Paul Shapiro: Hello, friend, you are listening to episode 158 of the business for good podcast. If you're consuming this episode around the time of its release, which is mid January 2025, you're probably as shocked and horrified as everyone else by the apocalyptic scenes of vast destruction in Los Angeles caused by the wildfires.

Of course, the severity and frequency of wildfires are both increasing because of humanity's heating up of the planet. One of the key ways we do that is by spewing so much carbon into the atmosphere. But what if that carbon could be an asset rather than a threat? In this episode, we are diving deep into the fascinating world of carbon recycling with a trailblazer who's reshaping how we think about both waste and sustainability.

Our guest. is Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, CEO of Lanzatech, a company on a mission to transform our biggest environmental challenge into an economic opportunity. Lanzatech is pioneering a process that takes industrial emissions, the kind of harmful gases that typically contribute to climate change, and recycles them into valuable products like fuels, fabrics and [00:01:00] everyday consumer goods.

The concept might sound like science fiction. But it is already indeed science fact. Lanzatech’s technology captures carbon emissions from sources like steel mills, refineries, and even municipal solid waste dumps, then feeds those emissions to specially engineered microbes. These microbes act like tiny factories, converting carbon pollution into useful materials.

Imagine jet fuel made from industrial waste or yoga pants created from captured carbon. It's not just possible. It's already happening. In fact, it. At the very end of 2024, Lanza Tech received a holiday gift from the federal government, a $200 million award from the US Department of Energy. In this episode, Jennifer and I discussed the path Lanza Tech took, including raising $400 million and taking 13 years prior to commercializing its first product.

We also touch on her personal journey from her birth in Columbia to her taking the helm of Lanzatech, as you'll hear. This isn't just about reducing emissions. It's about completely rethinking the [00:02:00] role of waste in our economy. Lanzatech's vision is one where carbon is no longer a liability, but rather an asset, a resource that can be reused and recycled over and over again.

It's a powerful example of how businesses can align profitability with purpose. And it's precisely the kind of story that inspires hope in these challenging times. So whether you're an entrepreneur, an environmentalist, or just someone curious about the future of our planet. This is a conversation you won't want to miss.

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Paul Shapiro: [00:00:00] Jennifer, welcome to the business for good podcast.

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Pleasure to be here.

Paul Shapiro: Thanks for having me. Yeah, it's really great to be chatting with you. So, you are somebody who has this scientific background, right? You've got your PhD in chemistry, but a lot of the times you see the folks like you who are operating, let's say as a CTO, not necessarily the CEO, yet.

You are one of the few who actually went to business school also, right? So you got your, your PhD in chemistry. You also got an MBA, at Chicago booth. So why did you do that? And why did you want to be both on the business side and on the tech side?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: That's a great question. So I was doing a lot of strategic work in my old role.

And I was doing a combination of business and technology. the problem is that when you have a PhD in a large company, people just think of you as the technology person and don't imagine you as the business person. And so for to gain [00:01:00] that credibility, I went ahead and got the MBA because what I wanted to do is, Create new businesses.

in my last job, I created Honeywell's Renewable Energy Business. I founded that and led it, and I wanted to have the ability to really take steps into leveraging technology ideas to create new businesses. A business for profit for good

Paul Shapiro: and you talk about the credibility of having the NBA did you actually learn something that was valuable toward you running the business side also or was it just the credibility that they now thought of she knows what she's doing to

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: oh, I would never be that cynical to say I didn't learn anything going to the University of Chicago.

I do think you, you learn, you learn how people view things when they're thinking from a business lens. And I think that is an important skill. I viewed the world from a technology lens, from a partnership and strategic lens. And I think, [00:02:00] when you go to business school, you're much more focused on the economic lens, whether it's the macro view, the micro view, or simply the profitability of a business and how to think about that.

So I do think that it rounded my thinking and it enabled me to, to be more effective. I hope more effective.

