EARTH POWER LODGE – Green Waste Used for GOOD!

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Jason Schwartz visits with MICHAEL SMITH, Founder & Inventor at REGENITECH  from Whitefish, Montana where  an  Earth Power Lodge, featured  in the award winning movie THE NEED TO GROW  . Soil Amendments riding on BioChar create Carbon into soil- microbes and plants super happy- what takes nature 4-500 years in just a number of days.  2-10-2020

Summary & Transcript

[00:01 → 02:13]
Introduction and Context
Jason Schwartz welcomes Michael Smith from Montana to the show “The Neutral Zone” aired on KAKU 88.5 FM, Maui’s low-power community radio station. The focus is on the documentary The Need to Grow, which highlights innovative, sustainable agricultural technology. Michael Smith is a key figure featured in the film, showcasing his work in Montana where waste materials are transformed into power and soil-enhancing products like biochar and phyto-remediation agents. The film is available for viewing at theneedtogrow.com and promoted by Joe Mercola’s platform.

• [02:13 → 05:12]
  Overview of the Earth Power Lodge System
  Michael explains the evolution from the “Green Powerhouse” to the “Earth Power Lodge,” a next-generation sustainable technology system designed to take green waste—specifically from lumber mills—and convert it into a zero-waste loop producing:
• Electricity
• Soil-enhancing biochar
• Phyto-remediation chemicals

The system mimics natural earth cycles using biomimicry principles, ensuring zero emissions and recycling waste into resources. Michael’s background includes software engineering, physics, mathematics, and artificial intelligence (AI) research, which he applied to develop an intelligent, cooperative system mimicking ecological processes.

• [05:12 → 09:05]
  Process Details and Biological Innovation
  The system incorporates algae and bacteria to accelerate natural transformations:
• Green waste is combined with algae, producing methane fuel to power the system.
• Biochar is produced as a soil amendment carrier for nutrients.
• Algae (especially cyanobacteria) fix atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into proteins (up to 60% protein content), breaking down into amino acids directly usable by plants.
• The system accelerates natural processes that normally take centuries, producing fulvic acids and other beneficial compounds rapidly.
• The AI-driven system components communicate and cooperate to balance inputs and outputs such as CO₂, heat, water, electricity, and fuel.
• [09:05 → 11:48]
  Phyto-remediation and Soil Regeneration Success Stories
  The documentary features real-world examples:
• A local Montana sustainability center tested contaminated soil (with herbicides like amino pyrrol and glyphosate) that initially failed to grow crops.
• Using the Earth Power Lodge’s biochar and biostimulants, cover crops thrived and drew contaminants from the soil, reducing contamination by 78%, outperforming other remediation methods like activated charcoal.
• The system not only cleans soils but also captures carbon, restoring depleted nutrients in heavily farmed lands such as sugarcane and pineapple plantations.
• Electricity generated by the system is a byproduct, emphasizing the primary goal of soil and ecosystem restoration.
• [11:48 → 17:08]
  Potential for Maui and Broader Applications
  Michael and Jason discuss the applicability of this technology to Maui’s agricultural landscape:
• Maui could potentially become self-sufficient in food production by implementing Earth Power Lodge systems.
• Local farms and ranches (e.g., Haleakala Ranch, MyEpona Farm) are interested in the technology.
• The system is modular: a single unit requires only a quarter-acre footprint and can power approximately 100 homes or multiple greenhouses. Multiple units can be combined for larger energy outputs (e.g., 1 megawatt with four units).
• Biochar output is about 20% of the input biomass by weight; for 6 tons of input, approximately 1.2 tons of biochar are produced daily.
• Biochar’s porous structure (surface area equivalent to a football field per small piece) carries nutrients and improves soil health significantly.
• [17:08 → 24:43]
  Technical Aspects and System Efficiency
• The system functions like a “solar battery,” capturing solar energy through growing plants instead of photovoltaic panels. Plants store energy uniformly and release it as needed through the system.
• Waste heat from pyrolysis processes is recycled to maintain optimal temperatures in bioreactors, eliminating the need for external fuel sources.
• Methane is captured from multiple waste streams, including landfills and breweries, and used as a clean energy source within the system.
• Algae in the system reproduce rapidly (cells can divide three times a day), making it a highly efficient biological engine for nutrient cycling.
• The process is likened to a “prairie and buffalo” ecosystem analogy: algae represent the prairie, bacteria and reactors the buffalo, and the “dragon” is the reactor system that powers the cycle.
• [24:43 → 32:04]
  Development History and Funding
• Michael returned to Montana in 2007-2008 to create this sustainable technology, leveraging his AI background.
• The first prototype was developed after receiving grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and Montana’s Department of Environmental Quality.
• The system took several years of experimentation and improvement to reach commercial viability.
• Investment in the system is around $2-3 million with projected sales up to $4 million annually, indicating a strong return on investment.
• The technology suits both individual landowners and cooperative ownership models, encouraging community-based sustainability efforts.
• [32:04 → 37:35]
  Community and Cooperative Models
• The model encourages intentional communities and cooperatives to own and operate systems, fostering shared responsibility for soil regeneration, food production, and power generation.
• Water recovery is highly efficient, reclaiming up to 80% of water used, crucial for drought-prone areas like Maui.
• The system also offers water purification benefits, capable of removing agricultural contaminants such as glyphosate and NPK salts, addressing rising health concerns linked to polluted water supplies.
• The approach aligns with zero-emission goals long advocated by environmental researchers.
• [37:35 → 44:43]
  Technology Integration and Market Strategy
• The Earth Power Lodge uses natural intelligence (organic AI) allowing self-learning and adaptive control of the bioreactor processes.
• The system’s modularity allows integration of new technologies and adapting to varying waste streams and power needs.
• A cooperative or partnership model helps optimize system outputs and profitability while ensuring community involvement.
• The focus is on producing biostimulants rather than conventional chemical fertilizers (NPK), which degrade soil health over time.
• The biostimulants boost soil microbes, carbon content, and nutrient density, improving crop quality and sustainability.
• [44:43 → 46:53]
  Branding and Certification: “Regen Aground”
• Regina Tech aims to create a community-based certification and branding system called “Regen Aground” to guarantee product quality and consistency.
• The brand will emphasize the benefits of regenerative agriculture: cleaner air, soil, and water, alongside nutrient-rich food products.
• This collective approach prevents market dilution and promotes trusted regenerative agriculture products.
• [46:53 → 51:41]
  Global and Local Significance
• The technology is globally applicable but Maui is an ideal pilot location due to its remote island status and urgent need for food self-sufficiency.
• Maui’s tourism and cultural richness provide an excellent platform for showcasing sustainable agriculture to visitors who can take knowledge worldwide.
• The system could dramatically reduce dependency on imported food and fossil fuels, increasing local resilience.
• Comparisons to dystopian scenarios (e.g., Soylent Green) emphasize the urgency of adopting regenerative practices before global soil depletion worsens.
• [51:41 → 54:33]
  Closing Remarks and Call to Action
• Michael and Jason emphasize the system’s practicality, scalability, and environmental benefits.
• Interested parties in Maui are encouraged to contact Jason or Regina Tech via Facebook (facebook.com/regenitech) or email (regenitech.com) to form core groups and fund pilot projects.
• The interview highlights partnerships with local farmers, community leaders, and investors as essential for implementation.
• The Earth Power Lodge is presented not as a radical idea but as a reasonable, necessary solution for sustainable land stewardship and community resilience.
• The conversation closes with expressions of gratitude and commitment to advancing this technology in Maui and beyond.

