Every week on What’s Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there....
Can Hot Bricks Save the World? (The Solar Era, Part 2)
This is the second of three episodes about the solar-power revolution. Last week, we talked about how solar power got so cheap. This week, we’re talking with someone who is building giant plants around the world to take advantage of all that cheap, intermittent energy.John O'Donnell is the co-founder of Rondo Energy. John’s problem is this: How do you turn intermittent energy into the cheap, reliable, intense heat that companies around the world need to make everything from steel beams to t-shirts?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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31:17
How the Sun Won (The Solar Era, Part 1)
In the past 20 years, the price of solar panels has fallen by more than 97 percent. This extraordinary decline is good news for the world – and it’s transforming the way energy is produced and consumed. For the next few episodes, we’ll be talking to people who are in the middle of this solar power revolution to find out how it happened, and what it will mean for the world. Today, Jenny Chase, the author of Solar Power Finance Without the Jargon, tells the story of how solar power got so cheap and where it’s exploding today, and she explains what problems we still need to solve to pull off a worldwide energy transition. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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44:08
Drugs in Space
Paul Reichert is a research scientist at Merck, working on improvements to how we administer drugs to patients. Paul's problem is this: How can you run experiments in space to learn how to make better drugs on Earth?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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31:54
The World Is Getting Better (Really)
Hannah Ritchie is a data scientist and the deputy editor of Our World in Data. She is also the author of Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet. Hannah’s problem is this: How do you use data to get past the doomsday headlines and solve big problems to achieve sustainability? Check out Our World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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44:32
Rabies: When Monsters are Real…from Incubation
Why has rabies invaded our nightmares for centuries? Author and veterinarian Monica Murphy tells us about the cultural history of rabies (which involves vampires and werewolves!) and how our long nightmare with the disease came to an end. Then, wildlife biologist Kathy Nelson tells us about a surprising program that works to control raccoon rabies… from the sky. Enjoy this episode from Incubation, another Pushkin podcast. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Every week on What’s Your Problem, entrepreneurs and engineers talk about the future they’re trying to build – and the problems they have to solve to get there.
How do you take a drone delivery service you’ve built in Rwanda and make it work in North Carolina? How do you convince people to buy a house on the Internet? How do you sell thousands of dog ramps to weiner dogs all across America when a pandemic breaks the global supply chain?
Hosted by former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein, What’s Your Problem helps listeners understand the problems really smart people are trying to solve right now.
iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.
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