Paul Shapiro: Okay, let's hope so. So listen, you for a long time have been working in the renewable energy space and trying to advance ways that we can perhaps lighten humanity's footprint on the planet. Is that why you got into chemistry in the first place?

Like when you were a student and you were thinking you wanted to do chemistry, did it have some environmental background or did you just like chemistry?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: No, I just like science. Actually, I, I, I like solving problems and I really love science and science helps you solve problems. And so, no, I, you know, you have to realize that I went to school in the early eighties and while there were people talking about the environment, it's [00:03:00] nothing like it is today.

So, being an environmental scientist. Just it was never part of the equation. It was all about chemistry. It was solving problems. These are the things I cared about.

Paul Shapiro: So what was the catalyst for you? Like why were you the one running honeywell's renewable energy division? Like what what what made it?

What made you turn into jennifer the chemist and scientist to jennifer the environmentalist?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Yeah, that's a great question. I so when When I started let me take a step back since this is recorded. So, You

What I was doing at, at Honeywell UOP was I managed, let me try that again. What I was doing at Honeywell at UOP was I led all of their new technology work, all of their new business growth. All of their new ideas, right? That was my last job. We called it exploratory and fundamental. And, [00:04:00] and what happened there is I started to realize that petroleum wasn't the feedstock of the future.

And believe it or not, we started to work on natural gas as the feedstock of the future. And in learning about natural gas, I realized that, Whoa. Making sure everybody has power, which was what drove me at the time, was my concern over the fact that at the time, 1. 3 billion people in the world didn't have access to electricity, and I realized that giving them electricity that was dirty, that would lead to catastrophe, because that's when people started to learn about climate change and the impact of carbon in our atmosphere, that wasn't going to solve the problem, and so I started to realize what we needed to do is give it.

New, clean power to people and make sure they got it quickly. And, and so that's what started my environmental journey. What really triggered me to become much more embedded into [00:05:00] climate science was I read an article, you know, I was born in Columbia and I read an article about the fact that climate change would.

Change the ability of Columbia to grow coffee and that it would happen by 2050. And I remember thinking to myself, wait a second. I thought climate change was sea level rise. It would happen at the end of the century. It was a thing for my grandchildren. It wasn't for me. And yet here I was imagining that by 2050, where.

I'm actually planning to be alive then was not going to be able to have a cup of coffee made in Columbia. And I thought to myself, holy crap, this is a massive deal. And it taught me that climate change was not about sea level rise, but it was a fundamental change to our ecosystem and it would happen in our lifetime.

And so the urgency of that moment really is what turned me into what you're calling an environmentalist. It's, it's what really made me [00:06:00] realize. We got to do something about this and we got to do it soon. And, and that's why I stopped just thinking about natural gas. And I started saying, okay, how do we get this company into other feedstock resources?

How do we change the dynamics of this climate problem of this drill, use. Throw away mentality, right? Creating a circular economy where carbon is not wasted, no matter where it comes from, whether it's from the ground or above ground, not wasted.

Paul Shapiro: All right. So, yeah, that is a great explanation. And yes, I do consider you an environmentalist, but out of curiosity, since you said I'm referring to you as one, do you think of yourself as an environmentalist?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: No. No, I don't. I don't. I never have actually. I, I think of myself as somebody who, who wants to solve problems and the current problem [00:07:00] happens to be too much carbon in our atmosphere and, and a continuation of that.

Paul Shapiro: All right. So let's talk about how, you, CEO is solving that. Cause, you know, let, let, laser tech has this proprietary microbe technology, right?

That ferments. Carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and you're creating it into ethanol and other biochemicals. So for the uninitiated, what does this even mean? Like, how, what are you doing with carbon dioxide to turn into something that is valuable instead of a detriment?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Yeah. So what we do is. We ferment gases.

So instead of fermenting sugar to make ethanol, we ferment carbon oxides, so either carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide. So we have basically an organism that makes ethanol from these things instead of sugar. That's why we can use industrial gases like a waste gas at a steel mill or ferroalloy. That's why we can use.

