Dr. Arun Majumdar | Unique time in history for energy and hydrogen
"Getting to net zero is the defining challenge and opportunity of the 21st century..."
In this episode, we learn from Dr. Arun Majumdar, Dean of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability about the exciting and challenging times in energy today. Dr. Majumdar shares his perspective on where hydrogen should and should not play a role in our energy transition. Lastly, he talks about the role the Doerr School aims to play in this transition as well as what every institution and every individual across the world can do to help us move in the right direction.
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This article is part of the series: Hydrogen Innovators Podcast
Transcript
[00:00:02.96] Arun Majumdar: I don't think it is historically, at least to my knowledge, I have seen all major countries, all major corporations, academia, all aligned towards this goal because people realize it's a problem. We cannot do this alone. We need other academic institutions, businesses, nonprofits, government, media, all working together in this effort. It is the defining both the challenge and the opportunity of the 21st century.
[00:00:37.94] Karen Baert: Dear listeners, welcome to this week's episode of The Hydrogen Innovators, a podcast series is produced by the Stanford Hydrogen Initiative spotlighting bold innovators in hydrogen, all the way from academia to industry. You can find our podcast series Hydrogen Innovators on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. I'm Karen Beth. Recent Stanford MBA graduate and entrepreneur and innovation strategist at the Stanford Hydrogen Initiative, and I'm thrilled to be your host for this week's podcast. Today, we have the privilege to welcome Arun Majumdar. Professor Majumdar, welcome to the Hydrogen Innovators podcast. It's humbling and a true honor to spend this hour with you.
[00:01:18.51] Arun Majumdar: Thank you, Karen, for doing this. And thank you for having me on this podcast.
[00:01:22.74] Karen Baert: Before giving professor Majumdar the floor, we wouldn't do him honor if we wouldn't share some highlights of his impressive track record and career in energy so far. So, Professor Majumdar, you completed your bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai. After that you finished a PhD at Berkeley and held multiple positions in academia. In 2009, you were nominated by President Obama to become the founding director of c the US advanced research project agency for energy. And under your leadership, ARPA-E became a model of excellence and innovation for the government with bipartisan support.
[00:02:01.01] You are a senior advisor to the Secretary of Energy, Dr. Steven Chu, and serve as a chair of the advisory board for the US Secretary of Energy. You also served as vice president for energy at Google. You're a professor of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford focused on nanoscale energy. 80,000 citations and an impact factor of 125, which is really impressive. Something that stood out to me looking through your papers is that they range all the way from something as specific as nanostructured thermoelectrics to something as macro as opportunities and challenges for sustainable energy.
[00:02:35.87] You lead a lab at Stanford called the Magic Lab with around 20 students also. So there's four special members to cats and dogs, and they all have a specific area of research within sustainability. And last but not least are the inaugural Dean of the Stanford tour school of sustainability.
[00:02:52.33] Arun Majumdar: You've done your homework.
[00:02:53.74] Karen Baert: That's right. So let's get started. I want to start in 2009. The early days of ARPA-E. You had $500 million to invest in long shot technologies that could transform the way in which you generate, transport, and store energy. How did you go about allocating that funding, and did hydrogen play a role back then? Looking back, would you have done anything differently?
[00:03:16.67] Arun Majumdar: So it's actually $400 million from at that time was called the Recovery Act, American Reinvestment Act. That was the stimulus package in response to the financial crisis. And in fact, the first call for proposals was before I actually was joined after the Senate confirmation. This happened-- I was still in the process of being nominated and confirmed. So it was actually run by Secretary Chu and his team, his undersecretaries [INAUDIBLE] and Christina Johnson were the two undersecretaries, with the help of other people to recruit some of the people into our committee.
