Capítulo 27: CarboCar and Co
President Bowmore had started a project; it was a controversial one. He'd vowed to, on one saturday in a month, visit small start-up companies and speak to them himself. It was important to him because although start-up companies that have brilliant ideas (and a CEO who can sell them well) usually find a businessman or two to sponser them, they still struggle the first ten years until they either 'boom' or fade away, leaving trade payables and related accounts to suffer from their bankruptucy. Laws exist, protecting start-up companies, and, to sort out the very brilliant and the completely genius ones, quotas have to be met. They were, for example, several cilmate quotas that had to be met up until 2030. Start-up companies who wanted to be supported by the State had to show that they'd been able to, for example, save one million tons of CO2 by 2030. Those who reached the quota had a new one to fill up till 2050 and so on. The reason for the quotas was to single out the ones that could be very successfull and actually, in the long-run, have an impact on the enviroment. Alistair Bowmore however, wanted not only quotas in certain places, and he didn't also only want business men to hear of these great pitches or great start-ups, so he'd organized his schedule to fit at least one start-up company in every single month.
His, just as important but unspoken reason, to visit start-ups was to meet young people, people with ideas. Visiting these companies meant he got to see what younger and bright generations wanted, their goals, what they thought was vital, and the new ways they lead and governed their companies. It was an inspiring way to meet the new, more secret, leaders of the world. Alistair had always been a man to believe that, apart from politicians, the founders and owners of companies in a free-market-economy, were the second leaders. Not only do they influence the masses, but they also care for producing a big ammount of the countries GDP. Without a steadily growing, and constantly evolving ecomony, a country has nothing much to offer, neither it's citizens or foreign states. Looking at start-up businesses gives you a potential look into the near to slightly distant future.
The company he was currently driving to look at was a small compay just out of Washington DC. The founder and CEO of the start-up CarboCar and CO was Samuel Keith, a man who'd graduated with good grades after studying mechanical engineering, and had written a fantastic master's thesis. The thesis had made him create the start-up company. He'd invented a kind of capsule to put over the exhaust pipes on cars to prevent the exhaust from polluting the air.
As Presidents do, Bowmore arrived in a flurry of escorting police cars and the big black mercedes of his own, a bullet-proof vehicle that not only screamed securtiy but also status and power. Sometimes he wished he could just drive to these start-ups with a normal car, some sort of Kia or an Audi Quattro, but as President those things were impossible. Someone could be tipped off and might assasinate him. Standing outside the factory-like building that seemed to huff and puff like an old train stood a handsome young man in his 'best suit' the one he'd worn at graduation. He immediately walked to the presidential car and, once Alistair Bowmore had gotten out, shook his hand with gusto. "Mr. President, so good to have you here!"
"Good morning, Samuel. And call me Alistair." He always proposed for the CEOs to call him by his first name.
"Will do Alistair. We're very excited that our start-up was picked; this is a big things for us." He said. "I've prepared a short tour, and then of course, a display of the finished products."
"Since when have you been selling them?" Alistair asked. They'd started to stroll towards the entrence building. Alistair always allowed several bodyguards and his driver to join them. It made their day a bit better, he assumed. And these companies were almost always very interesting, the more people who knew about them, the better their chances to grow.
"We've been selling since June. It's been going pretty well, better than expected, and every month the demand rises."
"That's good to hear."
Samuel Keith opened the door for the President, but Alistair stepped aside. One of his bodyguards entered first, then and only then, did Alistair follow. In the beginning he'd hated having other people have to 'check things out' first, but he understood why it was necesary and, had slowly become accostomed to it. Samuel and Alistair followed the bulky man through the entrence into a hallway.
They began the tour. "So, everything we produce, and we produce all of the seperate parts in texas, is made in such a way that their is no exhaust. We found a way to trap CEO and other chemicals from exiting our building. They simply get sort of 'fossilized' until we reuse them to make the power we run on."
"Alright."
"And for the big part we try to use materials that are not hazardous to the enviroment. But, even though using material like plants there is still so much CO2 that gets out once the material is burned or decomposed."
