would have guessed, that's where Mangrove Lithium is focusing. Their technology was born as a water treatment and desalination play, yet the ideal product-market fit seems to rather be in the lithium industry - once again, a proof of the high porosity between those two worlds. Let me avoid spoiling you all of my conversation with Saad Dara, but what I can already tell you is that we had good fun recording, I hope you'll enjoy it as well, if you do, please remember to take that episode and share it with a friend, a colleague, your boss or your team, wherever you're listening or watching that, make sure to like and subscribe, and I'll meet you on the other side! ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Mangrove Lithium is the Jewel in Bill Gates' crown on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Glenn Vicevic - CTO at Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions 💧 Veolia WTS provides Industry-leading water technology and process expertise to solve the toughest water, wastewater, and process challenges What we covered: 💦 Why the Membrane Filtration Sector is a Thrilling Space and What's to learn from its evolution across the past three decades 🏭 What it Takes to Drive Innovation in the Water Industry and what we can learn from A Peek Inside Veolia's R&D 💼 How Building a Career in Water Treatment Can Lead to Impactful Work, and what we learn from Glenn Vicevic's Journey from Zenon to Veolia through GE Water and SUEZ, all without switching company 🌍 Why The World Should be Paying More Attention to the Role of Water in Climate Change (and How) 🧑‍🔬 How Researchers are still Pushing the Boundaries in Membrane Science - and how the next big thing seems to revolve around MABRs 🚰 What Veolia's Smart Water System Teaches Us About the Future of Water Management 📈 Why Veolia's ‘Digital Twin’ Could Be a Game Changer for the Water Sector - and to which extent 💼 How Veolia's Organizational Structure is Setting It Up for Future Success - in the packed context of a long M&A history, especially on the once Zenon part of the business 🏞️ Why Zenon's Water Treatment Project in Indigenous Communities is an Unforgettable Experience 🚀 Glenn's special trick to Leap Out of His Comfort Zone to Drive Innovation at Veolia (and how you can apply this to your team TODAY) 📊 Why Traditional Wastewater Indicators May Not Be Enough in the Modern Age 🤝 How Collaboration and Communication are Vital for Success in the Water Sector: Lessons from Glenn Vicevic 👨‍💻 Remote Work, using your own medicine, micropollutants, micro-electronics, What Halloween and Water Treatment Have in Common, Stage and Gates, the high cost of failure as a Water Giant... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Glenn on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Veolia Water Technologies & Solutions' website ➡️ Check out the entire article on how the World's Largest Water Company fosters innovation ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Suggested episodes: 🚀 My interview with Glenn's first boss and founder of Zenon: Andrew Benedek 🔋 Glenn's colleague and Lithium Refining guru: Jim Rieke Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Glenn Vicevic s the CTO of Veolia Water Technologies and Solutions. Veolia WTS provides Industry-leading water technology and process expertise to solve the toughest water, wastewater, and process challenges. Innovation as a water start-up is an uphill battle. If you've ever listened to this podcast, we've covered that topic through many examples: you'll have to commit for years to decades to push your technology through, and it will require a lot of grit, persistence, confidence, and much more. To describe that Sisyphus-worthy path, we've often taken a few examples on that microphone that illustrate well this entrepreneurship journey, and arguably the n°1 example is Zenon's story. I guess we don't have to dive into the details here, because we did that extensively with the legendary Andrew Benedek, the founder of Zenon, when he was my guest about 15 months ago. But Andrew's trajectory is just one of the possible outcomes. Grow your company until it's almost too big to stand alone, exit, and use your well-earned money to start again and strive to save the World. Yet, when Zenon merged with GE Water, and Andrew Benedek went on to acquire Anaergia, Zenon's Technical Director stayed with the company, and kept growing with it, as it went on to merge with Suez and last but not least, Veolia. You would have guessed it, this former technical director is Glenn Vicevic, my guest today, and Veolia WTS's chief technical officer. And what's fascinating about today's conversation is that it gets us to understand the next part of a technological company's path. What do you have to do to stay on top of the game? How do innovation and R&D tick at a different pace and follow different rules once you're a water tech giant, compared to your early steps as an agile Start-Up. What's cooler than exploring the innovation engine of the World's largest water tech company? Let's find out, trust me, you'll get to love Glenn's openness and eagerness to share several nuggets. ➡️ Check out the entire article on how the World's Largest Water Company, Veolia, fosters innovationHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Andreas Müller - CEO at GF 💧 GF is a sustainability and innovation leader aiming to provide superior customer value across three Divisions enabling the safe transport of liquids and gases, lightweight casting components, and high-precision manufacturing technologies. What we covered: 🔍 How a 222-Year-Old Company Innovates the secrets of GF and its three divisions 🚗 Why Lithium Production Needs a Leap Frog, How GF is Helping and which solution comes with the best odds 🌎 What Sustainability Means for Lithium Production and EVs, and GF's perspective to that challenge 💡 How Old Unicorns Interact with Cool Kids: GF's Approach to Startup Collaboration, and what it Takes to Lead a two-century old corporation 🤝 Why the Future of Lithium Production Hinges on Symbiotic Relationships between the various actors in the value chain 🌟 How GF's Strategy Aims to Balance Profitability and Environmental Impact and Why People are at the Heart of GF's Success 💼 Why a 'Startup Spirit' is Crucial in Large Corporations and what lessons from GF you can apply in your own business 🎯 What the Key Success Factors in Direct Lithium Extraction Projects are and how one can influence those 💥 How you can Tackle the Challenge of 'Cultural Clash' with Startups by copying some of GF's tactics 🎢 Why 'Stopping' can be as Important as 'Starting' in a Business Journey - and how that's maybe the best business advice you will ever get 🌳 How we need to reinvent Sustainability in the industrial sector and how GF and others are leading the pack and showing the way 🔬 Why Ultra-Precision is the New Gold Standard in e-Mobility 🔄 How GF is Closing the Loop: From Water Reclamation to Non-Revenue Water 🚀 Why GF Believes Profitability and Sustainability are Two Sides of the Same Coin and how that translate in very concrete terms 🌍 Why Going Global is Essential in Today's Business Environment to have a substantial impact and how GF's experience and support can be game changers 📊 Why GF is Targeting Non-Revenue Water: A Look at the Future of Water Management and how GF's Clean Water Foundation is Changing Lives Across the Globe 🚀 The EV Revolution from a GF Piping Systems, Casting Solutions & Machining Solutions perspective, the Water Sector trends GF is watching out for, building a cool place to work, water scarcity as a powerful shaping for the Water Sector, what GF does to solve the pressing need for clean water in remote areas... and more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Andreas on LinkedIn 🔗 Check GF's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on GF, the 222 Year Old Start Up on the Don't Waste Water Website ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry 6 - Vulcan's Clever Strategy to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium: Sell it Years Ahead! 7 - How to Eradicate Dead Zones, Cut Energy Needs by 80% and Double Lithium Selectivity 8 - How Lithium Refining & Water as a Service spark Growth for a Family Business 9 - Sustainable Lithium Production Has an Overlooked 3rd Component 10 - The 5 Rules to a Successful Direct Lithium Extraction

Andreas Müller is the CEO of GF. GF is a sustainability and innovation leader aiming to provide superior customer value across three Divisions enabling the safe transport of liquids and gases, lightweight casting components, and high-precision manufacturing technologies. If you've listened to this Season 9 of the podcast, you've noticed how we covered the lithium and water nexus topic from a wide variety of angles. We've had the helicopter view with Tony Strobbe, the project developers' inputs with Robert Mintak, Christopher Brown, Cris Moreno, and Andy Robinson, and the technology stories with Teague Egan, Devesh Sharma, Ben Sparrow, Chris Wyres, and Jim Rieke. Spoiler alert, given the success of this season and the topics we covered, we will continue the exploration as one of the topics of the next ones, so stay tuned; I'm currently interviewing more fascinating companies, and as I'm recording this, I'm about to take off to Argentina partially for that. Still, there's one aspect we had not covered so far, despite regular hints across all the episodes. Direct Lithium Extraction is a high-flow high-stakes application. Evaporation Ponds involve a lot of water as well, and when it comes to lithium refining, be it from hard rock or evaporation ponds, you've got a sizeable bunch of waterish processes, which require to convey fluids, water, and chemicals. As a process person, that's the boring part. I know it; I'm a process person. Because what can a piping system do, right? Work smoothly, and then it gets zero praise; it just exists, and nobody cares. Or not work, being