[00:04:04.02] In particular, there are three program directors Eric Chun, Dave Danielson and Mark [? Hartney. ?] They were there before me, and they ran along with Steve Chu, they ran a open call and say, "Let's send this out to everyone. These are the general criteria for RPG would invest in and whatever ideas you have, throw it at us." And I think there were like 5,000 concept papers that came in and actually broke down the software system. In response to which RPG developed its own software system, which is now being used elsewhere.
[00:04:43.92] So it has a catalyzing effect, but through a difficult time. But out of that came, I think there were like 37 or 40 projects and I believe one of them was an alkaline electrolyzer, which was about hydrogen. But they stand the whole gamut of issues related to energy. And this was all about breakthrough ideas for breakthrough technologies. These are pre-venture ideas in the early stages. Someone has a great idea. They don't have a data point. It sounds good but we don't know whether it's going to work or not work.
[00:05:18.50] And that's where ARPA-E came in and invested in those at a level, in terms of financial level, that they actually could make a difference. And some of the ideas didn't work out. But some of them did, and they went to the next stage, et cetera, and they got a lot of interest and support from the private sector then. So yes, hydrogen was part of [INAUDIBLE]. Then at the end, while that was going on, I was also recruiting other people to come in and three people came. Rajeev Ram was at MIT, Ravi Prasher, who is now the CTO of Bloom Energy, as well as. I believe it was Mark Johnson, who came and joined.
[00:06:00.53] And so then we formed this team, and then they created new programs. And some of it was using hydrogen to do things. So hydrogen was part of the mix. But that was not the only thing. There were broader issues in energy.
[00:06:18.15] Karen Baert: Great. Super helpful. You have a very panoramic view on energy. Having been in high impact roles in energy, industry, academia, and government. Looking at today's situation, what role do you believe hydrogen should play in energy? And equally importantly, what role should hydrogen not play in energy?
[00:06:37.34] Arun Majumdar: Well, let me back up and say that. In the global energy system, there will be a broader increased use of electricity, but there will need for fuel. And we all want that to be a emissions free fuel. Hydrogen is a really important element of that, where the hydrogen production has to be emissions free and it has to be economically, because once you do that can always make hydrocarbons out of it because we have CO2.
[00:07:11.25] And you can then use it as both what is called a reducing agent, that is can reduce like an iron oxide to make iron, or you can reduce CO2 to make CO and CO can then be used as a industrial, or it can be used for heating. Now for heating it has to compete with methane and other economically. But that's having a fuel like that that has no carbon or greenhouse gas emissions associated with that, I think that's the future. And hydrogen can play a very important role in it that.
[00:07:48.88] Now a lot of people thought that hydrogen would play a big role in transportation. It may, but I think the early use of hydrogen or clean hydrogen or greenhouse gas free hydrogen is going to be in the current use partnership, which has a lot of CO2 emissions, and that's for petrochemicals. Whether it's cracking of long chain hydrocarbons, ammonia production for fertilizers or and other applications of relief. That is today's hydrogen use. I think that's the first thing that will get decarbonized.
[00:08:23.62] I think we are also seeing that hydrogen or light due to vehicle transportation, cars, et cetera is hard, because we don't have the distribution system, the infrastructure, whereas we have the grid infrastructure for batteries. So that's a competitive place, and I'm not sure that's the right way to look at it for hydrogen use, for light duty vehicles.
[00:08:47.03] But for heavy duty vehicles, long haul transportation by trucking, I think there possibly is a role to play. They'll have to compete with other ways of decarbonization. But I think, there's a lot of interest in the aviation industry on sustainable aviation fuel, on the maritime shipping industry for things like their fuel. Replacing bunker fuel, which a lot is used. And for that you need ammonia or some higher energy density, both gravimetric, which is very good, but volumetric also has to be there. And that's where other fuels, other derivatives of hydrogen can be very, very helpful. And whether it is hydrocarbons or ammonia, I think that's where we could see something really interesting happening in hydrogen that would be here.