1. 1. 1. Summary Table: Earth Power Lodge System Outputs and Inputs

Parameter	Description	Quantitative Data
Input biomass	Green waste (lumber mill chips, bark, algae)	6 tons per day (example)
Biochar output	Soil amendment carrier	~1.2 tons/day (20% of input biomass)
Power output per unit	Electricity generated	~250 kW per system
Power output (4 units)	Combined output	~1 MW
Water reclamation rate	Percentage of water reclaimed	~80%
Algae protein content	Protein percentage of algae biomass	~60%
Soil contaminant reduction	Reduction in herbicide contamination (phyto-remediation)	Up to 78% reduction

Key Insights and Conclusions

• The Earth Power Lodge is a closed-loop, zero-waste system that converts green waste into electricity, biochar, and soil-enhancing biostimulants, while capturing methane and recycling water efficiently.
• The technology accelerates natural soil regeneration processes, producing compounds like fulvic acids and amino acids that normally take centuries to form.
• Biochar plays a crucial role as a nutrient carrier, improving soil structure and fertility significantly.
• The system can remediate contaminated soils, reducing harmful herbicides by up to 78%, offering a promising tool for restoring degraded agricultural lands.
• Modular and scalable, the system can serve small farms to large agricultural operations and is suitable for remote or island communities aiming for food sovereignty and sustainability.
• Community cooperative ownership models are encouraged to share benefits, improve system performance, and scale regenerative agriculture efforts.
• The approach produces biostimulants rather than chemical fertilizers, promoting long-term soil health and sustainability.
• Maui is positioned as an ideal pilot location due to urgent soil, water, and food security challenges, with local interest from farms and ranches already being expressed.
• A branded certification (“Regen Aground”) will help unify product quality and promote regenerative farming on a community scale.
• The system leverages AI-inspired natural intelligence to optimize biological processes, making it adaptable and efficient.
• Urgency is underscored by the global loss of topsoil, predicted to last only 60 more years at current rates, making regenerative technologies critical for future food security.

1. 1. 1. Contact and Further Engagement

• Regina Tech Facebook: facebook.com/regenitech
• Email: info@regenitech.com
• Nonprofit Support: regenitechfund.org (for tax-deductible donations supporting conventional-to-organic farming transitions)
• Interested Maui community members are encouraged to form coalitions to pilot the technology locally.

This summary captures the core content of the video transcript, emphasizing the technology, its biological and environmental impact, practical application, and community involvement without extrapolation beyond the source material.

TRANSCRIPT

00:01

good morning everyone I’m Jason Schwartz and I have a great guest today Michael Smith from Montana we’re gonna have a lot of fun and learn a lot here today [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you watch this hand [Music] you nature of my good morning everyone I’m Jason Schwartz this is the neutral zone we are on kak you the voice of maui 88.5 FM low-power station you can find this on tune in on your phone you can find us at facebook live kak u FM on Facebook at Maui neutral zone calm later today and then

01:37

on we have all our shows including this one I’m here with Michael Smith and I don’t want to have a long introduction this is a movie that if you haven’t seen it you’ll want to it’s called the need to grow and the subject there’s three people that are in it but the main subject of it has this thing in Montana where someone takes what was waste and turns it into power and turns it into phyto remediation those are chemicals that help the soil get better biochar and all kinds of things we’ll talk about

02:13

this is Michael Smith and if you haven’t seen the movie you’ll want to go to the need to grow calm if it’s before the February 50 then you go to Mercola you know joe mercola the health guy m ER co la I think org the need to grow he has it up there free right now so you know watch it it’s about an hour and a half and Michael first of all welcome to our show I want to be sure that we’ve got enough volume yeah it’s amazing you know a little like you say a little plug goes a long way that’s pretty cool yeah there

02:51

we go world I’m here with Michael Smith Michael is from Montana he has something that we’re gonna talk about I used to call it the green powerhouse but it’s called the earth power lodge now yeah and it’s the subject of this movie the need to grow and I rather have you explain in a nutshell if you can know what it is and talk from there yeah why’d the shift from the green power lodge to the power house of the green power lot or the earth power lodge because it’s and we are we are in the next generation of

