Augustus Doricko - CEO of Rainmaker: Manipulating the Weather | SRS #207

[Music]. Augustus Doro, welcome to the show, man. Thanks, dude. So, uh, weather manipulation is on. everybody's mind right now. And, um, you. make it rain, so thought this would be a. fascinating interview to be able to to. talk to somebody that knows actually. what the hell's going on, hopefully. So, welcome. Yeah. Yes. Thank you. something. or other about it, right? I uh I think.

about weather mod most minutes of most. hours of most days awake or not. Um and. uh rain and snow actually. Uh snow we're. even better at than rain right now. It's. slightly easier. So talk about the. differences. How much have you looked. into, you know, the the weather. manipulation stuff? There's there's a. lot of conspiracies out there on it. Dude, I run a I run a weather. manipulation company. Oh, so yeah, I I I. know so on the one hand I know a lot.

about the research that the United. States is doing, that China's doing, that the Europeans are doing, that the. Middle Easterners, Saudi and and the. Emirates are doing. But then also, I get. uh letters in the mail about once or. twice a week from guys that have just. like totally lost their mind that say. like, "If you repeat this activation. phrase, it will rain over you. immediately because I've like typed it. into the code of the ether." you know, someone that did like too much DMT or. something. Um, so I've got the full. spectrum of uh the actual science down.

to the most skitso theories and a lot of. stuff in between. Nice. Did you see the. thing that just happened in Switzerland? Yeah, that glacier that. whatever happened, it just cracked off. and like completely buried that entire. village. Yeah, it was like a town of. 1300 people or something, I think. Um, that was a disaster. Uh is the suspicion. that that was manipulated? Not yet, but. I'm sure it's coming out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Probably. It's uh you know, it's. funny actually. A lot of what we do.

right now in the western US is snowpack. enhancement. So trying to prevent the. glaciers from uh you know melting away, cracking, becoming unstable and. collapsing. What did you say? Snow melt. Snow pack enhancement. So making more. snow. Make more snow to protect the. glaciers. Wow. Yeah, that's happening. Mhm. Interesting. Well, I got a ton of. questions. I know, you know, we there's. a lot of I don't It's not conspiracy. It's real, right? The Vietnam stuff. We.

were trying to to. to prolong the monsoon season over there. to give us some type of an advantage. Operation Popeye. We're going to talk. about that. You know about that, right? Yeah. Perfect. Uh well, everybody starts. off with an intro here. So, Augustus. Doro, founder and CEO of Rain Maker, a. next generation cloud seating company, a. USC Berkeley dropout, Theoal Fellowship, and member of Elsagundo hard tech scene.

Rain maker uses weatherresistant drones. to increase precipitation in NAVLE radar. hardware to measure how much man-made. precip precipitation is created. Your. first priority is reversing the. desertification of America of the. American West and ultimately to. terraform deserts into abundant green. arable land. And most importantly, you're a Christian. Yep. That I am that. I am. That's me. So that I am that I am.

That's me. But uh couple things to go. through here before we get started. So, we're going to do a whole we're going to. do a life story on you and um but I have. a Patreon account and it's a community. been with me here since the beginning. and um they're the reason I get to be. here sitting with you. And so, one of. the things I do is I offer them the. opportunity to ask each and every guest. a question. And so, this is from Jason.

Have there been discussions about who. will be held responsible if a mistake. occurs that results in harm to human. life or property damage? Is it fair to. say acts of God would become a thing of. the past? It's a really good question. Um, so we're definitely putting the cart. before the horse a little bit here. Um, but uh, yes. So there are regulations.

right now throughout most states. in America, particularly in the West, um. that require any weather modification. operators have permits or licenses that. are approved by the state department of. natural resources, the Department of. Agriculture, um departments of water. resources. And in order to get that. permit or license, you have to use. approved materials. you have to have. certified meteorologists um on staff and. you also have to have what are called.

suspension criteria. So if you make it. rain or snow more, right? Um obviously. one thing that people would be concerned. about is if there were floods or. avalanches. Um, and what suspension. criteria means is if there's already. flood risk because a cloud is already. naturally going to precipitate a lot, or. if there's burn scars from wildfires. that would cause really fast runoff and. flooding, or if the soil moisture is. already too high for the water to be. absorbed into the soil and would cause. flooding, or if there's too much snow. pack and uh there's avalanche risk from.

having any more snow. Even if our. customers want more water, we're. regulated by the states in which we. operate to not continue cloud seating, to not continue making it rain or snow, to avoid causing any problems like that. And so if we don't adhere to those. suspension criteria, then we would be. held liable for any damage caused. Um, and I think that's appropriate. And I. wish the federal government had. regulations that enforce that as well, rather than it just being done on a. state-by-state basis. Um, now with. respect to the last part of that.

question, would that make Acts of God a. thing of the past? Um, you can't. totally manipulate or modify the weather. the way that you could the uh air. conditioning in your house at this point. in time. Um, it's a super complicated, super energetic system. We'll trend. towards more and more of that as time. goes on. So, uh, right now, if you were. to cause flooding, that wouldn't be. considered an act of God. you would have. caused it. Um, as time goes on, my hope.

is that we live in a world that is more. green and lush and abundant and. symbiotically flourishing between. creation of the environment and mankind. so that, you know, we've engineered. weather related disasters away entirely. I'm just curious, I mean, how how much. do states actually know about this. stuff? It's I mean, it's it's popped up. It's relatively new on the radar in a. lot of people's minds. So, is this like. when Zuckerberg's in front of, you know,

having a congressional hearing and he's. talking to 80-year-old people that. probably can't even open their email and. they they want to know how he's. regulating Facebook or do these people. actually know what the hell they're. doing? Yeah. It seems to me like you'll. be light years ahead of them. Um, so, you know, one interesting part of all. this is that it's not really like a. partisan issue, right? It's not that. like Republicans like it and Democrats. don't or vice versa. Um or or that. Republicans know about it and Democrats.

don't. It's really everything west of. the Mississippi. People have some. knowledge of this because those are the. driest states in the union. They've been. cloud seeding for the longest amount of. time or they they've experimented with. wi with it the most because they need. the water most desperately, you know. So. Colorado and California, Texas and. Idaho, they all have weather. modification programs that the state. funds. How long have they been how long. have they had those programs? Um, so. cloud seating was invented in the United. States. It's an American technology that.

was done for the first time in New York. in 1946. So the very first effective. weather modification operations were. done in the ' 40s um after World War II. Um then there have been a series of. programs that have popped up either. domestically or abroad in the decades in. between. But we've never actually been. able to prove that it works until 2017. Um what changed in 2017 was this. So, so. to give you the overview of what cloud. seating is, um about 93% of all of the.

liquid water that traverses liquid and. ice water that traverses the lower. atmosphere over the US. Um so the water. in the clouds, right? About 93% of that. doesn't precipitate over land. It just. evaporates away or gets recycled by the. oceans. That means that there's a ton of. water up there that's just going to. waste that you can bring down. So. certain clouds that aren't naturally. precipitating or that aren't very. efficiently precipitating, you can. identify those with radar, you can.

measure that there's liquid in them that. isn't coming down. Fly a drone up into. them. Uh disperse a material that. freezes the liquid in the cloud. We can. talk about what that material is later, but disperse a material that freezes the. liquid in the cloud into big heavy. snowflakes that become heavy enough to. fall down. And if it's warm beneath the. cloud, melt into rain. If it's cold, stay as snow. Um, and so if you just. blast a cloud, right, that isn't and. then it rains, that isn't necessarily. proof that you caused it to rain, right?

Like maybe you're just good at picking. clouds that were going to rain anyway. Um, and so nobody could really justify. doing this at scale up until 2017. And. what changed then was the National. Center of Atmospheric Research, an. organization called ENCAR out in. Colorado, they realized if you have the. right wavelength of radar of dual. polarization radar, which I'll talk. about again in a sec, too, but if you. have the right kind of radar and you fly. in a zigzag, right, or in a circle or in. your initials, and you only see.

precipitation on the radar in your. flight track, then you can say, "Oh, that is definitively man-made because we. flew in this zigzag a we flew in the. spiral and there's only precipitation. occurring in that shape. Um they did. that in Idaho in 2017 multiple times and. that was the very first time that people. were able to show one that it was. unambiguously working and two that they. can measure how much water they put on. the ground. And so most folks even in. the scientific community are still.

catching up to speed with this tech. Um. the regulatory community, some people. know about it, think it's cool. Um, some. people think that it doesn't exist. Um, some people don't know the difference. between cloud seeding and geoengineering. and a bunch of other stuff. Um, but I'm. in that category. We'll talk about that. then. Yeah. Everybody gets a gift starting. off. You got any any guesses?

Vigilance League gummy bears made in the. US, legal in all 50 states, at least. right now until RFK gets his way. But. but here. but uh but um but yeah, just a little. gift here. So thanks, man. Let's move. into your life story. Yeah, let's. Where'd you grow up? I grew up in. Stamford, Connecticut. So little. suburban town outside of New York City. and uh did a lot of running around on. the beach and sailing that kind of stuff.

growing up. What' your parents do? Uh so. my dad was in data centers really early. Um so he was building and selling data. centers compute first to the uh people. in New York then eventually to the tech. companies um like you know Google, Microsoft, the ones that you can think. about. Then my mom uh she was a pattern. maker um for fashion house in Europe. before she moved back to America. um met. my dad had me and she was a stay at home. mom and she uh is both my parents are.

spectacular people but um my mom for. staying at home I'm I'm especially. grateful for. How old are you? I'm 25. 25 years old. making it rain, huh? Yep. No, I'm just. kidding. That's the goal though. That's. the goal, right? But uh that's awesome, man. Well, what were you into as a kid? Um sailing. A lot of sailing. Um, and. then, uh, you know, c candidly, I was, uh, I was a pretty big dork. Um, I was.

reading a lot of philosophy. I was into. history. Uh, it sounds like super. unrelatable. Um, I, uh, played a lot of. video games. Um, there's this one video. game called Europa Universalis. You. know, you know the board game Risk? Yeah, I used to play Risk. Yeah. Okay. So, Risk is great. Now imagine risk, but. you either have to be super autistic or. have a spreadsheet open to play it well. because you're managing like where your. iron supply chain goes and where you get.

your spices and where the wheat's grown. for the economy and all that kind. So I. played that. Um and then uh another. video game that I liked a lot was called. Spore. Um, and so Spore, basically the. important part of the game is you're. this like space fairing civilization and. you can you can, you know, trade with. other civilizations out in space. You. can fight wars. Um, you can explore. But. the thing that I really liked was always. terraforming. So taking a planet that. was totally uninhabitable and then. actually engineering the atmosphere to.

like put colonies down there. Sort of. like what we're going to do to Mars. Wow. So I thought about that a lot as a. kid, too. But yeah, so space, sailing, um philosophy. Uh what else did I like? Um probably. giving my mom heartburn, running around. construction sites late at night. Um. that kind of thing. Pretty bright kid, right? I was an amoron. Bright. Yeah. Uh but no, I mean I I like. school. I like school. You dropped out.

of Berkeley. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I I. didn't like it that much, I guess. Um, but I went to Berkeley because one, you. know, my mom was whispering in my ear. from the time I was a little kid like, "We have to go back to California." Um, cuz she's from Huntington. Um, and then. uh that plus Berkeley having the best. physics program uh that I got into. Um, that's why I went there. And the reason. why I wanted to study physics was um, you know, I grew up an atheist. Uh, and.

there's this Heisenberg quote, uh, like. the not the guy from Breaking Bad, but. the the physicist that says, "When you. take your first drink from the cup that. is the natural sciences, you find. atheism, but down at the bottom of the. glass, there's God staring back at you.". Um, and so I wanted to study physics cuz. I wanted to see whether God was real or. not. Um, and turns out the physics part. didn't help so much with figuring that. question out. It was mostly the Bible, actually. Um, but that's why I went and. studied physics there. You made your.

determination. Uh yeah. Yeah. So I I got baptized uh. April 10th, 2021. Oh, congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, man. Glory to God. Jesus uh saved my life. Me, too. Me, too. But you dropped out of Berkeley. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Sorry. I uh so I I was. studying there, right? Um but. then and for what it's worth, just for. people listening, cuz they're going to. hear that I went to Berkeley and think. that I'm a a Berkeley person. I I you. know um uh what's a Berkeley person?