Waste, municipal solid waste [00:08:00] that's been turned into a gas. that, that is how our technology works. Now, the really, the thing that makes our technology scalable is not that it's a fermentation. It's the fact that the fermentation happens in seconds. When you do fermentation, Of sugar, right? You, you put the sugar in the yeast and you go away for a while and eventually you have beer, right?

Our chemistry happens in seconds. And so the reason that's important is because our reactors are continuous reactors. They look just like refineries. Gas in, product out. And so that is really game changing in a world where you're trying to use fermentation, not to make specialties. But to make commodities, because you have to have the throughput to make enough product to be competitive with today's spectrum complex, that seems [00:09:00] like maybe I overdid that explanation, but that's actually never works.

Paul Shapiro: no, not at all. I mean, I think for listeners to the show, they probably are somewhat familiar with fermentation, especially in the context of the, the. New relatively new industry of turning, not just, you know, sugar into things like, beer, but turning it into things like alternative meat products where companies are using, fermentation to do that.

But still that's a process that takes hours or days, not seconds. So you are using what are called proprietary microbes. So does that mean these are microbes that you happen to discover in the wild, or are these microbes that you all have engineered yourselves that are particularly efficient at converting, let's say CO2 into ethanol?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Yeah, we actually, this is an organism that's fine found in the wild. And what we did is we use directed evolution. Basically we, we. evolved it naturally to make it be able to be very, very effective at taking [00:10:00] these gases and making ethanol. we do have the ability to genetically modify organisms, but our current organisms that are commercial are not genetically modified.

We use genetically modified organisms to make Other products, when we don't want to make ethanol, when we want to make isopropanol or isoprene, other chemicals, we use genetically modified organisms. But our first commercial product is just directed evolution. We just taught the organism by applying stresses, how to make.

Ethanol

Paul Shapiro: effectively. Right. And just to be clear, for those who are not as intimately familiar with these terms, directed evolution means that you're not actually genetically modifying, you're essentially breeding this organism, this clostridium that you all are using in order to In the same way that humans have bred wolves to be all different types of dogs, right?

They weren't genetically modified. They just bred them in certain ways that you end up with Chihuahuas and Great Danes and you and you've bred a Clostridium that [00:11:00] happens to like converting CO2 into ethanol. Is that an accurate description? That is a perfect description. Okay. okay. So a lot of the times when companies have something like this, it sounds like magic, right?

Like you're going to take CO2 and turn it into something that's really valuable that can actually reduce the amount of pollution in the atmosphere. It sounds like magic. And so things often work in the lab, but don't necessarily scale up to be industrial scale where you can actually, as you put it, make a commodity.

You all have done that, right? So what was the process like going from, Hey, you know, we have this thing. That in the lab actually can do something really cool to creating an entire system to industrially ferment it into a profitable business model.

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: First of all, it took a lot of, of scaling and partnerships.

The reality is we had to do this both in the lab. In a pilot in our lab, and then in multiple demonstrations in the field, right? Because it's, it's really [00:12:00] little things that stop you from being able to scale that contaminant in the field gas that just. Kills your organism. Right. And so we went through a lot of steps to get to where we finally said, okay, yeah, this is ready for us to build a 50, 000 ton a year plant that that was the journey.

And, and many times we, we learned that the smaller scales, that, that there were things we had to do to make it better, more efficient and more economic, because at the end of the day, the amount of product you make per amount of carbon in. It really impacts, right, the, the economics. And so we obsessed over that.

And, and a lot of people think of us as a biology company, but at the end of the day, what really makes us special is our reactor system, our ability to get these gases, which are not soluble in water to an organism that's in water, sugar, soluble in water. These gases [00:13:00] are not soluble in water, so you have to create enough turbulence through your engineering to get the gas to the organism.

And you also have to do it in a way that doesn't take a lot of energy, right? You can always create turbulence by just stirring the heck out of something. But that takes a lot of energy and we're trying to reduce carbon intensity, right? So you can't use too much energy. And so we have to evolve. The organism, but more importantly, we had to create a bioreactor system in a process that could leverage what that organism could do effectively and efficiently.