03:27

technology the original technology we we thought well maybe we can build a system that takes waste from a lumber mill that was the very specific design a bunch of chips and bark and dirt and leaves and whatnot and can we convert that into materials that can help the soil and generate electricity at the same time so yes we did that the the goal was to produce a system that generated no waste you know all of the systems on the earth are pretty much waste free right the output of one system goes into the next

04:02

of another I’ve been talking about that since 1992 about well you know I about zero emissions Research Institute winter poly and these guys years ago about the waste from one thing becomes the food for the next and it becomes a circle that’s contained so done that basically a yeah a closed-loop system we tried to model it after earth natural systems so there’s a lot of biomimicry that is employed in the system I want you know feel free to be talking but just his background when you see the

04:36

movie you’ll realize Michael is just not our guy who was the backyard doing it he’s had heavy experience and 3d printing and you might want to give him a small laundry list yeah I don’t know if you want to hear my resume we could be here a whole hour does has done sound systems and visual systems and worked of setting up gaming systems and then to his knowledge and applied it to what’s going on on the earth with no waste and the earth doesn’t have waste what’s going on here so that’s what this is and

05:12

the movie goes into more depth but now this system effectively here’s just Jason’s translate take green waste you put it with some algae you break it down in a process that creates methane or other fuel that runs the whole system but that’s really the waste because it creates biochar which we’ll explain more people have heard of biochar which is a system that will carry these phytonutrients so effectively I like all it Drax at Jurassic Park you’re able to do what nature does in 500 years in days yeah

05:52

that’s correct is that basically well the basically what we try to do is accelerate that Earth’s natural processes that’s what was behind the scenes we thought well there are a lot of biological systems that are working in unison with each other but there’s a lot of competition for certain types of biological things so when we isolate certain types of bacteria from others and provide the right environment the right pressures temperature pH all those things we can accelerate that processing normally or

06:21

enormous ly and sometimes we have something that we call emergent technology so we go Wow what happened when we did this we see that we’re now producing something called fulvic acids in our tanks which is something that normally takes thousands of years or even millions of years to create in any kind of quantity so that’s just kind of a side effect of what’s going on but to get back to the system what I as a software engineer physicist mathematician that’s my background so I spend a lot of time doing you know

06:56

artificial intelligence research for game companies and what we tried to do is figure out a way to make our basic components of our system we tried to turn them into intelligent game players but we flipped the paradigm of the game we said rather than being competitive we want you guys to be as cooperative as you possibly can you know and so there’s little data packets that flow between these systems and they go hey guess what I have some carbon dioxide on this guy over here it going hey guess what I can

07:27

use some carbon dioxide for my process I need some heat I need water I need electricity I need fuel so basically you’re the system tries to balance itself in you can use different kinds of green input not just from a lumber mill but all kinds of green way-o all kinds of green waste not only that we have systems that can take methane off of landfill and actually take that into a different process rather than just running into turbines to generate power we can how we can pull that methane in and we can consume it yes methane is a

08:00

very powerful greenhouse gas as well not just carbon dioxide so we’re able to take multiple waste stream sources and you know we even use waste streams coming off of breweries right and that’s really a good feedstock for some of the algae that we grow the algae is probably the star of the program what it does is it it’s able to take certain types of algae or cyanobacteria can take atmospheric nitrogen and it can fix it and can it make proteins and just offer raw materials carbon dioxide sunshine

08:33

and a few you know micronutrients we can create these proteins and the algae that we’re using is like 60% protein so when we break that down into amino acids plants can take this stuff up directly because they don’t hang from creative they can use it it must be like this drinking extra power that’s why they change in front of your eyes that’s exactly what happened we saw you know a plant well if you watch the documentary one of the farmers and that you don’t you grow yeah yeah yeah it you know

09:05

there’s a farmer in there got his hands on some and he saw one of his plants change in 45 minutes that you know if it was dripping and suddenly it’s you know standing up and it’s actually changing its color and so then he he left the plant in the water he just was doing a root drench and the next day started seeing root notes on it so we saw this is a very powerful cloning agent for people that have plants that they want to replicate do you mind if I use a couple of the stories like you told me

09:36

there’s some glyphosate is and everyone’s yet words and you and I mentioned glyphosate you were talking about some tests that you did or that was that had drawer Denari results oh yeah we had one of the local sustainability centers it was actually connected with a whitefish high school they received some soil that was donated by a farmer and the farmer it was supposedly good soil they got it into their their system and then they tried to grow stuff they couldn’t grow anything so after a little

10:07

while they sent a sample off to Montana State University MSU and they came back that it was contaminated with amino pyrrol it which is also a very powerful herbicide similar to glyphosate broadleaf you know herbicide and so they thought well the high school is scratching his head the thing well we can’t really afford to replace this can we turn this into a phyto remediation project so we donated some of our materials to the high school and they they compared it with other vitamin they had cover crops they had activated

10:44

charcoal they had my psyllium they had a number of other things so they put our stuff in the soil the plants just loved it it actually worked well and it drew up this contaminant into the cover crops so then they could take that away they were able to reduce the contamination by 78% it was the highest amount of all of them you know even the we think about activated charcoal is a good medium for filtering and Crusoe’s they’ve done sugarcane for years and years on land yeah this would be something

11:16

extraordinary to be able to clean up land and then also get carbon out of the atmosphere and into the soil well sugar cane and pineapple and all of those things that were farmed intensively for so long that essentially not only contaminated the soil but they depleted it of all of the essential nutrients that are in there so the idea our project is designed to actually restore the soil that’s the main thing it does we call electricity our waste by-product that comes off the system so that’s