blocked, leaking, becoming a hazard, and a net loss, and then everybody's aware, and everybody is pissed. So I thought it might be worth looking into a piping system company's view on that lithium green field. To discuss how they're in to help, how, at what stage, and what they have to propose. Of course, I'm a little bit biased in that story, as I am working for a piping system company. But there's more than just pipes, fittings, valves, sensors, engineering, prefabrication and process automation in today's episode, as I reached out to the CEO of GF to come discuss all of that on my microphone, which means not only GF Piping Systems, but also Casting Solutions and Machining Solutions, which offers an interesting glimpse into the new Electric Vehicle vertical. ➡️ Check out the entire article on GF, the 222 Year Old Start Up on the Don't Waste Water Website Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Andy Robinson - President and COO of Standard Lithium 💧 Standard Lithium coins itself America's 21st century Lithium Company. They're expected to become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado What we covered: 🌊 How a bromine plant in Arkansas is being converted into a lithium extraction mine to create a revolution in lithium production 🔋 Why lithium plays an integral role in clean energy initiatives, powering everything from electric cars to grid storage 💡 What challenges are faced when extracting lithium from natural brine, and how innovative companies are overcoming them 🌍 How Standard Lithium is integrating sustainability into its lithium extraction process to make it more environmentally friendly ⚙️ Why Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) may become the preferred method in the lithium industry, potentially shaping the future of the sector 🚘 What role lithium plays in the electric vehicle revolution, and why is it indispensable for battery production 💰 How we can exploit the significant financial potential of lithium production, as hinted at by industry leaders like Elon Musk (which I may still have outsmarted) 🔄 Why a full disclosure of the entire flow sheet, from resource to end-product, is essential for building investor confidence in lithium extraction 📈 What the future of lithium demand looks like, and how production companies are preparing for a potential structural deficit of lithium chemicals 🌱 How the incorporation of carbon capture technology into lithium extraction processes reduces the environmental footprint and promotes a more sustainable industry 🧪 How continuous chemical processing redefines lithium extraction methods and raises industry standards 💼 What the key factors considered by Standard Lithium are when identifying potential lithium extraction sites 👥 Why stakeholder approval and local government permitting is crucial for the success of lithium extraction projects 🏭 How the use of existing infrastructure in Arkansas simplifies the permitting requirements for new lithium extraction plants 🛰️ What a day in the life of a lithium extraction plant looks like, and what's the path of lithium from entry to final product 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Andy on Linkedin 🔗 Check Standard Lithium's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on the 5 rules to a successful direct lithium extraction adventure on the Don't Waste Water Website ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry 6 - Vulcan's Clever Strategy to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium: Sell it Years Ahead! 7 - How to Eradicate Dead Zones, Cut Energy Needs by 80% and Double Lithium Selectivity 8 - How Lithium Refining & Water as a Service spark Growth for a Family Business 9 - Sustainable Lithium Production Has an Overlooked 3rd Component

Andy Robinson is the President and COO of Standard Lithium. Standard Lithium coins itself America's 21st century Lithium Company, and indeed, they shall become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado. It's now several weeks that we're exploring together the depth of the lithium World, and we've heard quite a lot of things about Direct Lithium Extraction, or DLE. For instance, we've heard from Cris Moreno, the very recently-appointed CEO of Vulcan Energy Resources how: DLE is already commercial and accounts for 10% of the World's Lithium. And yet, you've heard many of my other guests on that microphone discuss with me how DLE is not yet commercial, and might be the next big thing, assuming it gets to that commercial scale. So where's the truth? Well, everybody's right here. What Cris Moreno refers to is that in Argentina and China, companies have been using DLE as one step of the lithium extraction process while still leveraging evaporation ponds as a sequel step. What's still not reached yet, though, is a company or process that would be leveraging DLE and getting rid of evaporation ponds. And that is the game-changer that would unlock many more geographies and resources across the World, hence the legit excitement around it. Now, excitement often comes as well with wide-ranging creativity, and right now, the DLE scene is blessed with blossoming companies trying out a wide range of technologies, let's face it, it's also because of that, that the lithium field is so thrilling for a water nerd like me. But before further exploring these technical takes, I thought it would be worth following Ben Sparrow and Robert Mintak's advice and getting Andy Robinson on the microphone. Why so? Well, because if Standard Lithium is set to be the first company in the World to bring DLE to the commercial scale, without any evaporation ponds, it's probably because of him. As you'll hear in a minute, he won't admit it, and he'll refer to luck, as Robert Mintak did before him. But still, from picking the right place to go all-in on DLE, to testing out a bunch of processes from lab to demo-scale continuously over the past three years, to the next steps on the horizon from lithium carbonate to hydroxide conversion and to carbon capture, it takes a sound methodology, and a cool head approach, which can probably inspire many in that field. So without further due, let me leave the floor to Andy, to explore his 5-step rule for a good lithium project and learn from his learnings in El Dorado. ➡️ Check out the entire article on the 5 rules to a successful direct lithium extraction adventure on the Don't Waste Water WebsiteHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

🥗 Welcome to my garden, a lush green oasis thriving on an unexpected secret - human urine! In this video, I reveal my secret weapon for growing the greenest of gardens - Aurin, a fertilizer commercialized by VUNA, an Eawag start-up and derived from human urine. ♻️ Let's delve into why this natural nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium source is perfect for all gardeners. (🚽 ...and let's explore the link between our toilets and our gardens and how redesigning one can revolutionize the other.) Does the nutrient cycle in your garden mean that soil becomes poorer over time? That's our lucky day: our body evacuates essential nutrients through pee and poo, let's recycle them back into our gardens! We'll swiftly look at the fascinating history of human waste as fertilizer, its benefits, and its drawbacks. And, of course, learn about Aurin, a safe and efficient fertilizer produced by Vuna, an EAWAG spin-off. 🚾 I'll explain how urine-based fertilizers are an excellent example of a circular economy done right, making you an environmental superhero while feeding your strawberries. We'll also discuss feces management and how it differs from urine treatment. Finally, we'll look at how clever toilet design can separate urine from feces, enabling us to start our liquid fertilizer production journey. Join me in this exploration of sustainable gardening. Let's feed our gardens, not just our bodies, and turn our waste into wealth. (this is not a sponsored video by any means, but hey, Vuna, if you want to sponsor me in the future... 😉) #Aurin #SustainableGardening #CircularEconomy #greenrevolution 00:00 The Secret of my Garden 00:13 An urine-based fertilizer 00:32 The rich content of human urine 01:29 Pay your Groceries with Urine! 01:50 Fertilizers feed the World 02:19 This is actually nothing new 02:55 Is it dangerous? 03:19 How is it made? 03:36 Archaic or Forward-Looking? 04:10 And what about the feces? 04:56 Shall we redesign our toilets? 05:42 Where to start your Circular Economy Journey? 06:15 And what about the energy trapped in Wastewater?Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Are America’s water pipes broken? For millions of citizens across the country, it may seem so. The well-documented examples of Flint, Jackson, New Orleans, or Baltimore may well seem alarming. But in fact, they are just the tip of an iceberg that reveals more every day. The Water Crisis in America is not looming: it’s already there. Over the past year, I met with 20 subject matter experts to not only identify the problems but also come up with solutions. From academics to investors through politicians, water industry leaders, influencers, and NGOs, I spent months interviewing them, recouping their inputs, synthesizing their thoughts, connecting them to existing research, and enhancing it with dozens more insights I’ve collected over the years. The result is: 🎙️ The Full Synthesis you'll find here 📽️ This same piece in a monumental video piece right here 😮 The massive infographic – or cartoon – you'll find for free on the (don't) Waste Water website. None of this was free to make, for sure, but it will be free for you to listen, watch, read, digest, and share forever. All I ask, if you find it of interest, is to spread the word! Share it on your social media, link to it from your websites, or recommend it to your colleagues and friends. Thanks for your help!