Well, I mean there's a bunch of like. pretty smart physicists and cool guys. and I have a lot of friends from there, but it's mostly people think of like the. folks that like burn. You don't have to. go there. Yeah. You know what I mean? I. know exactly what you're talking about. I never dyed my hair blue. Let's go. Right. Um and so, uh what happened though was um I was. there when the pandemic started. Um, and. at the time I was like, well, you know, seems like the world's going to end. I.

was pretty spooked initially. Um, and so. I went back from Berkeley to Connecticut. for a little bit and then realized. pretty quick that I probably wasn't. going to die from CO and didn't really. like being locked in my house. So, I. moved to Fort Worth, um, Texas. Uh, and. while I was there, you know, I was doing. school online. I was a data scientist. full-time, so like just coding stuff. Uh, and then because I didn't know. anybody, I became a personal trainer at. a gym down the street from me. Um, and.

interestingly of those three things, Berkeley, data science, and the gym. The. gym was like the most productive by far. Um, one because when I was a freshman in. college, I got there and I was 150 lbs, right? So, I was like skin and bones. Got up to like 185 and was lifting a. lot. Um, but two, while I was there, I. met uh the biggest water well driller. So the guy that put holes in the grounds. for farms and HOAs and factories. Um the. biggest water well driller in DFW in the.

Dallas Fort Worth area. So he's the one. that taught me all about water. Um he. started a business in addition to his. drilling company to handle the. regulatory reporting for uh you know. farmers mostly because all of the. aquifers in the western US are being. depleted. So all the groundwater is. running out. So, we're going to have. something like, unless Rain Maker does. really well, a Dust Bowl 2.0, but this. time it'll be way worse because once the. aquifers run out, they're permanently. empty. So, anyway, the states are.

regulating how much water you're allowed. to pump. He was doing the reporting for. those people. He was reading how much. water they used on their flow meter. And. we co-founded a company that automated. the regulatory compliance for farmers. So, IoT flow meter, some software that I. wrote. Um, just it was like Turboax for. groundwater users, made their life a. little bit easier. Um, and then when I. told my friends back at Berkeley like, "Hey, I've got this software thing on. the side." They're like, "Well, a. Berkeley student with a software company. is supposed to drop out of college." And. so that's that's what I did. Nice. Yeah.

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what was the interest in water? I had. none. Zero. Uh I had no interest in. water. I had no interest in atmospheric. science which eventually is like you. know became the focus of my life. Um I. just had nothing to do because I didn't. have any friends there yet. And uh I you. know school online was a bit of a joke. How'd you meet him? At the gym, dude. I. He He met him at the gym. Yeah, I was. working out with him. Um so I was I was.

first uh you know like a cashier at the. front and then started training people. and um and I met him through the gym. manager. It was just like hey Gustin, you know, honestly uh Justin was the the. gym owner of Procore Fitness was the. name of it. Um I owe him a lot cuz he. made that introduction. Um, and we just. got to talking and then the the my old. co-founder, uh, Jason is his name. Great. guy. Um, he was like, "Well, I'll take a. chance on you and like start running. this business with you um to handle the.

the water stuff, the the paperwork for. it at least." Interesting. And then you. got introduced to Peter Theel. Uh, yeah. Well, so I I met uh Peter for. the first. time. Um, let's see about when that was. So, I I was invited to. a fundraiser for Blake Masters at. Peter's house in LA. Um, and that was.

the first time that I met him. That was. before I became a teal fellow. I think. that was just about as I started Rain. Maker. So, I sold my interest in the. last company. Um, the order of events is I moved to. Los Angeles partly to grow that last. company. um mostly cuz I was dating a. girl in LA. Um many such cases. Um and. uh then sold my interest in that. company. Tell you about how I started. Rain Maker later. Um and was trying to.

get more involved in the tech scene. Was. trying to raise money um for my crazy. idea and for Rain Maker. For Rain Maker. Yeah. Um and then uh got connected to. this guy, former former Navy guy Josh. Steinman. Um, probably seen him on. Twitter. Um, and he's the one that got. me to the Blake Masters fundraiser. Um, and uh, that's how I met Peter and then. eventually got the Teal Fellowship um, for Rain Maker. How did you get the Teal. Fellow the Teal Fellowship? So, so the. Teal Fellowship um, have you ever met.

any other Teal Fellows? Um so the the. premise is basically um college is. unnecessary and a bit of a scam and you. can probably learn more and have a. bigger impact if you just drop out. altogether try to learn as much as you. can independently and by talking to. smart people and reading stuff on your. own. Uh and then you know like if if you. are an exemplary person that could have. an high impact on the world that can. inspire other people to drop out of. college and have a high impact then. Peter will give you a grant um to you.

know live your life start that company. um and he thought that uh Rain Maker was. a it was it was a consequential enough. idea to inspire other people and to to. have a big impact and so that's that's. why he gave me the grant. Interesting. So, so I mean, how does he make the. determination? How does he meet bellows. and it's a lot of crazy guys? It's a lot. of a lot of Yeah. I mean, um, is it a.

competition or you just get in front of. them and if he likes what you're doing. and No, so there's 20 that are selected. every year. Um, and there's probably. tens of thousands of applications. Wow. Um, and. uh, you know, it's it's some mix of. having, you ever read the book The Right. Stuff? No. Um, it's by Tom Wolf. It's. about the initial test pilots that. became the first astronauts on the. Gemini and Apollo missions.

Um, I think it's something to do with. like having the right stuff, having. proven that you can proving that you're. capable enough to like start and run a. company. Um, and then, you know, he's a. bit of an inscrutable man. So, whatever. other factors go into that decision, I'm. not sure, but, uh, he seemed to like. this one enough. What was your pitch? Uh, we're going to turn all the deserts. green. Um, we're going to end water. scarcity and make Earth more habitable.

and green and lush and abundant than it. ever has been before. Backtracking a little bit, I forgot. something. You were weren't you. developing something for the. International Space Station or what were. you doing there? Yeah. So, I I was uh in. high school I mentioned that I was. really into space in high school. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I didn't build anything. crazy. Um, well, I no I I didn't build any. Anyway, long story short, there's. something called the student spaceflight.

experiment program where a bunch of high. schools and universities compete to. design experiments that'll be conducted. on the ISS. Um, and my team and I in. high school designed this experiment to. study uh essentially just cell. replication in space to see if there was. any difference between how. um organisms grow. And so we won that. competition and then uh got our. experiment launched on a Falcon 9 rocket.

up to the ISS um and uh the astronauts. there conducted it. Are you serious? Yeah. High school you did that? Yeah. Yeah. Me and a team of other guys. But. yeah. What does that feel like? That was. the most uh that was the most inspired. and proud I'd been in my life up until. that point. Um and and I would say. roughly in order something like getting. to know Jesus Christ, having made. precipitation, and getting to send. something to the ISS were like biggest.

life accomplishments probably. That's pretty amazing. At age 25, that's. that's crazy. Did you follow that. experiment? Yeah. Um, you know, unfortunately, we broke one of the test. tubes. So, in one of the experiments, there was a bunch of glass in it, which. was bad for the cell replication. Um, but uh yeah, man, the the other results. were and other people have studied this. um that that things grow very. differently in space. One, because of. radiation. two because uh you know.

gravity and the electromagnetic field of. the earth. um has a very poorly understood impact. on how organisms evolve. So like there's. this company right down the road from me. in Elsagundo called Varta and they. launch uh small orbital factories into. space because um if you don't have any. gravity you can synthesize all kinds of. different materials that are too. sensitive essentially um to be made. within earth's earth's gravity. Um and.

so they're doing all types of new drug. discovery. Um they're making much more. efficient conductors. Um, we we we. should we should be making a lot more. stuff in space um just because of how. much cleaner it is, how much more. efficient it is. Um, and and I think. that we'll see some really incredible. stuff in the next 10, 20 years because. of it. What do you think we should be. making in space? Um, well, one, probably. a lot of semiconductors. Um, a lot of. chips. So, if you build uh a computer.

chip here on Earth, right, you have to. make these insane clean rooms. um you. know like any amount of particulate can. destroy millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of. machinery and boards. Um and so if you. just launch it up into the vacuum of. space and manufacture it there, you have. an infinitely sized clean room. Um so. SpaceX makes the cost of launch cheap. enough, which they're doing, then chip. manufacturing will become way more. efficient in space. Um now there's the. inconvenience of having to get it up and. down from space obviously, but I think.

that'll be solved for with Starship. Otherwise, there's a bunch of different. uh medicines um that have crystalline. structures that. are too hard to make uh in gravity. Um. and so I think we'll be able to cure a. lot of diseases with with medicine that. we synthesize up there too. Interesting. You think that's and you think that's. going to happen within the next decade? Yeah. Yeah, 100%. I mean, Varta, that's. the name of the company um that's doing. the inspace manufacturing, they've. launched three capsules already um and. their launch cadence is just increasing.

Um, so that'll definitely happen in the. next decade. Interesting. Delian, actually Delian is the name of the. founder of that company. He's a teal. fellow as well. Man, I got to get a hold. of them. That sounds. interesting. All right, let's let's move. into I know you know about the, you. know, weather manipulation stuff in. Vietnam. And so, like I said, there's. just so many conspiracies about weather. manipulation. was the Hawaii wildfires. Was that part of Did that play anything.

into that? There's the, you know, Helen, hurricane Helen in North Carolina. Did. that play anything into that? And Milton. in Florida. Yeah. You know, all these. things. And so, let's let's just start. in Vietnam and what we were doing there. Yeah. So, I mentioned off the jump. The. first time that anybody successfully. intentionally modified the weather was. in 1946 uh in western New York. It was. this guy uh Irving Langmir, Bernard.

