Rubber is used in a ton of products in the developed and developing worlds. It forms door and window seals, it makes gaskets used in power plants, the soles of shoes, and insulates tools for working with electricity. It’s a large part of our daily lives, whether we realize that or not. Still, there is one use for rubber that almost everyone can easily think of – tires. In America, most families have at least one vehicle, likely two. That means every family has at least eight tires (ten if you include the spares) sitting in their driveway every day. The number can actually be quite a bit more than that when you add in the odd three-car household, snow tires and a utility trailer.
All of those tires come from somewhere and for the most part, that somewhere is the Para rubber tree that grows in Southeast Asia. It’s where a lot of tire companies get the raw material to make their tires. I’ll bet you never thought of Goodyear as a farming company, yet that is a large part of what they and others do. As one might expect, some of the very rainforests those rubber trees grow in are struggling due to being cleared for cattle or due to disease. This is making the tire companies and others that make use of those trees a little concerned about the future of the rubber supply chain.
To that end, Bridgestone has started making extensive use of data to improve its farming operations. They are collecting data and looking for ways to determine which clones of which trees are best suited to which kinds of environments in order to maximize yields. They’ve actually worked their data to come up with a thirty-year plan for the most efficient planting. Once they get the kinks worked out, they plan on offering it to other farms as well.
While it is great that Bridgestone is working on ways to get the most product out of the least amount of land, wouldn’t it be great to come up with new methods of transportation that could minimize the need for so much rubber? Obviously, the cities are looking to improve their public transportation systems. It doesn’t take a genius to realize that fewer cars on the roads of LA and New York would make for a more pleasant environment there.
However, another phenomenon has cropped up or rather accelerated in the last year. That is people moving out of the cities. Whether they are leaving because of taxes, unrest, or COVID, people over the last year have been moving from the cities to the suburbs and people from the suburbs into more rural areas. Yet, their jobs are often far away and even in the digital age, people still have to commute occasionally, or they desire to visit friends, or their favorite restaurants. How to deal with this? Currently, the only thing resembling a mass transit system on this scale is the interstate and more cars on those roads clearly does nothing to reduce the need for rubber.
One of the most promising proposals is the Hyperloop. Initially conceived of as a pair of underground tubes between San Francisco and LA, it would send passengers in pods at speeds up to 700mph, just a bit below the sound barrier. The travel time between the two cities would be around 35 minutes.
Of course, Musk said at the outset that he didn’t plan on developing the Hyperloop himself, leaving it to others to pick up the torch. Fortunately, Richard Branson’s Virgin has done so and has already run successful tests. If this technology can be completed and applied throughout the country, it could revolutionize modern transportation and make it much easier and cheaper to move around the country. That would be a great thing for reducing emissions as well as the need for rubber.
What’s your data worth?
Rubber is used in a ton of products in the developed and developing worlds. It forms door and window seals, it makes gaskets used in power plants, the soles of shoes, and insulates tools for working with electricity.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Welcome to Total Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.
Alexander McCaig (00:27):
Welcome back everybody to Tartle Cast. I hope you are listening to this episode on your drive to work, and you can thank your drive to work to this wonderful plant that grows in Southeast Asia called rubber, the rubber plant, rubber trees.
Jason Rigby (00:40):
Rubber trees.
Alexander McCaig (00:41):
What's its scientific name?
Jason Rigby (00:42):
Alex, I got to tell you this real quick story. This is funny. When I was a child, I used to have to walk past this house and it had about an acre of land, so it was big. But they had a big chain link fence all around. And there would be a dog that would just bark at you, and then run on the fence-
Alexander McCaig (00:58):
Along the fence? Yeah.
Jason Rigby (00:59):
Yeah. It seemed like he was a little angry guy.
Alexander McCaig (01:00):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (01:01):
He would literally bark and say, "Rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber." That's how he barked. Clear "Rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber, rubber." That's he sounded like. And I would always laugh and think, "Oh, he can speak. He can speak and say the word, 'Rubber.'"
Alexander McCaig (01:14):
Rubber dog.
Jason Rigby (01:15):
Yeah. And have you seen those dogs on TikTok or Instagram?
Alexander McCaig (01:18):
Yeah, when they bark or something and [crosstalk 00:01:20].
Jason Rigby (01:20):
And they say like a word or something?
Alexander McCaig (01:22):
Yeah. [Inaudible 00:01:22].