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Christopher Brown - CEO at Helios Corporation 💧 Helios acknowledges that the World's current trajectory is unsustainable and focuses its expertise in Energy, Power, Biomass, Capital Markets, and the latest environmental technology to achieve more, using less. What we covered: 💡 How geothermal energy can revolutionize lithium extraction and how it may actually do it ⚡️ Why the future of lithium production is tied to reducing carbon intensity and the secrets behind low-carbon lithium extraction 🌎 What the key to sustainable lithium mining is and how HeliosX is bridging the gap with eco-friendly practices 📈 How to invest wisely in the thriving critical minerals industry while still not being investment advice (hey, this is a podcast!) 🧪 How DLE technologies are reshaping the lithium extraction landscape and how groundbreaking lab experiments can give us a glimpse of the future 🚀 How long it takes from lab to commercial production, and the timeline to make lithium extraction profitable 🔋 How lithium extraction can and shall be both profitable and environmentally friendly 🌱 Green goals vs. economic reality: the real cost of an accelerated EV program and its challenges for the electrical grid. 🔄 Scaling up lithium extraction: How can companies transition from lab success to field operations? Let's break down the logical steps 🤝 Collaboration in the critical minerals industry: the ideal partners for driving positive change and their shared philosophies. 🌍 Impact metrics that matter: how to contribute to economic development and low carbon intensity while integrating the human dimension 💰 Investing in critical minerals and the associated risk, the winning formula to sustainable mining, how revolutionizing battery production is a race, the next big thing, first nations, zooming out before we zoom in… and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Christopher on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Helios Corporation's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on How Sustainable Lithium Production Has an Overlooked 3rd Component on the Don't Waste Water Website ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry 6 - Vulcan's Clever Strategy to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium: Sell it Years Ahead! 7 - How to Eradicate Dead Zones, Cut Energy Needs by 80% and Double Lithium Selectivity 8 - How Lithium Refining & Water as a Service spark Growth for a Family Business

Christopher Brown is the CEO and co-founder of Helios Corporation. Helios acknowledges that the World's current trajectory is unsustainable and focuses its expertise in Energy, Power, Biomass, Capital Markets, and the latest environmental technology to achieve more, using less. Over the past episodes, we've discussed why we need more lithium, where to find new sources, and how to unlock them from a technical standpoint. We've discussed fascinating projects and drawn a line toward a more sustainable future for the decade to come. But sustainability isn't only environmental and financial impact; it's also the human dimension. And even when lithium is literally found in deserts, those places still belong to someone and to a culture, and they historically had a role and use that wasn't lithium extraction for several centuries. That is true wherever you are on earth, from South America's first nations to Canada ones, through local communities in all the places where unconventional sources of lithium are to be mined in the future. Everything in life can be done against someone else or instead in concertation. And to that extent, what we discuss with Christopher today offers a framework for comprehension, best practices, and way forwards. As I mentioned in my intro, when Helios acknowledges that the World's trajectory is unsustainable, it's also important to ensure that the remedy is better than the plague. So sustainability is a keyword, for sure, and an ambitious one. From Argentina to Canada through the US, today's exploration is one of the deepest we've had in this mini-series, and I'm really thankful to Christopher for the incredible openness he demonstrated and the great pedagogy you'll get to experience in just a second. Right before that, let me remind you that if you like what you hear, you can help others benefit from it by sharing this episode with a friend, a colleague, your boss, or your team, thank you from the bottom of my heart, and I'll meet you on the other side! ➡️ Check out the entire article on How Sustainable Lithium Production Has an Overlooked 3rd Component on the Don't Waste Water WebsiteHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Devesh Sharma - CEO at Aquatech 💧 Aquatech helps the world's most recognized companies solve important water challenges such as lithium refining, desalination or food and beverage. What we covered: 💡 How Aquatech is a Private Powerhouse in Industrial Water Treatment You Need to Know About 🏗️ How Aquatech delivers complex projects and how they tackle challenges in remote locations 🌟 Why Being the Best Matters More Than Being the Biggest: Aquatech's Winning Philosophy 🤝 How Aquatech and Ecolab Join Forces in a Strategic Partnership and how the company maintains a balance as a middle-sized global player 📈 Impact Metrics Unveiled: Aquatech's CEO Shares the Key to Their Success 🌍 Energy Transition and Green Revolution: How Aquatech is Shaping the Future, and how that involves lithium endeavors 🏭 How Aquatech won North America's most-awaited lithium refining contract at Thacker Pass and how they won Lithium America's confidence on the way 🎯 Planning for Success the Company's Short to Medium-Term Goals 🚀 Game-Changing Projects: From Trash to Jet Fuel - Aquatech's Mind-Blowing Endeavors 💧 Water Technology-as-a-Service: The Future is Here, and Aquatech Leads the Way 🔮 How Reuse and Digital Revolution might be The Next Big Trends in Water 💬 Aquatech's Secrets to Effective Communication and Recruitment, and how you could Join the Aquatech Family - exciting endeavors ahead? 💰 The importance of in-person connections, multitasking overload, ensuring modularity, creating memorable moments for employees - that feel like family, identifying the right growth opportunities, measuring impact... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Devesh on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Aquatech's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on How Lithium Refining & Water as a Service spark growth for a Family Business on the Don't Waste Water Website ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry 6 - Vulcan's Clever Strategy to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium: Sell it Years Ahead! 7 - How to Eradicate Dead Zones, Cut Energy Needs by 80% and Double Lithium Selectivity Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Devesh Sharma is the CEO of Aquatech. Aquatech helps the world's most recognized companies solve important water challenges. There's a fine line between risk-taking and putting all you have at stake, between perseverance and obstinacy, and between grit and recklessness. And it's only when the dust settles that you'll know on which side of the line the ball decided to fall. When I started my career in the water industry, veterans were telling me: keep your fingers off the industrial market. It's a "who's the cheapest" game, and they're so short-term-minded that it's depressing. Yet, at the same time, these veterans opted out of the industrial game; Aquatech was created as an almost pure-play dedicated to that very specific end of the market. Risk-taking or putting all you have at stake? A couple of decades later, and long before it was hype, that same Aquatech ventured into Water as a Service to speed up the adoption of its technologies. Perseverance or obstinacy? And while the world of Water consolidates in a fashion we've probably never experienced before, Aquatech trusts it can keep growing and build its path as a private, family company. Grit or recklessness? Well, I don't have all the answers, but what I can tell is that as the dust settles, the industrial end of the Water Market is the one thriving right now, as it's faced with the hottest challenges ever, which in turn generate new opportunities. And as Devesh will explain in a minute, 30% of Aquatech's revenue today comes from its Water as a Service; said differently, they have a 30% - probably high-margin - annual recurring revenue with a plan to expand it to 50%. That's a ratio that kind of turns a hardware company into a software/tech type of play. And with that mix, Water suddenly becomes a much more scalable business - as we've seen with Gradiant recently turning into the water sector's first unicorn. Well, Gradiant and Aquatech are certainly not the same, but they have similarities in the technologies they develop and the markets they serve. And Gradiant claimed its unicorn status, thanks to a 225 million dollar series D raised at that billion-dollar valuation. I'm throwing Gradiant in the discussion here because we're debating the possible next steps for Aquatech with Devesh today. And my napkin calculations and estimates indicate to me that Aquatech is probably already a unicorn, given its revenue mix, proprietary technology, and turnover somewhat double of Gradiant's. Take it with a pinch of salt; none of these companies are public, so it's pure guestimates. Now, I mention dust settling, and I'm using that metaphor on purpose. Because Aquatech was chosen by Lithium Americas to build the lithium refinery at its upcoming Thacker Pass lithium mine, which is extracting this "While Oil" from clay, so settled dust. And Aquatech has the perfect portfolio to take on this 2020s challenge because it tripled down on industrial water and zero liquid discharge since the 1980s - something we'll dive into much deeper with Devesh in today's conversation. Finally, I think Aquatech's story is inspirational on many more levels. It's also the tale of a family business, taken to its today's shape and successes by two brothers that were respectively 24 and 14 when they took over. So let me avoid spoiling everything, and leave the floor to Devesh, just after reminding you that if you like what you hear, please take this episode and share it with a friend, a colleague, your boss, or your team, and also don't forget to subscribe. ➡️ Check out the entire article on How Lithium Refining & Water as a Service spark growth for a Family Business on the Don't Waste Water WebsiteHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Over the past months, Thames Water: - announced a £1 Billion loss - received a £51 Million fine - kept serving 15 million customers - let raw sewage spill for 75'000 hours - piled up £14 Billion in debt - lost 10'500'000 wheelbarrows of water - lost its CEO How concerning is all of this for UK's largest water company? Let's review! 