11:48

really very powerful so this is about saving the earth when we talk about self generated and self sustained we’re a remote island community you heard me talk about it for 25 years well that’s exactly what we’re talking decentralized we can grow our own food would you say that Maui could grow its own food and Maui County be the breadbasket for all of Hawaii well yeah and for example there’s one company that just came here and we’re hoping to meet here within the next couple of weeks that my Epona my

12:24

name and you know there are others Haleakala ranch Mike Atherton the plantation and the new things these are all people without talking to the county and that can get a system in that can serve them just tremendously absolutely and what was the name of the small farm that we felt like a half farm I had a guest you know we talked about a Sonny Elliot father of wind cement well yeah well is a couldn’t make the show at Super Bowl day for the next day and I thought who have I spoken to recently

12:58

that I think was interesting I spoke to this gal named winsome Williams and she was on at la cahaya farms community education farm and she was great but then when I was taking a little Joyride with Michael to show him the dump yeah yeah I come all the way to my Maui to look at the dump and all of your waste so but on the way she said you could stop by so I stopped by and it was after the work day and there she was with her group of I want to call them agricultural scientists the people that were extraordinary group oh yeah they’re

13:34

very well educated it’s the conversation that happened was so great and so dynamic and they understood what you were saying and then the owner the the leaseholder came and we’re gonna have another private meeting right there and that strip it could be perfectly timed to be demonstrated and we could put a plant there yeah and one near the I don’t want to call it the duck let’s call it we’ll have to change the name from dump to a profit center yeah the profit center yes a lot of

14:07

people don’t look municipalities in particularly they don’t see their waste management system as being in profit center that location there was a company called energiya that yeah some kind of contract and didn’t come through so that they’ve had experience and so people around here have learned to be now they’re a little skeptical just yeah and the biochar now biochar biochar is something that when you see the movie it’ll really make it clear you know piece that’s like two inches by two

14:33

inches if you unfold all the surfaces it’s like the size of a football field and that carries these nutrients and make them available to the plants and the soil that’s the whole point so it’s the carrier and they’re your cell mate on the big island and things but what you do is special give us what we we we started experimenting because we had the wood waste that came off the lumber mill we started experimenting with biochar and we thought well the tree is doing a lot more than just

15:03

making biochar right and fuel you know we know that there’s a lot of fuel in in wood because you know when you put a log in your fireplace and it sustains the reaction it keeps burning it only uses a small percentage of the power that to keep that reaction going the rest goes into like heating your home or cooking your fool food we just kind of reformat it so we can turn that into electricity the excess so there’s this sustained reaction there’s that but there’s also a myriad of really interesting organic

15:35

compounds that come off at different temperatures before we get to the temperature where we’re producing the biochar so you basically scraping off at different temperatures different usable things a lot of people causes stuff yeah people that are interested in or understand oil refineries you know they know that you take this crude oil and the new fraction off and you get gasoline and propane and all these different things that you know you’re left with a gooey tar at the end but and that’s you know for asphalt

16:06

those type of things but we do the same thing but we are looking at wood the same way so it’s it’s a refinery where we take the waste we take it through and we pull off as many different compounds as we can so we generate power and the waste heat goes off into the rest of the system because the bacteria that we have in our other bioreactor tanks they need to be held at certain temperatures and so we’re how do we maintain those temperatures without actually burning other fuels right well we just recapture

16:36

the waste that’s coming off of that and then the carbon dioxide goes into our algae systems to grow more algae algae his nominal that it can take carbon dioxide and sunlight and it can actually the cells can reproduce three times in a day they can divide so that’s two to the third that’s eight times so one day you have one gram the next day you have eight grams you know if you think of a large system that’s a phenomenal growth we tell people if this were your lawn you’d be mowing at three times a day and

17:08

I think oh my god for business you know well it’s exciting well there’s so many things that are weather this so here we are this is now take waste let’s use green waste lumber and you get power to run the system and extra one you’ll see it in the movie one of these systems decides you have their power can power a hundred homes or you can use it for other things and numbers of greenhouses it’s really truly extraordinary but that’s the waste product if you will you know and then they have this biochar

17:43

that has a how many would you say six metric tons in a day creates what kind of output per year of about biochar itself well you know that we’re talking about 20% of the the mass of the input winds up as biochar so if we have six tons going in we have one about 1.2 tonnes coming out but that’s a considerable amount you don’t need to just have one of these systems you can put them together we call this the battery that runs the the system so if you want a megawatt you have four of these so

18:18

each one generates roughly a quarter of a million watt okay so but my point really was that these systems and the different output have a market and some people say oh it’s expensive but you find you can sell as much as you want but if it’s created here and it’s being used by the owners to rejuvenate their land and be able to get incredible output yeah and also our Maui could be food safe yeah virtually not only that yeah we’ve noticed the use of the biostimulants that’s that well that’s

18:55

what we’re actually producing we’re focused on the biostimulants sure the NPK fertilizers everybody kind of knows in a way that you know the new currents right that’s kind of a joke a fertilizer nitrogen phosphorus and potassium they’re gonna soak well they’re their chemical salts that are actually you throw that on the land and it kills the soil microbes we call this crack for plants because your knee and you immediately get a burst of growth the first year and then the next year you

19:25

need to add a little more eventually you’re degrading your soil to the point where it just turns into dust and you can grow nothing in it you’ve depleted all of your carbon your microbes are gone you’ve got a large landowner and you I’m using my pono as an example it could be Haleakala ranch it could be this group of farmers could be it but if you’re a large landowner this could replenish your soil and really change the whole picture well that’s the whole purpose of this it’s all about we we

19:56

have a company our company is Regina tech you Jenna tech yeah you’ll have a link on our site yes so Regina Tech is really all about soil regeneration everybody keeps talking about sustainability a sustainability isn’t enough that gets us to zero sustainability where we need to regenerate the land because we’ve been lost so much of it we’re losing soil ten times faster than we’re creating it right now Wow and it’s estimated we only have another 60 years at our current consumption rate of topsoil left on the