[00:09:39.30] Karen Baert: Yeah, great. So you're talking about decarbonizing existing hydrogen use cases first. And then when you talk about new use cases, you mentioned seal making as a big potential option, and then turning the hydrogen cement and then turning it into derivatives such as ammonia or hydrocarbons to decarbonize other sectors.
[00:10:00.49] Arun Majumdar: Yeah, we have projects going on right now in our accelerator where you take hydrogen to take CO2 to CO, like and CO becomes a great reducing agent. It is used as a reducing agent to make steel, right? To turn iron oxide into iron. And CO goes to CO2 then. And you could use hydrogen directly but there is embrittlement issues potentially. So if you use CO2 and capture the CO2 and then reuse it with hydrogen, that could be another way of decarbonizing of using [? GHG ?] free hydrogen to decarbonize the steel sector.
[00:10:37.75] Karen Baert: Interesting.
[00:10:38.31] Arun Majumdar: But that is-- these are expensive when you take it to scale. And so they have de-risked along the way and then be implemented in the future. But we are seeing direct reduction of iron for steelmaking just starting right now. It's a ways to go.
[00:10:58.16] Karen Baert: Yeah, great. And I want to talk a little bit about the intersection between hydrogen and grid, because amongst many other things, you have deep expertise in the mechanics of the electricity grid. You've supported US, Secretary of Energy and all things related to grid modernization. And I believe at Google, you are also working on grid initiatives. In this electrify everything trends, capacity constraints on the grid are becoming more and more frequent, leading to costs for producers and consumers.
[00:11:24.65] Hydrogen, while producing hydrogen from renewables on one hand, represents another load to the grid. On the other hand, it could add flexibility on the demand side. Where, if at all, do you see the role of hydrogen in grid management?
[00:11:39.11] Arun Majumdar: Yeah, so I think that grid was let's be clear, the grid was never designed for fluctuating generations like we have in renewables. It was the generation always follow the load. And the fluctuation load. Now we're introducing something new at scale, which is fluctuating generation. And so you need to manage the load in some way to track the generation or shift the load in some way. And there are many ways of doing it. I mean, there are things like, can you do demand side management in real time, and then want to reduce the load and try to match it. There are storage solutions that can help in that regard.
[00:12:22.98] Or today they're using natural gas as a backup, as for balancing the grid. Now natural gas obviously is [INAUDIBLE] to emissions. So one way to do that is to store the electricity and use it later on. And there are lots of storage solutions. Hydrogen is one of them. And it will have to compete in the market. But at scale, it actually looks pretty good where you use electrolyzer to produce hydrogen as a fuel cell to produce electricity or take it into a turbine, gas turbine, and use the hydrogen for electricity generation.
[00:12:57.96] The round trip efficiency is a factor in this. And so the cost of storage has to be, it'll have to compete with other techniques. Now it's just so happens that pumped hydro is a very cheap way of storing electricity. But there are permitting issues with pumped hydro and there are geographical limitation constraints on that. So the other technologies kind of open up and hydrogen being one of them.
[00:13:26.80] Karen Baert: Yeah, great. And I would assume that especially in the long duration storage space, that's where hydrogen could come in and potentially be competitive.
[00:13:35.38] Arun Majumdar: I mean, today's penetration of renewables on the grid, in California's roughly 40%, 50%, %30, %40, it depends on the time of the day. And for that, the daily use of storage, lithium ion can be fine. It's cost effective with longer duration, 10 hours or longer. You need new technology. Lithium ion is not sufficiently low cost enough to do that. So you'll need new technology. And hydrogen can play a role there.
[00:14:07.03] Karen Baert: We've heard you say that you would love to be an undergrad right now. And while there could be many reasons for that, we assume that is because there's never been a more exciting time to work in energy and study energy. The push to decarbonize is stronger than ever, and in this transition, every player has to reinvent itself or else it's left behind. And between industry, government and the academic world, what will truly accelerate our progress in energy?