00:00 Thames Water is in Troubled Water 00:21 Thames Water got fined for repeated failure 01:11 Thames Water's n°1 Problem 01:41 The history of the UK Water scene 02:08 Is Water a License to Print Money? 02:57 Thames Water's owmership history 03:54 Why so much debt? 04:43 Thames Water's infrastructure is in bad shape 06:05 the Thames Water investment paradox 07:38 What's next for Thames Water? 08:27 What's to learn from Thames Water's trouble? ▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Chris Wyres - CEO at Evove 💧 Evove aims to take membranes to the next level, overcoming the inherent flaws in conventional architectures, hence transforming membranes, transforming separation, and filtration. What we covered: 🥇 How G2O Water Technologies was founded around the use of graphene to coat membranes, how that was game-changing by itself and how Evove still took it to the next level 🗝️ What the problem with incumbent membrane technologies is, and how Evove's technology aims to correct it 🆙 How Evove's technologies multiply a membrane's specific surface by three, reduce energy consumptions up to 80%, improve desalination's yield by 30% and double the membrane's selectivity 🖨️ How 3D-printed membranes at scale may disrupt the world of membrane filtration as we know it, and how they may unlock localized manufacturing 0️⃣ How producing lithium and green hydrogen is a great thing to do, but if it comes at the expense of heavy carbon and environmental impacts, it doesn't make sense 🚏 How Evove went down a different path than other companies developing graphene membranes and why 💪 How the company picks applications where existing tech struggle to leverage their specific edge 🕸️ How in the case of direct lithium extraction in particular, Evove's superior selectivity is an asset to sort out white oil from calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and all other salts ↔️ How Evove didn't "just" design a lithium-catered membrane, but an entire end-to-end solution for effective production of lithium carbonate 📏 How the company tailors its solution to every specific case, within 30 days, and supporting its customers end to end 🦄 How Evove intends to become the water sector's first unicorn (well, second to Gradiant, but still, that's a bright and bold ambition!) 💰 Precision engineering membrane pore size, preventing fouling and scaling, revamping the direct lithium extraction process train, Evove's business strategy, sub-sea desalination as a way to power green hydrogen, speeding up the pace of innovation adoption, advocating for increased capital focus on the water sector... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Chris on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Evove's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on How Evove precision engineers its membranes (and contributes to a disruption) on the Don't Waste Water Website ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry 6 - Vulcan's Clever Strategy to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium: Sell it Years Ahead! Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Chris Wyres is the CEO of Evove. Evove aims to take membranes to the next level, overcoming the inherent flaws in conventional architectures, hence transforming membranes, transforming separation, and filtration. In the middle of the 19th century, a Belgian inventor, Adolphe Sax, conceived what's known today as the saxophone, which is today the fourth most popular instrument, just behind the piano, the guitar, and the bass. Yet, it wasn't Sax's only invention, as he also conceived Saxtrombas, Saxtubas, considerably improved the bass clarinet and invented the Saxhorns that also still somewhat live today. Yet, have you ever heard of the Ophicleide? Or of the serpent? I could keep naming many more less successful instruments, and if you want to get an anthology of all of them, look up an original score from Mendelssohn or Berlioz: Romantic era composers really leveraged that wave of new ways to produce all kinds of sounds. Each of these inventions addressed specific needs, but not all overcame their flaws or found a clear use case, like the saxophones with the military orchestras. And so, only a few stood the test of time. To me, the membrane world today resembles a lot of the mid-19th century orchestras. It's tingling with incredible ideas, new takes, new materials, radical approaches, and blooming innovation. We've addressed several of them on that microphone, from Membrion's ceramic ion exchanging membranes to Zwitterco's zwitterionic material, through Cembrane, LiqTech, a membrane anthology with Graeme Pearce, or the history of MBRs with Andrew Benedek. But with the boom in membrane applications, there are also new needs, new challenges, and new markets to address, which keeps incentivizing and rewarding innovation and differentiated approaches. Evove actually ticks all these boxes. They're actively developing new application fields, such as lithium extraction or green hydrogen production while building the rocket on the go with their Enhance and Separonics product lines. They're also bringing new perks to membrane applications in desalination or food and beverage. And they're inventing a new type of company: decentralized, finely adapted to each vertical, and frankly ambitious: "We want to be the Water Sector's first Unicorn!" I won't spoil you too much of what Chris very openly shares in today's interview, don't worry; I'll leave him the floor just after reminding you that if you like what you hear, if this is of any value to you, please take that episode and share it with a friend, a colleague, your boss or your team. Thanks a lot to all the ones I see doing it every week; that's heartwarming to me. Is Evove a saxophone or an Ophicleide? Time will tell, but you can build an Idea for yourself by listening to the full episode! ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Vulcan enabled its Zero Carbon Lithium project by selling its products years ahead, including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

According to the US Government, the Salton Sea could produce up to 600'000 tons of Lithium per year, which at today's spot price would be worth $26 Billion a year. For a Sea that's turning into a chemically polluted swamp, that's an unexpected twist of fate! Especially when it doubles down to being a pretty green way to produce that lithium, as direct lithium extraction technologies would co-locate with geothermal energy production. But wait: isn't that too good to be true? Aren't Berkshire Hattaway, Controlled Thermal Resources, and Energy Source Minerals struggling a bit to unlock that resource? Didn't Simbol Materials actually... die on that spot as a company in that endeavor? Well, it seems like Salton Sea lithium projects are about to seriously accelerate, as Controlled Thermal Resources just announced a $1 billion contract with Aquatech International to build the Lithium Refinery the site will need to reach battery-grade products for their customers, Stellantis and General Motors. Let's cut through the fog and review this aspiring Salton Sea miracle! More information: Vulcan's Project in Germany: https://dww.show/vulcans-clever-strategy-to-take-off-its-zero-carbon-lithium-sell-it-years-ahead/ The mysterious company that may well work with Berkshire Hattaway at the Salton Sea (my pure speculation): https://dww.show/the-game-changing-company-with-60-patents-thats-disrupting-the-battery-industry/ ▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Cris Moreno - Deputy CEO at Vulcan Energy Resources 💧 Vulcan aims to decarbonize the transition to electric mobility through its world-first Zero Carbon Lithium Projects for electric vehicle batteries and its renewable energy business. What we covered: 🥇 How Vulcan aims to become the world's first integrated lithium chemicals company while also producing renewable energy... 0️⃣ ... and how they do all of this with net zero greenhouse emissions and without using any fossil fuels in their process 🔁 How Vulcan's Zero Carbon Lithium projects feature a 24'000 t/y first stage and what might be the next ones 💰 How Vulcan leapfrogged its path by acquiring an existing geothermal power plant in Hinsheim, Germany 👨‍🔬 How the company tested various Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) methodologies to end up developing a proprietary sorption process 🇪🇺 How this sorption material belongs to the Dow / Dupont / FMC / Livent family, but with the added touch that it's made in Europe 🌊 How Vulcan desorbs it with fresh water, and how water availability is one of the perks of producing in the Upper Rhine Valley 🤑 How the company plans an 84% EBITDA on its Zero Carbon Lithium product, despite a forecasted lithium price way below the current spot 🚗 How, to whom, and under which conditions Vulcan sold its Zero Carbon Lithium product to battery and car manufacturers years ahead of actually producing it 🏗️ How 2023 shall be pivotal for Vulcan to transform from a development company into an actual production company 📈 How the Company has €120 Million in its bank account... and actively looks to increase its financing in order to cover for the first phase of the project 🫰 How the Upper Rhine Valley is Europe's largest lithium resource, and a globally relevant one and how CAPEX might be the only thing to slow it down to cover for the entirety of Europe's lithium needs 🛢️ How DLE combined with geothermal energy production might be seen as a complex mining project... or as a very easy oil and gas one! 