18. Growing water from waste

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Terry Paule: Climate is not about hot and cold or wet or dry. It's about whiplash weather. Weather extremes, where it's either flood or drought. And the regularity, the one in a hundred year event is now once in a decade, once in five years. This is all manifested out of climate change and water is directly related to that. A flood is just as bad as the drought. People think, oh, we had floods, we're fine. You know what, the first thing that happens with the flood is clean water gets polluted.

[00:00:49] Mizter Rad: Hello, beautiful humans. Today I'm incredibly humbled to welcome Terry Paule, one of Australia's top entrepreneurs that is building an exciting technology to harvest water from plants. How crazy is that? Water is such an important topic for us humans. It is critical for our socioeconomic development. For maintaining healthy ecosystems and our human dignity.

I invited Terry because I want to understand from him. From his vast experience and knowledge what we humans are doing to make sure that in a hundred years from now, water is still accessible for all of us. Terry, how is it going?

[00:01:32] Terry Paule: Fabulous, Mr. Rad. Thanks very much, uh, for your generous invitation. I was, I was looking forward to spending a little bit of chat time with you and a very good introduction, I must say. Really, um, really summed up, uh, the problem the world is facing and, and the challenges that, uh, we we'll have to go through as a world.

[00:01:53] Mizter Rad: That's great, but also sad to hear that we have so many challenges, but talking about that and how critical or imminent is this water crisis? Please start by telling us if we are already in a water crisis or not, or if it's, this is something that will happen in the next 5, 10, 15 years. Because, and you know, I wanna start with this, Terry, because it seems that in the media you have 3, 4, 5 big topics that they put out there every now and then, and then they switch back to the other topic.

You have the gas crisis. The co2, carbon neutral initiative, or problematic. Or you have the current war between the west and the Eastern. Some people call it Russia and Russia versus Ukraine. I think it's bigger than. But then water on the other hand, is not making the big news, the big headlines. Maybe you are within the industry and you would say, yeah, it is, you know, it's The New York Times wrote an article about it, or the Economist, but, but it's not really in the big headlines.

It's not really in the head of people. How do you, how, how adequate is this? Why do you think this is happening and how, in general, how imminent is this water crisis?

[00:03:07] Terry Paule: Yeah, look, it's a very good question and I think the view or the answer really would be reflective of where you are in the world. I mean, some people get up every single day, 200 million man hours a day are spent carting water. Just taking water from somewhere back to a household, to a home, to a family, to a village to survive.

200 million man hours a day, every day, predominantly women. And often young girls who don't get to go to school, who don't get to have an education to break the poverty cycle. So from their perspective, the water issue has been around for a long, long time, ever since they were born. I guess what you are talking about is the developed world and, and there is a lot of noise.

There are big issues that come and go. You know, things like covid, things that interrupt our lives and our plans. And water is certainly has sat in the background for a long, long time. What gives me some hope, And is that, uh, only about a month ago, or less than a month ago, I was in New York and for the first time the United Nations held a water conference.

In fact, the first time in 47 years, nearly, nearly half a century, they turned their attention specifically to water and the, and, and the impact of, of water scarcity and contamination. We often forget about the issue of contamination, particularly in developed countries where we're, we're, we're literally poisoning ourselves in our own waterways.

And the world's sort of turned for a week, uh, to its focus toward, towards water. As part of, um, a broader goals that the UN have done around sdg sustainability development goals. The, that were established in 2015 with a goal by 2030 to, to tick off 17 very, very important. SDG six is about water and, and, and the ability to, to supply the world with drinking water.

And the sad news is not only is it not in the news, we are far, far behind this goal. In fact, by 2030, which is not far away up to 40% of the world's population will be impacted by water scarcity in some way. At least at some part of the year, where people can't easily gain access to clean, potable drinking water.

[00:05:41] Mizter Rad: And so you, as part of the industry, as part of, the, the group of humans that are looking for solutions. Why don't you tell us a bit more about what specifically is your company doing to help alleviate this water crisis or this water problem?

[00:05:59] Terry Paule: Yeah, look, but it's probably worth just the moment having a little bit of my background.

We have discovered a technology where we can harvest the water that naturally occurs in plants. This water has been invisible to the world for a long, long time. Um, we like to call it, we grow water as a simple way. I was a, I was asked, uh, probably four or five years ago now for an elevator pitch.

How do you, how do you tell somebody between the bottom floor, the ground floor, and the top floor of a building, what you do? And we'd like to say that we grow water. And what we, what we mean by that is plants, fruit and vegetables, sugar cane, tomatoes, or as the Americans would say, tomatoes. I've just come back from the US and uh, I have to, I have to start calling them tomatoes and not tomatoes as we like to call them...

are 95% water. So essentially if we could extract that water, we could harvest that water from that source tomato, then we would've found a new source of water. So what we do is we don't grow fruit and vegetables to harvest water. We attach our harvesting units, our machines, if you like, to existing industries that there's thousands of these factories all over the world.

These are people that make tomato ketchup, at tomato sauce as the English would say. People that make sugar. People that make alcohol. And what these industries have in common is that they all use a large evaporative process to concentrate the fruit or the vegetable that they bring in. So they basically, the steam, they cook the tomato to make tomato sauce or tomato ketchup.

And what we do cleverly is we catch the evaporative condensate or that steam from the cooking. We purify it through our water harvest unit, which is, uh, we can talk a little bit more about later. And we create the world's most sustainable water. And just to finish up a, a, I became an investor in this business.

It was a startup that came across my desk about five or six years ago, and I fell in love with it to a point where I spend the majority, if not all of my time now commercializing and corporatizing and bringing this technology to the world. To a point where we want to gift this technology and impact a hundred million people. A hundred million of the world's most vulnerable people by 2025.