[00:14:33.11] Arun Majumdar: I think it's a combination. I mean, I'm excited right now, OK. And I wish I was an undergraduate. And that's because I'm an engineer by training, and engineers like to solve problems. We have lots of problems now. In fact, more now because of this massive global energy transition. And it's good to be in the early days of that, because you can see where the opportunities are. You can shape it in many ways. The education system is changing right now because of this global energy transition. We just launched a new school. And we have now the United States Inflation Reduction Act and all of these new things that are being thought through, that are being imagined. And so it's a very exciting time.
[00:15:19.91] And if you really want to accelerate innovation, first of all, you need innovation. Otherwise, we are back in the same treadmill as we had in the 20th century. To really change the ball game, innovation is a critical. But it's not just innovations of technology. It'll be innovation technology that would be reinforced by innovations in policy, that will be reinforced with innovations in finance, in markets and all. And all of those have to work together, along with the public acceptance of these issues and also addressing some of the inequities that we have seen in the past.
[00:15:57.19] So I think all of those factors will be important in accelerating these innovations. So it's not one or the other. In semiconductors you can see or software, you can have a tremendous innovation like we're seeing right now in ML. And that's changing the ball game. Did we need policy on that? Maybe, but we need some policy to at least manage it in some way. But in the energy space you do need the policy because the policy will dictate whether you can have markets, whether you can have financing or financing, whether it's regulatory policy or financial policy, et cetera. Tax policy. And that really matters in how you develop the infrastructure.
[00:16:40.00] Karen Baert: Do you see the Inflation Reduction Act as a good step in the right direction on that front?
[00:16:44.90] Arun Majumdar: I think it's a good first step. There's a long way to go to really change and transform the economy, but it's a very important first step that we've taken.
[00:16:54.23] Karen Baert: Great. You mentioned the new school. So you're the inaugural Dean of the Sanford School of Sustainability, and it's the first new school at Sanford in seven years. So it's a big deal. Really aiming to dramatically amplify Sanford's impact in tackling the urgent climate and sustainability challenges facing all people. You spent this summer and fall quarter on a listening tour talking to I guess, more than 150 or 160 students and postdocs from across the school to talk about their concerns, but also their hopes for the school. What were your most surprising takeaways from that listening tour, and are these voices and opinions on campus aligned with what you hear outside of campus?
[00:17:34.31] Arun Majumdar: That's a great question. I am so happy that I went on a listening tour to talk to both students and faculty and to listen to what their aspirations are, what their concerns are. One of the concerns that were brought to me was that of engaging with fossil fuel companies. After all, it's a school of sustainability. So some felt that we should not be engaging with fossil fuel companies. And I said, that's something-- that I've heard you. And I also wanted to hear other people's opinion, and which is now there in a report in a Stanford report.
[00:18:14.25] And what I found was that there were other opinions as well. It's just that they were not quite vocal. And so I think now we are at a space that we're having some dialogue in a very nice civil discourse way between the students on with different opinions, and to really understand how we need to engage with the industry writ large and especially fossil fuel companies. And so I think that's ongoing. There's a campus committee that has been formed to inform us the pros and cons of different engagement mechanism. That's ongoing as we speak.
[00:18:55.03] But at the end of the day, we also have to honor one of the basic principles of academia, which is academic freedom. Which means that the professors and students should be allowed to pursue their research and education in ways that cannot be controlled by other people. And I think that academic freedom has to be honored. And so that's the place we are in.
[00:19:20.64] What surprised me most, and I would say pleasantly, is the fact of how much interest there is in the broader community outside Stanford in engaging with Stanford. The announcement that happened with the largest gift to know when or why. And we have had interest from heads of state, from leaders of businesses and nonprofits, and down to high school students in the local community. Writing to me, he said, how can we engage, them or their organizations. How can we engage? And that's I mean, I didn't realize how much interest. To be honest and looking back, I should have expected, but I did not.