Vonagget and Vincent Schaefer they were. the scientists that did it. Um they made. it snow uh over the the. Appalachians. Then by the time that. Vietnam Vietnam came around, why were. they why were they doing this? Um do you. have any idea? Cuz uh you ever heard the. expression dude's rock? just like guys are pretty cool. Back in. the 40s we were experimenting with a lot. of cool stuff. Nuclear energy, weather. modification, rocketry. Uh basically. people just believed in the future. They. wanted to see a new world, right? Um and.

not like a brave new world, like a. better, more American, more free, more. productive, abundant one. And so if you. can modify the weather, then you know. you can make more water for people, you. can prevent flooding, um you can prevent. blizzards, that sort of stuff. Or at. least in theory when it becomes mature. enough. Um what the idea was in. operation Popeye which is what we did in. Vietnam was to. uh extend the monsoon season cause more. precipitation over the Ho Chi Min Trail. to impede the logistics of the Vietkong. Right? So everybody knows about how we.

uh were secretly bombing Cambodia. That. was a big no no. Not as many people know. about um Popey. Um, the problem with Popeye was we did not. have much in the way of satellites at. the time and we also didn't have much. radar. So, if you look at the reports of. troops on the ground and meteorologists. on the ground, they say that they were. able to extend the monsoon season. Um,

but we have very, very little data to. prove that, right? Like I said, it. wasn't until 2017 that we really. unambiguously proved that this was. possible. Um, but just for additional. context for folks, um, the 54th Weather. Reconnaissance Squadron, uh, in the Air. Force, their motto was make mud, not. war. Because the idea was if you could. flood out these supply chains, then you. could prevent people, the Vietkong, from. getting to the lines and actually. shooting bullets at people instead. So, the idea was to drop rain. Interesting.

Yeah. You know. what's I mean I think a lot of these. exper Nobody trusts the government you. know and was it I have it in my notes. here. It's was it. um I think we went for what three three. or four years of denials from the. Secretary of Defense saying that we did. any weather modification in Vietnam. And. then a a reporter actually uncovered it. and then and then I and then we were. like, "Oh, yeah, we did do that." So, I.

mean, it would probably be better if. they just said no comment rather than, you know, than lying. We didn't do it. I. mean, I get, you know, we need to keep. certain things classified, but it it. just creates this distrust in the. government and then and then now you. have all these people that think we did, you know. Well, yeah. I mean, um, lineup. I don't blame people for not. trusting the government, right? They. haven't had a great track record in the. last five years or so, right? Um last I. don't trust them. Do you trust them? No.

No. No. Um some people in in the. government I do, but at large not not so. much. Right. Um so like one of the. things that rainmaker advocates for that. doesn't exist right now is like more. intense regulatory scrutiny from the. federal government into weather. modification, right? Like technically. there's there's. two two big pieces of regulation on. weather modification. Right now there's. all the the state level stuff. So like. state departments of natural resources.

will have your permitting and licensing. But then the federal government, you're. required to tell Noah, you're required. to notify them if you intend to do. weather modification and you're required. to report on the results of it. But it's. super open-ended. Um, and Noah doesn't. really want to touch it because most of. the time they just get calls from people. that say like, "Are you poisoning me?". Um, and like the answer is no, probably. not, but they don't really like it. And. there's not much regulation at the. federal level, which isn't good. Like.

there should be more stringent reporting. requirements so that people can have. transparent understanding of of the. results. Um, the other thing is this is. a consequence of operation. Popeye. There's something called NMOD, which is this uh treaty from 1972 I. think. um that in the international. community, so how real international law. is, I don't know, up to you. But it it. technically bans the weaponization of. weather modification. Um so it is at. least on the books totally illegal to.

weaponize this. tech. Who else is who else is involved. in weather modification? I mean, we saw. UAE flooded their was it Dubai? They. flooded out. I saw I think China's. involved in it. Who else is involved in. this? So, um the the lay of the land is this, right? So, first with respect to the the. UAE, uh they do have a big weather.

modification program. Um they do want to. make more water to turn their desert. green, right? Because it's it's this. Arab wasteland. um the system that you're referring to. in April of 2024, I think that flooded. the city that was going to flood Dubai. naturally whether they cloud seeded or. not. Um like we know that because it had. already rained in Saudi, it had already. rained in Qatar. It had it the system. went on and precipitated in Iran and and. it caused flooding everywhere. And none. of those cities have any drainage.

infrastructure because they didn't build. the cities for that because they didn't. expect rain um or expected very rare. rain. The soil also it's just sand. So. it can't retain much water. So whether. the Emirates cloud seeded or not. um uh it was going to flood the city. anyway. So that's that's worth pointing. out from the jump. Um now with respect. to who's doing this. globally it is really. um Rainmaker Technology Corporation us.

we're trying to take the best-in-class. research from American researchers and. European researchers um we're trying to. operationalize all the stuff that. they've been studying for the last. decade. Uh then there is the Chinese. Meteorological Administration. Um, the. Chinese Meteorological Administration. has a $300 million annual budget for. this. They have 38,000 employees. There. are two universities in China that offer. bachelor's degrees in weather. engineering, not in meteorology, not in.

atmospheric science, not like predicting. and forecasting the weather, specifically in engineering the weather. Um, they have a weather modification. program in every province in China. They. are retrofitting their highest grade. military drones to conduct weather. modification operations. More than. double-digit percentages of the water in. the Three Gorges Dam, biggest dam in. China, they attribute to precipitation. enhancement operations. Inner Mongolia, right, the border with Mongolia and. China. They're actively turning green by.

making it rain more there and planting. trees. No kidding. Yeah. And they're. doing initial experiments on flood. mitigation all over uh Canton as well. So, um they're the most sophisticated by. far. And more still than that, they're. collaborating with other governments. around the world to export their. technology and have control over the. weather there. So like the Thai. government has, this is actually a. pretty cool thing. They have what's. called a Royal Rainmaking Department cuz. they have a king, right? I don't know, it's a cool name for an organization in.

the government. Um they collaborate with. the Chinese meteorological. administration. So China does a lot of. their weather modification. Um then in. the Middle East they have some. researchers of their own but it's really. uh this sort of great power politics. between the United States government um. which is not super involved in weather. mods. So really, it's just me and my. pals going there advocating for us. Um, versus all the best Chinese researchers. and and the Chinese researchers, not. only are they using more sophisticated.

drones, more sophisticated radar to. measure what the results of the. operations are, they've designed. different kinds of nano particles that. are way more efficient at inducing. precipitation than anything that we have. stateside right now. Um, so lay of the. land is there's rain maker which is. probably the best in class in the world. maybe only next to the Chinese. meteorological administration. There's. the CMA. There's all of the governments. that basically we are bidding against. the CMA for like market share in um and.

then there's kind of all the like snake. oil salesman guys that are just flying a. plane up blasting something and then. saying mission accomplished. We did it. without any scientific backing. Interesting. Interesting. How many how. many countries is China working with on. this? Do you have any idea? No, I don't. know how many exactly. Um, you wouldn't. be surprised to find out they're pretty. obtuse about it, but they they have. explicitly said, there's a blog post I. can send you after this that they. published, um, where by 2030 they want. to export this tech not to be explicitly.

part of Bel and Road um, but to be a. means of exerting soft influence over. all these countries, right? Because if. if China owns all the shipping. infrastructure, right? So like shipping. and receiving energy infrastructure, that's already huge leverage over East. Africa, Europe, the Middle East. Um but. if you control the water supply, that's. a much more consequential thing to have. leverage over. Yeah, that's Wow. They're smart,

man. They're smart. They are. But I. believe in American exceptionalism. Um, I think that uh I mean for one, what. what it's worth saying is like I I am. not a pacifist, but I really do not. think that war is good. Um, I think a. lot of the time when technology. companies talk about China, like they. saber rattle and sort of froth at the. mouth at the idea of war because. practically speaking, like you can get. your bags pumped by the US government. funding you to do, you know,

weaponization stuff. Uh, I don't like. that. Um, I really wish that we had a. rivalry with China, but were less. anxious to fight with. them. Um, all of that said though, I think a. lot of that comes from, you know, the. stuff going on in Taiwan right now. Totally right. And like we need the. chips in Taiwan. I get that. But. like, I don't know. it. I would prefer. that we're inspired to action and get.

really serious about weather. modification and all these other. strategic. technologies because we do want to be. the strongest power in the world and we. do want an American vision for the world. and for space in the future. Um, but not. one that is on a collision course with. China in World War II. Mhm. Mhm. Well, a lot of people are really. skeptical of weather modification, me. being one of them. And um so let's talk. about the difference between.

geoengineering, chemtrails, and cloud. seating. Totally. So um let's open let's. open with cloud seating, right? Um cloud. seating was a technology invented in the. United States by American scientists in. 1946. It is super localized in its effect both. in space and time. Meaning you can make. it rain or snow more over an individual. city over 100 square miles at a time. Um.

precipitation happens you know 15. minutes to a couple hours after your. intervention. Um and if you stop. operating right if you stop cloud. seeding then you stop affecting the. weather. It stops changing right? So so. you can turn it off whenever you want. Also because we were doing all of these. experiments over the course of the last. 80 years, we have data on its safety, right? We have data on the materials. that we use. So people have typically. used a material called silver iodide to. freeze the liquid in the cloud into.

these big snowflakes that uh eventually. precipitate, melt into rain or stay as. snow. Um silver iodide, its toxicity is. like 10 times less than aspirin for one. But more than that, more importantly. than that, uh, after decades of. operations in Utah and Idaho and. Colorado and California, because there. were all these old programs, like I. mentioned, they only added eight parts. per trillion more soil or more silver to. the soil, and there's already two parts. per million silver in uh, American soil.

as it stands. So, they added a million. times less than what's naturally there. There's no adverse ecological. consequences, agricultural consequences, consequences to human health. like it's. way below the threshold where you'd. start to see anything like that. So. cloud seeding is just a way to make more. water. It's super local in its effect. It's pretty well characterized and and. we know that it doesn't have any adverse. ecological consequences. Um on the other. hand, there is uh geoengineering. particularly solar radiation. modification that is uh a pretty new.

technology. Um, the way that it is. proposed to work is dispersing particles. in the upper atmosphere uh to reflect. sunlight um and cool the planet down. Uh, totally unlike cloud seating. In. order for cloud seating to work, you. need a big fluffy cloud that's already. there. Uh, solar radiation modification, you just put it up at like 60,000 ft. Um, it's an interesting technology, but. it's one that is like almost entirely.

untested and we should be way more. scrutinous of and skeptical of before we. deploy to scale cuz like well we don't. really know what's going to happen yet. if we cool the planet down by a degree. CC. We don't even know if we want to do. that, right? Mhm. So that's the main. geoengineering technology that exists. And then there's uh chemtrails or. contrails, right? So that's the the streaky things in the. sky that people see behind airplanes. Um.

the first and most important thing to. say is if you see those long streaks in. the sky, that's not cloud seating. Whether it's contrails or chemtrails or. anything else, it is not cloud seating. For cloud seating to work, you have to. have a big fluffy cloud with natural. water. Those long streaky things, they. can't make rain. They don't turn into. big puffier clouds that eventually make. rain. That doesn't have to do with. weather modification. Um there are such a thing as contrails, right? So the turbulence from planes and. the vapor from the jet engines will. freeze behind the plane and uh that.

that'll turn into condensation. What. people have suggested to be chemtrails. are like the uh nefarious addition is. the nefarious addition of either some. sort of you know neurotoxin or goodness. knows what to those contrails to to. poison people. Um, I have not yet seen. enough compelling evidence to believe. that those that that's happening. Um, have you seen any evidence?