20:26

planet hope you heard that only 60 years of farmable soil left on our planet I don’t know what to say our president you know may have one opinion but that in the figure is fairly scary and I’m sure that if we don’t turn things around and start doing things quickly you know we’re in trouble but that’s what this this can happen quickly can’t it sure you know the rate that we’re consuming the soil and a lot of the consumption depends on energy so one of the our focuses was okay agriculture is a huge

21:00

consumer of power you know fossil fuels or electricity in fact it’s one of the top ones under the military so how do we offset the use of these fossil fuels well we can actually pull those the the energy from the systems that we’re using to generate the soil amendments that regenerate the soil so this is a carbon negative system we actually get more carbon back into the ground isn’t that exciting and you know and know here’s another thing the research has been done well one of our members here that

21:33

there’s paulownia trees that are also carbon oh that’s you know that can be grown and in a seven acre area grow enough of these trees to provide the input to fuel the dragon Angelia with the dreck yeah and the dragon is so no Linkwood Prairie in the buffalo yeah well you know that’s that’s right so so a lot of people that come out you know they’d be here you know a thermo chemical reactor they heard the term reactor and it kind of frames them because they think of nuclear reactors

22:04

so you know we gave our reactors I’m a bioreactor is just a containment vessel for a biological reaction right whether it’s you know bacteria I mean a yogurt maker is a bioreactor right so you know or beer or whatever so the idea was that we we tried to actually come up with analogy between natural systems like you know we have the liquid Prairie that’s where we grow algae so what eats the grass on the Prairie well people were calling our system and algae munching mechanical cow and I said no

22:37

it’s a buffalo I’m in Montana so so we bring the prairie to the Buffalo the Buffalo what is the Buffalo do it eats the grass on the prairie and it creates this amazing fertilizer that’s that’s a little different than what we do but it’s similar and it also creates methane which we can capture and we can put into other parts of our process you know for generation of power or breaking down the wood waste or whatnot so we we bring the prairie to the Buffalo and then the Buffalo kind of supports the dragon now

23:06

there aren’t any real dragons that we know of so you know it’s kind of the mythical creature but it it is I’m the way I look at that is it’s like the mitochondria it’s the power center of the cell so if you kind of think of our system as an organism and that’s really what it is it’s kind of an intelligent organism because of all of them that can close loop control systems their artificial intelligence that we apply in the system and don’t let that scare you it’s friendly we actually are using

23:35

something called natural intelligence rather than artificial intelligence because there’s nothing artificial about what we do so you look at that in it’s very organic in its nature it you know it has behavior it learns and it can actually rebalance itself and so if you need to add more technology to the system to say your waste stream changes or your power demands you can plug in other devices into the system and then they start communicating with each other they say you know oh hi you know I do

24:08

this we do that how can we balance our your inputs our new inputs and our outputs so that we have we’re gonna probably take a break here in a few seconds let me get this doesn’t need a lot of land it’s a very small footprint to put one of these things a quarter acre oh yeah a quarter acre that’s it that space basically yeah so if you bring the green in from so the solar collector is all the green growth absolutely quarter acre and it creates power for ya and it creates biochar – so

24:43

sounds like everyone wants one good yeah so basically you you laid it out this is a gigantic solar cell it has a radius of whatever your community has for all of the plants they’re capturing the solar energy and the cool thing about it is it’s pre stored right so the plant stores the energy and then we process that and we generate power on demand rather than having a you know solar panels up there they they turn the UI turn the sunlight into electricity and then you have to store us somewhere

25:15

or you have to you know do something with it immediately and then when the Sun Goes Down this goes down well the cool thing about having plants is they store that energy and they absorb it on a pretty uniform level the efficiency of a solar photovoltaic cell is higher but we can do a lot broader space you know if we and keep the planet green so if he managed the green waste and the growth of the trees the Polonia trees are fascinating I’m so excited about that though we could actually use those we’re

25:47

going to take our break and come back when we come back we’re going to talk about a little bit about regenerator Agra – cooter and the nuke coops and a little bit structure things and we want to ground this on Maui so we’ll talk about the kind of things that we need to get this happening here now but I want to thank our newest sponsor which is an old sponsor come on alone cash-for-gold and Harry eager who used to right here for the Maui news for 25 years he has a blog called restating the obvious Maui

26:17

and they’re my new sponsor for this show so I wanted to thank them for jumping on yet again we are so happy to be part of ka k you the voice of Maui the Maui neutral zone calm you can I think when you listen to this show again and go to the movie the need to grow you’re going to get very excited if you aren’t already we had a group come to the college we thought we’d put the movie on for a few people and the room was overcrowded on last Friday night so we know this is something a lot of pee

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interested in hang on we’ll be right back the neutral zone with me Jason Schwartz would like to thank Maui Arts and Music Association tree makers Foundation of Maui for their support since 1991 hundreds of television shows and their mouthparts of music calm website they have championed self-sustainability on Maui the neutral zone is heard live Mondays at 11 a.m. and replayed Saturday at 7 a.m. on kak you 88.5 FM your voices now do you have something to say but can’t find an outlet did you know that

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too as a great Celtic music from fun jigs wheels to the lovely ballads to funky Celtic rock that’s Sunday morning 8:00 to 10:00 a.m. and repeats in the afternoon 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. then you go but a Celtic music figure on Maui tune in Sunday talk to you then cheers with the arrows hi I’m Vince Bodi co-host of the biscuits and gravy show kku is a listener-supported station this means that all the great programs you hear like mine are supported by you as well as our underwriters if you would like to