So we will create water in places where there isn't any. Because of the technology. And we will create the infrastructure and work with NGOs and, and governments and other people to deliver this water free as a gift to the, the world's poorest people.

[00:08:46] Mizter Rad: And so how, how do you wanna do that in places where, look, so gimme an example of one of those places, because I, I'm thinking, you know, with your technology, you can harvest water or you, like you said, you can grow water.

If they have a, let's say, a production facility of, uh, ketchup. But I'm imagining that in those poorer regions they don't have that kind of facilities. Or am I wrong? Or how, how, how is that process, how are you connecting, connecting the production facility of ketchup with the actual region that needs that water that comes from that ketchup factory?

[00:09:23] Terry Paule: That, that's a very good question. And, and I guess the best example is in our business plan, we are targeting two countries specifically. One being the United States because it is a developed world, a developed country, and we want to run our model there. But the best example to answer your question is actually the other country being India.

India has 18% of the world's population. And only has 4% of the world's water. Water scarcity is a, a major, major issue in India, and one and a half million people a year die in India from water and sanitation related diseases. So it's, it's a major, major problem. But what India also has is a large sugar industry.

So it, it grows sugar all the way from the north to the south, and there are over, I think it's something like 525 large factories from the north to the south. Each one of these sugar mills, the sugar factories can produce around 2 million liters a day of clean, crystal clean drinking water, which we can then distribute like a hub and a spoke into the local communities.

[00:10:39] Mizter Rad: And are you already working on this specific project in India, or, or, or is this still in the pipeline?

[00:10:47] Terry Paule: We, we are, and we are just negotiating the final parts of of our partnership, which we will announce shortly. We, we launched last September in the US we, we made water in the middle of a California drought. A drought, you know, worst drought for 1200 years.

We produced around 10 million liters in a place called Los Banos in the northern part of California. Which we donated to the local, um, municipalities. Um, there is something like over 2 million people in that part of California that don't have access to tap water to city water. Would you believe this is in the us.

[00:11:27] Mizter Rad: Wow.

[00:11:27] Terry Paule: So we, we are replicating that this year in India. We, we will be launching and making some announcements later this year in partnership with one of the large families in India and, and the government. And we will commence a pilot where we will, we will probably install up to 50 units in India in the first year.

And then grow that all the way through to the 500, not only the sugar mills, but uh, talking to the tomato processes and other industries. So this is real, this is not pilot or, or my background is financial services and building startups. We've, we've built billion dollar companies in the past. And this can be a major, major, um, uh, way to, to positively impact both social and environmental and, you know, have great social environmental impact in the world.

[00:12:20] Mizter Rad: And so in this example in California, you said you produced 10 million, you grew 10 million litters of water, and then you gave it for free to the citizens of California that didn't have clean water, for some weird circumstance, maybe we don't have to talk about this, but I find it super strange that in the US and California, some people don't have water.

It's crazy. But, um, why is this free in the first place? Why, why, so what, what is the business model behind? I'm curious about that.

[00:12:52] Terry Paule: Yeah. The, the, the business model is a model of sustainable capitalism. It's, um, it's not running away from running a business for, for, for business sake. But the mentality, the, the, the, the spirit behind it, if you like, is that we move from a shareholder model to a stakeholder model where we, our decision making includes not only shareholders, but also the recipients of the water, all of the stakeholders, governments, NGOs.

Corporates wishing to fulfill their ESG goals, you know, their CSR. Their own sustainability goals. So what we have done it's a very big story and you can go to We grow water.com. There are lots of articles if anyone is interested to read. And videos as well. The, there have been a lot of videos published by, by people you know, um, CBS, CNN, World Economic Forum.

So there's, there's a lot there if, if anyone listening is interested. But essentially what we do is we take a technology, a good idea. We then put some infrastructure around it. We build a commercial standard water harvest unit. These units, the, the equipment that purifies the water sits in a 40 foot shipping container, so we can actually move them around.

We then went and built a blockchain trading platform in conjunction with Fujitsu. Fujitsu are a technology partner. We partnered up about two years ago out of their Belgium specialist unit in Belgium. And we've now got a fully operating blockchain exchange. And why we did that was that, and, and, um, I haven't described how much of this water is in the world. There is something like 3 trillion liters of this water exists in these factories. Probably something like 10,000 factories spread all over the world. And 3 trillion is a big number. It's, it's 1.2 million Olympic sized swimming pools. You know, to put some perspective around that.

It takes about a month and a half or a couple of months to count to 1.2 million, let alone to fill that many Olympic sized swimming pools of water.

So this is a large body of water. And what kept me up at night, sort of two years into this whole process was how do we harness it? How do we, how do we catch this water and, and do something meaningful with it? And what dawned on me is in the last 10 years, what has disrupted our lives, are platforms. If you think, as I jokingly say, there's a guy called Jeff who started selling books online and build a business called Amazon.

Or you know, Uber. Or Airbnb. Or even even social media, Meta, you know, Facebook. These are all platforms. These are all connecting a supplier to a demand. A customer to, to, to a, you know, a manufacturer. So we embarked on building the botanical water exchange where we could connect the sugar mill in India to the government, to the NGO o to a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi, an ingredient company that's looking for water.

Because if they can take the water from our source, that means they'll leave water behind instead of taking it out of the ground and draining aquifers. So this is what the, the plan has been. Our model is to deal with the corporates predominantly who have ESG goals. The world is now being driven by ESG. The fortune 500 companies in the world. All the big corporates, all the data centers, the Microsoft's, the Cokes, the Apples. The, the textile industry. All of these industries have set goals for water replenishment by as soon as 2025. So they are looking to fix their own businesses. They are looking to become water neutral and or water positive.

