#49 - Nadja Kunz: Towards water stewardship in mining, understanding critical minerals, safer and sustainable resource management
Nadja Kunz, Associate Professor at the School of Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia (UBC), Canada shares her insights on the role of water in mining and the importance of critical minerals for the sustainable energy transition. Most notably, we gain insights into the complexity of the mining industry and its diverse and often forgotten stakeholders. What is required for us to make mining more sustainable, equitable, safe and future-proof?Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)Chapters:0:00 Intro1:59 Guest Intro, traditional owners, mountains and beaches6:00 Nadja, the network queen7:51 Water in the mining sector - Nadja's PhD10:04 From double degree to industry and PhD16:54 Working in Switzerland and Monglia21:51 Moving to UBC Vancouver, Canada24:08 Comparing the Australian and Canadian mining landscapes25:53 The significance of water management in mining31:41 Trying to solve water management holistically in mining35:52 From water management to water stewardship38:03 Pressing issues in Canada's mining? Critical Minerals48:24 Quantified evidence - the example of tailings dams59:09 Nadja's Future Plans1:01:59 Q&A Start1:02:24 What does innovation mean to you?1:04:03 Key person book event1:05:27 Time Management1:07:29 Favourite childhood memory1:08:09 Biggest challenge to date1:11:08 Advice for young professionals1:12:33 What would you most like to be remembered for?1:14:13 Final Message1:15:15 OutroDetailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on: X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach Instagram: @petermbach87 Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/
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#48 - Christoph Ort: Sewers, Drugs and Rock n' Roll - from wastewater surveillance to saving lives in the pandemic
Christoph Ort, Group Leader and Head of the Urban Water Maangement Department at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology dives into the world of wastewater surveillance or wastewater-based epidemiology, techniques, intricacies, use-cases and the broader societal implications. We trace his journey in leading a "band" of disciplines in supporting society during a crisis moment, namely the COVID pandemic, with valuable information on the spread of infections - all by just holding a "magnifying glass" into our sewer systems.Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)Chapters:0:00 Intro1:59 Guest Intro and a discussion around two props8:37 Getting into Christoph's story - culture engineering12:07 The PhD - Dynamics of sewers and micropollutants19:48 Introducing wastewater based epidemiology or surveillance21:21 Terminology around WWBE and sewer sociology23:44 Detecting illicit drugs in sewer systems26:57 Briefly - how to detect using analytical chemistry methods32:17 Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 during the pandemic39:30 The MS2Field - A mobile lab in a trailer41:30 His vision, the institutional context and where is Christoph heading45:25 The future of wastewater-based surveillance46:48 Syndromic surveillance - the indirect but powerful alternative51:26 Rock n' Roll?56:08 Q&A Start56:25 What does innovation mean to you?58:56 Key event, person, book1:00:42 Time Management1:03:20 Favourite Childhood Memory1:04:33 Biggest challenge in career to date1:05:55 Advice for young researchers1:07:39 What would you most like to be remembered for?1:08:30 Where can people find you?1:09:19 Final Message1:09:38 OutroDetailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on: X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach Instagram: @petermbach87 Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/
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The NotebookLM Mini Series #8: "Broken Telephone" - lost in translation between leapfrogging and Dunkelflaute (feat. Mashael Yazdanie)
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its outputs... and a deep dive into some of the topics that we have covered on the show. We feature previous guests, who are here to join in on the fun!Episode #8 tests whether NotebookLM can play "Broken Telephone". We generate an audio overview of a paper and use it as the basis to generate a new audio overview - rinse and repeat 20 times! What about across languages? Mashael Yazdanie (ep42) and I react to the final result. Will NotebookLM go off the rails or will it manage to keep the core message of the key research paper we used as a basis? Listen in to find out so that you do not have to test it yourself!Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Funky Fortune by Danny Shields (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7vRFEGMyTTfeCtc8qiUB82?si=dygdqu9IQLSFYNvVzPNu5w)Chapters:0:00 Intro1:26 Guest Intro & Welcome Back4:25 Mashael's Prior experience with AI5:51 The children's game of "Broken Telephone”8:19 The human summary13:29 How this experiment works and expectations18:12 Live Reaction Original Summary30:27 Impressions of Original Summary36:14 Live Reaction - Version 2050:18 Impressions of Version 2052:08 Explaining the next Broken Telephone experiment53:49 Live Reaction - Multilingual Version 201:02:42 Post-discussion1:10:40 What is the future for AI?1:14:43 Wrap up1:15:22 OutroDetailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on: X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach Instagram: @petermbach87 Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/