Paul Shapiro: Right. So what you're saying is, in terms of this type of a technology, you don't need just need to hire a bunch of microbiologists who could do the directed evolution. You also need engineers who can basically create. Well, you're calling the bioreactor, but in layperson's terms, it's really just a farm, right?

It's the farm where you're essentially, you know, growing this ethanol in, in your system. Yeah, I, I, that,

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: that's

Paul Shapiro: right. Yeah. [00:14:00] And so there's a lot of questions I wanna ask you about this, Jennifer, but first you talked about you need to go, you know, from lab to pilot to demonstration, and you need to make all these refinements.

It sounds like a lot of time and a lot of money to do that. How long did it take?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Company was founded in 2005, and our first commercial plant started up in 2018.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. Wow. So a third, so a 13 year period of pre revenue status while you were doing research, right? That's right. That's

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: right.

Paul Shapiro: and, and how much from 2005 to 2018, how much capital was needed to do all of that R and D that was necessary?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Yeah. That R and D and scale up was about 400 million.

Paul Shapiro: Okay. So for the average person listening to this thinking, okay, you needed nearly half a billion dollars before you started turning on the revenue tap. Right. What type of investor were you going for? Who was so such a believer in the company? And what was the argument to them that, Hey, listen, yeah, look, we've been around for a decade.

We just need a few more years. What was the argument to the investor [00:15:00] class that this is going to make a big difference? And this is actually not just a science experiment, but something that really was a, potentially profitable business model.

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Yeah, I, that's, It was quite an evolution, right? We have quite a few long term investors like Vinod Khosla, right?

And people who are really, not what I would call traditional venture investors. And we had quite a few of those, but really the most, we access most of our capital through strategic investors, strategic investors who actually either felt that we would cannibalize their business if we were successful and they weren't part of the story or investors who felt that, wait a second, I can use this.

Inside my company to create value from what I already do. And so we have multiple. And in fact, most of the capital that we raised in the later years was all from strategic investors [00:16:00] who were keen to help us commercialize our technology. So our solar middle, our first plan. It at a steel mill in, in Europe is that an arsenal middle plant.

They're also an investor. So they came in and they said, look, I think there's a lot of promise here. We're going to both build a plant, but also invest in your company so that we're not just building a plant. We are also, we also have a seat at the table so we can learn from you how the technology can be leveraged for other applications.

Paul Shapiro: So let's talk about that plant in, in, in Europe. It's a steel making plant. And 1 of the byproducts of steelmaking is CO2 in the atmosphere. We have about half a percentage of CO2, right? About 5 percent in atmosphere. How rich in CO2 does their effluent have to be in order for your process to make sense?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: So, their particular plan, They have about 20 percent carbon monoxide that they would emit or burn as [00:17:00] CO2. We actually capture the 20 percent carbon monoxide. So it's not, it's not rich, but it's not PPM level like the atmosphere. We can certainly couple with people who are doing director capture and, and taking out 400 BPM level.

CO2. Right now, we've really focused on more concentrated streams, CO2 or CO2, 20 to 40 to 60%, just because that's a, an easier problem. Short term,

Paul Shapiro: I recently attended a talk by Al Gore in which he was extremely negative. On direct carbon capture from the atmosphere, he basically called it a fool's errand.

What do you think, Jennifer? Should we be pursuing this? Is it actually promising to make a dent in the problem that you're trying to solve?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Absolutely. I am. First of all, we need, well, we need every single solution, right? And a lot of people are negative on direct their capture because they say, well, It needs a lot of [00:18:00] energy.

that's true, but anybody who's working on things like hydrogen as well, that needs a lot of energy too, right? To today. I think one of the paths to decarbonization is the first step in changing the dynamics is the power system. We need free electrons, essentially cheap green electrons, right? And there's a lot of movement in that direction and, and we need those electrons not just for power, but, To make things like hydrogen so we can convert CO2, to do director capture, to do all these things.