Jason Rigby (01:23):
Yeah, yeah. They had that, yeah. It's so interesting. But when we think of rubber and these rubber farms...
Alexander McCaig (01:30):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). I don't think people really know where rubber comes from.
Jason Rigby (01:33):
No.
Alexander McCaig (01:33):
I'm just saying, for the vast majority of people probably like, "I don't know where rubber comes from, it's on my car though."
Jason Rigby (01:37):
Yeah. And then you have to think, it's kind of inefficient because it's almost like, to me, its almost like paper plates or plastic styrofoam. You know?
Alexander McCaig (01:49):
Yep.
Jason Rigby (01:49):
It's kind of the same thing. Yeah, we got to have tires. They're expensive. We go to Costco or whatever and get them. [crosstalk 00:01:57]. And then Costco should be our sponsor. We talk about them way too much.
Alexander McCaig (02:00):
Costco needs to fricking [crosstalk 00:02:02].
Jason Rigby (02:02):
[Kirkland 00:02:02] signature. Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (02:03):
This is a Kirkland signature podcast.
Jason Rigby (02:05):
You just had some Kirkland signature beacons.
Alexander McCaig (02:09):
They were great.
Jason Rigby (02:09):
They were delicious.
Alexander McCaig (02:10):
They were delicious. Absolutely love them.
Jason Rigby (02:11):
In your oatmeal.
Alexander McCaig (02:12):
Why are tires so expensive? In all seriousness, like what is it? If it grows from a tree, they refine it a little bit. They vulcanize the rubber, which means they just mold it under extremely high heat. Vulcanize, oo.
Jason Rigby (02:26):
I love that word. Reminds me of Star Trek.
Alexander McCaig (02:28):
Yeah. Vulcan's?
Jason Rigby (02:29):
Vulcan's. Yeah. I loved the Vulcan's. They were always logical. I was like, "How can I be like them?"
Alexander McCaig (02:33):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (02:33):
Yeah. I don't want to be emotional. I want to be logical like the Vulcan's. So whenever you look at a big data and these... Now we're kind of getting, if you look at it, it's kind of like the aggregated stuff that we've looked at before, but they're trying to say, "How can we get a higher yield at the rubber farms?"
Alexander McCaig (02:50):
Okay. Michelin and Bridgestone.
Jason Rigby (02:54):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (02:56):
Firestone, is that what they're called?
Jason Rigby (02:57):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (02:58):
Toyo Tires, all those things. They're farmers. You think they're tire makers, but really they're farmers. They're big data's completely reliant on the health of their fields growing these rubber trees. 100%.
Jason Rigby (03:12):
What I thought was interesting, the article talks about it, is that they're looking at soil health and disease management, and then the trees that are doing well, wherever they're being planted at, they're cloning those.
Alexander McCaig (03:24):
That's cool.
Jason Rigby (03:24):
So we have clone trees.
Alexander McCaig (03:26):
I think that's really cool.
Jason Rigby (03:27):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a good idea because, I mean, you're just interrupting evolution, like in a sense of, [crosstalk 00:03:33].
Alexander McCaig (03:32):
Yeah. Are you interrupting it or are you helping it advance?
Jason Rigby (03:35):
You're helping in advance because the strong will survive, so you're just pushing that along.
Alexander McCaig (03:40):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (03:40):
That's like, if you took a herd of elk, and then that one really strong, alpha male elk, he is the one that carries on the genes, of course. So if you created 100 of those and then put them in areas where other elk were struggling, then would it create that herd?
Alexander McCaig (04:00):
It could.
Jason Rigby (04:00):
I mean, that would be interesting.
Alexander McCaig (04:02):
And think about it, if you can genetically modify something and it's in the genome data to live longer, be more robust, if it gets out of control, you screwed up, well, you can also genetically cripple it.
Jason Rigby (04:15):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (04:15):
It can go both ways.
Jason Rigby (04:16):
Yeah, it can go-
Alexander McCaig (04:17):
It's really quite an interesting thing.
Jason Rigby (04:19):
So the natural rubber currently used to produce tires is extracted from the para rubber tree.
Alexander McCaig (04:26):
Yeah, para rubber tree.
Jason Rigby (04:27):
Which primarily grows in Southeast Asia.
Alexander McCaig (04:28):
Oh, Vietnam?