Um, here here's here's what is the most. compelling point of information that I'm. not like totally over the line on. There. are different additives in jet fuel for. efficiency. Um, there's different uh. uh residues or impurities in jet fuel. that can end up in condensation that uh. probably wouldn't be healthy to eat. handover fist, but is probably way too. diffuse to uh cause any sort of serious.

toxicity. Um, so like really no. And and. I say that as a guy that like would want. to know about it and talks to people. about it all the time. um solar. radiation modification. Yes, people are. doing that. There is a ton of evidence. for that. Like we we know lots of people. that are doing that. Um but chemtrails. themselves, like I guess a question for. you would be if that was happening, who. would be doing it and why would they be. doing it? Yeah, I think about that all.

the time. I have I have no idea, you. know, but I I do look out and I see it. all and I'm like, well, that that. probably is not. good. But um but that's about the extent. of it. I don't I don't know why they. would be doing it or but I don't know. why they do a lot of things. Well, okay, fair enough. Right. Um, one interesting. thing about condensation trails um. because we do know what those are is. they actually do have an effect on the.

weather to some extent in that like um. you're essentially making this blanket. right in in the atmosphere around like. 30,000 ft. And so if you create a. condensation trail in the morning, then. you are de facto blocking some of the. sunlight from getting down to the earth. and warming the planet up. So you can. sort of locally cool things down if you. create a condensation trail at night. And on the flip side, if you create. condensation trails at the end of the. day, um like right before sunset, the.

blanket sort of acts as an insulator, so. it keeps more of the infrared in. So it. keeps things warmer locally beneath. where they are. if you make a lot of. them. So, like maybe there's some reason. to to do that, but. um you know, like I love the idea of. getting microplastics out of the water. and having you know about uh you know. about how like birth controls in all. water now. I didn't know that. Yeah. So, yeah, there's a bunch of stuff that's. poisoning us that we should be like. really concerned about right now. So, so.

there's birth control in the water. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, right now, um, lots of women use, uh, hormonal birth control, right? Um, and. then we recycle a lot of that water. Uh, we don't actively filter out for the. hormones that are in it. And so when. that gets recycled, it gets put back in. the water supply and then dudes end up. drinking it, too. Um, so one, Alex Jones. was right about the atrizine and what it. does to frogs. Um, two, there's a bunch. of other stuff that's probably.

androgenizing us. Um, that's not good. So, like are there a lot of toxins in. our environment? Yeah, totally. Um, I. would prefer that we focus like making. America healthy again on getting rid of. those things that we do know exist. rather than like speculating about the. World Economic Forum like spraying mind. control viruses over us or. something. If if nothing nefarious is. going on with the with the chem and.

contrails, why do you think all these. states are making it illegal? I mean, I. know Tennessee just did it. I think. maybe year or two years ago. Year ago. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so Tennessee did it a. year ago, Florida did it just this year. It's actually a class 2 felony in. Florida now. So, uh, I would go to. prison for five years if I conducted. business in Tennessee in in Florida. Um the the reason I think the reason why. they're doing it. is well first of all the western states.

aren't doing this. They're not doing it. because they're so desperate for water. that they're seriously willing to hear. out the case for cloud seating. Right? Like Montana proposed legislation to ban. all weather modification and. geoengineering. They still ban. geoengineering, but they carved out. cloud seating because they know it'll be. good for their cattle and for their. farms and for their municipal water. supplies and for their aquifers. Texas. did the same thing. Um the eastern states, you know, most. people think of them as pretty wet, like. you don't need a ton of water, but um. actually Florida sometimes doesn't have.

enough. Like 30,000 acres of Miami Dade. County burnt down in April from wildfire. because there was a drought. Uh the. cattlemen and the orange uh orchards. don't have enough water there either. So. like sometimes actually even in the. wetter states, they they do need it, but. they don't feel the pain as acutely of. water scarcity as the west. So it is. basically people rightfully not trusting. the government and thinking that. something fishy is going on. Nobody. knowing what cloud seeding is or the. difference between cloud seeding.

chemtrails and solar radiation. modification and thinking holy smokes. any of this would be really. consequential. We should just ban it so. that nothing goes wrong. Um and sort of. take like the brute force blunt approach. to it and not reaping any of the rewards. of what cloud seeding could offer. Um, and then you know RFK said that like. chemtrails should be a crime for which. people should be arrested. So he he. definitely catalyzed a lot of that too. And also like last thing I think rain. maker made enough of a splash in like.

2023 2024 to confirm to people that. weather modification was real and it was. measurable and we know it's happening. So, we put enough information out. there to tell people it was happening. and probably actually scare them because. we didn't give them enough context and. reiterate the point enough. Um, and so, so that that's the origin of these bans, I think. And then Dubai flooding was a. horrible look as well. How many how many. states have banned it? So, 31 states.

proposed legislation to ban 31 states? Yeah. Um, me and my team have been to most of. them. Um, the only states that have. banned it are uh Tennessee and Florida. And I mean, you think about it this way, right? Like I was listening to uh. another one of your podcasts with uh the. retired two star, the guy that runs the. space manufacturing company, Steve. Quast. Yeah, Steve Quas. See, that's I. was going to bring I don't want to cut. you off. Go ahead. Well, no, no, please.

I was going to bring that up because in. his interview we and I I don't remember. the chemical or whatever it is that. they're using to he he was talking about. how Elon Musk wanted to use this thing. where basically you put some type of a. additive and and a sponge-like substance. and you run fans on it and it produces. all this water. and that Elon wanted to use it to to. cool his uh rocket pads down there. and got denied because Texas was like,

"We don't know how to tax you on this.". Yeah. Yeah. So then he had to use all of. the regular water, which see which. seemed like. a huge misstep on Texas for for not. allowing him to do that and sucking up. all that water in a dry state. Mhm. But. um but yeah, that's that's that's where. I was going with that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean that that's exactly the point. that I was bringing up too, right? like. uh China and other countries around the.

world, the United States back in the 60s. was like this. Like they are investing. in things and they are permitting things. and they are regulating things smartly. that like make more abundance, that make. more energy, that make more water, that. make everybody's lives better. Uh the. United States, for whatever reason, just. like bans and regulates stuff out of. existence that makes one all of our. lives worse and us as a country less. competitive. Um, and so, you know, do I. fault people for being scrutinous and.

skeptical of weather modification and. wanting to know what's going on? Like, no. Totally. This tech is going to. be maybe the most consequential, if not. like the second or third most. consequential technology in the 21st. century. I think the first is going to. be well, I mean, maybe there's four. It's really like AI, nuclear energy, rocketry, and weather modification. Um. those are the things that are going to. make our descendants lives look like. fundamentally totally different from. anything that any other human has.

experienced. Um but if we regulate it in. a smart way and like permit it to happen. in a way that benefits people that's. like a no-brainer. Uh having the most. cost effective way to produce more water. when you want. it. Like why why would you pass up on. that if you can prove that it's safe? I. I think people, you. know, it's new. You know, people don't. like new. And then what what are the.

what are the implications of weather. modification that that we don't know. about? And like how does it manipulate the rest. of the weather by changing the. ecosystem? Mhm. So for for example, I. don't even know if this is true, but I. spent a lot of time in Afghanistan. Very. dry in a lot of those in in a lot of. Afghanistan. You know, it's a desert. In. the north, it's not. But it was rumored that they had chopped. so many trees down to keep to keep.

themselves warm. There's no trees, you. know, in the southern part anymore. and. it actually changed their whole. ecosystem, you know, and turned it into. turned it into a desert because they had. chopped all the damn trees down. And so, I mean, I think people are really. concerned is, you know, what are the. what are the effects that we don't know. about and we will not know until this. comes to fruition and everybody's cloud. seeding. Mhm. Yeah. And and it's it's worth.

asking that question, right? But um to. one we we have 80 years of data on its. safety and on its efficacy um to reason. by analogy right like California's. central valley it used to be a mix of. desert and swamp it was a wasteland at. the beginning of the 1900s and because. we built new infrastructure had new. technologies for pumping water and. desalinating water we turned that into. the most productive agricultural region.

in the United States. It. feeds tens of millions, if not hundreds. of millions of people around the world. and produces like what 40% of all of our. fruit. Um, we changed that ecosystem and. it was way better for everybody else. So, um, should we regulate these things? Should we be cautious and like do it. maybe. with relatively slowly or or with just. caution at least? Totally. But every day. that goes by that people don't have.

enough. water, you know, I I I view it to some. extent as like guilt on me for not. having made enough water to feed more. people, to make everyone's lives better. Um, yeah. And and that that weighs on me. a lot. So, um, should we be scrutinous? Yes. To. your to your point as well, you know, you said like, well, what if you totally. change the ecosystem? Could something. bad happen? I was talking to was it Will.

earlier in here for the patron Wyatt? Um, one thing to think about that is. actually sort of a fun thought. experiment is like greening the Sahara, right? Sahara desert huge wasteland. Um, if you turn the Sahara Desert green, that actually would not be very good. because the dust from the Sahara that. goes over the ocean over the Amazon uh, results in a lot of the cloud.

condensation and then precipitation. So, if you turn all that green and the dust. stops getting kicked up, you might. actually reduce the precipitation over. the Amazon. So, like when Rain Maker. gets to the scale in a decade or so of. like actively terraforming the planet, making it more lush and green and. symbiotic uh than it ever has been. before, um we're we're going to have questions. that we have to answer about like what. the the consequences will be globally. But, um I I I think that humans are pretty. good at engineering solutions and.

building new technology and building new. systems to to make the world better. I mean, I guess the counter with that to. to that would. be I guess you would just cloud suit. more over the. Amazon, right? Bingo. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, is there. any is there any talk of how this would, you know, maybe intensify hurricanes or. tornadoes or any other, you know,

natural disasters that may not be. natural disasters anymore? Have you. heard of uh Project Storm Fury? No. So. uh about the same time period as Popeye. Um the US Air Force in collaboration. with the US weather bureau which. eventually became like Noah and the. National Weather Service. Um they were. flying uh into the Atlantic Ocean to. seed hurricanes um to try to prevent the. amount of dam or mitigate the amount of.

damage that they did before they broke. against the eastern seabboard. And so. the idea was one, precipitate water out. of the storm so that there's less. flooding that occurs from it before it. reaches land. And then two, um, if you. freeze the liquid in the cloud, that. releases a little bit of heat. Freezing. is exothermic. And so if you, uh, seed. the storm and it releases heat, you have. the same amount of energy, but you. expand the storm, like the heat advex it. out. And so the the wind speeds would be.