So you have to imagine that future for director capture to make sense. But I would also tell you, this is the non environmentalist in me, but no, seriously, the, you have to think about the magnitude of the problem we're facing. We are what, 1. 2? I hear a lot of people talk about 1. 5 is safe. Tell people who just lost their homes in Asheville.

That [00:19:00] 1. 5 is safe because clearly 1. 2 is not. And, you know, the problem is that we spend way too much time arguing about what the perfect solution is rather than just making progress in all solutions. Do I think director capture will contribute? Yeah, I do. When? We're probably five to 10 years out from that being significant.

Do I think we should invest in it today? You bet I do, because we'll never get it down, improved to be able to be effective in 10 years time, if we don't get going now, but we're going to need to convert all the carbon we have above ground, we're going to need to take carbon out of the air, we're going to need to do All of these things to stop the problem we have right now.

Paul Shapiro: All right. So speaking of getting things off the ground, like direct air, direct carbon capture from the air, you have a particular interest and expertise in sustainable aviation fuel, [00:20:00] Jennifer. And this has been a really vexing problem. Cars are electrifying. Planes are not. Right. So first, can you help explain why is it that we have so many electric cars and we really don't have many electric planes yet?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Well, the, the answer is very simple. planes need to fuel up with energy dense. No, let me start over. Let me try this again.the, it is actually, pretty, pretty simple. Airplanes are all about weight. Right. If you, you got to go as far as you possibly can with as little weight as possible and electricity requires batteries that are heavy right now.

So, electric planes are going to make a ton of sense for regional aviation, but getting a 747 from Orlando to Gatwick, you know, across the oceans, you can't do that with the level of weight and energy density that we have available today in [00:21:00] batteries. So, a hydrocarbon fuel. That has the energy density that we need right now to get long distances with a minimum weight possible.

Paul Shapiro: Right. Okay. So this is why, for example, that electric vehicles weigh a lot more than gas powered vehicles, generally about 30 percent more, right? In fact, the tires even wear out faster on the EVs than they do on conventionals because it is so much heavier. It just doesn't work with planes. So what's the solution?

Right. If we're not going to electrify, excuse me, actually, if we're not going to electrify, a word I just made up that works well, then what are we going to do? How are we going to shift planes off of fossil fuels?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: I think you need to develop aviation fuels, which we call sustainable aviation fuels that are based on carbon that's above ground, whether that be a biofuel.

Or whether that be made from waste like trash, like we do, or CO2 like we do, but at the end of the day, we're going to have to use [00:22:00] these waste carbons and create a circular economy. and you need to make a drop in hydrocarbon fuel. You need to make something that looks exactly like jet fuel that has that energy density that has been optimized for 70 years.

The other thing I would tell you is the argument is going to be, okay, but if you're burning a hydrocarbon, it comes out the back end and you now you've emitted CO2 and so that gets us into the circularity of using plants to recapture the CO2, doing direct air capture, right? To close the cycle. To me, it's all about the circular carbon, carbon that's already above ground.

To make sustainable aviation fuel emits carbon. You capture that carbon again, and you put it in the cycle. So that, that is how I think about sustainable aviation fuel.

Paul Shapiro: Do you think that we'll get there in time?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: I don't actually think we have a choice. I mean, we have to,

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, but if you're projecting out into the future, like you're talking about 1.

2 [00:23:00] degrees Celsius increase 1. 5 at some point, right? We're already at a dangerous level as you correctly point out. But at some point, the changes become so bad that it is civilizationally threatening, right? Or do you think that's true? Yeah,

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: I'm nodding because that's sadly, that's how I feel right that we're headed towards catastrophe.