[00:20:10.84] Because every country, every major country has some climate goals. They were determined during the Glasgow COP26. Most of the major corporations, 60% of the Fortune 500 companies have made some kind of climate sustainable commitments, and no one is exactly sure how to get there. But they have dates already lined with 2050, 2060, et cetera. So they tried. Everyone's trying to figure out how to navigate this, including us.
[00:20:43.58] But this is where the interest comes in, is that with us leaning into this as a, yes, you started a Stanford School of Sustainability, but it's really an all campus effort to galvanize and harness the expertise, the energy, the passion amongst the people out here and the intellectual horsepower. And dedicate that towards addressing sustainability. This is appeal to a lot of people. So I always feel that they're rooting for our success. And that's something that was fascinating to me to watch.
[00:21:19.01] And we still try to manage it, because to be honest, we can't. It's hard for us to engage with everyone. So we have to figure out how to build on that momentum and engage with as many as we can. So this one plus one plus one can be greater than three. And we are looking for partners who are looking into it and looking at it the same way. And we want a partner in ways that perhaps we have not done before.
[00:21:47.29] Karen Baert: Yeah. I'm so happy to hear about that exciting momentum, and especially at a time where we need it most. And for our listeners today who want to engage and have that excitement, but what would you tell them or what advice would you give them?
[00:22:03.66] Arun Majumdar: First of all, I mean, it's great to see so many people involved and engaged. I don't think it is historically, at least to my knowledge, I have seen all major countries, all major corporations, academia, all aligned towards this goal because people realize it's a problem. And it's not just an energy problem, it's a water problem. It's a food problem. And it's a problem in biodiversity or ecosystem conservation issues. And global health. And climate change affects all of them.
[00:22:36.82] And we are reminded every year on extreme events that are happening is that this is different. And people are concerned about it. And people are looking at this as an opportunity. So I think what I would encourage people to do is to not only learn about it, but do something about it. And we have developing education system in our curriculum, not only for our students. We want to take it to scale over outside. And so stay tuned because we want to take the education that we provide, we only have about 27,000 or so students out here, which is great. Nothing-- we have to educate our own students, but this needs to go out to the millions with as little barrier as possible.
[00:23:20.63] So we are developing that with our partners outside. So stay tuned in that. But do something in the local community. Get going with this, because, look at the climate extremes that might be happening. Adaptation is a huge concern of mine and many other people. And ask the question, what can I do to really help our community, to help our local community and help our nation, their own nations and engage with us and see if we can form partnerships where we can exchange knowledge, exchange techniques, so that you can take some of them. And we're happy to co-develop these solutions with you.
[00:24:00.75] Karen Baert: Fantastic. And indeed, more to come.
[00:24:03.63] Arun Majumdar: More to come.
[00:24:05.27] Karen Baert: In 2019, you gave a speech at Stanford where you talked about the limited amount of CO2 that the world could still emit if we want to stay below the two degrees Celsius temperature rise. And you call it the CO2 budget. Back then it was 800 gigatons. Listening to that gave me goosebumps thinking that today, four years later, the yearly global greenhouse gas emissions are still rising. What do you make of this? And are you hopeful for the future?
[00:24:34.74] Arun Majumdar: The problem is getting worse. It's that was 2019. We've learned a few things during COVID. The more you delay, the worse it gets.
[00:24:43.78] Karen Baert: Yeah.
[00:24:44.07] Arun Majumdar: So I think we are facing even more strenuously. Only a few things that I could say is that we have a bigger problem now than when we added to 2019. We also learned during COVID that just because the economy slows down doesn't mean the emissions slow down. That's the other thing we learned. That was striking for many people.
[00:25:10.23] We also learned that if the world comes together, it can actually do a few things. Now, COVID was not the greatest shining example of how world comes together, but there were some partnership that happened, and I think we should look at that and learn from that and leverage those partnerships. But I think, I mean, so that's something that has happened in between.