less on the exterior as well. So you get. less damage from flooding, less damage. from uh severe winds. We tried doing. that. Um the problem then though was we. didn't have anything in the way of. satellites. We had no radar over the. oceans. Um and so we couldn't even. measure what the results were really. So. we gave it a go. Uh nobody really knows. whether it was effective or not. But I. think that the the thing to consider is. like um rain maker right now is just. making more water for like farms,

utilities, right? That that's our bag. That is what people immediately need. Um. we can do it at small scales. It is. worthwhile. Um and and people really. want that. We we operate all over the. western US. Um someday like I don't think drought is. the only thing that we should solve. Um, if you could engineer away severe. weather, flooding, if you could mitigate. hurricanes, if you could mitigate hail, um, you know, you you'd have.

to do a lot of experiments to prove it. was safe first. But why why would we let the eastern. seabboard of the United States keep. getting blasted with hurricanes if we. could build a solution for it? Mhm. Makes sense. And then, you know, going. back, you know, to what if this does. intensify hurricanes or, you know, bet. or, you know, take the take the rain. away from the Amazon and create a. drought? I mean, once it's happened, I.

mean, I guess what I'm saying is how. many how many people would pay the. price, you know, by making the Sahara. green takes the dust down, eliminates. the rain in the Amazon. Then we got to. figure something out immediately be. because it's going to affect all those. people. No, we we wouldn't because. um you know it would take decades to. make this hair green. Um you'd have to. do that step by step, piece by piece. It'd be a very slow process and you.

could you with cloud seeding you could. turn it off whenever you want. So in. that long process of trying to do large. scale terraforming, you would be able to. stop at any point um if you didn't like. what was happening from producing more. water in one place versus the other. Um. so I don't think we would have to have a. solution at the drop of a hat. Um and. also on the flip. um even if we did and and I think that. we don't right because it would take so. long to deploy this tech to cause these.

things. um like there is suffering now uh. there's $140 billion in damage done by. hurricanes every year in the US. Um. there's hundreds of billions of dollars. in crop failures every year in the US. from lack of water. Um, so it's not it's. not that like this tech is without risk, but like there is a there is a horrible. problem right now because there isn't. enough water and because we have severe. weather and like we I guess in.

principle, right? Like you're you're. you're saying you're concentrating on. the need. Yeah. Exactly. Versus, you. know, what could happen. You want to. want to fill the immediate need. I think. about both, right? Um cuz I don't I. don't think that the unknown unknowns. are that great. Like I said, we have 80. years of data on this stuff. Like we we. know pretty well how it works. Um and we. haven't seen any of this sort of adverse. consequence. I mean, at the very least, right, we have less and less water every. year in the American West than we did.

before. So like maybe maybe we only get. this far, but let's just get back to. baseline, right? Like let's just get. back to the amount of water that we had. 40 years ago. Um because we knew that it. was safe and stable then. Um, so like. let's make sure that Lake Powell is. full. Let's make sure that the Great. Salt Lake isn't evaporating. Let's make. sure that Phoenix and Tucson and Salt. Lake City and Las Vegas and Dallas and. Denver and all the cities in the Central. Valley and California at large have. enough water that the same amount of. water that they used to even. Let's.

start with that. Um, cuz that's going to. take a lot of my time for the next 5. years or so. Um, and then after that, we. can get into the more pie in the sky. stuff. But for now, more water on the. ground so that we get back to baseline. is is the number one priority. Roger. that. Let's take a quick break. When we. come back, we'll talk about how this all. works. The national debt is spiraling out of. control. Trade wars are causing record. volatility and inflation continues to. rise. Are you prepared for what might be.

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cancelled subscriptions, saving members. up to $740 a year when they use all of. the apps premium features. Cancel your. unwanted subscriptions and reach your. financial goals faster with RocketMoney. Go to. rocketmoney.com/srs today. That's. rocketmoney.comsrs. rocketmoney.com/srs. All right, we're back from the break. We. had a little discussion about the grids.

People walk outside, they see the grids. with the cloud seating. What What is. that? It's not grids with cloud. I mean, I'm sorry. With the with the with the. chemtrails. Yeah. Um, listen, man. Uh, my there's an email uh contact. rainmaker.com. If anybody has credible. scientific evidence of deliberate. contrail chemtrail manipulation of the. weather or like poisoning, send it. there. I want to see it. Um my chief of.

staff is going to kill me for saying. that cuz he's going to get a bazillion. bombarded. But um but like the. crisscrossing thing that people see in. the sky, it's just a lot of airlines, man. There's a lot of planes that fly in. different directions. And so the ones. that go east and west and north and. south happen to intersect and sometimes. it looks like a grid. And humans are. really good at recognizing patterns. So. we see that pattern and think. something's going. on. Nothing yet, man. I is what it is.

Yeah. Yeah. A very Yeah. It just people. don't like the boring answer. Huh. There's a lot of crazy stuff that is. actually happening. So, like let's talk. about that, you know, like uh all of our. kids minds are being melted by Tik Tok. and uh there's birth control in the. water and um there's plastic in. everything that we touch and uh China is. stealing all of our IP and all of our. actual critical industries and uh. actually my company can manipulate the.

weather. So, like those things are all. real. That's that's more interesting to. me than than making stuff up. What was. the birth control thing again? Yeah. So, so women are, you know, women take. hormonal birth control. Uh, they then, you know, urinate that goes into the. water system. A lot of cities recycle. their water, but we don't have any. specific filtration mechanism for those. hormones. Um, so they just get recycled. and pumped back into the municipal water. supply. So, is this like a significant. amount of birth control in the water?

Yes. And there's an infertility problem? Yes. How does it affect males? Do you know? Uh, it it makes you more asexual. Yeah. So, it it makes you less of a guy and. more of a sort. of I don't know, like the way that most. guys are. now. The way that most guys are now. Yeah. You know, I I've heard there's so. many conspiracies about the chemtrails. and I' I've heard that they're spraying.

estrogen in the air to to Well, let me. tell you something, though. Oh, Here we go. So the material that we use, it freezes the liquid and cloud into. snowflakes that fall, right? Pure testosterone is not as. effective, but it's almost as effective. as silver iodide. So if we really want. to make America healthy again, we all be. showered in testosterone. I can make. that happen. Oh man, that's that's Have you ever. heard Have you ever heard of Soul Bear?

Mm-m. I interviewed them about I don't. know 2 three years ago and they. basically had come up with this. formula where they would they would. chemtrail it with a plane and and spray. this uh this solution over trees. And. basically what this solution supposedly. does is it's like it's almost like a. tanning lotion that you put on the trees. and it keeps the it it allows them to. how do I it allows them it allows plants.

to do photosynthesis. a lot longer than normal because because. I think it has to be like 72° or. something for for that to occur. And so. this enables it to do do more which. would clean the air. and all this other stuff. I didn't know. if you had heard heard of them and I No, I haven't. Um but. basically it helps trees grow a lot. faster. Yeah, I I don't I don't know. whether that is healthy or not or what.

it's made of, but um like if it if it is. helping green stuff. It works. They gave. me a bunch of samples. I sprayed it all. over a bunch of trees and they blew up. No way. Yeah. 100% it works. That's. fascinating because uh long-term rain. maker has to do more than just like. making it rain more, right? Like we have. to automate tree planting and we have to. figure out how to make the trees grow. faster or we have to make sure that the. soil retains more water. So that that. tech sounds super super interesting. So.

that's an interesting point cuz when you. were talking about, you know, greening. the Sahara, I mean, where does the where. would the soil come from? So rather than the Sahara, right? Let's. like take Arizona as an example. Um, Kingston, Arizona, a lot of that soil is the same. mineral content as the central. valley. It's just not productive because. there's not enough water, right? So, there's a ton of areas in the world. where it's like ready to farm if only. for water supply. So, like you can start.

with those and you don't need to change. the soil too much. Now, in the case of a. lot more aid regions, uh you know, how. do you get the amount of nutrients and. water to stay in the soil for actual. plants to grow? Cuz if you plant a seed. in sand, like probably no dice, right? Um there's these things called hydrogels. or biochar or just like manure that you. can till into the soil to one put. nutrients there and two allow the soil. to retain more water. So if you just.

have an automated tractor or combine or. something that grates the soil, mixes. in, you know, this this water retaining. material, then that instantly becomes. much much much more arable. Interesting. Let's talk about how this. all works. Okay, how does it work? You. have watering clouds, right? Um I'll. I'll walk you through I'll walk you. through the form of the tech that we. understand very well and then a proposed. alternative way. um you have watering.

clouds. Uh 80% of. precipitation that occurs on the planet. happens because you have watering clouds. and then you have natural dust or you. have bacteria that get kicked up from. the soil. All natural stuff um that the. water freezes onto, turns into big heavy. snowflakes and then falls either stays. as snow or melts into rain, right? Um, rain maker and cloud seeding mimics. this natural process where you have.

water in the clouds, but the droplets. aren't big enough and heavy enough to. naturally precipitate. Uh, if you put. material in the cloud that has a crystal. structure similar to ice, then the water. will freeze onto it, grow into those big. snowflakes, and and fall. Um, the that's. sort of like the high level, but the the. system that Rain Maker uses has a few. other important components. So, first of. all, you have to be able to detect. whether a cloud has enough liquid. because if the cloud is mostly ice, then.

you can't freeze much more. Um, but we. use radar uh to measure how much liquid. is in the cloud. The way that we do that. is. uh one wave of the radar moves. vertically, right? And then the other is. oriented horizontally. So, you get the. amount of the beam that is reflected in. both directions. And so if you have uh. about an equal amount of the horizontal. and vertical beam reflected, then you.

have a spherical target. So it's. probably a water drop, right? If you get. more of one versus the other, then it's. probably more oblong and like a. snowflake or like an ice crystal. So we. can use the radar to measure where the. liquid water is in the cloud. If we find. that, then we'll launch our drones up. into it. The drones that we've built are. the only ones in NATO that are under 55. lbs that can survive in severe icing. conditions because this is really cold. water, right? So, we have these uh.

resistors inlaid onto the vehicle that. melt the ice off as its onto the drone. So, you find the water with the radar, you fly your drone up into these. conditions, hope that it survives, you. disperse the material. So, we have this. uh aerosol dispersion system that. basically just emits individual. particles um that the water freezes. onto. And then with the same radar you. found the water with, you can now see it. freezing, growing into bigger.

snowflakes, and then eventually bigger. drops and measure how much precipitates. downwind. So, you're. essentially introducing some type of an. agent that has weight to it and and. that's that's pulling the pulling the. water down. You're introducing an agent. that the water freezes onto and then. it's just the weight of the water that. pulls it down. So, for every uh you. know, pound of this that you put up, you. get in excess of 40 million pounds down. on the ground. 40 million pounds of.

water. 40 million. Wow. Yeah. How many drones. does it take to do this? Uh like three. Um that's it. So what we do is we juggle. them. So one drone will go up. Uh once. that reaches altitude, the next drone. will go up. The first drone after. dispersing its full payload will come. down. And you'll just cycle that as long. as the conditions persist. So sometimes. that means you know you're out there for. 2 hours. Our Ford operation specialists. though. Uh it's a lot of former vets,

national uh forest service guys, oil. rough necks, um people that are willing. just to live out on a mountain for 9. months at a time. Um speaking of which, apply to. rainmaker.com/careers to become a Ford. operation specialist cuz we need like 50. dudes in the next 3 months. Um but they. they can stay out there for like 4 days. at a time. Um just taking shifts, operating day and night. Uh cuz because. you can have an atmospheric river that. will last for for days. How big of a.