📅 Kicking off production in 2025, producing renewable power & heat, next projects in the Upper Rhine Valley - and on the French side, building the right team to execute the project, kicking off the commercial scale in Q3 2023... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Cris on LinkedIn 🔗 Check Vulcan's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on How Vulcan plans to take off its Zero Carbon Lithium assets in the Upper Rhine Valley ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert 5 - The Game-Changing Company with 60 Patents That's Disrupting the Battery Industry Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Cris Moreno is Deputy CEO at Vulcan Energy Resources. Vulcan aims to decarbonize the transition to electric mobility through its world-first Zero Carbon Lithium™ Project for electric vehicle batteries and its renewable energy business. This exploration of the Lithium World has taken me far from home. Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, Argentina, Bolivia, UK... But one of the most exciting projects in this new wave actually happens to be a dozen kilometers away from where I cut my wastewater engineering teeth, and Vulcan, the project developer, just signed an off-take agreement with a car factory I can see if I climb up my village's hill. And this makes sense for a ton of reasons! First, the Rhine Valley used to be a Salt Flat, exactly like the Atacama Desert nowadays, and this was just 35 million years ago. So on the geological scale of things, it makes sense. Then, it is a geothermal region, and Germany actively pushes to add more geothermal plants to its energy mix, which means thousands of cubic meters of water that are pumped from that lithium-rich aquifer anyways, which allows you to emulate the example we heard from Standard Lithium, piggy-backing on Lanxess' Bromine business. But maybe most importantly, Europe is actively building about 30 battery gigafactories. And that's a staple in the zero-carbon transition of mobility! But to feed those factories, Europe will need lithium at some point. Today, 97% of that lithium is imported from China. And with China's own plans to further build up the battery value chain, they may well use all their lithium themselves, which would leave Europe without any white oil. So Vulcan's endeavors in the Upper Rhine Valley, today on the German side and anytime soon on the French side, would not only be one of the largest lithium projects in the World. But from 2026 on, it might also be Europe's EV strategy lifeline - as long as I'm not fully up to speed with my own backyard project. So what's Vulcan's plan to a - quote unquote - "Glorified Water Processing Facility" able to deliver 24'000 tons of lithium hydroxide in its first phase, but also 300 GWh of renewable power and 250 GWh of renewable heat? Cris will be our guide, just after this reminder that if you like what you hear, if all of this is of any value to you, please take this episode and share it with a friend, a colleague, your boss, or your team, and I'll meet you on the other side! ➡️ Check out the entire article on how Vulcan enabled its Zero Carbon Lithium project by selling its products years ahead, including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Teague Egan - CEO & Founder of EnergyX 💧 EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the global transition to sustainable energy What we covered: 🌵 How the story of EnergyX started in the salt flats of Uyuni with Teague Egan's initiatory journey to Bolivia 🗓️ How EnergyX has a masterplan and how this one goes beyond "just" supplying lithium extraction technology to the World 🔒 How the company's claims of a disruptive approach to direct lithium extraction are backed by an impressive amount of patents all along the value chain ☀️ What the problem with existing lithium evaporation ponds is, and how that offers significant potential for improvement for new technologies 📜 How lithium-ion battery legend and Nobel Prize recipient John Goodenough endorsed EnergyX's efforts in the battery space and how the company breeds his legacy 4️⃣ The four key aspects to consider when working on a lithium extraction process 🚱 How EnergyX's take at Direct Lithium Extraction needs water neither on the membrane nor on the solvent extraction side 🛑 How the company got kicked out of Bolivia's lithium tender for questionable reasons, and how they might come back in the game given their unique technological perks 🚼 How pure end-to-end DLE probably is the future of lithium extraction, but how DLE enhanced ponds are the best hybrid for a smooth transition 💰 How Global Emerging Markets Group placed a $450 million check on the table for the day EnergyX goes public, what it enables, and what it involves 🚀 How you scale a lithium extraction approach from pilot to demo and ultimately down the road to commercial-scale applications 👨‍🔬 EnergyX's Edisonian approach, the special sauce to the company's lithium extraction process, the lowest permissible lithium concentration for their technology (and why it's different than their competition), the company's bet as to the place where it will go full-scale first... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Teague on LinkedIn 🔗 Check EnergyX's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on How the Lithium King and his 60 Patent-Company may well disrupt the Battery Industry ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Teague Egan is the CEO and Founder of EnergyX. EnergyX is on a mission to become a worldwide leader in the global transition to sustainable energy with breakthrough direct lithium extraction and refinery technologies, as well as more effective battery and energy storage solutions. Imagine you're listening to "The End" - the famous hit of The Doors. You vaguely remember there's something pressing on your to-do list, but hey, who can resist the captivating voice of Jim Morrisson, right? 11'44 passes by, and you return to that to-do list. What's on top? Oh yeah, submit that folder for Bolivia's Direct Lithium Extraction tender. But... 11'44 was 1'44 too long, and time is over; you're out. Kind of bitter, right? I obviously romanticized the anecdote, and I don't know if Teague is a fan of The Doors, yet one part of that story is true: EnergyX got kicked off of Bolivia's DLE tender for submitting 10 minutes late. I wouldn't allow myself to joke about it if Teague wasn't seeing the positives in it: EnergyX leverages 60 patents across the lithium value chain, and they've leveraged Bolivia and Uyuni as a great proof of concept! Their technology suit stands the field test, and they're able to produce lithium in a country that maybe boasts the World's largest lithium reserves, but also a quite demanding 25 to 1 magnesium to lithium ratio that defeated many challengers in that race to get Bolivia's white oil off the ground. In today's conversation, you'll get to explore how a Direct Lithium Extraction pure player builds its path to a future EV supply chain vertical, how there may be bumps on the road, but also how exciting it is to move an Idea from the lab to a pilot then a demonstration stage and down the line, a first commercial reference. You'll hear of the lithium godfather and Nobel Prize recipient, John Goodenough, which is the second Nobel Prize winner we get to hear in this lithium series after Barry Sharpless that collaborated with Standard Lithium; you'll understand how an investment fund committed 450 million dollars on EnergyX and how Teague won his crown as Shale Magazine named him the Lithium King. ➡️ Check out the entire article on how the Lithium King got 60 patents for its battery vertical pure player, including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Jim Rieke - VP of Process Engineering at Veolia Water Technologies 💧 Veolia Water Technologies specializes in water treatment solutions while providing a complete range of services for industrial & public authorities What we covered: 👷 How HPD onboards all its hires through its service and commissioning groups and how that's the best learning experience to Veolia Water Technologies' portfolio 🤝 How the milestone Naraha Lithium Refinery reference started through a collaboration between Orocobre (now, Allkem) and HPD and what was the step by step road to success 🚢 What's the magic that turns Lithium Carbonate in South America into Lithium Hydroxide Monohydrate in Japan 🧩 How there might be standard building blocks but how every lithium carbonate is slightly different and hence requires a tailor-made lithium refining process 🏭 Where do impurities appear in a lithium refinery process and how to remove them to guarantee a battery-grade output 🧰 How extracting lithium from clay is still a very new process and what it changes in the lithium refinery set up 🛠️ How Veolia Water Technologies' holistic approach is a key differentiator in the development of a lithium refinery 🌍 How geopolitics and government incentives play a role in the economics of a lithium refinery 👰 How the newly wed SUEZ and Veolia offer an even broader portfolio of complimentary technologies to better serve the lithium market 📈 How DLE "suddenly" makes much more lithium available and how HPD's lithium refinery process copes with the source's specificities ♻️ How batter-grade lithium is just one of the outputs of a lithium refinery: Veolia Water Technologies' expertise also allows to valorize several more by-products along the way 💰 How Veolia Water Technologies' involvement in projects can help get junior lithium companies get financed as a valuable reference partner 🗺️ Building a Lithium Refinery step by step; leaching, evaporation, crystallization, ion exchange: the lithium refinery keywords; lithium refining in the broader scheme of the EV battery vertical; turning sodium sulfate into sodium hydroxide and sulfuric acid; empowering circularity... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Jim on Linkedin 🔗 Check Veolia's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado)Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Jim RIeke is Vice President of Process Engineering at Veolia Water Technologies. Within the Veolia Galaxy, we focus today on HPD: Large-scale, highly-integrated process solutions utilizing evaporation, crystallization, and more. If you recall what Tony Strobbe shared on this microphone a couple of weeks ago: "if you ship spodumene concentrate across the ocean, you ship 6% what you want, and 94% what you don't want." 6% is the highest you will get in lithium from hard rock, after onsite concentration from the natural 1.5% lithium content in the best spodumenes. To get to the battery grade 99.95%, you hence need to refine that lithium, a quite specific and key process along the EV material supply chain, in which HPD specializes - in a way Jim will explain in a minute. That said specialization doesn't stop at lithium from hard rock, though, as we'll discover with use cases from clay, Direct Lithium Extraction, and maybe the most spectacular example, with Veolia's latest reference in refining lithium from evaporation ponds. The way these projects are built is quite revealing of the pace of this sector as well, as Jim will describe how it can sometimes take up to seven years to freeze the process design. It's also a fascinating blueprint for circular economy and resource recovery, as by-products can be upcycled and sometimes even directly used again in the refining process. From a business perspective, it's also an interesting configuration at the edges of the traditional EPC approach, an integrator path, and sometimes a service and operation play. Wanna get how a 200-headcount division of a Water Giant became a leading lithium refining actor? Then you're at the right place ➡️ Check out the entire article on how 'reverse ZLD' perfectly defines the Lithium Refinery process including a teaser, a slider, and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

😮 Anaergia's flagship asset, the Rialto Bioenergy Facility, just filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy. What happened? What are the problems? What's next? Let's review ⬇ Last year, I spoke with Andrew Benedek and Kunal Shah on this podcast, and I came out of those two episodes deeply convinced that Anaergia was changing the World for the better. 🏆 Last month, that feeling got comforted at Global Water Intelligence (GWI)'s awards ceremony, when the company won two trophies as "Net Zero Carbon Champion," but also indirectly as a contributor to the "Wastewater Project of the Year." So I was shocked when reading GWI's last weekly briefing and discovering North America's largest organic waste-to-energy plant was in deep trouble! But when analyzing what happened, I started noting some very familiar patterns to anyone deeply involved with the Water Industry. To me: 3️⃣ Rialto has 3 Problems (which I detail in this episode) 🤦‍♂️ It's not the first time Regulation has come in the way of Water Companies 📜 Paul O'Callaghan's thesis on the Dynamics of Water Innovation once more helps us understand what's going on 🕯 I think Anaergia will get to the light on the other end of that tunnel ... and frankly speaking, I hope so! ▶️ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Robert Mintak - CEO of Standard Lithium 💧 Standard Lithium coins itself America's 21st century Lithium Company. They're expected to become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado What we covered: 5️⃣ How Standard Lithium built a plan to grow to commercial direct lithium extraction (DLE) scale in five years 🔁 How you can't take lithium extraction processes off-the-shelf and how you can't copy-paste what works on a lab scale for a commercial scale 💧 How there's an overlooked part of DLE: managing high brine volumes and flows 🎁 How Standard Lithium "surprised" Lanxess with a lithium add-on to their bromine business 🤝 How you need to know what you know but also know when to team up and get support to take your project off the ground 💰 How Standard Lithium used a simple trick most companies wouldn't dare to apply: paying their partner to kick things off 🗺️ How the Lanxess project will serve as a Blueprint for replication across Arkansas' Smackover formation ⚔️ How there's no silver-bullet universal lithium extraction process and how you need to tailor it to your regional parameters ⚡ How to be future-proof and keep all options open to the evolutions in battery technology 📍 Why El Dorado, Arkansas is the absolute best place to build a lithium chemical business in North America 👍 How having a positive impact and walking the talk is key to be serious about supporting the energy transition and the EV Revolution 🌇 Fluid handling as a boring but necessary evil, developing win-win agreements, relationships to Koch Engineering and Lanxess, California and further Arkansas projects... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Robert on Linkedin 🔗 Check Standard Lithium's website ➡️ Check out the entire article on Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Robert Mintak is the CEO of Standard Lithium. Standard Lithium coins itself America's 21st century Lithium Company, and indeed, they shall become the first lithium developer in the World to produce direct-extracted lithium at a commercial scale in El Dorado. What's not to love about Direct Lithium Extraction or DLE? We've seen in the first two episodes of this series how the World needs to scale from about half a million of yearly Lithium Carbonate Equivalent to 2, 3, or maybe even 5 million by 2030. And sure, you can probably extract more spodumene in hard rock mines. You can probably also evaporate more lithium-rich brines in the south american lithium triangle. But will that be enough? For many, that's still an open question, and not the only one. How and where do you refine that lithium? Who does it? Where and how do you ship it around? And what if the ones with lithium don't want to sell to the ones with battery gigafactories. To answer many of these questions and more, Direct Lithium Extraction comes in pretty handy. Indeed, with DLE and the extended CRC (if you don't know that acronym, you probably shall dive into the first episode of this series with Ben Sparrow), you have an all-in-one approach that turns low-concentration brines into battery-grade lithium carbonate or hydroxide. Black oil fields can get a second life as a source of white oil. Geothermal projects can now kill two birds with one stone, leveraging the heat AND the lithium content. And existing brine operations, like the one Robert will talk about in a minute at the Lanxxess site in El Dorado, can start to multiply their value by adding an additional revenue stream. Hence my question: what's not to love about Direct Lithium Extraction? Well, yes, it leverages processes we know quite well in the Water Industry, such as adsorption, ion exchange, membrane, thermal or electrochemical processes. And yes, in a quite specific shape, it's been partially used since the 90s in Argentina and China. But as an end-to-end process where unconventional brines flow in and battery-grade lithium gets extracted on the other end, it's never been scaled up to commercial sizes. There have been impressive lab studies and pilot plants, and even a handful of demo plants, one of them being Standard Lithium's one in El Dorado, another, Vulcan's one in Germany we'll discuss in a future episode. Yes, that's a spoiler. But never, ever, a full-scale plant. So the ability of pioneers such as Standard Lithium to manage the rollout of commercial scale DLE is something that's closely watched by an entire industry. How do you pick the right place to roll out? How do you build the right team? What are the decisive parameters to monitor? What's often overlooked? What makes a potential world's first full-scale Direct Lithium Extraction project? I'll let Robert take it from there. ➡️ Check out the entire article on the 10 Simple Secrets of Standard Lithium's probable world-first commercial DLE, including several teasers and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Tony Strobbe - EV supply chain Projects Director 💧 Every Monday, Tony compiles a dedicated content piece he shares on LinkedIn that covers one aspect of that said supply chain What we covered: ⚡ How there are no electric vehicles without batteries, no batteries without lithium, and no lithium without some kind of mining, hence you have to build a supply chain 🤝 How the closer you are to your customer, the higher the margins for your product, and the consequences this has on the lithium mining vertical 📉 How car manufacturers could well end up being left without lithium if they donc tackle the challenge seriously 2️⃣ How there are two ways to approach the vertical, from the bottom and from the top and where those two paths cross and meet 💰 How the large lithium companies currently "printing money" have two paths to continue doing so, and which one is probably the best for them 🛠️ What are the material requirements to process one ton of spodumene and turn it into battery-grade lithium carbonate or hydroxide 💧 How ESG considerations will impact the lithium value chain today and tomorrow 🧮 What parameters to consider when conceiving and building a lithium refinery and where to ideally locate it 🌍 How geopolitics and history shape the current and future lithium markets 😈 How there may well be a Powerpoint path to lithium equilibrium, but how the devil lies in the execution 🍲 How DLE deals with a hot soup, and how this comes with its own challenges 🚢 Lithium offer and demand, high prices solving high prices, the shelf life of Lithium Hydroxide, shipping spodumene across the World, extracting as much value as possible locally, lithium from new sources... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Come say hi to Tony on Linkedin ➡️ Check out the entire article on The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] More episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Tony Strobbe is EV supply chain Projects Director. Every Monday, he compiles a dedicated content piece he shares on LinkedIn that covers one aspect of that said supply chain, so if you like what he shares today, make sure to follow him! I hope you haven't missed last week's conversation with Ben Sparrow from Saltworks! If you have, shame on you, but let me bring you up to speed: we're diving into the lithium value chain to discuss, evaluate and uncover the opportunities for water technologies and professionals in this rapidly growing application that taps into several layers of the water industry. Now when you visit a foreign country, it's often a smart move to start by getting the basics of language and culture. So that's the mission I tasked Tony with today: let us break down the fundamentals of lithium processes. Why, where, and how do we refine lithium. What do we need to know on the technical side of the equation, but also on the geopolitical aspect of things. Where does the lithium value chain sit in the greater scheme of the EV supply chain? Those are just some of the questions we'll get to answer today. And that will give us valuable keys to leverage the next nuggets in this series, such as the company that shall build the first ever commercial scale Direct Lithium Extraction project, or the dedicated team within the World's largest water company that's conceived some of the most emblematic lithium refining projects. Before kicking off, let me just share with you that I'm back from the Global Water Summit in Berlin and then the BlueTech Forum in Edinburg; it was a great experience to get to meet many of you and to discuss water, wastewater, water entrepreneurship, and much more. I'm so grateful for the many heartwarming feedbacks you gave me on the podcast, it means the World to me, and beyond just an ego-boost, it's critically important for me as I strive to produce you the most useful content every week. If it's the case, I'm glad it is, and you can help me out by sharing the pod with your friends, colleagues, boss, or team. Yet if you feel there's something I shall be doing differently or better, hey, feedback doesn't have to be positive: come share me your thoughts on LinkedIn or by mail: [email protected]. I also came back from both Berlin and Edinburg with great pieces of content, I spoke with the GWI team and the BlueTech team, I also cut some quite insightful interviews with Xylem, Veolia, Aquatech, Kemira, Evoqua, Gingko Bioworks, and more, I can't wait to share you all of this, once I've digested and edited it, but enough for that sidetrack and all that teasing, I'll leave the floor to Tony, and I'll meet you on the other side. ➡️ Check out the entire article on how to sell smaller-sized Water Companies, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Benjamin Sparrow - CEO and Co-Founder at Saltworks Technologies 💧 Saltworks provides innovative products and solutions for industrial wastewater treatment and desalination. What we covered: 🎢 The current state of Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) and its possible technological paths 🤝 How DLE gets paired with Concentrate Refine Convert (CRC) processes and how this takes lithium to battery-grade 4️⃣ The Two main sources of Lithium in the World and their Two Contenders (DLE & Battery Recycling) 📆 The timelines of a lithium mining project and how fast tracks are myths 🏃 How speed to market is going to be a key metric for a new lithium player's success and how to maximize your chances of success 🇨🇦 How regions with a rich mining history, such as Canada and Australia, will lead the charge in the lithium mining revolution 💧 How water processes being massively used in lithium extraction projects will have consequences on lead times and technology availability in the Water Sector 📈 How lithium mining is an industry where everybody is growing and how there is more money flowing into the sector than companies ready to receive it 🚀 Generation 1 vs 2, Evaluating a Surprise Lithium Project, what's important for DLE's Success, Key market players, Growing as a water technology scale-up... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Have a look at Saltworks' website 🔗 Come say hi to Benjamin on Linkedin ➡️ Check out the entire article on Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Other Episodes in this Series: 1 - Why Water Technologies Matter in Lithium Mining (And Why You Should Buy Now!) 2 - The Shocking Requirements of Spodumene Processing (and other Lithium 101 stories) 3 - Standard Lithium's 10 Simple Secrets to DLE Success (and how that rolls out in El Dorado) 4 - How 'Reverse ZLD' made the World's Largest Water Company a Lithium Refinery Expert Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Here's the full breakdown of the Water Action Agenda pledges (including the Excel table that you can download) ➡️ https://dww.show/the-truth-about-the-water-action-agenda-768-commitments-decrypted/ I fear that the UN Water Action Agenda suffers from what Barney Stinson (yes, the one from How I Met Your Mother) would call... the cheerleader effect. Many "commitments", but at the end of the day, a lot of pretty vague ones. So I looked into it and share you some emblematic examples in this video! But I did not stop there. I also wanted to test out what it takes to be featured on the Water Action Agenda and decided to introduce a commitment myself. To do so, I got a bit of help: the almighty ChatGPT wrote it integrally for me in just two queries. And guess what? It got adopted! Now to be clear, it's not so much of a scam at the end of the day: I will really follow my pledge and publish a Water Podcast a week for the next year. And in all cases, I'll submit updates on my pledge, which isn't the norm when you find out that ⬇️ I made an additional short on how a $300 Bn pledge became a $101 Bn commitment ➡️ https://youtube.com/shorts/hc0jeCdaYns?feature=share Timestamps: 00:00 Csaba Kőrösi presses a mysterious button 01:00 Why was the UN Water Conference happening at all? 01:58 Can the Water Action Agenda save the UN Water Conference's outcomes? 03:02 The problem with the Water Action Agenda: the Cheerleader Effect 04:10 2 Examples of Empty Statements (amongst 146 other ones) 06:37 "Lukewarm Water Commitments" (a problematic UN Water Action Agenda category) 08:22 3 Awesome Commitments (there are good ones too!) 10:08 What's the scam? 11:03 Using ChatGPT to trick the United Nations 12:42 Did it Work? 14:12 Conclusion ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Maybe "Lying" is too strong of a word, but at least there's a serious imbalance between what's needed, what's spoken about, and what's really pledged. Wanna dive deeper into the topic? Check out my full video: https://youtu.be/7gksQHzCYVAHosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

with 🎙️ Karl Michael Millauer, Founder of KMM Consulting and a former C-Level executive in some emblematic water groups like BWT, Christ Water Technology, Aquatech International, and Aquarion AG. 💧 KMM Consulting helps clients around the globe leverage opportunities in the world of water through mergers & acquisitions, finance & funding, business development, and strategic support. What we covered: ▫️ How unlike McKinsey, Roland Berger, or KPMG, KMM Consulting works with small Water Companies and helps them get sold, further distributed or raising money 👴 How the most common case is to put a water company for sales to solve a succession challenge 🔨 How some other water businesses have reached a glass ceiling for their growth and how a M&A move is the way to break it 👐 How healthy water companies can be profitable for 45 years, active in a very good niche and scalable, and still not find any interested investor 🤑 How founders often overestimate the value of their Water Company, why they do so, and what's a good rule of thumb to determine the right valuation ⏰ How long a typical due diligence process lasts and what key milestones have to be crossed 🤝 How marketing is key in selling a water company and how that often boils down to the founder's ability to convey his message and value proposition 👔 How KMM Consulting packages its relationship to small water businesses and how that's a different approach to what most market players do 👨‍🏫 How ESG and sustainability investors may need to get educated to the specificities of the water sector when they first step in 📈 How some water companies are perfectly healthy and profitable and simply don't want to grow, why, and why that's absolutely fine! 👋 How when acquiring a small water company, new owners may get nervous if the founder leaves too quickly and which kind of mechanisms, such as earn-outs, work the best to please everyone 🍴 How the freshly created Aquarion AG acquired the established Hager und Elsässer behemoth and what you can learn from it 💰 Drivers that amend a company's valuation, healthy growth vs. burning money, the biggest hurdles in a water company sales process, how it's a people's business, the importance of risk management, pairing technical and commercial skills, focusing on the smaller end of the water sector's pyramid... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 🔗 Check KMM Consulting's Website 🔗 Send your warmest regards to Karl Michael on LinkedIn ➡️ Check out the entire article on how to sell smaller-sized Water Companies, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website! ➡️ Reach out to me: [email protected] Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Karl Michael Millauer is the founder of KMM Consulting and a former C-Level executive in some emblematic water groups like BWT, Christ Water Technology, Aquatech International, and Aquarion AG. KMM Consulting helps clients around the globe leverage opportunities in the world of water through mergers & acquisitions, finance & funding, business development, and strategic support. The water industry features some behemoths that regularly make the news: Veolia, Xylem, Suez... I mean, you know the usual suspects, as I have been featuring them every time there was noteworthy news to share about them. Then, there's a fascinating wave of cool kids worth several thousands of millions, like 374Water, which I had on this microphone, or NX Filtration, which I should have on this microphone at some point; that's my mistake for not inviting them yet, and a growing pack of high-profile scale-ups raising tens of millions in seed rounds and Series A like my former guests Klir, Epic Cleantec, Source, or ZwitterCo. Yet the water sector is also one of these typical places where the iceberg metaphor holds true! I see you rolling your eyes because that damn iceberg is overused but bear with me. The 50 largest water companies combined only represent 25% of the total market, which by extension, highlights how there's an ocean of small-sized players that support all shades of water applications! How many? I can't tell, and despite looking around, I couldn't put my hands on even the beginning of a statistic that would depict this bottom of the pyramid. I guess that's one more proof that while big players get a lot of attention, expert support, and coverage when they merge or consolidate, smaller actors have long been left in a no man's land. Well, this is the no man's land I'm inviting you to explore this week with Karl Michael. And it's pure serendipity: I wanted to cover that topic for a while, so I got very curious when Global Water Intelligence introduced their opportunity exchange platform, featuring dozens of smaller-sized water companies looking for funding, a new owner, a distribution partner, or a licensee. Why serendipity? Well, the 35 first opportunities listed on this marketplace were all coming from Karl Michael Millauer. So I reached out, and you'll get to discover in a minute all of his openness to share a bit of his work and world! Right before that, I'd like to thank from the bottom of my heart all the new listeners that came and joined me on this podcasting journey over the past weeks; I'm so happy to see the nice growth of this channel! I'm a one-man band, and I'm running this podcast on my free time and, let's be real, at my own expense as well, I love doing it for sure, but it's good in my long and tiring editing evenings to realize it's not for nothing, and it's bringing you some value. So here's today's call to action: we'll have a special episode next week to close this season 8, and I have almost finished recording a special mini-season 9 that will look into the depth of the lithium industry and value chain and how that's an incredible opportunity for the water industry. I'm super excited to share this one with you, so stay tuned! This also means that I now have a bit of time to think of the upcoming season 10, and that's where I need you! If you have special wishes, areas you'd like me to explore for you, questions that keep you up at night, or guests you'd like to suggest to me, that's your chance: reach out to me on LinkedIn or send me an email at [email protected] and I'll make sure that Season 10 serves you well! Come on, do it, and I'll meet you on the other side. ➡️ Check out the entire article on how to sell smaller-sized Water Companies, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!

with 🎙️ Jennifer Möller-Gulland, Water Risk Expert and Water Economist for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme 💧 Jennifer is the founder of the Water Risk Assessment Blueprint Training, a 12-week online course that helps water professionals to know the Water Risks, convince decision makers to consider and address them, be part of the solution, and accelerate their career. What we covered: 3️⃣ How there are three types of Water Risks, physical, infrastructure, and governance, and how one should tackle the assessment of these risks 👨‍🏫 How water risks shall be understood at all levels, from government to companies and individuals 📈 How water risks are connected to economic development, social development and gender equality and how ignoring water risks can have long-lasting impacts on individuals and communities 🚱 How the governance risk in managing water crisis (such as Flint) is often not given the attention it deserves 😵 How the "40% water availability gap" risk given by the 2030 Water Resource Group is often misused and doesn't consider qualitative risks such as polluted water 😅 How the UN Water Conference can be taken with a positive spin, assuming you joined with no expectations, and how the outcomes are pretty typical of this kind of multilateral behemoth ♻️ How political cycles don't match with the infrastructure investments required for long-term sustainability and how decision-makers over-focus on making voters happy 💰 How infrastructure problems cannot always be fixed incrementally, how they may require complete overhauls and how there's no clear plan on how to finance it 💵 How linking a water risk assessment to GDP impact can help incentivize governments to take action based on it 💪 How Jennifer created her water risk assessment training, who it caters to, and what one can expect to learn from it ✋ Positive reinforcement of Water newcomers, the human right to Water, PFAS and its potential health consequences, the fate of a consultant's report, working for the World Bank or the UN, Water Futures, Water Markets... and much more! 🔥 ... and of course, we concluded with the 𝙧𝙖𝙥𝙞𝙙 𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 🔥 ➡️ Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20 👋 See you in Edinburgh! 🔗 Check the Water Risk Blueprint Website 🔗 Get a Water Risk Crash Course 🔗 Get a FREE Masterclass on how to assess and communicate Water Risks 🔗 Send your warmest regards to Jennifer on LinkedIn or on Instagram ➡️ Check out the entire article on the importance of Water Risk Assessment, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!Hosted on Ausha. See ausha.co/privacy-policy for more information.

Jennifer Möller-Gulland is a Water Risk Expert and Water Economist for the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme. Jennifer is also the founder of the Water Risk Assessment Blueprint Training, a 12-week online course that helps water professionals to know the Water Risks, convince decision-makers to consider and address them, be part of the solution, and accelerate their career. Somewhere in Paris' headquarters of the OECD, an independent and diverse group of eminent policymakers joined forces in May 2022 to create the Global Commission on the Economics of Water. After the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change released in 2006 and the Dasgupta Review on the Economics of Biodiversity issued in 2021, they were about to complete what they called the Sustainability Trilogy with the release of their Pact for Voluntary Commitments - an incredible report that they launched on 22 March 2023 at the UN Water Conference. Did you hear of it? Well, let's say it wasn't a banger, but they must have a good PR team, so it gathered some mainstream media attention. That's where Jennifer picked it up and looked up their Water Risk Assessment. The result is history: a nicely crafted, pedagogic, positively toned yet affirmative LinkedIn post shared 113 times, where she calls out their b***s***. Hey, that intro is not about name and shame. But I'm telling you that story because it seems that even though the World Economic Forum's yearly Global Risk Report has water-related ones all over its top ten, there's a severe deficit in understanding, framing, and running water risk assessments. Yet how can we solve problems we don't understand and cannot size correctly? As Jennifer will explain in a minute, that's a challenge that shall be understood at all levels, from the government to companies and individuals, because water risks are connected to economic development, social development, GDP, every facet of the economy and even gender equality so clearly, ignoring water risks can have long-lasting impacts on individuals and communities. So let's fix that, and let me close this intro and leave the floor to Jennifer, just after reminding you that you still have a couple of days left to book your seats for the upcoming BlueTech Forum, happening in Edinburgh on the 17th and 18th of May under the tagline of Innovation with Impact. The agenda is packed with great speakers, mastermind roundtable sessions, "innovation for impact" box design sprints, 5 by 5 partnership case studies, lots of networking opportunities, and BlueTech's signature cherry-picked disruptive water tech innovations. Check out the full agenda on bluetechforum.com - the link is in the description - and consider joining me and many former guests of this podcast in Edinburgh this May. If that's of interest, here's the cherry on the cake: with the code Antoine20, like my name, 20, you'll get a 20% discount on your registration if you book before the end of April, so hurry up; the doors are closing! ➡️ Join me (and many others!) at the BlueTech Forum Get a 20% discount on checkout by using the code ANTOINE20 👋 See you in Edinburgh! 🔗 Check the Water Risk Blueprint Website 🔗 Get a Water Risk Crash Course 🔗 Get a FREE Masterclass on how to assess and communicate Water Risks 🔗 Send your warmest regards to Jennifer on LinkedIn or on Instagram ➡️ Check out the entire article on the importance of Water Risk Assessment, including an infographic and a full transcript on the (don't) Waste Water website!