[00:25:33.97] It underscores two issues that we have to deal with. One is that-- and all the studies of National Academies, IPCC say that. And this is only getting aggravated-- that we have to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. And that's our first flagship destination for our Stanford Sustainability Accelerator. We have a new unit to go for this big goals, just like President Kennedy announced a big goal in September of 1962 to go to the moon and return safely within a decade. Then you work backwards to see what problems are to be solved, and then you focus your efforts on those issues, and then you get to your destination.
[00:26:20.76] Well, the same thing, same approach is something we are taking now in our accelerator. And the first one is greenhouse gas removed from the atmosphere at the gigaton scale. And when you put the gigaton scale and work backwards, you start with different problems or approaches to get to the gigaton scale. The scale is-- scale in economics matter a lot. So that's something that we have to look at, the negative emissions side of it.
[00:26:49.19] And that is-- it's not an either/or with decarbonization. It is an and. But the other second point that it underscores is that we are running the risk of not only exceeding 1.5, but exceeding 2, if you go this way, which highlights the issue of adaptation of our communities to climate extremes. And I think we need to elevate adaptation because we can't hope for the best and prepare for the best.
[00:27:21.19] We've got to hope for the best and prepare for the worst, because the people's lives and livelihoods are concerned. And the biodiversity and all of the other things. So I think adaptation needs to be elevated, and it's a very human and planetary thing to do. And there are technology issues, but it's more than just technology in this case.
[00:27:41.47] Karen Baert: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm hearing a lot of work that needs to be done. But at the same time, if we join forces, we can get there.
[00:27:48.90] Arun Majumdar: That is absolutely true. Stanford is a small University in the big scheme of things. We cannot do this alone. We need other academic institutions, businesses, nonprofits, government, media all working together in this effort. It is the defining-- both the challenge and the opportunity of the 21st century.
[00:28:10.62] Karen Baert: Together, we strive to create a future where humans and nature thrive in concert and in perpetuity. It's a mission statement of the Stanford School of Sustainability. And also where we are today. Professor Majumdar, you're at the helm of the ship at a time when creating a sustainable society has never been as important. What are your hopes for the future? And looking back in 10 and 20 years, what will mean success for you in the context of the school?
[00:28:35.56] Arun Majumdar: There are four North Stars for me. One is to recruit and foster talent. And we are in the process of recruiting. I think that if you can do that, you're going to hire 60 more faculty. But it's not just faculty. It is our students and postdocs and staff, et cetera, to be able to do this at a meaningful scale and urgency. So that's one.
[00:28:58.36] The second North Star is about education. We are in the process of developing new curricula, not just for the students, as I mentioned, for the world. We want to create an education comments platform where people can educate each other in ways that they have not before. To get domain expertise from one part of the world. To educate people in the other parts of the world, including us. And then we are going to do that. It's somewhat like what textbooks used to be, not used to be. They still are.
[00:29:30.30] We curate the information from various sources and help people understand some depth in a certain subject. So I think that's going to happen. So that I'm hoping that this will have an impact on the education side. We are launching-- we just launched the accelerator and a third Institute in addition to the woods and the [INAUDIBLE] Institute. The third Institute of the Institute for Sustainable Societies.
[00:29:57.56] And, and the role of the institutes is to bring the faculties, students and staff from across campus to focus on some issues, solutions, events, research. So that we're launching that and we're going to supercharge the accelerator. It's so important to really go after some big problems. So that's the third North Star.
[00:30:19.96] And the fourth one very importantly is our culture and our values. What does that mean? It means that we have to balance our knowledge driven research, which is academic research. Normally what it is to discover knowledge. But also balance that with solutions, systems research. We can't do only solutions, and we can't do only knowledge. The feedback loop between those two critically important. That balance is important.