Alistair didn't know too much about all of it. He knew that when trees die and rot, the CO2 they saved gets set free again. In a forest, this is a natural cycle, other trees feed off the newly freed CO2 and new trees spike up, capturing more of the gas then before. But in a company, there are no trees trapping the CO2. "So how do you trap the CO2?"
"We actually use the same technology as the capsules for the cars. It's a sort of big net attatched to a cylinder, and we put these over our chimney tops, they trap the exhaust, and few days we switch them out. We use the same process of cleaning them as our clients do. The cleaning results in the C02 and the other exhaust particles to be fossilized seperatly. And then, as I said before, reused."
"Impressive." Alistair said. They walked through the office where the designs were made and the demands were met, and afterwards to the big hall where the parts were assebled my machines that 'ran on solar power and produce abosoluty no waste whatsoever'. Finally they came to the storage room, where the parts were packaged (mostly seperatly). "The stuff we use for packaging is not plastic although it looks and feels pretty much alike. It's made from starch. You could throw it into a forest and it would decompose in a matter of weeks." Alistair was amused and delighted at how exicted the young man was. He'd been excited to meet the president, but that excitement was outshone by the excitement of sharing his idea with people. "And here is a finished product."
"That's how they look..." Alistair took it into his hand. It was small, just the size of an average exhaust pipe. It didn't look like much. A small tube attached to a net-like thing. It wasn't rubbery or soft, but it didn't feel like hard plastic either. The color was a greyish-black; probably designed to match the exhaust pipes color.
"Let me show you how it works, Alistair." Samuel said. He took back the small thing he'd spent years to create and beckoned the little group outside. He drove a small car, a Smart. "I have one in currently, but that doesn't matter, tomorrow would have been the day to change it anyway." He leaned down, pushed his thumb into the exhaust pipe and pop, the tube popped out. Alistair hadn't even seen the tube; it was perfectly camoflauged. "Now, you take it and fit it inside," he stuck it into the pipe and slowly turned the top of it. The net-like part. "The ring in the top grasps hold of the pipe and voila," he tugged at it and it didn't budge. "It expands to fit the exact size."
"I wasn't expecting that, that's amazing. So you only have to make one size, and it fits to every car?"
"Yes, exactly." He said, grinning and wiping his hands on his pants. He looked down after a second. "Oh well. I forgot that I had a suit on." The president laughed. He could tell from the beginning of their meeting that the young man was used to wearing old jeans and greas-stained t-shirts, not suits.
"How much do these things cost?"
"They cost a 150 dollars, but, cleaning them out every month is only five bucks. The same one can be used for three to five years, so they're not very expensive at all. The price will be able to drop once more people buy it. I'm guessing, if the company takes off, that we'll be able to drop the prices to 130 dollars and 3 or 4 for the cleaning."
"It's a good deal." Alistair agreed. "Matter of fact, I'll buy some for my cars. I'll take six."
"Really?"
"Yes. I need to get them changed once a month, yes?"
"Yes, it depends on the car and how many miles a day you drive. I'll give you the booklet too, then you can compare the numbers and you'll see how long you can keep one it before getting it cleaned."
"And where would I get them cleaned?"
"You can drop them off at any gas station. They send them back to us. If you bring them to us directly you could get it back the very same day, if you bring it to the gas station it'll take about two to three days to get it back."
"Gas stations.." Alistair said slowly.
"Yeah, think about it. These things make people who drive fossil fueled cars be able to lower air pollution considerably. It obviously depends on the car, and how much its driven, but the average is about 1,6 Tons of C02 for every car, and in the US it's even higher because so many people have SUVs. If everyone used these filters then it would be a lot better for the enviroment. And all of those people go to gas stations, naturally. And the gas stations know, that because of our techonolgy, cars fueled on gas will be 'allowed' longer if they're considered to be getting more friendly to the climate."
"Makes sense. So you're betting on people using gas-fueled cars for a while still?"
"Yes. Especially in th US. I mean, everyone I know drives a fossil-fueled car, and I think a lot of people want to keep doing that. Realistically it will still take two or three decades for the majority of people to have electric, or some other, newer technology, cars. And in that time, it would be great to lower the exhaust that gets spit out of our cars."
"I agree. Thank you so much for the tour, Samuel. I think it's a great idea..."
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