So what we are able to do, taking that goal is connect them with a new source of water. And they can supply water as part of their ESG into those communities. So it will be funded through corporates predominantly. As they achieve their sustainability goals, they'll generate new sources of water for local communities.

I hope that makes sense. It's, it's a big concept.

[00:17:31] Mizter Rad: That, that makes sense. It's a big vision. I, I think I understand it. Let me see, let me try to put it on my words to see if, uh, I got it right. So basically you don't own you don't have a plant or you don't have a storage of bottles of water somewhere where you you know, you control sort of the asset, the water, and then you sell it to your customers.

But you'd rather have this network of corporates that have inserted into their mission based on the ESG goals, to take care of the planet. And one of those points is what to do with the wastewater or with the water in general that we use in our production facilities, let's say Tesla or Bosch. Or whatever production companies that have heavy production processes.

And so they're worrying about what to do with this water. Or how to use better the water. And so they, you come in and you say, look, we have this other company that is using our technology. And they are growing water with our technology. And you can buy water from them instead of digging up into the ground and looking for clean water down there.

And so Correct. They would pay for this sort of process, let's say.

[00:18:47] Terry Paule: And then, and then because they are the, the owner of the water, they can then gift that water to, to local communities or, or put it back into the aquifer for environmental impact. Mm-hmm. It, it's all about the, the best example that I can use is our data centers. Data centers, Microsoft, apple, Google, all these guys.

When we say we're going into the cloud, we're actually not going into the cloud. We're going into a data center that's often sitting in, in the, you know, the Nevada desert or, or in a dry jurisdiction. Right. And these data centers, there's, there's thousands of them, many, many thousands of them all over the world that are cooled by city water, by tap water.

They're, they're, they're, even though they can be, they recycle some of it, but ultimately they us Trillions of liters of water. And it's not very well known in the world. So they struggle, those companies, even with their ESG goals, will struggle to achieve neutrality for those data centers. But we are now able to help them.

And the way we do this is we, we look at the sub-basin of where the data center is sitting. So u utilizing on our exchange. We have some software which is called Swim, where we're able to map through satellite technology, the subbasins of, of the world. This is just, so

[00:20:13] Mizter Rad: Subbasins is, is what? Sub basins is water that sits under the ground or

[00:20:17] Terry Paule: under the ground.

Yeah. 80% of the world's water sits under the ground. And, and this is where the problem is in places like California as it hasn't snowed over the last, few decades. The farmers. Have been taking more and more water from the ground. California also is 40% of America's, uh, food, you know, vegetables and, and, and, and relies on the Colorado River.

So when the Colorado River doesn't have it, starts up in the mountains, doesn't have as much snow year upon year and the dams become depleted, the down to not 20%, albeit this winter they've had very good snow and have had floods quite the opposite. So, but you know, one year is not enough. So what they're relied on is they're, they're going deeper and deeper into the ground to source water.

And this is why 2 million people don't have access to water in America. These are often indigenous communities that were reliant on well water, you know, their own bore water, their own ground water when they bought a farm. And because the local neighbors are digging deeper, the bigger corporations are digging deeper to source water.

Their well has become dry. So now the government has to cart water in tankers to these homes and install tanks. Because the well that was servicing their farm no longer has any water. And this is a major, major problem cuz it sits under the ground. So a data center is also in that ecosystem. It's competing for the same water, whether it comes from a tap or from boil water that they're cleaning up.

At the end of the day, it's com competing with a farm up the road that may have a small, you know, land holding. So what we can do is we can match on the exchange in that same sub basin. There may be a sugar mill or tomato ketchup processor that can produce a new source of water that can be paid for by, say a Microsoft.

And this water can either be gifted to the local communities that they're competing with this data center. Or even more simply pumped back into the ground. To replenish the aquifer. Now, Microsoft would have set a goal, a replenishment goal across its data centers, across its entire business. So it achieves its ESG. Its sustainability goal.

So we're actually adding new water to the equation, if you like. Within that sub-basin. We have users of water. We have, uh, people that need water. And now we have a new source of water. And the exchange pools all that information together in a digital format. In blockchain. Creates the contract. Creates the water. Creates the disposal of water. Creates the certification for the ESG. All in one eco ecosystem.

This has already been built and this is what is being rolled out in both the US and in India. This.

[00:23:15] Mizter Rad: So what, what is the goal of, let's say Google or Microsoft with, with, with this data centers in terms of ESG? Is it specifically to replenish the water under the ground that they are using, sort of. Or is it finding new sources of water to cool off their data centers?

[00:23:37] Terry Paule: Well, well, the, the new, not new sources, maybe new technologies in the long run, but their goal is to be water neutral or water positive. In other words, that data center to not, not be, um, a burden on the local community or the local state or the local sub-basin. So now they are able to pay a new, for a new source of water to be created.

And generally on the exchange, they would dispose of Sam or all of that water to the highest purpose. So the highest purpose would be for human consumption. So if there is, there are farmers in the region that don't have access to water, would be best to go to them because this is beautiful, clear, clean drinking water.

But because of the volumes that they may need to achieve, they can also do what they call a MAR, managed aquifer recharge. In other words, a reverse well, where they physically pump the water, the factory that is making the water, the sugar mill or the tomato guys pump the water into the ground. This is not new technology.

MARs have been used in Australia since the 1950s. This is, this is old technology. But it's quite simple. You basically drill a hole in the ground and you pump the clean water back into the sub-basin, into the aquifer that you've taken the water from somewhere in the same sub basin. In other words, these might, these subbasins may go for hundreds of miles.

They, they, they, they don't, this doesn't mean the factory and the data center have to be side by side, as long as it's in the same sub-basin, which we can tell from satellite. Then when we put water into the ground in one part of California, it replenishes the water that we're taking to cool our data centers in another part of California.