[00:30:52.72] In our school we have science and engineering, but we also have social sciences and humanities because it is a social issue. There are people involved in this. So how do we integrate and balance out the various domains of expertise, which academia needs to be divided into-- in today's academia-- but for an issue like this, we all have to be brought together. So how do we value the scholarship and the impact of different disciplines that have to come together to make an impact, total impact on the world?
[00:31:28.13] So I think those cultural-- the values of diversity, equity, inclusion, which it is this is not just a domestic issue. This is an international issue. And issues of environmental justice. We have to start with that, how we elevate those issues as part of a value statement. So those are the kinds of things that we are working on as North Star. And I'm hoping the next 10 years we would have established that. And at the same time with the accelerator found some and with our partners in the accelerator, we made some dent in some of the solutions.
[00:32:05.92] Karen Baert: Across these four North Stars, would you say a lot of that is different to how Stanford has been operating in the past?
[00:32:13.04] Arun Majumdar: I think Stanford has had these kinds of things in various other dimensions, whether it's a medical school and the biotech industry and the fundamental research that goes on in medical school. The same thing with other parts of campus, whether it's engineering or business school and others. So I think we have had this. We have had impact. I mean, you look at around Silicon Valley. And the global impact on this are people who have gone out and done so well.
[00:32:40.19] I think we're trying we are learning from that experience and addressing something quite unique out here, which involves the whole campus. Now it's not just at [? Door ?] School. So the approach we are taking is the following. We are using the [? Door ?] School as a vehicle to harness the intellectual horsepower of the whole campus and make it a whole campus effort to do this. Now that is towards sustainability. Climate issues, water and all that. But that is new. And that's part of, I would say, reimagining what an academic institution can do and its relationship and engagement with society writ large.
[00:33:21.64] That's the reimagining going on. How do we lean into solutions? How do we value knowledge based research and education? That is the reimagining that's going on. And I think this is fascinating to be part of that.
[00:33:34.23] Karen Baert: And pretty exciting. And I like how the Stanford School of Sustainability, symbolically is very central on the Stanford campus as well, in bridging these different worlds and schools. Professor Majumdar, this has been super insightful already. I'd like to end with a question that we ask every guest in our podcast. I have this strong belief that we all stand as shoulders of the giants who came before us. And to use Isaac Newton's words, it's standing on their shoulders is what makes us see further. In that context, who inspires you and why?
[00:34:06.15] Arun Majumdar: Oh boy, this is a long list of it. Yeah, but I think obviously in my local community up here, I get inspired by the students. I mean, this is-- I just taught a class, called out of class with Cam Mueller last quarter and just working with the students up there, and that was-- I mean, we tried a different way of teaching and learning in this. That was fascinating. When I interact with a student, just the passion that they have, that's tremendous.
[00:34:39.73] My colleagues up here in the school, I worked very closely with Steve Chu, who actually got me into this when we were both in Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley. So he's always an inspiration. There are people who are leading the school and leading departments and the department chairs, the seniors [INAUDIBLE] and the staff up here, there. This is-- I mean, I can't tell you how much passion there is in getting the school going and really making a difference. So I think that is totally inspirational.
[00:35:11.69] I think to our community, I just, I look at people who are dedicating their lives to make an impact, and that is fascinating. Whether it is start up companies that they're still trying to figure out how to navigate this path. There are community leaders who are willing to dedicate their lives. I mean, we have-- I was just on a Zoom call with folks in tribal communities. They have some real issues out there. And just to see how they are approaching this, to make sure that the tribal communities have access to energy, huge issues.
[00:35:52.26] And I mean, that's inspiration to me. That they are realizing that this is a challenge and they want to lean into this. So I mean, I can tell you, give you the long list, but that inspires me. Just looking in the trenches, what people are doing.
[00:36:09.12] Karen Baert: That's beautiful. And you're definitely an inspiration to me and many, many others on this campus and far beyond that. So, Professor Majumdar, thank you so much for your time today, and thank you for sharing your knowledge and vision with us.
[00:36:22.41] Arun Majumdar: Thank you.
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