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#47 - Wei-Shan Chen: Valuing food waste and greening - the experience in delivering technology and tools to close the carbon and water cycles
Wei Shan Chen, also known as "Momo", Assistant Professor at Wageningen University shares his journey from Materials Engineering into the environment, from Taiwan to The Netherlands and from the Carbon Cycle to the Water Cycle. We discuss the issue of food waste and its broader implications among other approaches he has taken to recover carbon and close the loop. We also hear about Momo's foray into Blue-Green Infrastructure planning and how stakeholder engagement has changed his perspective on doing impactful research and implementing the knowledge in the form of usable tools.Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)Chapters:0:00 Intro1:59 Guest Intro and the mystery behind the name Momo5:21 Tracing Momo's steps from materials in Taiwan to Wageningen11:29 Closing the carbon cycle with microbial fuel cells15:28 Momo's work in reducing fossil fuel use - it gets technical17:21 Retrieving carbon from waste21:20 Valuing and closing the loop on food waste32:04 How to deal with the composition of food waste?35:21 The Bin2Bean Project in Amsterdam38:38 Going into the Water cycle for Carbon and Food42:28 Momo's venture into BGI Tools49:04 Modelling the planning for biodiversity56:09 Carbon and Water, what next?58:23 Q&A Start58:37 What does innovation mean to you?1:01:16 Key event, book, person1:03:11 Time Management1:05:27 Favourite childhood memory1:08:58 Biggest challenge to date1:10:57 Advice for young researchers1:12:38 What would you most like to be remembered for?1:14:11 Where can people find you?1:15:06 Final Message1:15:46 OutroDetailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on: X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach Instagram: @petermbach87 Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/
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The NotebookLM Mini Series #7: The “Tablecloth Problem”, headwaters in focus and the pollution party (feat. Belinda Hatt)
Welcome to this Mini-Series on The Grand Challengers Podcast! The topic of generative artificial intelligence (AI) has been in all our minds over the past few years and is gaining even more momentum with rapid advancements in text, audio and video. Google recently released NotebookLM, a powerful research-support AI that can generate not only summaries of sources that we feed it, but also entire podcast episodes. This Mini-Series will explore the power of NotebookLM, our live reactions to its outputs... and a deep dive into some of the topics that we have covered on the show. We feature previous guests, who are here to join in on the fun!Episode #7 attempts to create a connected story on the topic of headwater streams - Belinda Hatt (ep20) reacts to how NotebookLM produces a deep dive discussion some of her ongoing work on headwater streams, using a whopping 22 sources, from Water Acts to Strategy Documents, journal papers, design documents and documentation of data sets. Will NotebookLM be able to focus on the key topic or will it go off on endless tangents? What about its infamous analogies?Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Funky Fortune by Danny Shields (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7vRFEGMyTTfeCtc8qiUB82?si=dygdqu9IQLSFYNvVzPNu5w)Chapters:0:00 Intro1:27 Guest Intro - Reflections on the first podcast3:00 Introducing the broad topic area4:46 Guest's prior experience with AI8:37 How this experiment works14:09 The prompt and human's summary and expectation18:20 Live Reaction55:58 Post-discussion1:02:59 Thoughts and wishes for the future of AI1:06:11 Wrap up1:07:40 OutroDetailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on: X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach Instagram: @petermbach87 Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/
In a world facing climate change, urbanization, and population growth, inspiring individuals are stepping up with innovative solutions. Each episode features passionate guests working at the cutting edge of science, engineering, technology, and design. Through their journeys, they share insights and personal growth while creating new ways of thinking for an uncertain future. Tune in for actionable advice and inspiration for young professionals aiming to make a difference. If you enjoy the show, please hit the follow or subscribe button! That's a small way you can help the show grow and reach many more ears!Show Website: https://www.petermbach.com/podcast/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast/
New Zealand