Paul Shapiro: Yeah, I think we're flirting with catastrophe for sure. So the question is, for you, if you're looking at the rate of progress that we're making on clean energy technology, like what lands attack is pursuing, you know, is there enough time do you think that we will be able to do it? Like if direct air, if direct air carbon capture is still five or 10 years away, as you suggest.

and other technologies are still scaling. How, like, what is your prediction on what happens? So you said we're heading for catastrophe. Do you think that we will avert catastrophe or do you think that we may not avert it?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: I wish you hadn't asked me that [00:24:00] question.

Paul Shapiro: let

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: me, let me, let me address that in a couple of different ways. First of all, we have to avert catastrophe, right? And we can't avert catastrophe. What we first need to do is commit to the problem. The problem is we haven't committed to solving this problem and we're overthinking the problem, right?

We debate whether direct air capture or biofuels or whatever are the right solution. We never say they may not be the ultimate solution, but we need them. And what we do know is that only using petroleum, natural gas and coal and dumping it into the atmosphere is not the solution, right? So we need to just get perspective on the problem and get on with it.

That's the 1st thing. The 2nd thing is, let's use the lessons learned from, Electric vehicles and from cell phones and from solar, we are not building a piece of software, right? We are deploying new technology. It took us 18 years to get to the point where we had our first commercial plant. That was [00:25:00] fast, by the way, for a brand new technology, I would argue that was super fast because our technology, like you said, is almost like science fiction.

It's so completely different. So what does that mean? It takes time. It takes time to validate it. At times. It takes time to get out there. And if you learn something from electric vehicles is that they first have to introduce the Roadster. Then they had to introduce the sedan. And now it's at a point where it is actually competitive with a gasoline car.

Right. And, and that's a 30 year journey. That's a. 40 year journey. And so if we sit here and think that direct air capture is going to be this magic bullet that we take out of a box and all of a sudden we've deployed enough capacity to have an impact, we're lying to ourselves, right? So first thing we have to do is be realistic about the magnitude of the problem and the fact that we need to solve it with a lot of different approaches and we need to get on with it.

We, we, we want to debate [00:26:00] instead what the right solution is. That is a total waste of time. And in fact, it's a call to inaction. It's literally a call to inaction. It's the best way to get nothing done. So am I optimistic we're going to do it? Yeah. If we get off our butt, yes, yes, we're going to do it. But we've got to think about this as a real problem that we have to solve by throwing solutions at it and we just need to get going.

Paul Shapiro: So I share your level of optimism that technology may end up saving the day for us. We'll see. I don't feel confident, but I have hope on that. In addition to Lanzatec, obviously the technology that you are pursuing, yes, it seems like science fiction, but of course, nearly everything in our lives today seems would have seemed like science fiction to pass.

it's, I regularly marvel at how, you know, when I was in, when I was in, And like middle school using the Dewey decimal system to try to search the library [00:27:00] for books that I would then take hours or weeks to create a report on, which now could happen with chat in less than 5 seconds. So lots of things seem like science fiction, which come true.

But in addition to the technology that Lanzatec is deploying right now, what makes you so optimistic? You know that you're optimistic. Are there other technologies out there about which you are really optimistic that you think might help us with the climate catastrophe that is impending?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Well, first of all, I think there's a lot of people working on solutions that convert CO2 to products.

That that's really important. People are realizing. That sequestration alone isn't going to solve the problem that we need to find ways to also convert CO2 and waste to products. This carbon capture utilization, that utilization is really important and circular economy is really important. People are starting to realize that, and there's a lot of companies working on this.

That's the first thing. The second thing I see is that governments are realizing that they need [00:28:00] to help technology scale, not just create a bunch of new technologies. So it used to be financing was about feeding the pipeline. And now people realize that financing needs to be about getting things out of the pipeline.

And the third thing that makes me optimistic is. Infrastructure funds jump in and saying, I'll help you finance de risk technologies and they can help you deploy. And at the end of the day, deploy, deploy, deploy. This is what we need to do, right? Deploy. And so that's the other thing that makes me optimistic.