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help keep the voice of Maui talking loud and clear go to kak UF m dot org slash donate today and give and don’t miss the biscuits and gravy show wednesdays at 11:00 a.m. on 88.5 FM the voice of gravy ladies and gentlemen we’ve arrived in philadelphia our local time is 3:05 p.m. and the temperature is 67 degrees at this time you are now free to use your cellular devices you know that feeling when you get to turn your phone on after the plane lands you can have that feeling every time you drive make sure

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your cell phone is stowed away whenever you are behind the wheel visit stopped X star X torque a message brought to you by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration project yellow light and the Ad Council are we back we may be back this is Jason Schwartz at the neutral zone with Michael Smith from Regina Tech the earth right earth Power Lodge I’m used to calling it the green power house I am just so intrigued there are lots of systems around the world and other people have talked to us about algae

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here and the decades but your system is different than unique and it has gotten really great results we know we want to ground it here which means one of these farmers or Kabam of them will put up some bucks and buy a little bit of this stuff to try on their crops in a test and probably so that’s yeah mmm I don’t want to talk numbers but not that very much and then to get you over here to design and set up a system I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of these owners themselves could do this out of their

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working capital right some of these larger companies I’m sure it’s well within their range and was almost amazing to me on our drive to see we could use multiple systems right now we’ll start with a war maybe yeah let’s grow this organically so we need a quarter-acre I mean that’s not very much a staging area that’s for the the earth power lodge the the central liquid Prairie you know this movie is getting plugged a lot the need to grow but it really is good because it’s

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someone else that walked through your system that farmer Eric was his name again Eric Eric cutter where he came from Orange County California where they took away his beautiful farm to put in ice skating he has had a little nice to try to a big manufacturer to get him to take the GMOs out of the cookies you’re gonna really appreciate this and this solution you have a wonderful group how long you been doing this now a decade maybe well uh I as I mentioned I was working for a game company Electronic Arts EA Sports

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and we were we were doing a lot of research and I thought well I’m getting tired of this I actually want to do a you know something that has meaning so I came back to Montana realized that I couldn’t you know there were no jobs for AI researchers you know in the little town that I was in so I thought well I have to create my own job so that was about 2007 that I returned 2008 in that period of time I created the first white paper on the system in 2009 and received a grant through the Department of Energy

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and the department and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality in about 2008 wasn’t able actually him so you receive the grant in the middle of the winter you can’t do anything with it until you know because it’s frozen solid out there so then we in the spring we started you know building our first prototype system so we had that system up and running you know it took a few years you know you sometimes you just have to do a little experimentation you know you get some feedback right and

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then you improve the systems they improve and then they get more you know efficient and then pretty soon you’re producing something you go wow this could actually generate revenue you know we could talk we were talking about a system you know we roughly put in two three you know two to three million dollars in the system but then we saw the projected sales could reach four million a year so that’s not a bad return on an investment on a system but you know we need to look at this in terms of the community rather than just

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you know some guy you know I haven’t adonis his law is some so but the first one here I mean one of these large companies could put it on their land and regenerate their land that though the next can sell product so could a group of people that’s why when you talk about intentional communities buy a piece of land together have the power and rejuvenate their land and create a self sustainability model yeah there was there’s in the past there were intentional communities or nothing new

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you know during the Depression you know there were these green so that colonies that were sort of set up so that people could actually have food they’d go out and grow their food that kind of lived together you know it was a way of sustaining the culture and the people that’s kind of what we’re seeing again we’re seeing in a reemergence of this with these off-grid intentional communities that want to actually do something you know process their own waste process the generate their own

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power and grow their own food and what also was intriguing is that you tell you reclaim 80% of the water I mean so you reclaim the water so we who have water problem find that yet another incredible applause yes yeah absolutely the only water that leaves that place well there might be a little bit of you know dissipation from the system but most of it goes out as product and gets sold in the marketplace and I’d shared with you about the water from Aragon the guy he was on our show I think it was show number 60 Ted Bowman

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was on but talking about small medium and large the ability to have water in remote locations so if you have water and you have power and you have green waste that means you can leave fields open for what they want and put the homes and things in places never could before well there’s some variety of things that you can use the power for if you’re in an area where you’ve got a lot of water contamination I’m working with the gentleman Howard Wilkins in the Flathead who’s trying to bring this a fantastic water

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purification system up to Montana I mean we’re at the headwaters of the nation so we’ve got some relatively clean water up there but virtually all of our water is now contaminated with agricultural inputs you know you’ve got the the NPK salts and all of those life estate I mean on there’s a lot of glyphosate and I me know pirated and all these different compounds are going into our water and it’s hard to get them out and as we consume that water it you know it affects our help health so we’re seeing

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an unprecedented rise in autism and cancer rates all of these things and a lot of it is I you know associated with our agricultural system the way we grow our food right now so all these things fit together what’s great is it’s what do you want that’s what a zero emissions I told you in 1993 we’re talking about zero emissions but here we are so much later now the public they tell us instead of before we were way ahead and they thought I was you know a broken record about things I was green and they

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said oh you’re radical yeah how are they embracing and they’re going ahead and don’t remember we’ve been talking about this a while yeah what’s great about your thing is we can do this and turn around real issues that are real issues and here in these islands I’m sure you guys know how much you want how much we need a quarter acre land and someone that leases to us long term or want it for themselves to be there long term so the investment is solved there right yes so the county could do it but that’s a

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separate I want to say separate system that’s more regulation these can happen even before that with some other people yes yeah I believe we can I too work in sort of as a cooperative so it’s basically the community that owns the system that you know a group of people that are into agriculture and that want to improve the soil and they want to you know improve the quality of the food they’re producing and the water the water improvement is just a natural byproduct of what we’re doing so they