If that makes sense.

[00:25:33] Mizter Rad: That makes sense. What I'm still not very sure I have it clear in my head is because you, you, so one, one of you, let's say part of your business is this technology that harvests pure water, pure drinking water from vegetables, fruits, or sugar cane. And then the other part is the blockchain platform. Like a trading water platform where buyers and sellers sort of connect. And you connect supply on demand.

Is that correct? Correct. Yes. So on the, on the first part of the technology that harvest pure water, pure drinking water from vegetables, fruits, and sugar cane... is, you need that part to be big enough to sort of connect to the demand side, the Microsoft's the, the big corporations needing to, you know, be, be water neutral or ideally positive.

Do we have enough of this water supply to help these other guys on the other side?

[00:26:34] Terry Paule: Well, we, we, we do in, in theory, in, in in volume. But the next step, which is what is happening at the moment, is we are now rolling out our water harvest units across the US and later in the year across India. It's a two or three year process.

Mm-hmm. To, to do that. We have one fully operating, which was our first unit. To prove that we're not crazy. Last year, we, we, we in built and installed a unit in America. In, in conjunction, in partnership with the second largest tomato processor in America, a company called Ingamar Packing Company. They produce, they can produce up to 1 billion liters of water in a 90 day period.

That's because they are one, the second largest proc, you know, they make tomato ketchup. They make, uh, concentrate all these things, which they,

[00:27:31] Mizter Rad: they sell to 1 billion, sorry, 1 billion liters of water. In how long? How, how fast?

[00:27:37] Terry Paule: In 90 days. Okay. So this is where we have an operating unit. The, that was the first year.

So what we did is when we were testing and running it, we gifted the water to the local communities in this year already, the second season for this one site. And remember, there will be thousands of these sites across America. Yeah. Uh, over the next two or three years. In the second year, which starts on July, funnily enough, 4th of July, I think they kick off their season, which is a big, big date in America, as you would know.

Yeah. We, we have already pre-sold this water. To an ngo known as self-help or she self-help enterprises. These people service that community that I was saying the, the 2 million people that don't have access to, to clean water. They, they, they spend $60 million a year with trucking of trucking of water up and down the highway, which is crazy.

So now we are able to supply local water. So the carbon footprint is less the wasted time and effort in carting water, long, long distances, hundreds of miles will go away and,

[00:28:48] Mizter Rad: but why is that, why is that? Your Water will be also, you also need to, to transport the, your, your, your, the water that you grow or not?

[00:28:59] Terry Paule: Well, well, it'll be very local, right? It, it's a hub and spoke. So a lot of these people, we, we are making water essentially near the desert, near the middle of, uh, a, a very dry part of California. Because the water isn't there. The water has come from the tomatoes that started growing six months ago, so we're getting that water back, but we're getting it back in, in a central, like a hub place, which we then can shorter distances to home, to schools, to municipalities.

We can put it back into the waterway. It can be sold as an ingredient to a beverage company, which means that beverage company doesn't use city water. And so on and so on. The these are, this will be determined by the supply and demand customers, right? We don't own this water. We, we own the platform. We own the technology.

We own the way to make the water. But ultimately the, the, this water is owned by the tomato grower. Who is saying, who wants this water? And the local NGO is saying, well, we need water. We, we, we are going long, long distances to fetch water to bring into these communities. Can we buy your clean water? And that's what the exchange is doing.

So this water has already been pre-sold in the second year. And in the third year we will scale further and then roll it out to other tomato, ketchup and other industry.

[00:30:23] Mizter Rad: Is there a reason why you started with the Toma tomato or tomato industry?

[00:30:29] Terry Paule: Um, well, in Australia, we've been making water from the tomato tomatoes since probably a decade now.

So we, we are in partnership with a company called Kagomi, a Japanese company in the north of the state I'm in, in Victoria. So we've been making water from tomatoes for 10 years at least. And from other things like grapes and carrots and things, but, but tomatoes particularly, this is a very large factory here. And in the northern part of Australia up on the place called the Gold Coast, we make water from sugar cane as well for part of the year. Remember, water is now seasonal.

Normally sugar is about eight months. Tomatoes, shorter periods. So this is the other function that the platform has. If you have a customer that wants water all year round, they will, they will buy water from two or three parties, all transacted on the exchange. So it's all clear and transparent. There's full provenance.

I mean, Fujitsu have done a fabulous job. They've fallen in love with our business as well. We are a big part of their own internal corporate sustainability. They, they've really been a, a supportive part of...

[00:31:35] Mizter Rad: did, did, did Fujitsu, did Fujitsu fund the platform or how is the Fujitsu involved here?

[00:31:43] Terry Paule: No, the Fujitsu didn't fund the platform.

My company funded the platform. But they, they, they have been very generous, let's say with, with the time and effort they've put in for, for what they've charged us. And it, and it's a, you know, it's a lot of money. It's not a little bit of money, but they've probably done many, much, much more charitable giving over and above what the original contract said should be done.

So they, they, you know, Fujitsu, the Japanese, are also very sustainably minded as, as a corporation. Sustainability runs right through their whole customer base and what they do. We're also looking at their own data centers as a project in India for Fujitsu Fund their first data center in India.

So there's a lot of work going on at the moment. We're a small team. We have lots of good partnerships like the Fujitsu partnership. The next year or two will be, uh, you, you'll see a major rollout of our water harvest units as we said, starting in the us following onto India and then looking at other jurisdictions, probably Europe after that and possibly North Africa.

[00:32:52] Mizter Rad: That sounds fantastic. Let me go back to the water ha harvesting process cuz I, I think I'm not, I don't have it very clear yet. When you talk about the ketchup factory, they have a bunch of tomatoes. They put it in some sort of machine. It goes through some process and your water har harvesting unit is attached to that process somehow.