Let's how how exact can you pick a. location to have it rain on? Uh so I. cannot make it rain over the house of. your your enemies. Um we we are not. precise enough to target some individual. person's house or something like that. We're not even precise enough to target. an individual farm. Um, so we're talking. about 100 to 500 square miles at a time. Um, in in certain cases up to like 1,000.

square miles at a time. Um, sorry, go back. So the smallest would be. the the smallest would basically be. like the an average size city. Okay. An. average size city, the watershed of a. hydroelectric dam. Um, something like. that. So, uh, the smallest would be, uh, that that sort of scale, like municipal. sizes. Let's talk about the first time you did. this. Yeah. Where you made it rain. Yep. Just walk me through that scenario. Um,

that experience. Well, I'll tell you, first of all, we. failed way more times uh before we. actually accomplished it. Um, we crashed a lot of drones. We did. not have the system to actually target. liquids. So, we were flying into clouds. that were just ice, so we couldn't. affect them at all. Um, you know, it it. it was uh it it was a. pretty everybody that's on the Raymaker. team is. is pretty tough for having stuck out.

that period. It's sort of like, you. know, all all startups think about how. Elon blew up three rockets before he. actually launched one into space. Like, we had a lot of uh drones crash before. we actually were able to to make it. precipitate. And so we were up in. northeastern Oregon in a town called. Pendleton. Um 16 it's where Pendleton. Wool is from if you know it. It's a town. of 16,000 people. Uh 2,000 of which are. in a prison. The most of the rest are. are farmers. So super super small spot. Uh we have a team of forecasters that.

saw that there was an atmospheric river. coming in. Um the clouds were about 2 km thick. Um. almost all liquid. uh we were able to. one finally get the radar system. functional enough to measure that water. and then launch weather balloons to take. incloud measurements of the water there. Um and then we were just flying drones. for hours and hours. Um and we didn't. have the uh processing capability live. yet to take live measurements. So, we're. just out there uh operating.

um flying drones for a few hours and. then we uh pack up, go back to the. warehouse that we were all living out. of, look at the radar data and then saw. from the time that we started operating. about 15 minutes afterwards this uh. plume on the radar exclusively downwind. So, this this whole big cloud system. wasn't precipitating and only on the. radar do you see downwind where our. particle plume was uh an increase in. precipitation. Um, and uh, another thing. that I guess this is an opportune time. to share is um, there was a snow day uh,

at the local school district uh, 15 mi. uh, north uh, of where we were where the. wind was going. Um, so that was a pretty. cool thing to have done uh, for the kids. there locally. It was it was Yeah, that. was back in uh, that was December uh, December 12th uh, of last year. Wow. So, you just got it done within the last. 6 months. 6 months. We uh Rain Maker has. kind of been like this and then that uh.

just like rapid rapid rapid growth. trajectory since we were able to do it. Have you been in your own rain? Snow. Snow. Yeah. Yeah. Our own snow. Um it's. actually way easier to make snow um than. it is rain. Why is that? So, you know. how the material freezes the liquid in. the cloud? Um, that means that the cloud. has to be cold enough for you to freeze. it in the first place, which generally. means that it's cold beneath the cloud,

too. Um, now with respect to rain, we're. operating in Utah, Colorado, Oregon, California, and Texas. Um, it's all rain. in Texas, so we've we've been in our own. rain there. Um, out in West Texas and. the Transpas, uh, the panhandle. Um, that's been pretty cool. Yeah, that's got to be pretty. uh it's got to be a weird feeling know. that knowing that that's your reign. Like I said, that's that's the second. most important thing that I've ever done.

in my. life. What is the agent? Yeah. So, silver iodide um that is what has been. used in one form or another for the last. 60 years. Um, its crystal structure is almost. identical to ice. So, uh, that plus a. couple other material properties make. the water freeze onto it very well. Um, we use so little of it, about 50 g. per 100,000 plus acres that there's no.

accumulation, no no measurable or. consequential accumulation in the soil. for humans or for farms or for. ecosystems. Um, all that being said. though, well actually the first point. is most cloud seating operations in the. past have used flares. So they'll burn a. flare that aerosolizes the silver. iodide, but in the flare there's a bunch. of other junk materials, right? Um, people get concerned about aluminum or. stuff like that in in the flares. Um, so.

we don't even we don't use that because. we don't want any additional additives. beyond what is explicitly and. exclusively for rain making. Um, so our. aerosol dispersion system just uses. silver iodide. Um, something that we're. working on right now is uh totally. organic material found in American soil. um that is biodegradable that is more. effective and actually costs less per. gram than silver iodide. Um, we have a. bunch of lab testing to do before we. roll that out to the field and then we.

need to do all the regulatory. permissions with the EPA and otherwise. Um, but Silverided is what we've used uh. for the last 7 months. When do you think. you'll when do you think you'll. introduce the other agent? Uh, January. 2026. Coming up another 6 months. Nice. Nice. Let's talk about, you know, some. of the benefits of this other than the. obvious, you. know, what are some of the other. benefits that this could bring to the. world? We'll start just with.

precipitation enhancement, making it. rain and snow more, right? Um first of all, uh it's going to. prevent, it already is preventing farms. from running dry, right? So farms that. need more water, we can produce more. water for. Um all of the aquifers, I. said at the very beginning of our. discussion, in the American West are. running out. And so once those aquifers. run out, not only are they empty, which. is bad cuz we can't pump more, but also. because there's less pressure in the. aquifer, the sediment will compress and.

then you lose storage capacity. permanently. So the longer there's not. enough water in there, the less you can. store in in the future. So making it. rain and snow more so that more water. percolates into the aquifer, that is. also super important so that we have. storage capacity in the future. Um. hydroelectric, right? It's clean, stable, base load power. Um, I think. that eventually nuclear is going to be. like the primary way that we produce. energy. But while we're getting towards. that, making sure that there's as much. water flowing through our rivers as.

possible so that we have as much clean. hydroelectric energy, that's a huge one. And then also data centers and uh. manufacturing facilities and. specifically chip plants that use a lot. of water. Like Google Cloud compute uh. uses 25% of all of the water in. northeastern. Oregon. Yeah. Yeah. So in the in the. northeastern quarter of the state, they. use a quarter of all the water and then. and it's all farmland, right? So you. would think that the farmers would use. like 99%. But um Google uses a ton. So.

if we want. to keep using the internet and if we. want to invest in AI, then we need to. produce more water as well. Um, do is. there a timeline on when these aquifers. will be depleted? Somewhere between the. 2040s and 2070s. Um, so not long. No. No. And we're not reversing the trend. right now. We're slowing it down, but. it's still being drawn down. Interestingly enough, Nebraska and. Orange County are the two places in the. US that have great aquifers. Um,

unfortunately, Orange County's aquafer. is full of plastic and Nebraska's. aquifer is full of uh, you know, pesticides. So not great, but uh at. least they have the water. Um so yeah, without without cloud seating, we run. out of water. That's that's number one. Um and then with respect to other stuff. like people have proposed means of doing. uh hail suppression. So targeting a. storm before it dumps golf ball or. baseball sized hail. If you can freeze. the.

uh liquid in the cloud into really. really small snowflakes before they uh. freeze onto bigger stones and grow into. bigger stones, then you can reduce the. amount of damage done by that as well. Um that's another huge application that. I think about. Interesting. What about. wildfires? This is a very, you know, I I. live in Los Angeles. It's a very near. and dear thing to my heart. um when there is a wildfire raging, right? Generally the heat from that will.

dry up the atmosphere above it. Um it. you very rarely get enough clouds over a. wildfire to conduct cloud seating to. make it rain directly over the fire. Um. so can you actively stop a wildfire with. this? Not in most cases, which is. unfortunate. Um, however, in the months. preceding the LA fires, there were tons. of clouds that could have precipitated. that didn't precipitate. And because. they didn't rain, the ground became. drier and drier and drier and created.

more fuel that fed those fires. And so. for wildfire prevention, cloud seeding. is absolutely something that you can do. And an interesting part about that is, you know, desalination is one way one. way to make water. Deselination, you can. produce about a cubic meter of water for. 40 cents. Um, cloud seating is about a. tenth of a cent. So, it's way way. cheaper. But, uh, if you're doing del, you can't really use that water to do. wildfire prevention cuz you need a pipe. to move it over every square inch of the.

land that you're trying to make wet. Well, with cloud seeding, you actually. naturally distribute it over the entire. area. So, you can keep that soil moist, you can keep those plants green, and. then reduce the risk of wildfire going. forward. So I think that really it's. going to be keeping farms alive, keeping. industrial capacity alive, keeping. southwestern cities from running out of. water so that people have to move out of. them and then wildfire prevention as. like the main cases for us. So the. wildfire prevent prevention would be it. would it would be proactive. It wouldn't.

be a immediate response to a it wouldn't. be a course of action for is an. immediate response to a wildfire. Correct. How long would it take to I. mean I I would think it wouldn't take. very long. to to prevent wildfires. We just Dude, you get precipitation like 15 to 45. minutes after you start seeding. 15 to. 45 minutes. Yeah, it is super super. fast. Um provided you have the liquid in. the cloud. But yeah. Yeah, it's it's. super straightforward. You can see the.

effect of it in real time. Do you have. an idea of how much it's actually going. to rain? Uh yeah. Yeah. So, what I'm. getting at is preventing flooding and. you know, it's funny when people say. like they're they're making hurricanes. or something, right? Because it's like. we can do. like less than an inch of rain or snow. right now given the tech. Um, and. sometimes it's like less than a. centimeter, right? So, it. is it is a lot of water over a large.

area taken in that context. um. especially if you keep operating for a. long time. But like you cannot make it. dump um or at least we don't know how to. make it dump yet. Um then you can also make some inference. about like well depending on whether. there's depending on how much water is. in the cloud you can you can make some. projections about how much it'll rain as. well. And so if you do if you it's it also. sounds like you're. prematurely getting a cloud to brain.

And. so if you enhance. the if you enhance it and it dumps. before it gets to where it's going. I. mean who who would you be pulling water. away from? Classic question also Mr. Ryan. Um, in the industry that's called, uh, stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Um, if you make it rain more in one place,

will it rain less downwind? Um, so I mentioned at the beginning of. our conversation, too. Um, you can think. of the water in the sky, the atmospheric. rivers, kind of like how you would think. about a normal river. The Colorado. River, all of its water is allocated. already, right? Everybody already draws. down from that. it is 100%. utilized. Um, which is why by the time. it gets to Mexico, there's not much. there. There is about 10x more water in.

the atmosphere over the US that isn't. precipitating. So, so, so there's 10. times more that we could tap into before. we even get into a question of whether. it's going to reduce precipitation. downwind. Um, that's really important. because I want to play a positive sum. game, right? Um there's not scientific publication at. this point in time to suggest that. there's going to be less precipitation. downwind, but I think that as we scale. this operation a lot, you're going to. see uh you know the movie Chinatown.