Jason Rigby (04:30):
Disease and a depletion of tropical rain forest is where a para rubber trees are grown, because you were to risk in the rubber supply chain. So-
Alexander McCaig (04:35):
Okay. Can you say that again?
Jason Rigby (04:37):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (04:38):
Because it's going to [crosstalk 00:04:38].
Jason Rigby (04:38):
This is why I want to do this because this goes right into our big seven.
Alexander McCaig (04:44):
I'm going to take [crosstalk 00:04:44].
Jason Rigby (04:44):
Are you ready?
Alexander McCaig (04:46):
This is [Sinatia 00:04:47].
Jason Rigby (04:46):
This is a contribute to risk in the rubber supply chain.
Alexander McCaig (04:51):
Okay. So we're worried about risk in the rubber supply chain for-
Jason Rigby (04:56):
Because the depletion of tropical rain forests.
Alexander McCaig (04:58):
Okay. Why are the tropical rain forests being depleted? Hmm? Cattle farming. Palm oil. All that other stuff that goes into our manufactured items over here in the developed countries. If you're worried about climate stability, stop lopping the rain forest down.
Jason Rigby (05:20):
Yeah. And Brimstone, [crosstalk 00:05:22] last fall launched a campaign that invited its partners to work together to implement sustainable and responsible practices within the natural rubber value chain.
Alexander McCaig (05:29):
And how do they define sustainable and responsible?
Jason Rigby (05:32):
I don't know, but they're concerned about their value data chain. And they're concerned that-
Alexander McCaig (05:36):
Well, they're concerned about-
Jason Rigby (05:37):
Tires are going to go up-
Alexander McCaig (05:38):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (05:38):
... and they're not going to have enough.
Alexander McCaig (05:40):
Well, good. That'll force us to use something else that's economic more efficient.
Jason Rigby (05:43):
So because when you look at big data, if the global population is predicted to reach 9.6 billion, than automobiles owned as... Because, we had a look at this. India is rising to middle-class-
Alexander McCaig (05:55):
And I keep saying, "You're onto something."
Jason Rigby (05:57):
Yeah. 2.4 billion cars.
Alexander McCaig (05:58):
Yeah. I think that's wrong. I'll tell you why. You really think everybody's going to end up owning a car? So as you have an increase in population, more people in these cities, especially in commuter centers, you think that's the thing that's going to increase more individual cars? Wrong. Public transportation, hands down.
Jason Rigby (06:16):
Yeah. I think the problem that we're seeing... I know, because we're seeing record purchasing of cars all around the world right now because of COVID, and then people exiting cities and then living. But there'll be a point to where everybody feels safe again, then they're going to want to go back into the city.
Alexander McCaig (06:32):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (06:33):
And then, in that point, we'll need public transportation.
Alexander McCaig (06:36):
Yeah. And as the population grows, you can't have more cars. You can build roads, but it's just going to have more congestion with all of those people. If you think about this in a logical sense, you ready? If I have a bunch of different people driving by themselves with their own different cause and effect, okay? Just one person in one car, taking up a lot of amount of space, and someone makes a bad move, that causes 1,000 other bad moves.
Jason Rigby (06:59):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Alexander McCaig (06:59):
But if I put 40 or 50 people on a bus with one driver and more buses, there's less of a probabilistic effect of the bad move affecting a larger amount of cars, creating a larger amount of delay. For instance, you put someone on a train.
Jason Rigby (07:11):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:12):
Okay? So the future is not more cars, it's better public transportation, hands down.
Jason Rigby (07:17):
And through that better public transportation, the future is, I believe, Elon Musk tunnels. When I saw that I was like-
Alexander McCaig (07:26):
Let me ask you, do you believe it, or do you know it? Because when you believe it, it means you haven't thought it through. So let's think this through for a second. I'd love to talk about this because this has to do with the tires and big data.
Jason Rigby (07:36):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:36):
Big data just shows congestion. That's why Google's algorithms on Maps and ways is always trying to redirect you. "Take this route." And be like, "Man, that's longer." It is, but it'll get you there faster because of the traffic. So let's think about those tunnels. Do you believe those are the future for now? His thought was that we live in a three-dimensional world, but drive in a two-dimensional world, where our roads not three-dimensional.
Jason Rigby (07:56):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (07:57):
Okay? Why can't we be below, or above or inside, whatever that might be?