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wouldn’t own your company they would own this project yeah that’s basically each one of these is set up as a separate sort of a cooperative or a partnership or whatever so we we find the the members the land Holt leaseholder you know he’s a he’s a member of that that’s what we did out at the lumber mill you know and then it was only our company and the lumber mill that had a piece of the pie right so so operate that we like the partnership model because you know everybody that’s invested in that has

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you know they’re they are invested in making sure that the system is you know profitable and those can tweak what comes out in each system together where you can make it better for everyone yes well that’s right with that’s what we’re talking about well you know again not to scare people with machine learning algorithms and and what not if you have an intelligent sort of an organic or you know system it can learn and improve itself it can actually become more efficient over time so this is this is a

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trend this is happening almost everywhere in technology but why aren’t we doing in an agriculture and biology isn’t that great we can you have the computers suddenly get back to something natural and work on something that’s really vital and all I want to say offline the grow my things and being sustainable so to get this going I know I’m just looking we’ve got about 15 minutes left so we’re good so what do we need here we need a piece of land the owners that say okay that’s what we want to put it now we

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need a little bit of money to start I don’t want to talk numbers on anything but so people can get how would people get in touch I know they can get in touch with you through me but is there a preferred email or should I have them get in touch with me what do you know they could also I mean if you’re on Facebook you can go to our Facebook page and our facebook.com slash read genatech that’s regen attack with an eye or they can send us an email a tree genatech com we also have a nonprofit set up called

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Regina tech fund org so if you wanted to have a tax-deductible contribution the funds are being used to help farmers convert from conventional farming to organic farming that’s what I’m here locally again that’s a whole separate yeah weaken it but locally well yeah there are people here I mean I think contacting j-jason it’s okay and that would be good have a core team that’s kind of forming and you can be part of it so please know that but a Christmas or Paul Sabol Genesis young myself bunch

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of us got together and we were hoping that you’re on your way to llinois I guess here we are things are moving so quick and you’re gonna be gone later in the week for a week and then come and though we don’t you know it’s everything so much in flux yeah I know it’s hard to back here we hope everyone will come on the 25th to support this that sees this movie and sees what this is on the 25th is at a climate committee you spoke for a couple of minutes on the third three minutes yeah they’re gonna make a

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presentation that would they kind of blindsided me I got off the plane and then suddenly get this it’s a morning now I’m going in front of this committee then you know next we had in front of a community this has been a whirlwind we got to give you a chance to enjoy Maui I know this was sort of businessí yeah I got to see the dump and a few farms you know I’m gonna go side the west side that highway makes me scary the upper you get past it but the lower highway the traffic we’re

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gonna solve these problems we have issues here that can be solved us bein self sustainable you really are to me this is a game-changer I’ve been so added I’ve been texting the mayor and the people on council that I know and farmers winsome was just terrific last weekend you know when we got together with those folks and now it’s going to precipitate a meeting over there we hope to report in good things and we hope that if any of you want to be contributing to ground this here on Maui

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whether it’s anyway get in touch with me and we’ll get this to happen I think what we should do is we said it should set up a regional Tek Maui site so that we can collect names and and people that want to be a participate in it okay and I know we have that new Facebook group I think he calls it gph Maui but now that you’re a PL or a power a lot so yeah see but you can always get in touch through us that’s good and on our website I’m gonna have links to all the things he’s talking about so first make

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it easy you know I I really have noticed when you’re here you are so mild and gentle and you’re almost I guess so humble what you’re doing is really been something very special with all the biochar and all the people thinking they know what this is anyone can make biochar yeah I’m really trying hard not to turn this into a cult there’s a lot of science science here a lot of people think they can have this at home and kind of like why can’t they do this at home themselves

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first of all you know that a closed system that generates methane means remember when West Maui had a fire because the the waste was you know imagine that fire all that stuff goes up into the atmosphere we’re taking that and using it and keeping it here and using it and and creating profit from what was waste if we can divert the waste stream and use it to replenish you know great shape I like to encourage people to do as much composting and if they can make biochar safely and effectively do that but if we operate

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this as a community effort like I say we pull in the shareholders then we can take some of your waste off of your property or whatever and then we can you know provide you with a product in the end you know there might be a little bit of a fair exchange I just don’t do all that but it’s important and what’s what you’re saying I’m just getting this a little bit closer okay when you talk about fair exchange but but it’s going to give everyone the opportunity to have more output I mean and to really have

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more output yeah that’s that’s the important thing a lot of people when they look and they talk about yield and I’ve been stuck on this one a few times as people say well you know we we used your stuff and we didn’t see any more mass by a plant mass than we did when we use this other stuff right and then when they went in and tested it they looked at the nutrient levels that you know the nutrient levels were so much higher in the Regenesis you know that’s one of the name of the biostimulant that we use

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then it was with the other the you know inputs and so I want people to start thinking in terms of nutrients per acre or oils per acre or the thing that you’re after you know not just a bunch of you know leaves and twigs and sticks you know because you know that’s really what’s important here and if you’ve got a soybean that was grown one way versus a soybean that was grown another way investigate what’s in that soybean you know and whether or not it’s actually healthy for you so that’s really what we’re

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looking at so one of the things that we are looking at for our project is to create with a cooperative we want to create a our own brand or own certification called regen aground so it’s not just about the fact that it’s going to have higher nutrient levels but the system itself it makes it better because what you’re doing is you’re cleaning the air and you’re cleaning the soil and you’re cleaning the water as you eat this healthy food so the idea is how do we get a brand of products out

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into the marketplace and it doesn’t have to and the reason why I’m looking at the group of cooperatives it’s not about Regina tech owning or controlling this these are all community based products but we need to kind of band together so that we don’t have a bunch of random stuff going out in the marketplace that’s actually um decreasing the value of the brand so that’s you know that’s one of our objectives is how do we kind of unite make sure that we have quality control and everything that goes out is