Yeah. You're going to see you're going. to see people fighting over cloud water. rights for sure. Uh I think we're. probably like 3 to 5 years away from. that. Um but at some point people will. have to start thinking about hopefully. the federal government how to distribute. that water appropriately. For the time. being it's exclusively positive sum more. water than what would come down. otherwise. What other question should I. be asking you? Yeah. Um well uh can you prevent flooding?

Right. Can you make a system precipitate. less? Um you heard about the 2008. Olympic Games in China. Mhm. So they. they uh did cloud seating in the. preceding days to uh precipitate all the. water out locally so that you had. sunshine during the games itself. Um they also are seeding some clouds to. make the droplet sizes smaller so that. they're less likely to rain. That's way.

harder to prove the uh effect of because. um if you see the water change from. liquid to ice exclusively in your flight. track, then like it's pretty easy to. say, okay, that's that's man-made. That. was where you were flying. Um but if you. only see the droplet sizes change, anyway, it's kind of like a hard radar. problem. Um, Indonesia though, India, China, they're all spending a lot of money on. researching how to make it rain less to.

prevent flooding too. Um, so that's. that's another domain that matters. Um, where are you. starting with your company? Are you. starting with sorry geographically or. technologically? Geographically. Uh, so we're based in. Los Angeles, which I win no points in. Tennessee, uh, for for being based in. Los Angeles or Florida for that matter. Um, Mullet Man, uh, Tech Bro does not.

play very well in the state legislature. here. Um, but uh we operate in Utah with their. department of natural resources, Colorado with their department of. natural resources. Uh we're about to. begin in Idaho and Wyoming. Um Oregon, California, Texas. Uh we just started. this week our first deployment in Latin. America. So we're down in Tiar de. Lauego, Argentina. Uh and then one. country in the Middle East. Um that's. where we are right now. Um really the.

majority of our business is going to be. in the western United States, the Middle. East because it's dry, and then Latin. America because it's dry and fairly. deregulated. Southern Latin America that. is. So let's let's talk about Western. United States. I mean, what does that. look like? Is this experimental still or. No, no, we're making water. Um, so the. state of Utah, I I might be a little bit. more conservative than this, but the. state of Utah, Department of Natural. Resources, measured that we produced. 186,000 acre feet of water uh in the.

state this past year. Um, it's about 6%. of all the water that's consumed by the. state of Utah. Um, and that's all in the. form of snow pack that melts uh and runs. off into these cities waterheds. And so. what why do they want you to do this? I. mean, is it the aquifers or is it. farming or There's no water. There's. it's it's all of the above. So, uh yeah, the aquifers are running out, the farms, you know, the states actually pay to the. tune of tens of millions of dollars a. year and then at the federal level, uh. hundreds of millions. They pay farmers.

not to farm. They pay them not to farm. because they don't want them to use the. water. No kidding. Yeah. So, what we've. provided as an option for them is a way. to make more water so that the farmers. can keep farming and you still have. enough water. So, it's a win-win there. Um, and then in Utah in particular, the. Great Salt Lake is uh depleting every. year. And as that body of water gets. smaller and smaller, all of the uh. arsenic at the bottom of it um gets.

kicked up. And so you have these. respiratory issues that are coming. And. so one of the biggest priorities uh of. the state of Utah is to make more water. for the Great Salt Lake. And so. something that I want Rain Maker to. participate in in the next 2 years is uh. preventing the evaporation of the lake. So when you do that, I mean, how big of. an area do they want you to cover? Um. the Bear River basin. So there's really. one primary river that flows into the.

Great Salt Lake. Um, and so we're still. finalizing this, but uh we're. negotiating an interstate compact. between Utah, Wyoming, and uh Idaho. right now um to cloud seed with. uh about 30 people um distributed over a. few thousand square miles um as the. river flows from Utah into Wyoming into. Idaho and then back down into the Great.

Salt Lake in Utah. And do you ever miss. the target? No, the target's the target. is uh the whole watershed. So, um as. long as it ends up between these huge. mountain ranges, then you're square. So, that's not an issue. Right on. Sometimes we crash drones though. That. that still happens. How do you see. this getting implemented throughout the. world as time goes on and more people. open up to the idea? Um I think that uh so our goal for the.

the operations between October 2025 and. um April 2026 is to produce 10 billion. gallons of water unambiguously just in. this one project uh in northern Utah. If. we do that and have all the radar data. to back it up, that puts us at parody. with the production of the biggest. desalination plant in the United States, um, if we succeed in that mission, then.

I think we're about 2 years away from. becoming the biggest water utility in. the western United States. I think that. people will think about water utilities. and water production as something that. cloud seeders do rather than like dam. operators do. Um, it'll yeah will be a. huge utility first. Um, and then as time. goes on, uh, as we get into all the. other sorts of, uh, applications, we'll. probably work with crop insurers, um, and farmers to help prevent crop. failure. Um, we'll probably turn a lot.

more hydroelectric power online. Um, and. then the fun terraforming stuff is kind. of like 5 10 years. away. How precise do you think you'll. get? Do you think you'll get to the. point where you can just do a farm. field? There's something called a cloud micro. burst. Um so when you have a ton of. convection and these clouds kind of. collapse uh very suddenly, this happens. in nature already. Um you can you can.

make it rain over, you know, tens of. acres at a time. Um there are theories. about how to do that. Uh I'm mostly. focused on getting the current tech to. scale, but uh yeah, there's a world. where that happens uh before 2030. How. far out does the cloud need to be seated. before it rains? Uh, yeah. So, like I. said, it's like 15 to 45 minutes before. you get that beginning of precipitation. So, if a cloud is moving at uh 10 m.

hour, maybe you want to see it at 5 mi. up wind. That's it. Mhm. Wow. Going to But this could also, you. know, fix starvation crisises all over. the world. Have you heard of um have you I think. it's Mark Twain who said it. Uh whisy's. for drinking and water's for fighting. over. Sorry, I know we were just talking. about sobriety earlier. Um but uh you. know right now if you look at like the. border of Egypt, Sudan, and uh Ethiopia,

Ethiopia just built a dam on the Nile. River. Egypt will collapse if they do. not have enough water. They will go to. war with Ethiopia over water. if they do. not get enough from the Nile. Uh the. Jordan River which flows through and. supplies water to and and gets water. from uh Israel, Palestine, Jordan, uh. Syria and Lebanon.

Um that's a real hot spot for water. rights, right? If there's not enough. water there, tensions will rise. Uh. China is building dams in Tibet to. prevent water from flowing into India. Um if eastern India doesn't get enough. water and those people are at risk of. starvation, India will go to war with. China to destroy those dams. Um can you. prevent someone from building a dam in. their own territory? No. Maybe you can. negotiate that diplomatically. But even. if they do build a dam, if you can make.

it rain more on your side of the border, then you can provide water supply to. mitigate the risk of conflict like this. breaking out. So I think that uh for the. sake of one preventing wars by ensuring. that people have access to enough water. and two feeding people so that you don't. have mass famine um like that's. absolutely necessary and and something. that people don't think about right is. like okay in the US everybody can more. or less go buy like a bag of chips or. something at the store like there are.

people that are hungry there are not. that many people that are starving in. the United States um but the less we. farm. the more people around the world will. starve because our agricultural exports. feed hundreds of millions. Um, if we run. out of water, yeah, fine. Maybe like. folks in Sacramento won't have any. issues, but the people that are eating. the pistachios or wheat that we produce, uh, they will have real like. life-threatening problems like water.

supply. I think the only thing more. important than that is probably like. oxygen. Um and then after that energy, right? Uh we need those three things to. have a civilization at all. And um to. keep people from starving, we should be. cloud. seating. We all see it. Prices are up. across the board. Gas, groceries, home. repairs. And if you're a homeowner, you've probably wondered whether it. makes sense to refinance and knock out. that credit card debt. But then you.

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trueclass.com/srs and get hooked up. today. So if we're talking about, you know, bringing all this water to Arizona, California, the western United States, Africa, Middle East, and anywhere else. of the world that, you know, is is is a. barren desert. I mean, how long you had. mentioned decades, but how long does it. take and what what what's the process.

look like for the for to take somebody. that is in a desert environment and turn. in into a farming community is what I'm. getting at. Um, so it's it's easier in. places that have good soil mineral. content, right? So like a lot of Arizona. is going to be easier than a lot of. um Sudan, right? Um because they have. the Sahara. So that that that's just. wasteland. Um Arizona, uh I think that.

if we we don't do any cloud seating. there right now. Um if we stood up a. program, I think that you could start. farming in previously inable land in the. course of years. Um I mean, first things. first, you got to meet all of the. deficits. So like there's a lot of farms. that are already running dry. So if you. make enough water first from a cloud. seeding program to make sure that. they're taken care of, then how much. more can you produce for other. communities? you can probably do that in. the course of a couple years. So maybe. like three three then that land starts. to come online. Um and then with respect.

to the real wastelands, right? Like um. the Bolivian salt flats, the Sahara. desert, the Australian outback, um. that's going to be multi-deal. Like what. I think about happening is this. While. Elon sends rockets to Mars to set up the. first civilization there, we will get. really good at atmospheric engineering. here to make the carrying capacity of. Earth higher. And by the time you have. like a bubble city on Mars that's. self-sufficient and they start melting.

the ice caps on Mars to create an. atmosphere there, we will be good enough. at atmospheric engineering here on Earth. such that we can start to distribute the. water the way that we want to on other. on on Mars. Now, that's like really. towards the end of my life. my son will. probably be the one responsible for that. rather than me. Um but but that's the. time scale that I'm thinking. Wow. You've really played this out. You're. thinking real long term. Yeah. You know, I think that people used to think more. like that. Um like there's that old. adage um something like like a a city.

grows great when men plant. trees under the shade of which they will. never sit or something like that, right? Like um I think that if you are a. Christian and you think about like. helping build the kingdom of God, um if. you are a patriot and you want your. nation to survive and persist and for. future Americans to be better off than. than any previous generation, uh like. you should sort of sacrifice your life.

um not necessarily like die, right? But. you should probably live your life in. service to those future people. Um. that's what I'm trying to do being a. that's that's interesting you know being. a Christian do you do you feel that you. are playing God in any in any sense to. create weather conditions um I'm trying. to serve God um and and so what I mean. by that is in Genesis. 1:26-28 right very beginning of time.

garden of Eden. prefall God gives us the mandate like he. commands us to take dominion ion over. and steward the earth, the seas, the. skies, and everything therein, right? And so what that meant then was tending. to the garden, right? Like taking care. of the plants, taking care of the. animals. Um the way that we've done that. more and more over time is with. technology and engineering, right? Like. we have lights so that we can work. safely at night. Um we have uh fire,

which like is a technology so that we. can cook our food or defend ourselves. from like wild animals. uh we built dams. so that we could redirect the natural. flow of rivers like the ones that God. designed for the sake of storing water. to live in cities and feed people. Um, and so I I think that even though cloud. seeding does have to do with the sky, which feels like heaven and thus feels. closer to God for some reason, um, it.

really just is another instantiation of. like the mandate that God gave us to be. good stewards of the planet. And so, um, do I think I'm playing God? No. Do I. think the technology is sick? Yeah. Um, but, uh, I I think that this is like an. act of service. And I I mean I say that. with the understanding that I am a. sinner and that I am a faulty man and. that I will fall short. Um and so I I. look to the guidance of my peers and. mentors and other people all around me. and hope that the US government.

regulates this appropriately. Um but. uh so far I think we've done pretty good. at at managing that. You know that's. that's what I was getting at earlier. the the. government stepping in. appropriately, regulating appropriately. I. mean, that's what I was getting at when. I was talking about, you know, Zuckerberg in front of Congress with a. bunch of dinosaurs. I mean, they just. they don't understand tech at all. Have. them or I can't even open their own.

email. And so that's kind of what I was. alluding to is when somebody like you. comes along that knows everything about. this or you know everything that we know. today about this, how how how are they. going to. regulate? It just doesn't seem like. there's that many people that know about. this. So who do they look for to. regulate it, you know? Um so Doge super. a lot a lot of stuff has been said about. Doge by the Department of Government.

