The Renewable Energy Hiding 4,000 Feet Below The Ocean
00;00;00;02 - 00;00;21;27
Unknown
Welcome to energy 101. Today we have Dan Grech all the way from London, England. That's right. Welcome to. Thank you very much. How many times have you been here to the United States? Maybe like my 10th time now? Maybe more. Enough to count? Yes. I'm not counting, but. Yeah. All right, so you just landed. Houston, you're here for some OTC and other things in your industry.
00;00;21;29 - 00;00;42;07
Unknown
But just to start off a little culturally, what's the first thing you're grabbing for lunch? Oh, it's tacos. Tacos, carnitas tacos. All right. But it's cilantro. Bit of onion the real stuff. Yeah, but I was disappointed in the hot sauce ratio. It's a big problem for me. I mean, I got a bit of a slither of hot sauce so that that let me down.
00;00;42;08 - 00;01;01;01
Unknown
So you want a more hot sauce? I want more hot sauce. I want I basically want my pork marinated in hot sauce. Right. Well, that's why you need all the flavor in the pork. So they don't need that sauce. So that's true. You gotta find the right balance. Yeah. I'm burning. All right. Well we're going to talk about otak today.
00;01;01;01 - 00;01;22;01
Unknown
And you know I love covering really cool. Industries and energy. Not just oil and gas. And man I forget about this on all the time. And it honestly, it sounds like science fiction, but you are one of many behind it all, making it happen, supplying energy in a very interesting way. So first, you know, let's maybe get into some of your background.
00;01;22;03 - 00;01;40;25
Unknown
Like we said, you're in you're from London, you're here in the US. Like, why is that? What's what's worth the travel, what's going on in London or what's going on here that's not going on over there overseas. Yeah. So we're here for our second, trip to the offshore Technology conference, which is I think it's been going on for decades in, Houston.
00;01;40;27 - 00;02;07;00
Unknown
I think they used to be the Astro Stadium. Used to bring quarter of a million people into town. And, yeah, it's really where operators and technology vendors set out their stall on, what how technology is, is solving huge problems in the, in the industry. So. Well, yeah, we're we're we're stoked to be speaking there. We, we have some clients that we're just finishing a piece of work with as well, which is awesome.
00;02;07;02 - 00;02;24;11
Unknown
And yeah, like Houston's the the, the Disney World for energy. I love that it's very obvious, but I've never heard it like that before. So you pull up to, the convention center, where's it at right now? George RR Brown, NRG energy. Yeah. Wow. So it's yeah you're right. You know, it's a stone's throw from the Astrodome.
00;02;24;11 - 00;02;44;20
Unknown
Yeah. From the Astrodome. There's three right there. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, it's it's it's enormous. Wow. That's great. So you're like, on a field in a converted into a trade show, or is it like a sweet. Used to be it back in its heyday, I think. But now in a new arena. So I think that's where they have some rodeo inside, I don't know.
00;02;44;20 - 00;03;04;13
Unknown
Are they converted into all. That's it? Yeah. It's like a multiple. It's like a huge aircraft hanging. Know that you could probably stack ten Boeing seven four Sevens inside. Yeah. That's awesome. So like, who you walk in, who has the biggest, most flashiest booth? Well, that's a good question. So there's there's the different pavilions. So you've got the.
00;03;04;18 - 00;03;27;03
Unknown
And the Japanese pavilion looks quite strong. Brazil, Nigeria, the UK pavilions. Okay. That that I think it needs, it needs a bit more energy. They're separated by like countries. Yeah, yeah. So you can't get any country clusters and then you've got the, the companies. So I think it's like mostly it's the service providers putting on a really big, show.
00;03;27;07 - 00;03;45;26
Unknown
And then some of the operators, I think Exxon are one of the main sponsors this year. Japan is kind of a government level is a big sponsors, too. So, yeah, it's, it's cool. Okay. So would you say you're like more of an OTC guy or an oil and gas guy? Because I see it's there seems to be a background of both.
00;03;45;26 - 00;04;16;01
Unknown
Yeah. I guess that reflects my, existential bit. Yeah, exactly. I never know. So I'm, I'm here for my company, global OTC. We, we develop technology that turns the oceans heat into usable electricity. And over the last year and a half now, we've been seeing how this could be used in the oil and gas sector. So yeah, it's my I guess it's my second OTC.
00;04;16;02 - 00;04;37;12
Unknown
So, I came last year and was kind of run ragged, not really just working things out and learning a lot on the fly. And this year we, you know, we've, we've got a lot of friends, a full schedule. And yeah, it's awesome how much you can learn in a short period of time when people are so open and collaborative.
00;04;37;19 - 00;04;57;21
Unknown
Wow. So how do you go from your background, which I don't know if you said it's like more of, like retail and fashion to Chuck flying to London to be on your podcast, to be to have you on his podcast. So that's something I can, you know, pull up for people to go check out to get a little preamble to this, to showing up to your second OTC now.