And what does it do exactly in the tomato case, for example?

[00:33:21] Terry Paule: Okay, so, so tomatoes are grown often when they're harvested these factories run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Because you have only a limited amount of time once you've cut the tomato to actually process it. And often because of the volume, we the, the products that they make are things like ketchup.

It. Now to make tomato ketchup, it, you actually bring the tomato in and you effectively cook it. You cook it down, like, like to make it, uh, to, to take it from a whole tomato. You, you cook it down to, and you evaporate out the water. We catch that evaporation. So that evaporation at the moment is caught by the factory cooled.

And thrown away in most parts of the world, often to environmental detriment in some parts of the world, yet they have to treat it at a cost. And then dispose of it into trade waste or dispose of it somewhere. Mm-hmm. But what we do is we take that waste product, if you like, and we process it and purify it through our water harvest unit.

Now our water harvest unit sits outside the factory. So if anyone goes to wegrowwater.com, you'll actually see video of this working real video, live video, um, of, of the factory in Los Banos. So we, we, we put the condensate in on one side of our water harvest unit. It sits in a 40 foot shipping container, and from the other side comes clean water.

This water is then stored in, in silos. And then a truck will come along and take this water and, uh, to whoever the customer that's purchasing the water, if it's for social impact and or, and, or put back into the environment, uh, if it's for environmental impact. So the water harvest unit is process engineering.

It's a big piece of technology that I spent three or four years commercializing. It has a lot of telemetry involved. In other words, there are something like 170 touchpoints in the container, which directly connect to the exchange. So the exchange, it's a bit like a Tesla wall. We can see how much water is being produced, what the temperatures are, the pH.

If there's a problem, we can

[00:35:42] Mizter Rad: Oh, really? The unit. It's all, it's all real time.

[00:35:45] Terry Paule: It's in real time. Wow. We can start the unit. We can stop the unit. We can service the unit. Like your car will tell you when it's due for the filters to be changed. We recommend that the unit runs for 23 of 24 hours. We allow one hour for just basic maintenance.

Now remember these factories we're talking, these tomato factories are huge factories, huge, huge factories. This is not a small, this will be on many acres. And I encourage people to get on and have a look at, uh, what I'm talking about. So there are technicians there, there are engineers, there are people.

So for one hour of the 24 hours, I just do a check to make sure everything is okay. And then it runs for the next 23, 24 hours. And this can run for weeks and months on end. Each unit, each water harvest unit, standard unit produces close to half a million liters of clean water every day. So that's, that's the, that's a standard.

We can make them obviously larger or have more than one unit per site. So, uh, this, this particular inma site will end up with four units in order to make a billion liters in 90 days.

[00:36:56] Mizter Rad: That's fabulous. And I think you said that your goal or the potential for some of these factories is filling up one point million Olympic size swimming pools full of ke water.

And so what, besides this, this technology that we're talking about here that you guys developed, what are other technologies that you see out there in the world that are already turning dirty water or not drinking water into drinking?

[00:37:28] Terry Paule: Look, there are a, a composition of technologies. Um, my, my job, uh, really is, uh, you, you know, I, I run a family office where we look for people with good ideas and we take good ideas and then help commercialize and corporatize them.

So I'm always looking for new technologies. Another part of our business that is, uh, plant-based foods. You know, um, we, we were the first to launch in Australia, you know, vegan products. Plant-based cheeses. Plant-based meats. Charcuterie. We, we, we do, we do a plant-based egg. Now, these are all wow technologies.

Yeah, these are all technologies that we invest in and we help commercialize and, and so I'm always, always looking for new technology as part of what I do every day of the week, seven days a week. In terms of water. Water is a wicked problem. It, it, it, it's, it's, it's unlike carbon where you can plant a tree in one part of the world to offset a carbon footprint. Water is a local problem.

In order to fix it, we have to replenish into the same sub-basin. And there's not many solutions. At the UN Water Conference, the conference itself was meaningful in, in, in, in, in the way it symbolized the attention that the world needs to pay for water. You know, the first time in 47 years we're finally linking water to climate change.

And, and this has been missing. And now we've started a journey where we can impact that. But the technologies are struggling to keep up. I mean, we can take water from air. There are technologies there. We have desalination and there are new types of desalination. Green desalination. Where we're using solar energy, renewable energy to drive.

Cuz a big problem with desalination is the energy costs. But now with renewable energy, we'll be able to, to at least lighten that footprint. But the problem with that technology is the salt, the brine... for those that follow me on LinkedIn, in the last couple of days, I've been in a bit of a debate on a post that I put in there around green desalination because it was a big talking point at the UN conference.

Many, many people spooking, you know, desal, desal. Now I'm not against desalination. But it's not a silver bullet that will fix the world's water of drinking water problem. It's okay if you're in the middle. If you're in jurisdictions like the Middle East where there is no plan B, then of course. But places like China, places like California itself, uh, heavy users of desalination.

And the problem is that when you take salt out of water, you have to do something with the salt. And the salt is heavier than water. So generally what happens is this, this salt is pumped back into the ocean. And salt then sinks to the bottom of the ocean. And basically napalms the bottom of the ocean. It kills everything.

It, it, it, it kills all the microorganisms. It kills plant life. It kills what fish feed off. And ultimately kills the fish. Now because it's happening, happening in our oceans, we don't see it, right? So we're not, we're not aware of it. But until that issue can be solved, then desalination is only one technology amongst many.

Botanical water won't solve the world's problem either, even with 1.2 million Olympic sized swimming pools, right? It too is not a silver bullet, but we can positively impact millions and millions and millions of people around the world. Give them water security. Give, allow people to not walk long distances, to fetch very bad water, to bring it back so their family gets sick and die.

Allow young girls to go to school to get an education to break the poverty cycle. The impact of water, water, water sits everywhere. It's in the clothes we wear. It's in the food we eat. It's life giving. You can go 30 days without eating. You can't go 30 days without water, you die. So we need to fix this problem.

[00:41:38] Mizter Rad: And I think a lot of the problems in the world.

Whether some people like it or not are related to how much funding. How much effort is put into solving a specific problem. Like the way we started this conversation is: the media sometimes is not putting as much attention as maybe it should, or we all should into this water crisis. And so I guess what I wanna know from you is from your perspective, when you look at all the different ways of harvesting water or cleaning water, the technologies that we have at this point. Where in your opinion, is most of the money flowing into, is there a specific technology or process that is taking the main attention in terms of money or resources?

[00:42:27] Terry Paule: It, it's not specific. It's, it's territorial, it's jurisdiction, it's country by country. Every country will try to deal with its water issues in different ways. Uh, I mean, the US is a classic example. The people that I hope to be announcing soon that we're partnering with in, in the US to be able to roll out hundreds of our water harvest units, they're a water specialist company.

They, they deal in capital. And they deal in water. The, the issue of water and the us... the way water works in the US because it is the United States and there's varying, you know, different states have different rules. Different jurisdictions. It's quite an inverse triangle. In other words, 80% of the way people get to drink water in the us is produced by local suppliers. Local contracts. Local producers. So it's a very decentralized system over there. And it's broken. A lot of these water treatment plants are are old. The pipe system underground is, is, has a 50 year lifespan and now coming to the end of its, uh, effective life. So the amount of leakage of water underground that we don't see is huge.

I mean, some parts of America still have timber pipes, pipe work. Interesting. Made from, from wood, not even metal or plastic.

[00:43:53] Mizter Rad: So, so it's not, sorry, sorry. It's not, it's not only about cleaning water, but also fixing the, the grid. The infrastructure.

[00:44:00] Terry Paule: Yes, infrastructure is a really, really, really important one. In fact, almost as important as new technology. Because if we can take the leaks out of the system, so to speak, obviously we'll have more water left.

We, we have gert, but no one wants to touch, there's no government is prepared to, to, to spend the billions or trillions of dollars to, to repair. There's no votes in digging up a road and putting a new pipe in. People say water's a democratic right. What have you done? You've just given me my Democrat, democratic right.

I'm not gonna vote for you. There's more merit in cutting ribbons and, uh, for bridges or for other infrastructure than there is for water. But water is life giving. So this is a problem. The world really, really, really is stuck. This is, and governments as much as they can have an impact, generally, I believe philosophically are no good at solving big world problems.

We saw it with Covid. When Covid came a major big world problem, everyone started looking inwards and dealing with their own problems and not worrying about solving it for developing worlds or for other parts of the world. But the more they looked in their own backyard and solved their own local problems, all the different variants came from the developing world, which was then creating another problem in their own backyard.

So if they helped the developing world solve covid. Then they would've helped their own backyard solve covid. This is the mentality that goes behind governments fixing big, big problems. They're no good at it. I'm a believer with sustainable capitalism that within, we involve corporates and industry. And we give them some accolades and some reward and create better businesses and and more sustainable businesses. Then we will get more impact than just reliant.

Of course, governments will be involved. Of course, corporates will be involved, of course, NGOs and local people, and you and I will be involved. We all need to lean into this problem. Education is a big part of it. I think. We start with our kids and grow.

This is not something you can just bandaid and fix, uh, overnight. This is a mentality. This is sustainability is, is what digital was 30 years ago. This is how I explain sustainability. It's not a fad. It's not something, you know, we need to eat better. We need to grow food better. We need, we need to recycle and reuse better.

The problem with that is it's too big an idea. The average person gets lost in it. They feel anxious. They feel as though they can't contribute, but they can. All you have to do is change one or two small things. You know, don't run the tap when you're brushing your teeth. Be mindful when, when, you know, people don't think, how did water get to my tap and when I flush the toilet, where does all of that go?

The amount of infrastructure and things that have to happen for that to happen. But in the developed world, we just assume the only time is when we turn the tap on and nothing comes out. We think, oh, something bad must have happened here. But for the, the majority of us today, when we all got up, or tonight before we go to bed, we brush our teeth, we run the tap wasting water.

These little things across billions of people make a huge impact.

[00:47:15] Mizter Rad: Do you think, talking about pricing, talking about sustainable capitalism and the intersection between corporate, private individuals and governments, I feel like there is a controversial discussion around privatizing water and I guess.

What I wanna know is, in your opinion, do you think we should privatize or treat water as a public good controlled maybe by central governments that should be treated as a sort of human right, that should be free forever and ever?

And I ask you this because some years ago, I remember the former CEO of Nestle, I think his name is Peter Brabeck, something like this, maybe pronouncing wrongly the last name, but I think he said something like, was taken definitely out of context cuz I read the whole script of the interview.

And he said that water shouldn't be treated as a human right. He said that it's an extreme idea to treat water as a, as a human right. And he is pro privatizing. But what he was actually saying is that the industrial usage of water should not be treated as a human right. Not the basic human usage of water.

So basically he was condemning or sort of criticizing that industries or big factories are using water the same way humans are using water, or is they're being sort of qualified in the same way as whatever humans or individuals use water for. So I guess the question is, should, what is your opinion in all of this?

Should water be privatized or not? Should it be treated as a human right or not? Should we make a bigger difference between the usage of water when it comes to an individual and a big corporation?

[00:49:03] Terry Paule: Yeah. Look, I, I, and, and that's a huge out of context for that, that poor chap. I mean, it, it crucified him when he was trying to make a very different point.

But anyway, right. I guess that's what happens. But of course, hu water is a Democratic right, and, and it's life giving. And everyone should have access to it. I think, I think you, you, you almost, without it being, it's very difficult. Obviously. It's a, it's a giant equation that we have to go through here. You know, country by country have and havenots. There's, there's, there's different ways. But, but essentially there, there needs to be a safety net.

And, and we need to add to that safety net. We need to make sure that because water is so important and is life giving that everyone needs to have access to it. Whether it be free or subsidized or however. How we make water and the infrastructure can have privatization. I, I guess we see that in public, private partnerships when we build roads, when we build other infrastructure, where the two come together. Where government concedes the idea that they may not be the most efficient builders and managers of infrastructure.

So they partner with private capital. And allow roads to be built for 30 years, for example, which are then handed back to, to the, to the people at the end of the 30 year period, once the private capital has had a return of its capital and made some profit. It. And it's not that, that's a very sustainable model.

Water infrastructure could have that, but that's how we make the water and how, how it's produced and where it's produced. What it costs, the average person. Everyone should be able to go to a tap and turn on water. And drink that water. And wash with that water. And cook with that water. And do all the other things that need to be done.

I don't think. That can and should ever be privatized. But the value of water is really the final piece of the debate. Uh, in that ecosystem, in private use, I think the value needs to be essentially free. Or accessed to be free or heavily subsidized. But the value in the industry is, is, is often not truly charged.

I think water needs to have a higher value, a higher cost in terms of industry. The problem that the, the business folk out there will say is that, well, it's a higher input cost, which means we have to charge more for the things that we make from this water, whether it be a garment or it be food, or whatever the case may be.

[00:51:39] Mizter Rad: It's a bit like energy. If energy prices go up, then everything else goes up.

[00:51:44] Terry Paule: Correct. Because it's, it's water is in everything we do. I mean, thousands of lit, you know, a liter of milk is I think 1,500 liters of water to make a liter of milk. If you follow the, the scope all the way through to the animal, to the rearing, to the watering, to the, you know. There's a lot of water used in our clothes, in our, in every, everything that we do.

There's, there's, there's, there's water, uh, impact in there. But when we talk about drinking water to sustain life, well, of course, I mean, that's crazy. We can't stand there with a meter and say, um, you know, do you have a dollar? If you don't, you die. I mean, that's just, uh, crazy. And I, I think any society, any part of the world that, that promotes that or, or wants that to happen is, that's just crazy.

Millions of people a year die from water and, and sanitation related diseases. There's many NGOs around the world trying to help fix that problem. Governments don't have a solution. Corporations often can't find a practical way to help. We may be able to have found some impact for some of these corporations in some of these jurisdictions. But, you know, it's like poverty.

It's like everything else. Very hard to fix. We can sit here in the comfort of our own homes and and theorize and and do whatever, but I think it, it's not something that I wish I could wave a magic wand and fix it. But unfortunately I can't. But we'll, we'll do our best.

[00:53:09] Mizter Rad: Right. And so I, I would like to go back to this infrastructure topic cuz I think it's super important cuz when people think about having access to cleaning water, to clean water, maybe we all think about the water bottle that I just bought comes from the, some mountain in the Andes. And so hopefully that mountain is, stays clean and out of pollution and I just hope for the best for it. But I never think about the pipes or the, the, the sewage, the infrastructure below the, the cities that actually, conducts the water that comes out of my pipe.

And I never think about the inefficiencies that could be in those infrastructures. So I would like to understand from, from a country government level, in your opinion, how do countries manage their water infrastructure or reserves in general? Do you think they know how much water they have left in a way?

Can they act real time and control the consumption of their population by maybe increasing the rates of the water at certain times or certain dates? A bit like, I don't know if you've been to Germany, Terry. Yep, I have. Okay. So maybe you saw if you're driving in Germany and you want to put gas in in a gas station, I don't know how it works in Australia, but Germany's definitely working like this.

If you go into a gas station and you want to put Gasol in in your car, you go on a Friday morning, it costs two euros per gallon or per litter. And then next day, Saturday morning, cuz a lot of people wanna travel Saturday mornings, then the gas costs 10, 20 cents more. Yeah. Is this something that you see could happen in the water industry at some point?

Are, are cities ready, governments ready for this? Is the industry private industry also ready for something like this? Does it make sense?

[00:55:01] Terry Paule: We have a similar system here in Australia but it is regulated. There, there, there is a competition consumer or watchdog that looks at gouging because that's really gouging.

That's you know, you a purist, the capitalists will say, that's just supply and demand. We know there's gonna be demand and... but that is gouging. I, I don't think water should be that. I think it needs to be more passive. More, more structured. Uh, governments don't plan well, uh, one, the region, the, the reason why California is in a, in, in, in particularly problematic in the US for example, is they keep, you know, it's grown enormously.

If you look to the north, you've got Silicon Valley and San Diego in that region. Then you've got the mid, the mid area where it's a heavy growing region where you know, the, it's a food bowl essentially serviced a composition of Colorado River and aquifers, et cetera. Um, and then there are communities within all that whole infrastructure that sort of are blind.

So governments are having to fix all of these issues or work with people that, that, that can service service these problems. It's not so well thought out. I'm, I'm, I'm sure there's a lot of planning that goes on, but e execution is, is the biggest risk. And traditionally with these big, big issues, big infrastructure, infrastructure issues, there is, it's like starting and stopping a train.

I mean, you don't just stop at the station or start at full speed. You have to slow to come to a complete stop and then steadily accelerate to get to the next station. And these projects can take years of planning years of spending money. We have to have budgets. We have events like Covid that interrupt our plans.

Like any household, like any person, we can lay plans our best plans, but they don't, you know, often work and things that we couldn't plan for, interrupt that. So, governments are no different. Water is no different. The only difference with water is it's life giving and we need to pay attention. And I, I, I don't genuinely think people understand that still. I think we can do and, and your show now, me having a chat and look, I'm not saying I'm an expert in, in water. I'm an expert, certainly in botanical water, but, um, this type of dialogue, anyone listening to this should be thinking hopefully a little bit differently. You know, as I said, when you brush your teeth tonight, tomorrow morning where you flush your toilet, think about the infrastructure. Think about what has to go to be involved. Yes, it is a democratic right, but somebody still has to pay for it. And you know, often people default to the government will fix it. Or they'll default to, I pay my taxes, but your taxes go to schools, they go to hospitals, they go to roads, they go to every other bit of infrastructure as well.

Water has largely been ignored but the time has come, certainly now where we have to pay attention.

[00:58:14] Mizter Rad: That's definitely super important that you mentioned. I'm happy that you brought that up again, what people can actually do practically from now to help us in this quest of saving the water that, uh, is so essential for humans.

Terry, how do you, and to wrap up the conversation that I think we could go for much longer because there's so many things I would like to ask you about. I don't wanna take more of your time, but just to wrap up the conversation here, how do you see the world in 50, 60, 70, a hundred years from now in terms of water?

What do you think is gonna happen or what do you hope that it happens in the next years?

[00:58:57] Terry Paule: Look gen generally for those that know me and we've only just met, I, I, I, I consider myself to be an optimist or at least a realist with an optimist's view to some degree. But I gotta say as the last three or four years in particular, as I got closer to the water problem and started to realize how diabolical it is. How wicked the problem is, I've become less optimistic.

Um, I've become quite concerned. Uh, The world.

[00:59:28] Mizter Rad: Oh, don't, don't tell me this. Don't tell me this. I, I wanted to, to, to end up with, with a positive message. No, I'm kidding. Go ahead. Yeah, Terry, I'm, I'm, I'm all, I'm all ears.

[00:59:39] Terry Paule: Yeah. We'll, we'll, you know, yes. Let's finish it with a positive message. But I I, no,

[00:59:45] Mizter Rad: go ahead.

You, you can be dry as well. I'm just, just kidding.

[00:59:48] Terry Paule: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I, I think there's almost a sense of arrogance that humanity feels as though this planet that we live on is ours. We own it. And we can do whatever we like with it. And it will live forever, and we will live forever. But reality is that the planet's been here for billions or millions of years.

And like the dinosaurs that became extinct there's no guarantee that humanity, as we know today will live forever. So we need to fix some of these big world problems. We need to lose our arrogance. We need to be more respectful to Mother Earth and to to, to our, the things that we can control, the little things that we can all collectively do, uh, to, to make that difference. To hopefully get through this difficult period. Water will become a significant thing.

I, I can think of quotes stating back a decade or two even, where wars will be fought over water. You're seeing it in, in parts of the world where if you are further up a river and you can dam or control water further down, we're even seeing it in, uh, in Russia and Ukraine at the moment where, you know, it's, it's, it's a form of warfare where we can control water supply of a river.

This, this is serious. This is one very, very small example of a big, big problem that needs to be fixed. Botanical Water is one piece to a puzzle. It's a significant piece. It's something that I personally have involvement and can control. So it shows that we can make an impact, but that won't be enough. We need to take a holistic approach.

We need to be, and we need to be fast. We, we can't sit and talk and wait and think. And you know, we had years of climate debate. It's very, very clear that we have a climate crisis. Climate is not about hot and cold or wet or dry. It's about whiplash weather. Weather extremes, where it's either flood or drought and the regularity, the one in a hundred year event is now once in a decade, once in five years. This is all manifested out of climate change and water is directly related to that. A flood is just as bad as the drought. People think, oh, we had floods, we're fine. You know what, the first thing that happens with the flood is clean water gets polluted.

All the fertilizers, all of the farmland, all runs off. Our houses are full of mud. This is as destructive as not having water. Too much water is destructive as, as, as much as not having enough water in the drought. So in 50 or a hundred years, I wouldn't be as bold to to, to make that prediction. I prefer to think in, you know, 10 and 20 years, uh, uh, a realistic, um, amount of time, and again, um, I, I think we will be lucky to survive the way and maintain the current lifestyle that we have across a spectrum of things if we don't pay attention to the way we treat our planet. Not just water, but a broader view of the planet. The foods we eat. The clothes we wear. The way we transport. The way we dispose of our rubbish. Our own rubbish is polluting our own waterways.

Sorry. It's a big answer because it's such a, such a big question that you've asked.

[01:03:25] Mizter Rad: I know. And it's a, it is a big topic. Definitely. Like I said, we could continue here talking and talking about so many things that we could do. And so many problems to solve. But I wanna thank you so much, Terry, for bringing awareness and a hands-on solution actually to this water crisis.

And I wanna cheer to a collective consciousness. To take care of water cuz it's so essential for us humans. Thank you so much, Terry, for your time. I really appreciate you having here and learning from you, from your experience, not only as a botanical water expert, but also as an investor, as a businessman.

More than a profit for profit businessman, a sustainable businessman, a man that cares about bringing solutions to real world problems. Thank you so much, and I hope to see you anytime soon here in Santa Marta. Why not?

[01:04:19] Terry Paule: Absolutely. I look forward to visiting again, and thank you for your generous time, Mr.

Rad. It was wonderful to meet you and I'm sure we'll meet again.

[01:04:28] Mizter Rad: Thank you, man. Have a wonderful day in Melbourne.

[01:04:31] Terry Paule: Cheers. Thank you. Bye-bye.