Efficiency but um one of the guys in. Doge, one of the first picks for it is. uh another teal fellow from my class. named Luke Farader. Um he is uh like 10. out of 10. brilliant 140 through 160 IQ or. something. Super faithful kid. grew up. in Oklahoma um or excuse me in uh. Nebraska and. um like he's he's the kind of guy that I.

am happy to see in government. Um I. think that uh if we have. more patriotism, maybe we have to pay. like bureaucrats more and set up term. limits or something. Um, I think that. there's a world where we have like good. enough people in government to manage. and regulate these things like we did in. World War II, right? We were able to set. up like a clear, safe nuclear energy. regulatory structure. Um, and built a. lot of energy that way. Uh, so it's.

possible, right? Like even though things. are bad now, it doesn't mean that they. have to be. It's not it's not a a fact. of a decaying empire. Like I think that. we can come back from that. Um, I mean. the knowledge. I'm not talking about. we'll get into the corruption and all. that kind of but just like I mean. I just mean the knowledge, you know, that's that's what I'm that's what I'm. getting at it that and that's what I'm. talking about with Zuck and you know the. government is you you have a tech genius.

talking to 80year-old people. Yeah. Who. didn't you know do you see what I'm. saying? And so they don't even have the. knowledge to even hold the conversation. with him. How would you do it? How would you How. would you regulate it? Well, how would. you get them on up to. speed? How would I do it? I would. probably I don't know how I would do it. I I would have to set up some kind. of new. agency or something inside Noah, you.

know, that that I would have to put a. lot of money towards researching this. And then, you know, I mean, I I think I. mean, they can't use you to set up the. regulations because it would probably be. a little biased, wouldn't it? Yeah. But, uh, but but I guess that's how I would. do it. How would you do it? Um, well, Rain Makers work is built off. the work of scientists from the last. couple decades at the National Center. for Atmospheric Research. um in.

particular at the University of Utah, at. Utah State University, at CU Boulder, at. Colorado State University, at MIT. Um probably uh one not deleting like all. the National Science Foundation budgets. to like keep those organizations alive. so there are objective third parties. that have done research on it. Like. that's important. Um and then using them. as gangs of experts. Um you know, like. I've I've been.

running around state capitals testifying. and uh if the departments of. environmental protection um were able to. call on expert witnesses from the. scientific community that would be good. I don't even know if people really trust. scientists anymore though. Um. so yeah, it's probably something to the. effect of a of a new agency that you. know you you know what you could do uh. you. could copy China's regulation. Um.

uh may maybe not exactly that but um at. least take some inspiration from them. given that they. are benefiting the lives of Chinese. people through their program. What's. the now diving into the corruption? I. mean lobbying firms. I don't know who. you would be pissing off. I would. imagine you're pissing off the utility. companies cuz somebody's making money. pulling water out of those aquafers and. they've been making money for a long. time and sure they're very powerful. people. I mean, I would.

imagine in in generally my outlook is. those people do not have the best. interest of the population. They have. the most interest in, you know, their. estate, their assets, the money they're. making. And so, do you are you working. against them, do you think? Um well, do they have lobbying firms. going out and talking to the governments. and talking about all the the you know, you know, I think reasons why you can't. do this because it's going to affect.

their bank account, their bottom line. I. think we're early enough that that. hasn't happened yet. Um I think. the a convenient thing about us, you. know, like um unlike nuclear where like. oil and gas uh advocate against nuclear. to some extent, right? Like that that's. a real trade. Water, very few people have enough of. it. So I think most everyone wants more. It's pretty bipartisan. Like it's pretty. hard to say like no, we shouldn't have.

more water. Um, but I I think the bad. outcome is one where like weather. traders that trade on futures that are. betting on severe weather or droughts or. crop failures uh don't want to see this. through because you can make money off. of those trades. Um, I think there's. that situation, but I haven't yet. encountered anybody that seems to be. like knowingly maliciously trying to. prevent like a good technology from. coming to market. What could go wrong?

What could go wrong in doing this? The. only thing that comes to my mind, you. know, is is floods and then and then, you know, not knowing the effects of who. you're stealing the rain from, where the. wind's blowing. But I. mean, if there was a miscalculation and. it dumped. on what name insert city. Yeah. Yeah. I. mean, so they don't have I mean, you had. just mentioned, you know, Dubai didn't. have the drainage. They weren't able to.

take on that amount of water. I mean, that could it could be devastating. Yeah. I think I think the mudslides. Yeah. The simple the simple way to get. around that is you just don't operate in. highly populated areas, right? So, like. the Rocky Mountains relatively. unpopulated, but all of the snow and. rain that goes there runs off into the. cities that uh into the reservoirs and. rivers that do benefit the cities. but. tens or hundreds or thousands of miles. away. So, you can mitigate for that risk. by operating in more remote areas. Um,

you know, what what could go wrong. beyond that? Uh, yeah, I think that you. covered most of the bases there. It's. it's it is if someone was totally. irresponsible and totally irregulated. operating over a highly populated area. that you could run the risk of. avalanches. But in order avalanches or. or floods, but in order to do that, like. I said, you'd have to be operating. totally irresponsibly, you'd have to. have like either bad science or. malicious intent. You would have to.

skirt around the existing regulations. that require you suspend operations if. there is any risk. Um, so we have like a. pretty pretty solid framework to prevent. uh any sort of disasters from happening. there. Um, you know, like what if, uh, yeah, I I don't know. I think those. are those are probably the big ones. I. mean, when when you talk about malicious. intent, do you think that this could be. weaponized? We know that it can be. weaponized. Um, so we know that it was. weaponized in Vietnam. Um, we uh I would.

be surp Let me let me pose this. hypothetical, right? Um there's a limited window of time in. the straits of Taiwan uh during which. landing craft can easily traverse the. straits because the weather is not so. severe that uh you know there's not a. lot of rain coming down. There's not um. really rough. seas. Um, if you can modify the weather. and you can extend or shorten that.

window, then the strategic situation. around that island changes meaningfully. Um, similarly, if uh if you're trying to. move personnel or. material and it's wet on the ground, right, like a lot of uh operation Barbar. Roa failed because tanks got stuck, armor got stuck in Russia during the. spring. Um, if you can make it more wet on the. ground, then that would that would have. some tactical consequence as well. Um,

so yeah, absolutely possible. Rain maker. doesn't do that. Um, for whatever it's worth, you know, I. don't think people will believe me, but. I mean, it seems like Taiwan would have. a major interest in this just to. mitigate that situation. You have you. heard of the uh the fake windmills that. Taiwan's building? No. So, uh, nominally they want more clean. power, right? And so, what's one thing.

you can do? You can build windmills off. in the ocean. Um, actually though, also, uh, you can build something that looks. like a windmill that isn't even. connected to grid power and then. station, you know, underwater drones or. boats or helicopters or aircraft on the. pads that are for the windmill. um and. then be 30 50 km farther out to sea as. like a first line of defense. Interesting. Now, at the same time, China is building windmills like right.

next to Taiwan's windmills. Um so. there's a bit of a chess game happening. right there with fake energy resources. I think China's just building islands. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they are. What's it. called? The N- line or something? 7-. Line. Um Yeah. I mean, they're building. islands. They're sending their Coast. Guard boats after like fishing ships and. stuff. their fishing ships are harassing. other navies. Um, there's Chinese. fishing boats. If you look out uh at the. at the ocean from El Salvador or Costa. Rica or um uh I think Guatemala, too, if.

you look out at the ocean at night, it. looks like you're looking at a city uh. because of all the lights. Those are. just enormous Chinese fishing boats that. are tearing fish out of the ocean. Same. problem in Argentina. their fisheries. are getting destroyed and and up in. Alaska even too to some extent. Like. they are harvesting so much fish so. unsustainably in other count's waters. Um and we don't even do anything about. it. Um Jeez. Yeah.

Jeez. You know, we're wrapping up the. interview here, but I think that the UN. reported there are. approximately 2.2 billion people without. water. Mhm. or with a very limited. supply. I. mean, if you work the metrics on that on. on how big of an impact you would have. on putting a dent in that 2.2 billion, the ultimate goal is to to serve a lot. more than 2.2 billion people, right?

Like eventually there will be 20 plus. billion people on the planet and we need. to figure out how to make water enough. for all of them. And it's not just going. to be cloud seating. we should build. more del. Um, but the the plan is to. make Earth. uh unrecognizably lush and green and. abundant and prosperous. Um, and we need. a lot of water to do that. And so we're. going to have to get one, the system. that we have scaled and deployed. throughout all of the world. And then. two, the system will have to be more. sophisticated and efficient than it is. now. Um, so that we can produce water.

for the next 10 billion people that that. live. Um, we'll start with the people. that are uh in water stress regions. right now. like we're operating in one. of the most water stressed countries in. the world in the Middle East I. mentioned. Um and uh that's probably. what the next 3 years will look like and. then after that um like getting above. baseline is is going to be the next next. problem. Well man fascinating. conversation very innovative. Very.

innovative. I love talking to anim. innovators and um well then I I'll say. in closing here um there's a town in Los. Angeles called Elsagundo. Um it is named. after the second uh standard oil. refinery that was ever built in. California, Elsagundo II. Um half the. town is just an oil refinery. Uh the. other half the town is small warehouses. that are just full of deep tech. startups, hardware startups. There's. three fision companies. There's a. weather modification company. There's. the guys that are building almost all of.

the drones that are going to Ukraine. Uh. there's a bunch of different advanced. manufacturing people and roboticists. It's it's the highest density of deep. tech and hard tech in the United States. Um and it's a bunch of guys that you. know. are having competitions about who has. the bigger flag in their office. Um I I. would say that uh if ever you're in LA, you're welcome to stop by and tour. around there. And um you'll probably. bump into a couple of my friends from. the city as well over the next year or. so. I'd love to do that. I'd love to do. that. I'd love to get you back too as.

things develop. Yeah. So, well, best of. luck. Yeah. Thanks, man. [Music]. No matter where you're watching Shan. Ryan show from, if you get anything out. of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share. this everywhere you possibly can. And if. you're feeling extra generous, please.

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