Jason Rigby (08:02):
Yeah. No, I don't want to use the word, "Believe." I watched a whole program on his view on tunnels and then how fast you can get from point A to point B. Here's why I know that it could happen. If agencies, government agencies, will get involved in granite and... Because people, to me, value their time over everything else. Money.
Jason Rigby (08:26):
People value their time over everything. Why do we have Amazon Prime? Why do we have Uber Eats? We'll pay 10 times more than one... If I get Chipotle, it's eight bucks. We mention them all the time in the pockets.
Alexander McCaig (08:37):
Yeah. Chipotle, where is our damn sponsor?
Jason Rigby (08:39):
Yeah. Or at least some free lunches.
Alexander McCaig (08:41):
I love a free lunch.
Jason Rigby (08:43):
We'll eat it all right here.
Alexander McCaig (08:44):
Yeah, I'll have the sofritas please.
Jason Rigby (08:47):
So people will pay $16 instead of $8, almost double the price, to get an Uber Eats to come drop the food off for them. Where, and when you look at Amazon Prime, I don't want to go to the store, so I don't mind having a box delivered right at my front door. And I'll wait two days because of the... So it's inconvenience and time. Inconvenience and time. So if I can walk down some stairs and hop on this warping thing that's going to-
Alexander McCaig (09:18):
[crosstalk 00:09:18] underground.
Jason Rigby (09:19):
Yeah. And next thing you know, I'm in LA and I get to San Diego in 10 minutes.
Alexander McCaig (09:24):
Yeah.
Jason Rigby (09:25):
People are going to be buying that ticket. I guarantee you, all the time. That will be the number one way for transportation in the world, these tunnels, if they go that fast. Because that's the key, is how fast can they go?
Alexander McCaig (09:39):
There were, do you remember that conspiracy theory?
Jason Rigby (09:44):
I know all of them, Alex.
Alexander McCaig (09:45):
Okay. You know the one with the... I got to pull this up. The one with the tunnels, everybody... We got it up here on the screen. So when Elon Musk talks about-
Jason Rigby (09:57):
Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alexander McCaig (09:58):
Elon Musk talk about the tunnel, and we're in the epicenter here in New Mexico, if you ever wondered, for the tunnel system.
Jason Rigby (10:01):
Yeah. Because of the labs and the-
Alexander McCaig (10:03):
Yeah, the labs. Transporting yourselves back and forth very quickly underneath the United States, they've-
Jason Rigby (10:10):
Which is smart.
Alexander McCaig (10:11):
Which is, it's extremely smart.
Jason Rigby (10:13):
If I'm a nuclear scientist and I'm at Los Alamos labs and I want to get to Sandia labs, which is an hour drive. Well, it's longer than that. It's about an hour and a half hour?
Alexander McCaig (10:24):
Yeah, it's marked out, an hour and a half.
Jason Rigby (10:25):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (10:26):
That's correct.
Jason Rigby (10:26):
So I want to go from Los Alamos to Albuquerque.
Alexander McCaig (10:28):
Yeah, I want to do it in five minutes.
Jason Rigby (10:29):
And then, if there's an underground thing, yeah. Then nano scientists are moving back and forth information's going quickly.
Alexander McCaig (10:34):
It moves quicker and there's less variance risk. So when I fly airplanes, I have to deal with weather, traffic in the sky. Even though it doesn't seem like a big deal, like planes look pretty separated. You got to watch out or you'll slam into stuff. I got to look for birds and all sorts. But if I'm in a closed tube, a sealed tube, nothing's going on down there.
Jason Rigby (10:52):
No.
Alexander McCaig (10:52):
It's just me moving through the Maglev system. So it's actually, it's a very smart way to travel. And it's not very intrusive to the environment.
Jason Rigby (10:59):
Did they see how fast they go? How fast is Elon Musk [crosstalk 00:11:03].
Alexander McCaig (11:03):
I don't know. But I bet you, these things rip. I think they said you can get from New Mexico to DC in like 30 minutes in these conspiracy theory tubes, maybe less.
Jason Rigby (11:14):
See people would do those.
Alexander McCaig (11:15):
People would do it all the time.
Jason Rigby (11:15):
I'm telling you I would do it.
Alexander McCaig (11:17):
I'd use it.
Jason Rigby (11:18):
Yeah. Because it's like, I would hate, like you take California, I hate sitting in traffic. It's going to take you all day to drive from LA to San Diego. And in turn, you can turn around and be there in 10 minutes. Who's not going to do that?
Alexander McCaig (11:33):
Who wouldn't do it?
Jason Rigby (11:34):
And then, I don't want to get on a plane.
Alexander McCaig (11:36):
I'd have to drive. Imagine how... Oh, my gosh. Road noise.
Jason Rigby (11:39):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (11:40):
Think about just the data on road noise.
Jason Rigby (11:43):
Yeah.
Alexander McCaig (11:43):
You have all those projects on the side of like the Jersey turnpike where they're building those high walls on the side of homes-
Jason Rigby (11:50):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (11:50):
... so that they don't hear the road noise. Think about how quiet the world will be if all of our transportation was underground?
Jason Rigby (11:55):
Oh, yeah.
Alexander McCaig (11:55):
No flying in the sky. You don't feel-
Jason Rigby (11:56):
Maybe a little bit of a vibration.
Alexander McCaig (11:58):
No, you wouldn't feel it. It's Maglev.
Jason Rigby (12:00):
Oh, yeah.
Alexander McCaig (12:01):
Just magnets. Just pitching them back and forth. And they're pressing... You know you put two magnets at the same poles and they shift away?
Jason Rigby (12:06):
Right.
Alexander McCaig (12:06):
Same thing. So I don't know, I just think that's an interesting path to the future. I think it's a very smart way to look at the future. And tires are on the way.
Jason Rigby (12:15):
Maybe we can stop chopping down the rainforests now.
Alexander McCaig (12:18):
Yeah. Can we not lop down the rainforest anymore?
Jason Rigby (12:20):
No.
Alexander McCaig (12:20):
Can we like help-
Jason Rigby (12:21):
There's no way.
Alexander McCaig (12:22):
... our granite stability, which is like number one on the big seven here?
Jason Rigby (12:24):
Yeah. That's our thing at Tardo.
Alexander McCaig (12:26):
Yeah. And we keep it up high in the room. It's like the hierarchy in here. Big seven. It's funny. It's actually above our map, our globe.
Jason Rigby (12:33):
Because if in 50 to 70 years we're done, creating a tube isn't going to help us.
Alexander McCaig (12:38):
The tube's not going to help. Stop lopping stuff down, that's actually keeping us alive, right?
Jason Rigby (12:41):
Yeah. We need to. This is serious. We have a drastic issue that's happening all over the globe. And the sad part is, if people would get together and stop being polarizing and unite over this one cause... Because I don't care if you're in Indonesia, Australia, Canada, doesn't matter.
Alexander McCaig (12:59):
We're affected.
Jason Rigby (12:59):
We could all agree that this is an issue.
Alexander McCaig (13:02):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jason Rigby (13:02):
We could all get together, just like we're seeing with decentralization. We can all get together and we can change this. You have that opportunity right now to do that. And with this opportunity comes responsibility.
Alexander McCaig (13:14):
Wow. What is that... With great power comes great responsibility?
Jason Rigby (13:18):
Yes.
Alexander McCaig (13:19):
Did Tony Stark's say that to Spider-Man?
Jason Rigby (13:22):
Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Exactly. We need Stark Industries, which is Elon Musk because he's kind of Iron Man. [crosstalk 00:13:27].
Alexander McCaig (13:26):
Yeah. Elon, just don't build any missiles, though.
Jason Rigby (13:29):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Alexander McCaig (13:30):
We're missile free.
Jason Rigby (13:32):
Yeah. No, he didn't get COVID. Oh, nevermind, I thought... Joe Rogan was talking about Dave Chappelle got COVID, so they had to cancel the show.
Alexander McCaig (13:42):
Yeah, I remember this.
Jason Rigby (13:42):
Joe Rogan on Instagram was blaming... Because they were together, was blaming Elon Musk's wife, Grimes-
Alexander McCaig (13:48):
Gremes. Grimes?
Jason Rigby (13:49):
Yeah, yeah. Was blaming her it. It was great. Classing joking.
Alexander McCaig (13:54):
Classic blame games beyond the data.
Jason Rigby (13:55):
Yeah, with millions of people.
Alexander McCaig (13:56):
Yeah. All right, we're done.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Thank you for listening to Total Cast with your hosts, Alexander McCaig and Jason Rigby. Where humanity steps into the future, and source data defines the path.