00;04;57;22 - 00;05;16;21
Unknown
And, you know, people reading articles, you write, people wanting to shake your hand, talk to you like what? How did you go from people giving like a $6.5 million to, to do our thing? Yeah. So I guess I, yeah, you mentioned fashion. So and retail, I was in e-commerce was my first thing out of university.
00;05;16;21 - 00;05;53;05
Unknown
So, sort of just found myself kind of running kind of big parts of, marketing for, for luxury fashion companies. But honestly, I found it quite so destroying being in these industries. I like the hard work. But I never really felt like the reason to get up in the morning. So that led to a quarter life crisis as a kind of cliche, where I quit my job, moved back into my parents single bedroom, was like, I've got to figure out what's going to hold my attention for ten years.
00;05;53;05 - 00;06;17;28
Unknown
That was the brief. I was reading a lot of books the time watching a lot of, like, Ted talks. One, one formative book that I talked about on Chuck's podcast, was Abundance by Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPrize. And that, to me, kind of gave me the blueprint of what the biggest challenges the world's going to face over the next 40, 50 years.
00;06;18;00 - 00;06;39;29
Unknown
And that's really what I started to align myself with. You said you were getting over the retail e-commerce stuff, right? And I would say, obviously it's because you're dealing with customers, you know, people who like, like if you're going into an industry like energy, you know, I feel like you're surrounded by amazing, hard working people, right? So it was that kind of like an obvious switch.
00;06;39;29 - 00;07;01;29
Unknown
There is a deeper than that. It was deeper than that. There was amazing, very smart, hardworking people. And I like to be one of the dumbest people in the room, which is which is difficult here because you're the one asking the dumb question. So I'll have to pass on that for today. I think it was just that, you know, you ask yourself kind of like, what's the point in doing this?
00;07;02;01 - 00;07;30;09
Unknown
And I think I had one Black Friday where I was in the office till 4 a.m. just making sure all of the emails got sent out to some of the richest customers. And I was just thinking, like, why, what what what in in the story of my life. Why? Why is this important? That got me sort of pulling the thread on, what are the new technologies where people with my skills or or.
00;07;30;12 - 00;07;51;24
Unknown
No, unconventional backgrounds can come and take a concept for a forward to to scale. How long has it actually been since you made that transition? So I quit my job ten years ago. Okay, so we got ten years, you know, how how long did it take for you to, like, feel like you were broken in and you, you didn't feel like that imposter syndrome or anything?
00;07;51;29 - 00;08;20;27
Unknown
Kind of recently? Although it still kind of creeps up on you from time to time. I guess caveat that when I kind of quit my job that was leaving being employed, I went into being freelance in my old life's work, which was like digital marketing consulting, where I would work for florists, pharmaceutical companies. I helped launch new Viagra product at some point, as well as trying to, like, figure out what it was that I wanted to do.
00;08;20;27 - 00;08;46;10
Unknown
So, I didn't really go hard on OTC until around the pandemic. And then I raised my pre-seed coming out of that. And I think since then, the when when someone writes you a big check, that's where you start to feel, I guess, the, the validation, the you're you're on something. I was I was like about to say if Chuck you know this is Chuck, he would, he would have had a nice Chuck joke about the Viagra.
00;08;46;16 - 00;09;07;14
Unknown
But then you said you went hard into OTC and he did a he did it for me. You're welcome. Speaking of going hard in the OTC, you were talking about this crazy science of warm water, cold water making energy. Like, what is this, witchcraft? Please explain it to us in the 101 way. It's not witchcraft. Maybe you're familiar with a waste heat recovery plant.
00;09;07;14 - 00;09;33;05
Unknown
The idea of using excess heat from a factory or to provide power is the same thing, but instead it's using the oceans heat. When I think of the ocean, I think of it being cold. So what do you mean, heat from the ocean? Okay, so I don't know, do you? You vacationed maybe in the Caribbean or Mexico at any point you've been in Cancun and wait it out from send your frogs.
00;09;33;08 - 00;10;08;26
Unknown
Into the water, and it feels like this sort of warm bath. Well, that water was probably about 20 to 30°C. I don't have the Fahrenheit for for the, you know, for the American listeners, but that that water is warm enough to cause a nother chemical to evaporate and turn into steam. So we're using that warm surface seawater with flowing that through a heat exchanger, which, which has a working fluid, which is evaporating at the temperature of the of the input seawater.
00;10;08;28 - 00;10;40;24
Unknown
And that vapor allows us to run a turbine producing electricity. And then we're using cold, deep water from that location in a second heat exchanger, which condenses that vapor back into a liquid. It's called the organic Rankine cycle. It's decades old. It's used in geothermal, but instead of drilling into the Earth's crust and forcing water down fractures to generate steam, which is using the ocean surface.
00;10;40;27 - 00;11;03;13
Unknown
Yeah. Geothermal. It's like the closer to the surface, the colder relatively. And the deeper you go, it's hotter. The ocean's the opposite. That's right. That's weird. Yeah. Because the the what makes the ocean warm is, is, is the sun. So you've got all of this solar heat energy that has been trapped in the ocean surface since, like, the end of the last ice age.
00;11;03;15 - 00;11;23;15
Unknown
And it's not being utilized. It could be powering the world two times over for what we need at the moment. And the world needs an awful lot more power. So if the top is like 28 C yeah, the bottom can only be so cold, right? Because it freezes. Yeah. Right. So like zero essentially is is that the scale.
00;11;23;17 - 00;11;46;23
Unknown
No not quite true. Because the salinity of the salt content affects that. But we're talking about four degrees centigrade. So we've sent temperature probes with breeze blocks as weights in off the coast of Africa off of like fishing boats down to measure thermocline. We got to about 1200 meters. When we pulled that thing back up. That breeze block was icy cold.
00;11;46;27 - 00;12;16;14
Unknown
So it was incredible to get that that real feeling of of how cold the ocean is. If you get this 28 sea water in the four degree. Yes. That's the two things that we exchange and produce. We can produce 24 seven power 365 days a year. Okay. Well, can you explain to me just kind of like I mean, first off, are we talking about a something's like on, like on a coast, kind of like feeding these tubes out, or is it like a floating platform?
00;12;16;14 - 00;12;44;02
Unknown
Like, what is it? Yeah. So it can be on a coast. There's a no tech plant in Japan and Hawaii that have done this on a coast. But there's a limiting factor that there are only so many places where the pipe down the seabed to that depth is really economical. If you kind of cut the need to be on land, you can be offshore, you can scale these anywhere, along around the tropical ocean, I guess every everything's like on a shelf.
00;12;44;02 - 00;13;01;13
Unknown
Right? I know the Gulf of Mexico is like hundreds of miles of, like, it doesn't really go. Yes. That's right. Like, are there places around the world where it's like prime? Because it's like if you go into the ocean, you boom tens of thousands of feet. Is it is there? Yeah. So like most tropical islands are like underwater volcanoes.
00;13;01;13 - 00;13;31;29
Unknown
They are you just. Yeah, they are ancient underwater volcanoes. And you're just seeing kind of the last, I don't know, 10 to 100m above sea level. So in locations like that, we can reach 1000m in about three, four kilometers per Trico. Location south, there is about three kilometers. Maldives. And the Indian Ocean has very close proximity. But there are continental locations where you can go maybe ten, 20km.
00;13;32;06 - 00;13;58;06
Unknown
Because it's all about scale to justify the cable that you're sending power back to shore. So if you got a relatively small system, you don't want to be as far off shore. But, you know, you could be on the Florida, you could be off the Florida Keys sending power into into the grid there. Right. So it's kind of like it reminds me of geothermal, where it's like there are places where just naturally the, core, the mantle's closer to the surface.
00;13;58;06 - 00;14;16;11
Unknown
You don't have to go as deep and spend as much money. It's ocean geothermal without any drilling. How much? How much do you do this comparison? Because I love doing it as a one on one thing. But yeah. So people different the way people there's different thinkers who like to create, a similarity between this technology in different ways.
00;14;16;11 - 00;14;37;14
Unknown
So one way to look at it is ocean or offshore geothermal. So a lot of engineers will say, oh, it's a reverse refrigeration cycle. Because if you think about a refrigerator, you're taking your electricity and you're getting cold on one side and you're getting warm on the other. So this is the reverse. You're putting in warm and cold.
00;14;37;16 - 00;15;03;18
Unknown
You're getting electricity. Yeah. And then the third type, which I really like is an ocean heat pump. I don't know how popular heat pumps are in homes here, but they're growing I can they're a bit more popular in in Europe. So it's people tend to resonate with that idea that you're just using the ocean as a heat pump, the same way that you might have a air source or ground source heat pump for your home in Europe.
00;15;03;20 - 00;15;28;01
Unknown
So I guess I should say it, but like, this is a renewable source of energy, right? It is a renewable source. Yeah. It's it's clean energy. It's it's renewable. Not one of those hybrid, you know, like wannabes, like a, like a true, like, renewable source. But it is. And the amazing thing about tech is that there's no kind of daily fluctuations based on, how sunny it's been, that warm surface.
00;15;28;03 - 00;15;49;02
Unknown
Seawater is it's really maintained all year round. There might be a 2 or 3 degree centigrade fluctuation either way. We designed systems to make sure that doesn't affect the, output. But this this gives a customer a baseload power, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Yeah, well, we like baseload power. We love baseload.
00;15;49;02 - 00;16;05;18
Unknown
But it's, Yeah, it's always an issue, especially with renewables. Right? Yeah. So we like that. So you kind of touched on, like, I guess like a history timeline, but if we can kind of get like that good overview, like it was basically invented this time. Right. And we're here, we're here, we're here, and now we're here.
00;16;05;18 - 00;16;25;18
Unknown
Like, what does that look like? Well, you said in the intro that it sounds a lot like science fiction, and that's because its history came from science fiction and Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, which I think if you go into, Disneyland California, they've actually got a model of, of Nautilus there. The ship from the, from the novel.
00;16;25;25 - 00;16;51;17
Unknown
That is where the, the origin of the Oatcake idea came from. Then in 1918, a French physicist called Jack Dawsonville was was the scientist that came up with how this would actually work in principle. His student George Claude then in 1935 built the first system that was built in Cuba. And I'd been reading up on the history and it's just incredible.
00;16;51;19 - 00;17;18;07
Unknown
That deep water pipe you talked about, laying that down the seabed was was the Achilles heel for the George Claude there. So, one pipe was destroyed by a hurricane. Then he had to construct it in, crocodile infested waters and then tow it out into the ocean. And I think he got some mathematics wrong because the the pipe buckled and almost destroyed.
00;17;18;07 - 00;17;45;14
Unknown
So I think he tried that three times in, in Cuba. And there's stories of his dodgy deals with, the leaders at the time. And Cuba thought that this was going to be like their oil discovery. So, yeah, a lot of really interesting history. Things went really quiet in the in the mid century. Who knows why. But then Jimmy Carter was the savior that ignited a US boom for this technology.
00;17;45;14 - 00;18;09;17
Unknown
So in 1979 he passed the Ocean Thermal Energy Act. You think about what presidents in the US get remembered for. Why? I think people like to say the anecdote that Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the white House for the first time. But the Ocean Thermal Energy Act that he passed spurred a huge amount of development over in Hawaii.
00;18;09;20 - 00;18;38;28
Unknown
So outside of US mainland was where the first demonstrations for this technology took place. And the legacy of that is still there today, because they've got deep ocean pipes in Hawaii. The, the feeding aquaculture. There's there's an old tech research facility there. They're making salt. It contributes like $150 million to the, to the local economy in terms of, productivity every year.
00;18;39;05 - 00;18;59;20
Unknown
I think that's an awesome legacy. So, yeah, we've got a lot to thank, Jimmy Carter for. Who would have thought Jimmy Carter would would, be behind all that if he got a second term? Who knows? I'll tell you. Anyone from my generation that is like a nothing president. You know, compared to the polarizing leaders in the world today, Jimmy Carter's, like, might as well be a just like my chill, grandpa.
00;18;59;21 - 00;19;20;22
Unknown
What would he be? Is like a soft drink. Would he just be sparkling water sprite, diet sprite. Think that's a that's a great little, top talking point. This is also super cool and interesting. It like when it comes to renewables, it's everyone talks about wind, solar, whatever. Like why why isn't this the cool sexy thing everyone's talking about?
00;19;20;22 - 00;19;51;28
Unknown
Like, yeah, there's some good reasons for that. And I think it's because that that tropical band of the world where OPEC is, is workable, doesn't really border with countries, spend a lot of R&D money on energy. So you think about, you know, the United States, although there's been although it was a focus of Jimmy Carter's government, Hawaii is really only the kind of state that has a resource, maybe a bit of a Florida, the overseas territories like Guam, Marshall Islands, American Samoa.
00;19;52;00 - 00;20;24;01
Unknown
They're great too. But it's not something that's going to be powering Texas or New York City or California. Same with Europe. Europe's driven a lot of energy R&D, but it doesn't have an OPEC resource. So countries like maybe Mexico, Nigeria, you know, the Southeast Asian countries, the, the these are the countries that have the greatest OPEC resource in the world, but they haven't typically had the big R&D budgets to do it.
00;20;24;03 - 00;20;45;17
Unknown
The US federal government has invested over $100 million into this technology throughout history. So that's not really being driven. Exactly a drop in the ocean, another 100 million. And we start scaling this thing globally. It start. Would you say it's like kind of on a up and up like it's trending. It's it's getting it's getting its flowers right now.
00;20;45;20 - 00;21;13;21
Unknown
It has the technology has had peaks and troughs throughout history. But the tide is turning now, excuse the pun. So it's a case of getting the right capital for this stage of development. So, you know, OPEC requires the same risk capital that's available to enhance geothermal and other breakthroughs you're seeing in the sector. And I think ocean was and marine energy was always a place the investors were super cautious of.
00;21;13;21 - 00;21;36;04
Unknown
But kind of breaking news today. We just saw that Peter Tails fund has invested. He's led the round of a US wave energy company called Panther. Lassa I think is 100 and $140 million. So remember I just said that OTC just needs it's 100 million. Well, there are other ocean companies now that are starting to to do this.
00;21;36;04 - 00;22;00;19
Unknown
And a rising tide lifts all ships. Yeah. It's crazy in the world of like billionaires. Yeah. And just individuals being more powerful than like at 80% of the world, like nations where someone like Trump can start his nuclear fusion or Bezos can go to the moon like right now, Bezos and Elon are fighting on the Artemis project on like, certain missions in their vessels.
00;22;00;26 - 00;22;22;15
Unknown
And then now, like today, Peter Thiel with 140 million to this stuff like and there's so much more like Elon talking about data centers and SpaceX. Like it is crazy. Yeah. Fun. I love it. I mean, what a what a time to be alive. Yeah. And I know some people have, kind of take issue with it being these, you know, sovereign individuals making those decisions.
00;22;22;15 - 00;22;44;07
Unknown
But, you know, historically it was government with tax dollars. And now do you really want your government going to the moon if they can't get health care or transportation working? You know, so, you know, Samsung is crazy. Innovation is is happening in our lifetime in a way that we're going to feel like we've lived on the wildest, most exciting timeline.
00;22;44;10 - 00;23;02;16
Unknown
Bring it on. Hell yeah. Let me let me, capitalize on this trending news and let's see if we can get a nice reaction clip out of you. So I'm gonna test your social media skills. So I'm. I just read a headline, and you can, like. Yeah, I can, I can, like, get the synopsis of this today, and you can just kind of, riff on your opinion.
00;23;02;16 - 00;23;27;10
Unknown
Yeah. And don't forget to be very problematic and controversial and opinionated. All right, so here's this nice synopsis of this teal deal. Just this week, a company called Panther Plaza raised 140 million, led by Peter Teal. They're doing autonomous floating nodes that capture wave energy and run AI inference right there on the ocean using the seawater for cooling.
00;23;27;10 - 00;23;51;09
Unknown
So that's kind of sounds like what you're doing, but they threw AI in there as a buzzword. Now, I think credit to them, it's not what we're doing. They're doing wave energy. We're doing ocean thermal energy. So they're fundamentally different technologies. Wave energy is that one? The government has been throwing R&D dollars at. And it's just a graveyard of companies and projects that haven't been able to crack yet.
00;23;51;14 - 00;24;19;04
Unknown
So coming back to whether, you know, it should be the private sector or governments driving innovation, maybe this is going to show us that it should be the Peter Tails, the Bezos, the Musk's ducks should be investing more in these breakthroughs and not relying so much on on government. But in a wave, if you asked some of the seasoned engineers, especially a European seasoned engineer, you know, they would tell you that wave, oh, it's a waste of money and it's never going to work.
00;24;19;11 - 00;24;41;03
Unknown
And, you know, it's it's like, hold a hold my beer. The US is the US going to do it? I think this is important because it gives the US the opportunity to really lead in something where it's pulling away from some other technologies at the moment. So, I mean, maybe that's a good segue into what's happened with offshore wind, right?
00;24;41;06 - 00;25;10;04
Unknown
There's been sort of it's 20 years since the first offshore wind, a commercial project went live in Europe. And the US and Europe have really fumbled the bag in this because China's doing it all now, the manufacturing everything cheaper than anyone else. The scaling it faster than anyone else. Same can be said with solar. China's doing it faster and deploying more than anyone else.
00;25;10;06 - 00;25;37;12
Unknown
So maybe wave energy can be the thing that the US uses to create jobs domestically to create value and be very protective of that intellectual property, because the moment it goes to China, China will take over again. Yeah, that scoreboard is quite the deficit right now when you compare it to the US and reshoring, I don't think anyone is against in this country right now.
00;25;37;12 - 00;25;53;17
Unknown
So any opportunity we could take, I mean, and we're cutting our losses on time, I mean, are we really going to pass anyone else, with the critical or critical minerals or anything like that? Like they're they're leagues ahead, right? So why not invest in something else that is untouched, like the way of technology or anything like that?
00;25;53;20 - 00;26;15;19
Unknown
That that's our vision is to do this in the US with oh tech as well. So we're planning our pilot in Hawaii because it's got some of the best conditions in the world for us to do this. So we're very bullish. USA you brought up like the the other renewables that are in the ocean, right. Though offshore wind turbines like I was I was saying like in this office like there's a lot of hate towards it.
00;26;15;25 - 00;26;56;15
Unknown
And I don't even think it's, political on either side. Like the headlines about when it comes to wind, offshore wind is, like, never positive. It looks like, like is this is how is how is that going? If we're like in a race with solar wind and otak. Like what? What is leading in like ten years, that's the wrong way to look at it because it's not a race we need to I think we there's there's a term that we use sometimes in politics in the UK is the football ification, where everything's got to be my team versus your team, and you guys suck and I hate you and we need to win everything.
00;26;56;21 - 00;27;30;16
Unknown
It's not like that. Energy is a Swiss army knife. I think the world's learning that a lot with what's happening in the Strait of Hormuz at the moment. Sorry. Geopolitical, Segway. But, you know, we've gone from a couple of years ago, people wearing Just Stop Oil shirts in the UK, gluing themselves to banks, to the world, realizing what happens if you just turn the dial down 20% on oil overnight, and the knock on consequences for fertilizer for Mirai for good.
00;27;30;17 - 00;27;53;10
Unknown
There's this whole supply chain. The the the it's just it's just energy, whether it's oil and gas or wind or solar or OTC or wave, it's just energy. And we need so much more. Good. I was testing you where you made me think of something I should have brought up in the intro. What's your team? I'm West Ham United.
00;27;53;12 - 00;28;12;14
Unknown
Yeah. We just slipped into the relegation zone at the moment, so it's slightly this three games left, but it's a slightly sensitive moment. Thank thanks. Oh, thanks for bringing that up Jacob. Okay. Well enjoy playing against Preston North End or something next year now Fulham Fulham will stay in the Premier League. Oh. I'm so behind.
00;28;12;16 - 00;28;31;13
Unknown
Yeah. Last time I looked, West Ham was like doing well on the last few years. Yes. Yeah we won. We want a trophy for the first time in my lifetime, but, we can't have nice things. So let's see. Spurs may go down. It's really. Yes but Spurs is between us and Spurs. Oh man. Oh yeah man the times have changed.
00;28;31;13 - 00;28;49;13
Unknown
It's all Man City's fault right. It is. It's all the petrodollars coming from. There we go. The parts of the world right it back into energy somehow. Yeah I love teabags. Right okay. So we're existing with all of our renewables in the ocean. We have the otak, the wind, the solar. Yeah. We want to ask them dumb questions real quick.
00;28;49;14 - 00;29;11;21
Unknown
Go for it. First off solar. Yes. Any ocean we're doing that I'm picturing a barge with a bunch of solar panels on it. Is that what's happening? No locations that don't really have any waves. You're going to have some floating structures. Are you going to have it in the open ocean, where you're designing for significant wave heights of ten meters in cyclonic conditions?
00;29;11;24 - 00;29;29;04
Unknown
No. What about the, wind? So I, I understand there. I brought up this on another offshore episode where I was, like, old Jacob. That one there was like an offshore rig, like a oil drilling rig, that the four pillars literally went all the way down into the ground like thousands of feet. And I realize they're floating. Right.
00;29;29;06 - 00;29;50;18
Unknown
And it makes sense. Like a lot of the drilling rigs are floating, there are these big wide squares, but there's floating wind turbines. How does like a pole? There's a whole like hundreds of feet poles float. Do you understand? So when we talk about offshore wind, something like 90 to 95% of offshore wind is a mono pile. Okay.
00;29;50;18 - 00;30;18;07
Unknown
In a relatively shallow location like the North Sea floating. I think Norway is leading on that, and I don't know what depths they go into. Maybe they go into like 100m, but will the economics work when you've got to have a, mooring system for 1000m? For 2000m, I think we have a bit of a habit of just we develop one thing and we just think that's got to be deployed everywhere.
00;30;18;10 - 00;30;46;05
Unknown
Look at where the wind resource is concentrated. Deploy that in places where it makes sense, like the North Sea, like the north eastern seaboard of the United States. That doesn't mean that it needs to be deployed everywhere as the as a silver bullet solution. So, I, I love offshore wind. I the place I grew up as a kid and the beaches that I went to in in England, I go to now and I see wind turbines, I love it.
00;30;46;10 - 00;31;09;13
Unknown
I had my stag do my bachelor party. I took friends out to a wind farm. We drank prosecco and beers under wind turbines. It was epic. Everyone had a great time. Yeah, I love it. But floating. I don't quite see the. You're going to have the cost effective mooring systems to get them widely deployed in deep water. Yeah.
00;31;09;16 - 00;31;40;17
Unknown
I was asking like literally how do they float the odd how do you have an understanding of that? They would float with a mooring. They'd have a mooring. Yeah. What is that? So a more you would have 3 or 4 points of, of of polyline. They're like chain to the seafloor. So you would have as I understand it and full disclosure, I'm not a mooring expert or a naval architect, but you would typically have, the chain would be lying on the seabed to provide a weight and help embed the anchor.
00;31;40;24 - 00;32;02;22
Unknown
And then you would have a polyline running up to the, to the floating platform. Then you might have some additional chain, the the connection line. So that sounds like a logistic. People are going to come to me in the comments about that one. And tell me that I'm the one with the dumb answers. Now that's fine that I won't clip that because they won't like that.
00;32;02;22 - 00;32;21;16
Unknown
But I mean, maybe, maybe the people who invented it don't even understand it. Sounds like such an insane thing. It's no point. No one's doing it in deep water, right? So, okay, I do have an understanding that they they more and more or whatever, but yeah, I'm guessing the the better result in the future is to stay closer to the shore where you can actually plant them in the ground, like I don't, I'm not sure.
00;32;21;16 - 00;32;42;05
Unknown
Yeah. Because every, you know, every meter you take any technology offshore, you add risk and you add costs. So you need to look at what are the the right technologies for that specific location. And it's not just your favorite one. Yeah. And it needs to if you're going to invest all that effort and money it needs to produce more money.
00;32;42;05 - 00;33;03;00
Unknown
So the ROI is a positive ROI. It needs to offset the risk. The early investors, are taking. The scale needs to be incredible. Mind blowing. Like, oh, tech is and it has to there has to be some kind of moat. There has to be the kind of intellectual property base like low blow tech have, to, to make that monetizable.
00;33;03;03 - 00;33;28;06
Unknown
Yeah. You're mentioning like big money that you need for OTC to work. And from my understanding, the majors are very interested in OTC, right. Literally name a major and they're involved somehow, right? Is that true? Yes and no. I think there's different, risk appetite. There's different risk profiles that some operators have, like without naming names, there are ones who say we don't lead this stuff.
00;33;28;06 - 00;33;51;20
Unknown
We don't, you know, where we all we have followers, not leaders, and they're fine with that. Then there are others that may have a corporate venture capital, to invest in new technologies and then there. But generally they all use chips or joint industry projects to de-risk this early stage technology. And that's something that we've just been involved in, with an organization called Deep Star.
00;33;51;22 - 00;34;19;21
Unknown
So why don't you get, into the Deep Star stuff? We're kind of talking about it before. Sounds really cool. Yeah. So deep star, I think, is like one of the oldest incubators or accelerators in tech. I think it dates back 30 years. 40 years. It used to be Chevron's R&D arm. Today it's a consortium like a partnership of 11 majors who who contribute to a port making up about $5 million every year.
00;34;19;28 - 00;34;41;04
Unknown
And then they have different themes and priorities and, yeah, I can't go in and just blindly lobby for them to fund me. But if you find someone is going to champion you and take you to the board meetings and and pitch for you, then they will do a show of hands, a vote on whether they want to take this technology forward.
00;34;41;10 - 00;35;02;22
Unknown
And we managed to convince five out of the 11 last year, which was pretty epic. Nice. I mean, they have the incentive to work with renewables, right? So they can offset what they produce on the like hydrocarbon side. Like is that. No. Yeah. Yes. There's there's an element of that. It's not just about renewables. So you can have themes around maybe subsea technology.
00;35;02;22 - 00;35;28;28
Unknown
It could be you know, things that make picking, which is like cleaning a riser, a flow line, more, more efficient. So there's a, there's a real range of, of topics. One of them is greenhouse gas emissions. And there are very practical reasons why they want to adopt these. So there's a big theme in that conference at the moment about offshore electrification and subsea electrification.
00;35;28;28 - 00;35;54;05
Unknown
So they want to move away from hydrocarbons because electrifying systems, reduces risk. It's safer and more cost effective. So if you can develop and deploy technologies that take those boxes, then then you can get a meeting, you bring up the idea of like the it opens like up new technology and stuff like, is that cleaning up the riser, stuff like that.
00;35;54;05 - 00;36;14;06
Unknown
Like that's something I love. Bring it up here all the time. Like the inventions that are made outside of oil and gas that oil and gas use or vice versa. Like what are some of the cool ones that you've seen, like discovered in like recent years? There's another company that's here I OTC called, Ulysses and Andreessen Horowitz.
00;36;14;06 - 00;36;42;15
Unknown
Just let their their series A and basically they've reinvented the submarine. So you think of a submarine and it's this huge multi-billion dollar asset that's got to be staffed with, I don't know, like 100 people wouldn't take on a huge amount of risk. Well, they're submarines cost about $100,000 to make. And they can kick it off a trailer into the ocean and it can do surveillance.
00;36;42;15 - 00;37;07;27
Unknown
They started doing, seagrass planting. So there's there's amazing technologies coming out like that. Is that like also defense or is it just for the. Yeah, I think the, the funding they've raised is for the defense angle. Right. But they're they're really interesting company. Yeah. Again finding like multi-use and like these are the same technologies. Okay. I think we can kind of like wrap it up of like, you know, what's in the future of it all and stuff.
00;37;07;29 - 00;37;26;05
Unknown
So we, we kind of covered up the history and, you know, you said there was ups and downs. So we are kind of more on the up now. Like what I guess nations are going to be like using this a lot. Like if I have the energy mix up right. It's like, use this much natural gas, oil, solar, hydro, whatever.
00;37;26;05 - 00;37;48;03
Unknown
Like would you consider otak being a percentage, a sliver of a nation's, energy mix? Yes. I mean, think you can take Hawaii as a, as a state, for example, in Hawaii could be using Otak for 50% of its baseload power. It could be using a mix of other renewables and hydrocarbons in some places to provide the rest of its energy.
00;37;48;06 - 00;38;10;12
Unknown
Malaysia is another one. They've actually passed a government policy in the state of Sabah for otak to be part of their energy mix. And, and a number of other island states have Mauritius. Most recently we've got an MoU with Barbados. We're hearing some exciting things with another Caribbean island. I can't talk about that at the moment yet, though.
00;38;10;18 - 00;38;33;24
Unknown
So the there's a lot of, inbound interest we're getting to, to bring this technology around the world at a, at a government level. And I think our thesis is if we can de-risk it in the oil and gas sector, which has the greatest deepwater experience for technology, then will we have a much better chance of successfully scaling that around the world because we'll have the best foundations?
00;38;33;28 - 00;38;56;22
Unknown
Yeah, that's really exciting. So we can expect to hear a lot more of this as time comes, I assume. Yeah. So I think when I sat down with Chuck, he said, you know, invite me onto your, your prototype that we just installed in, in the Canary Islands. Last October, I'll say to you, in two years, join me in Hawaii, will be commissioning our oh tech power module for the first time.
00;38;56;24 - 00;39;15;22
Unknown
Wow. So a man of my word. I prove myself last time. We do it again. Have you gone out there? Hawaii? Yeah. No, to the Canary Islands. Oh, yeah. Count countless more. More times than I care to. So that's the funny thing. Like you, a lot of the the nations you're naming are the beautiful islands and stuff like that.
00;39;15;22 - 00;39;34;08
Unknown
Like what has been your favorite to visit or which one do you get excited for when you're like, oh, you have to go work and help out here. It's like, hell yeah. It's always Hawaii. Always, always Hawaii. Hawaii is crazy special place in my heart. I got engaged, to my wife. Yeah, in Hawaii, and we took our baby last year as well.
00;39;34;08 - 00;40;01;21
Unknown
That's a pretty, big flight to to to go with a, ten month old. Oh, yeah. So we we did that. So, yeah. Hawaii has a special place in my heart. Favorite island there. Oh. Yeah. So I should say the big island where the. Oh, tech facility is, but there's something I love about Oahu.
00;40;01;24 - 00;40;25;02
Unknown
Driving around there, the views, the beaches, the surf, the convenience. Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Yeah. You have a cool job. Thank you. My cooler. Mine. Yeah. So hot to move around too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They fly me out to Calgary. Yeah. Just kidding, I love Calgary. Just don't send me to Edmonton.
00;40;25;04 - 00;40;42;14
Unknown
So what I want to know is you're with global otak, right? Right. So I'm assuming that's going to be one of the big names. So here we go. Right. Y'all are like, who else you'll be seeing the kind of see it multi million series A like you're seeing Pan last year in Ulysses. In due course. Right.
00;40;42;14 - 00;41;08;19
Unknown
So like are we collaborating. We have enemies. Like what are we looking at here now. So we're we're collaborators. So yeah, we're working with some of the, majors in, in Deep Star, some of those that make up deep stories Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, Petro, Petrobras. We're working with the service providers because they need our power in very remote locations for their pumps.
00;41;08;19 - 00;41;26;17
Unknown
So that gives you some other ideas of who the names might be. But we we don't have any enemies. We just have friends. And I always have to ask, how is I getting involved? We just talked about Peter Thiel's company. You know, he's doing it, but it's with the waves, right? Are we able to apply it to your industry?
00;41;26;19 - 00;41;57;09
Unknown
Yes. I think there's some niche cases where we can do it. But I'm not prepared to, whack AI on the front page of the slide deck. To close the round of. We have really, really strong fundamentals collaborating with the oil and gas space. And that's, that's that's how we're going to build this. Well, I think, you know, if there's anything else you want to say, you know, is there any shout out to Chuck in Venice?
00;41;57;15 - 00;42;18;08
Unknown
Yeah. Talks in Venice right now. I'll put up a picture in the edit now. And, I think he's on a bridge that's, older than the United States Constitution. Not as all the same, though. No, no, no, it wouldn't be a podcast with me without ripping, Chuck a new one, but, you know, is there any, like, cool predictions you want to make for a year for your for your company?
00;42;18;08 - 00;42;43;25
Unknown
Like, y'all going to be having some big milestones? I'll make a more broad one. Yeah. Is that. No. In five years time, you're going to see ocean being a far more invested category. It feels like we're barely even just scratched the surface now. And there's a lot of talk about space. And I think a lot of space plays are not going to materialize in the way people thought that they would.
00;42;44;03 - 00;43;06;02
Unknown
And we're going to realize that we've got this incredible, undiscovered, valuable ocean that can generate, a lot of value to people here on Earth. And, and that's going to be the thing that we focus on. Great closing. Yeah, I love that we did a comparison all the time. Like outer space is so cool. You're talking about outer space, right?
00;43;06;05 - 00;43;26;21
Unknown
I am yeah. There's like all these movies about it. You know, the ocean's got a good amount. And what we praise is like, know the subsurface ocean movies. Do you think about like, SeaWorld, which is I think of the bad ones, like, like Titanic or Deepwater Horizon. So there isn't, like, fun, cool exploration water like Ocean Gate. Right.
00;43;26;27 - 00;43;45;23
Unknown
So it's like it is cool to see like. Yeah, like screw space, like the subsurface, the ocean, like it's right here. It's like we've we've we've got the tools, we've got the technology. We've got to get exploring and we've got to get making cool shit. All right. Well then, thanks for coming on and having all the way from London just to be on this podcast.
00;43;45;23 - 00;43;53;23
Unknown
Isn't that crazy? Yeah, I appreciate it. Well, Chuck flew out for me, so I, you know, return the favor, return the favor. All right. Well, cheers. Thank you.