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beneficial now you’ve seen places around the world for this and I wouldn’t be surprised then I’m sure that there’s a request for you to do things all over I feel very fortunate that we Maui have the opportunity to have this here now because this is the logical place people from all over the world come here and vacation and we have beautiful host culture that we can show off and we can send people home with more than just suntan as we’re able to regenerate the land create local food show them what’s

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natural yeah this could be done anywhere yes yes absolutely and not to go into a fare based thing but I often after talking to a few people here I said well what would happen if the ships stopped coming for a few days on the island and you could probably answer that question but that’s the thing that we all know out here so very well in a couple of weeks or less we’re out of food but this can turn that completely around completely especially when we have a group a couple of groups that but that

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are growing such huge amounts of food they want to do why not rejuvenate their land and be the center of a major thing around the world they have other areas that they work in – this would be something they could use their I don’t want to ever say the word Monsanto the people cuz this is but you know anyone that has a problem this will help them so it would be very interesting to see their quote a perceived demon you know to be part of a testing solution wouldn’t that be an absolutely one of the things that we go

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into in the documentary is how you know people that have gone up against chemical and what we call conventional farming I don’t know how it got to be conventional because conventional was the way we used to farm right so there compared to organic farming but we’re seeing no significant improvement of output from you know the agar that turned conventional farming over AG our organic agriculture right now sorry I’ve got a little frog in my throat a froggy you know okay and I’m thinking I’m gonna

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get you a couple of beautiful Hawaiian shirts because you need to be in Montana suddenly you’ll start wearing Hawaiian oh I win shirts if you look at me in the documentary you’ll notice I have a few of them yeah but I love Hawaii this is um and that’s one of my motivations with that well if we can get one started here why not then I’ll have an excuse to be here a lot more often running you ragged I mean I really apologize we’ve had a few people that you know you came on a wing in a prayer and you could state you

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know you’re not one to stay at a big hotel or that and this is right in the middle of season and right in the middle of a heavy budget time and bright and we’re trying to put it all together and show people the right thing and not be too preoccupied in one way or the other but we’re hearing in these next couple of weeks we want to ground this here so I am hoping that people have the money have the interest please let’s be in touch we are really thankful to have you thus if I were going to give you a few

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minutes and give you time to like do a many things to talk to people about this whole thing I mean you’ve been doing this a long time wow I think I kind of almost talked myself into it well I mean I can’t about it mostly but I want to make sure I don’t leave out things I can’t important to you yeah you know that’s the problem is you always walk away from an interview like this and you go with gee I wish I what I talked about this or you know but I’ll write now what I really

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want to do is I want to thank you Jason for all of the effort you’ve put in all the people you’ve connected me with you know I step off the plane I’m suddenly doing all these interviews I’m going to these farms you know I get I got a tour of the dump that was wonderful I got ya I got you know all of and Paul Sabol I have to mention him you know allowing me to sleep on his couch you know if so anyway anybody our couches you have more couches going here and there we got to kind of figure out where you’re going to

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be yeah but we want to set up some of these significant meetings with people that can say yes sir here’s the here’s the money for this I want to do that I want to commit to that and hopefully we’ll get that going over these next couple of weeks yeah you are just such a beautiful man you’re really gentle when I think of you I find someone who is truly committed I want to say like me I didn’t do this for the money I did this because I really believe we can be a model of self sustainability and we need to do things

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responsibly to me that’s not radical that’s reasonable oh yeah that’s a great byline reasonable not radical really I love that and here we are we are in the middle of the Pacific with the most remote landmass in the world we have people coming here from all over the world they could take home the blueprint on how to do this and start being part of this that’s why I think this is the perfect place you have all these other places to do it but I hope the people here now take this bull by the horns and ground

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it so that your time and energy is spent here because we this is what we’ve been talking about here for a long long time Wow absolutely 20/20 vision I said that in 2012 when I was doing my website rebuilding and getting our logos 2020 vision in 2012 now it’s 20/20 vision in 2020 yeah we have clear opportunity to do this well one thing I wanted to say is when I heard the year I graduated from high school so now you can calculate how old I am a 1971 there was a movie released called Soylent Green

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I was 69 Soylent Green with Charlton Heston Elton Heston and Edward T Robinson Robinson that was as Ray Robinson that was his that was his last film that he made and it was interesting that you know the way he transitioned out in that film as well but that had such a strong impact on me I want people to start thinking about how we’re taking care of we’re not good stewards of the land right now we need to become better stewards to the land otherwise we may wind up in the Soylent Green scenario

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not us here in Maui we are awakened aware and working together not only be so sustainable but to be loving and caring and be an example to the world of what the world would like to be together one working together there is no waste it’s something that’s gonna work for all of us now and I’m really excited thank you for coming to our show we’ll have like a minute left you just really been a pleasure I know that getting your time everyone wants a little you time in your piece we’re gonna work it out and by me

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working with Paul and Chris and and all of us we’re gonna go out and get this grounded we have a couple of meetings coming up if any of you like I say please reach out and let’s make this happen I’m so excited I really I get excited but when I see someone who is doing this genuinely has had great results the gentleman that came here from Oahu scout who’s up in the Montana oh yeah a ham for suta khals and gets readings that they’ve never seen before oh yeah had like 97% you know CBD oils

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and his hemp I can’t believe it I mean isn’t that so there’s things here that are just going to be game changers on a lot of fronts thank you all for joining us this is Michael Smith Regina Tech the earth power Lodge you’re gonna see all the stuff on the site thank you for joining us Michael it’s been a pleasure we’ll do some stuff out there in the field but you’re always welcome here or anything you want to say or do you always can come oh thank you so much it’s been an honor to be here oh thank

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you we’re gonna leave you guys and we will see you next week no the week after is next week’s a holiday so what amount of neutral zone come and watch this again watch all of our shows you’ll really enjoy it thank you Michael thank you guys for being with us Aloha Aloha