But the thing. I would add that makes me the most optimistic is what's happening in the developing world. Who would have said that India was going to have the cheapest price of electrons and be focused on building hydrogen, right? This is something that I think people underestimate. The the naysayers are often in the developed nations [00:29:00] and today the people who are really moving and making a mark are in the developing world and, and I'm optimistic about that.

I'm optimistic when I look at the Middle East and I see the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia talking about the circular carbon economy. I know people say, people focus on comments by ministers saying, Hmm. Will be drilling fossil carbon forever, but the fact is that they're installing more solar Every single day than all of europe combined and so, you know, we can say what we want But actions matter more than words

Paul Shapiro: Yes, the the transformation of saudi arabia is certainly stunning and There's still so much more left to do right there.

They're not he had in a place where I think, some, some, some in the United States would like to see them for sure. but we actually had on a past episode, one,one of the princes in Saudi Arabia on this show. And he talked about that transformation, which, was stunning to me, for sure.

And we'll include links in the show notes [00:30:00] for this episode of business for good podcast. com to that. So you can go check it out if you want. but yeah, that's, that's all Okay, you're talking about the transformation that's happening in the developing world, let's say, India and other parts of the world to are there any companies you hope somebody will create either in, you know, Europe or the Middle East, as you say, or Asia or anywhere else that you wish somebody would create to tackle some problem that isn't successfully been tackled yet.

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: That's the beauty of new technologies, right? I don't actually know what disruptive tech needs to be out there, but I would say one of the things that, that I think we need more of is companies that know how to build industrial plants who can do it by developing a project that has very different stakeholders.

We don't have enough. You know, we [00:31:00] need to develop, get all. Okay, if you're going to do a CO2 conversion project, you need electrons. You need cheap electrons. So you need somebody that knows electrons. You, if you want to add hydrogen, you need somebody knows hydrogen. you need somebody who understands how to deal with wastewater, how to integrate.

These are very hardcore industrial problems, so You know, I'm not going to talk about disruptive technologies. What we really need right now is people that know how to develop projects in front, large infrastructure projects, and are willing to go out there and build them. This is actually a big gap across the world is how quickly we develop large infrastructure projects that.

Require you to cross industries to really make them successful. So we need those type of people and those types of companies. And we need to support the startups that are trying to do that because a lot [00:32:00] of the money doesn't go to the startups that are trying to build big infrastructure projects, that money goes to the large companies that have developed infrastructure projects, who have the 200, 000.

People per project that takes them 10 years and we just don't have 10 years. So, so if I were to say what do we need, we need support for the entrepreneurs that want to build large infrastructure projects. Indeed.

Paul Shapiro: And I know that, Lanzatec has, has been awarded some funding from the federal government toward this.

And, I see both the department of energy and the department of defense are now working on trying to scale up, the bioeconomy, the biomanufacturing economy in the United States. So hopefully there will be. Finally, Jennifer, let me ask you what resources have been useful for you. You've done so much in your career, both as a scientist and as a business executive.

What's been useful? You've taken a company public. You have done so many things. Are there any resources for somebody looking at your life thinking, wow, I [00:33:00] really am impressed by what Jennifer has accomplished. I want to be more like her. Any things that you'd recommend?

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: I think you need to learn to listen.

Actually, my, one of my favorite books is, is a book called Quiet. Quiet. And it's about how to really get your,

introverts to contribute. And I really think that when you're working across industries, whether it be, cause you need science, you need business, you need all these things together, I think you need to listen to everybody in the company and you need to be careful that, that you're able to harness the power of the introverts.

So, so that's what I would say is, is the biggest resource I've, I've ever had. The pleasure of having,

Paul Shapiro: okay, very good. Well, we'll link to the book quiet and the show notes for this episode of business for good podcast. com. But for now, I really want to say thank you, Jennifer. It's great to be talking with you.

Congratulations on all of your success and hopefully you'll build more and more plants and bigger and bigger plants across the world. So you can make the [00:34:00] dent in the problem that even though you're not an environmentalist, we'll still be good for the environment in the end.

Dr. Jennifer Holmgren: Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity.