Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and today we're exploring how innovation can power the AI revolution while protecting our planet. You're watching now Media tv.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello, welcome to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and today we're joined by Matthew Wheeler, the general manager of Woodchuck AI.
Today we want to begin with a simple but powerful shift in perspective.
What if one of our most overlooked energy opportunities is hiding in what we throw away?
Every day, tons of wood waste move through job sites, industrial operations, demolition projects, construction activity and commercial systems. Too often that material is treated as the end of the process. It gets hauled away, sent to landfills and counted as waste.
But in the future we are building, waste cannot remain an endpoint. It has to become part of a smarter system, one that captures value, reduces emissions, improves efficiencies and turns discarded material into renewable energy and beneficial reuse.
Matt Wheeler, the general manager at Woodchuck is driving a technology driven waste diversion company focused on diverting wood waste from landfills and converted it into renewable energy and and other reuse streams.
Matt is a former US army engineer officer and four time combat veteran, bringing a powerful background in leadership, logistics, operations, sustainability and execution at scale.
Matthew also just completed his MBA at University of Michigan. Go blue.
So Matt, welcome to Abundant Energy.
[00:01:44] Speaker C: Thanks for having me, Todd.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: As we start this conversation, I want everyone watching to think about the waste streams inside. The systems you lead, the systems you build and the systems you depend on. What are you currently treating as a cost or a burden that could actually become a source of value?
Matt, when we hear renewable energy, wood waste may not be the first thing they think about. What opportunity are they missing?
[00:02:11] Speaker C: Yeah, so you know, most people think, you know, when we're talking renewable energy typically starts with solar, starts with wind, even battery storage. And those technologies, those do matter. But millions of tons of recoverable wood move through construction sites like you just said, manufacturing opportunity or operations and supply chains. Every year, much of it still gets treated like waste when, when in reality it holds energy, economic and environmental value.
And so here at Woodchuck, kind of how we started was to help the biomass energy facilities find a latent supply of wood waste that was outside of the forestry realm. So when we look at bioenergy, we typically think of the forestry industry or even your lumber mills or were heavy contributors. But where else is the waste that can be utilized? And what we came to find was people. People are, you know, let's start over. What we came to find was that when we talked to some manufacturers, they'd be like, ah, we don't have any wood. But then you look out back, and there were stacks and stacks of pallets. Right?
You go out to their dumpster and their dimensional lumber for cabinets. Or even, like your big box stores just have dumpsters full of twisted boards that people don't buy. There is a huge latent supply of wood that has found itself into the landfill system that is not waste, but it has value. And value is in energy and other offtakes.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: So in the traditional system, the way things happens right now, most of that wood is ending up in the landfill. So environmentally and economically, what's the outcome there?
[00:04:12] Speaker C: Yeah, so a lot of recoverable wood gets in a landfill. Like you said, you pay to have it collected, you pay to haul it off, you pay to dispose of it. You lose the material value entirely.
And right now, we are in a system where we're running out of landfill space.
Well, there is anywhere from 20 to 30% of that landfill has recoverable material in it. And so you're not only solving an energy problem, you're solving a space problem in our landfills and creating value out of what we have typically used as just trash. Right. We don't need this. Let's throw it away. And so what we're doing is creating value out of what used to be not valuable.
[00:05:03] Speaker B: So I heard an interesting stat the other day, kind of zooming out. Not just wood, but all sorts of potentially valuable materials that are in waste. So wood, cardboard, plastic, metal, all sorts of valuable materials. The stat I heard was that the United States spent $2 billion last year to haul away and bury a billion dollars worth of valuable material. So we took a billion dollars worth of potential commodity value, and we paid $2 billion to bury it in a landfill.
How does woodchuck create a different pathway for these materials?
[00:05:44] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. So we don't look at waste as a dumpster problem. Right. Kind of the traditional landfill, traditional pathway. We look at it as more of a systems problem. You know, we build recovery systems focused on source separation, operational visibility, verified recovery pathways, and kind of measurable reporting. Right. And so this is not a trash problem. It's how we've always done business problem.
And so when we look at new projects and new jobs, you know, we look at their operation, how they're set up, and how can we improve efficiency not only, not only in the waste stream, but just typically how. How they are doing things. Right. Because the traditional way will handle your waste 3, 4, 5 times before it actually gets to where it needs to go.
Especially when it comes to recoverable materials such as plastics and cardboards and even metals. Right. It's, it's handled multiple times. So we can improve your operational efficiency, which also reduces your, your overall cost. Excuse me, reduces your overall cost and creates value in other streams that weren't there before.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: So this isn't just a sustainability project. It's really a scalable operational system driving kind of immediate job site efficiencies and cost reductions.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly.
So sustainability at scale is what you're alluding to.
You know, it only scales when it actually becomes operational.
So sustainability, you know, if it's not built into our daily workflows, logistics, the accountability aspect, and even a reporting what sustainability is separate from that is a good intention.
Okay. But when you build it into your operational, your daily operations, it actually becomes a measurable result and no longer an intention. What you're striving to do.
It has to be mixed in with your process in order to be efficient.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: So let's get real tangible here. Describe for us, let's say a construction site. What does a typical construction site waste system look like? And what does it look like if Woodchuck is on site and handling the waste?
[00:08:23] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. So let's focus in on kind of the big, the big ones nowadays, right? We're talking data centers, battery plants, huge manufacturing sites.
The typical setup is there's a bunch of trash dumpsters and people throw everything away and they get hauled sometimes 30, 40, 50 miles away to a landfill. And then they're, they're brought back. Right?
Well, that creates, is time delays. It creates heavy costs, especially with diesel prices right now and moving the material. It creates a lot of traffic on site and then delays in getting the dumpsters back or the dumpsters are being pulled on a time cycle. So you're getting charged for half filled dumpsters. Okay. It's not being pulled when it's actually full.
What Woodchuck does it is we come in and we set up a material recovery area on site, co located or just across the street from where you're at.
And what that allows us to do, it allows us to manage your dumpsters. It allows the material to be brought to a central location and then packaged for its best use. Right. So what we have a lot of times is cardboard and plastic and metal and wood and everything's mixed into one dumpster. Right.
Even, even when people separate material, they take it to a recycling facility and all the stuff they just separated is dumped into A single pile and has to get separated again.
So it's not a sustainable aspect. Right. So for us, we actually set up a recovery area on site to handle a material when it needs to be handled and packaged for the highest value. And then it's measured, tracked and brought to the locations that will actually use it for its intended purpose.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: So when you talk about the setup that you're setting here, what you're describing, you're actually separating wood, cardboard, plastic, metal on site at the source of origination, and then you're packaging each of those separately and hauling them separately.
[00:10:50] Speaker C: Yes, yes. And so we don't use the concept of running everything via roll off. We try to maximize the amount of material in a single haul.
Right. So we run, we run, you know, all the wood through a grinder, it gets chipped up and then hauled up by semi. Well, that one semi is equivalent to roughly 10 of those roll off loads. And you're not hauling air in the semi. Whereas if wood is just thrown into a wood dumpster, it's realistically by volume, it's only like 30, maybe 50% at best packaged in there. And so you're actually getting, you're actually moving the material that at its true value, not just a bunch of stuff thrown in. But yeah, so we package everything on site.
So the wood comes down plastic that is separated at this at the source, cardboard that's separated, and we run those through a very various different processes to ensure it has its highest value when it leaves the construction site.
[00:12:07] Speaker B: So when we're talking just about wood, the example that you're sharing right there, instead of having a single 40 yard roll off with a bunch of wooden pallets and hauling that, you know, 30, 40 miles at a time, 40 yards at a time, you're taking all of that wood, you're running it through a chipper to consolidate it, and you're putting 10 or 12 dumpsters worth of material into a single semi.
So you're creating dramatic efficiencies and reducing the transportation logistics and the cost probably also seriously reduces the site traffic, which I would think the safety managers would love as well.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: They do love it. Yeah. It definitely reduces the number of trucks coming in and out of your security gates and rolling around where there's workers.
But you're exactly right.
It's one ton in a one one and a half tons in a 40 yard roll off and 10 to 12 roll off trips versus 25ish tons, maybe more depending on the density of the wood in a single semi trailer. And so the Efficiencies are drastic. I mean, and realistically, the cost savings is drastic. When you look at the price of per roll off, regardless if it's full or not, you're getting charged an exorbitant amount.
And so we can drive cost efficiencies, transportation efficiencies, and safety efficiencies all in the single wood operation.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's really interesting.
Efficiency gains typically drive cost reduction, so that's really interesting.
Thanks so much, Matt. We're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to dive into a little more detail on a specific example of this process and the success that Matt and Woodchuck have had. I'm Todd Thomas. This is Abundant Energy. We'll be right back.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: We'll be right back. With more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world, but it's also consuming more power than ever before.
I'm Todd Thomas, entrepreneur, innovator and author of the Unleashing Abundant Energy trilogy. On abundant energy, we explore the hidden energy demands of the AI revolution and the breakthroughs that could power our future without breaking our planet. This isn't fear driven, it's solution focused. From advanced nuclear to renewable microgrids, from biomass innovation to power positive data centers, we're mapping the blueprint for a carbon negative future. Abundant energy coming soon to NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Lets dive deeper.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: Welcome back to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas. Stay connected to this show and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand, anytime you like. You can download the Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and in Spanish. Are you on the move? Catch the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv. from business and news to lifestyle, culture and beyond, Now Media TV is streaming around the clock. Ready whenever you are.
Now we're continuing our conversation with Matt Wheeler, general manager at Woodchuck. And now I want to go deeper into the system behind waste diversion.
Because the future of sustainability depends on more than good intentions. It depends on visibility, tracking, logistics, processing capacity, accountability.
If we cannot see where material goes, we cannot improve the system. If we cannot measure impact, we cannot scale it. This segment will cover how Woodchuck uses technology driven solutions to improve efficiency, reduce costs and create measurable environmental and financial outcomes.
This conversation will connect real time tracking and operational transportation transparency with better decisions for businesses, communities and the energy future.
A smarter Waste diversion model requires data and execution working together.
Real time tracking helps leaders understand where material is going, how it is being recovered, and what environmental outcomes are being created on site. Processing can reduce unnecessary transportation and prove the economics of reuse.
Optimized recovery pathways help match material with the highest best value destination.
So Matt, why is real time tracking so important when you were trying to divert wood waste at scale?
[00:17:09] Speaker C: Yeah, so if you can't, it's like you just said, if you can't see the material movement, you can't improve it.
Most organizations know what they buy, but very few actually know what they're throwing away.
Visibility changes behavior. And so real time tracking, knowing where your material is or even at the beginning, what material you have that's valuable that you're throwing out and then where it's actually going are two huge pieces of the puzzle to change the ultimate behavior. Because everybody, everybody wants to do better, but without the knowledge and the details behind what you actually have and where you can improve, it's still just going to be business as usual.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: Well, I think one of the challenges in the current system, if you're using a traditional waste hauler, almost all of that material goes through a transfer center or a mrf, a material recovery facility.
Once the material enters one of those facilities, how do you track it?
[00:18:21] Speaker C: Yeah, you really don't.
You know, there's been a lot of, lot of discussion about recycling, right. A lot of stuff that ends up into a transfer station or even in a MRF ends up getting tossed, getting thrown away in the landfill.
It comes down to, you know, what we try to solve is the prepackaging of the material.
Right. Because as soon as it enters the transfer station, you don't know what actually happens to it. You know that it goes to a transfer station. You might even get a recycling percentage based on the facility, but you have no idea if your material actually went somewhere or went where it was supposed to go.
And the same deal with the material recovery facility, the MRFs, there are these 20, 30 million dollar facilities that everything gets dumped into one spot and then has to get separated again.
You have no idea what happens to that material. And so for those of us that want to verify that we're not actually just greenwashing as the term, right, but verify where it's going and that what we are doing actually has value and actually is impacting in a sustainable way, you can't do that relying on the old system. It has to be tracked and has to be verified in the traditional pathway. You can't Verify it in those two facilities.
[00:19:57] Speaker B: So now Woodchuck has a very different approach.
You don't send material to MRFs, you don't send material to transfer centers, you don't send materials to landfills.
You're kind of in this unique situation where you are both the operator and you are genuinely diverting waste and bringing it to energy production or to recycling facilities or to remanufacturers. And you're also the software tracking platform that's tracking all of that.
So it seems like that's a very different strategic approach on multiple levels. So what is the outcome of that for your clients?
[00:20:38] Speaker C: Yeah, so for us, you know, if we touch on the operational side first, is that we know, and we've always known that once you get into, like you said, the MRFs or the transportations, it becomes a black hole. Right. And our goal from the beginning was to be able to not only make sure the material goes where it's supposed to go, but be able to have the transparency that was not there to begin with through the traditional methods. And so when we started this, we started developing our sustainability reports and our tracking. It was how can we verify the data and do it better than what is currently there? And so we utilize our tracking and our end sites to then build these sustainability reports. And these reports that we create will give you all of your data, your actual data, meaning how much, how much transportation CO2 was produced.
So in the hauling aspect, you're going to create more, more CO2 equivalents, right, that you're trying to sequester by diverting from the landfill. So we track that, we track where everything went. So, you know, we just had a project where we had over 8,500 tons of wood waste go to energy production, right? And so we have that verified, we have that tracked.
So then they know, okay, I avoided this much CO2 by taking it to the energy facility instead of the landfill. But then I also created this much during transportation, which is far less than you do in the roll off sense, just taking to the landfill because you have less trucks on the road and movements. But then what we do is we give you the net CO2 avoided. So you get your, your true, your true details, which then can be pulled into, you know, via API, into any sustainability team to use for their own internal uses and their own internal tracking. And so we give them down to the dumpster weight. Okay. To you can, you can nail down as low as you want to go or as high scale as you want to go if you just want the Data, which a lot of people just like the data. But in the past, that data, what we've been able to do is see what crews were kind of messing up and contaminated loads to then go back and retrain different job sites to improve their efficiency. So all of that to say is we, we set out to make sure that we are packaging material properly. We're taking it to where it'll actually be reused, we track it and verify it, and then our off takes are always to the highest, best use. Meaning if you know wood can be used for remanufactured and turned back into something, that's great. If its highest, best use is being utilized in industrial products, we will use that. But we will always take it to what we, we label as kind of a tier 1, 2, 3, 4 levels of wood production. We were always striving to get it to the best reuse possible.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: So the ability to really track that material all the way through the process and calculate the net CO2, that's a fantastic benefit.
And then, you know, you mentioned greenwashing earlier and I think that's a challenge that a lot of companies are having today. They are making certain sustainability claims, but they're having difficulty proving it, difficulty validating it. So one of the things you're saying is Woodchuck will actually be able to validate and prove exactly what happens to all of these materials. How is it that you guys do that?
[00:24:53] Speaker C: Yeah, so we, we take a very hands on approach for one.
I'll give an example real quick and then I'll kind of get into the technology side of things.
I won't name the company, but for years they thought they were sending their bailed plastic to a recovery facility.
Right. And so we always go on site, we look at the materials, we talk to them, we try to understand what their process is.
And what we found was for years, you know, thousands, thousands of tons of plastic was going to the landfill.
Why? Because they didn't understand that the banding that they were mixing in was not recyclable.
Right. And so they had all the intentions in the world, but because the banding they were putting in there to mixed in with all the shrink wrap, made that a contaminated load and then went to the landfill. And so we take a very hands on approach.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: Hang on one second, I want to double click on that real quick. Matt.
[00:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: So for years they thought they were recycling their plastic, but in fact they weren't. It was ending up in the landfill.
[00:26:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:26:02] Speaker B: How does their vendor not make them aware of that?
[00:26:07] Speaker C: It's a great question.
And realistically, I think, I think it comes down to, you know, it comes down to the fact that there's a. Well, all right, let's rewind.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Well, I think this plays into a lot of the greenwashing discussion. I think there are probably a lot of companies like you just described, they have good intentions, they have recycling programs in place, they think they are recycling materials. But the reality is the vendors that they are using are bringing these materials to transfer centers or to MRFs. And I think we can all Google and I think you'll find that a really well performing, high yield MRF sends about 9% of their material to be recycled and about 91% of their material ends up in the landfill. So you may think you have a great recycling program and the vendors coming and picking up these materials every week, but if it's going to a transfer center or a mrf, the reality is it's ending up in a landfill.
[00:27:17] Speaker C: Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And when you're looking at a large manufacturer, you think your box stores think huge construction sites, they have so many dumpsters moving that they just don't know what's happening. Right? You know, you're gonna get 10 pages of these are all the moves this month, and then you're gonna go, okay, what's the bill? And I'm gonna pay it, thinking that everything is going where it's supposed to go. And the reality is it's just, it just isn't right.
You get a really good sales rep or a really good supervisor at one of these waste hauling companies and they'll communicate that with you. But far more often than not, you're just not going to get a call. Right? And so it's our job to verify and ensure and take that process out of your hands and dive in and make sure your material is going where it's going to go. And at the very beginning of our, you know, when we decided to track this, you know how we were going to track it. And the importance of transparency is we're going to tell you when loads are contaminated. And it's right there on the report on the very first page, you can see how much of your material was gone and then are taken to the landfill instead of where it was supposed to go because it was heavily contaminated. And we do that because we believe that that communication is crucial. Right? And by that communication changes can be made. Right? Because there's retraining, there's, why is this stuff not recyclable? Okay. Then you go Upstream. Okay, well, I need to order different type of plastic or I need to use a different vendor so I can ensure my packaging is recyclable or, you know, what type of waste I have. It all comes back to not knowing what you're throwing away and the value that it actually has.
And so for us, we utilize lots of different methods, but one of the most exciting methods is kind of our camera systems. Right. So we can, we can identify material, we can identify fill rates, and we're continually improving on our AI capability in order to continue to take that out of the hands of the manufacturer and really dial down to instant feedback.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: So I do want to dive into the technology more in our next segment, but I think my takeaway from this segment is there's a big operational piece and there's a big transparency piece, but they're related.
There are real, it's an operational system problem that these materials are not getting recycled or diverted, but the tracking or the lack of tracking and the lack of data is making this difficult to see. So there are operational systems problems, but nobody sees them because there is no data and tracking to expose it. So it seems like it's really a combination of problems that's created this kind of the world that we currently live in. So it's exciting to hear that you're really addressing both of those problems, both the operational system issues as well as the tracking issue. So in our next segment, I do want to dive in a little bit more on the technology side and how you're really addressing that and creating transparency in this world where it's so desperately needed. I'm Todd Thomas. This is Abundant Energy. We'll be right back.
[00:30:58] Speaker A: We'll be right back. With more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world, but it's also consuming more power than ever before.
I'm Todd Thomas, entrepreneur, innovator and author of the Unleashing Abundant Energy trilogy. On abundant energy, we explore the hidden energy demands AI revolution and the breakthroughs that could power our future without breaking our planet. This isn't fear driven, it's solution focused. From advanced nuclear to renewable microgrids, from biomass innovation to power positive data centers, we're mapping the blueprint for a carbon negative future. Abundant Energy coming soon to NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's dive deeper.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Welcome back to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and I'm talking today with Matt Wheeler from Woodchuck now, we've had an interesting conversation that's really exposed some operational challenges within the waste diversion and material recovery systems that really are prolific right now, today.
And I think part of the reason why we are having trouble seeing those is the lack of transparency. There really is. There's so little data available, no one is really tracking this data. And so these operational deficiencies are not easily seen.
Woodchuck's really attacking that by taking an interesting approach where they're really creating an operational system and building a technology platform on top of that that really has a chain of custody from origin to destination and tracks and validates all of that data, which really finally gives companies information and transparency to be making informed waste diversion and material recovery decisions.
So, Matt, can you give us a little more insight on how does Woodchuck do that? Tell us a little bit more about the process and the technology and how Woodchuck controls the operations. Enter.
[00:33:14] Speaker C: So what we have set up on site is what we refer to as a material recovery area, an mra.
And I'll use a recent example of a battery factory that we're working on.
We set up a mature recovery area and we have a grinder on site, we have balers on site, we have metal operations.
And so what happens is the wood comes down to our site, the plastic comes down, the cardboard comes down, metal comes down. And what we do is we package each one of those separately. Now, when we're talking about wood, which we've kind of already discussed, is we send it through our grinder, right? Sometimes we have these 20, 30, 40 foot skids that can't be hauled away. They have to be dealt with. They're very expensive to send them out whole. So what we do is we package all the wood and we, we place it into what we. We refer to as our feedstock. Okay. And that feedstock is this giant pile of pallets and paneling. And whatever dimensional or whatever it is, it's piled next to the grinder. And that wood is fed through the grinder to create smaller chips so that we can reduce the wasted space in the hauling process.
Our grinder also pulls all of the metal out of the wood. So when you think of pallets, there's nails, there's screws, there's bolts, and a lot of these giant pallets, it breaks those down, it pulls them out, and then it separates it during the grinding process. So then we have a metal container that collects that. Then we put it in the larger metal dumpster in order to separate and send that to Metal recycling or scrap yards, and you're going to pull it
[00:35:09] Speaker B: out of that metal out and you're going to recycle that too.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: Exactly. Yep. Well, every, everything gets reutilized when, when we're looking at things like plastic. Not all plastic, you know, is actually recyclable. I know that's like, maybe that's not common knowledge, but there's a lot of plastic that you cannot recycle and that's just trash. Right.
The key is knowing what you're producing in order to know what you can actually reuse. Right. And so when it comes down to our site, we have a separating area. And so when the plastics come down, we recheck the plastic, make sure it's recyclable and we take that material, which in its loose form has no value whatsoever. Well, we send it through a vertical baler and the baler creates these 500,000 pound bales. Right. And it compresses it. So you're reducing, you're reducing your material that would typically be in a roll off. Right. By compressing it and packaging it. And by packaging it now you have a valuable commodity because sending it out loose there is no value.
Right.
Same with cardboard. Cardboard.
If you have a cardboard roll off, some places will pay you for the loose cardboard, but it's about a third of the value as if you were to take it to a baler and prep it and send it out via semi. And so you're creating, you're creating a lot more value by packaging a material on site instead of sending it off to be handled in a MRF or whatever where it's not tracked, you don't get paid for it. And it's essentially just trash thrown in into one.
[00:37:07] Speaker B: So loose plastic and loose cardboard is trash once you've baled it up. What's a bale of cardboard worth?
[00:37:15] Speaker C: That's a great question. So it's the last figures I looked at, a bale of cardboard is about $90 a ton.
[00:37:25] Speaker B: And what's a bale of virgin clear plastic worth?
[00:37:30] Speaker C: A lot of times it's based on the pound.
So the last I looked was I think it was 12 cents a pound. So it actually, a lot of times it roughly comes out to be the same price, but you're looking at, you know, a semi load full of, you know, three stacked high cardboard bales and a semi load of plastic versus how many dumpsters that would be equivalent.
And the amount of money you get back on rebates because of recycling the material properly.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So if it's 40 to 100 bucks per or bail sounds like.
And so instead of paying a company to haul all of that material to a landfill, you're turning those into commodities and you're generating income from them. And I'm imagining on a large project we're talking tens of thousands of tons.
So those numbers are going to add up pretty quickly.
[00:38:34] Speaker C: They add up really quick. And especially when these, these mega projects that are happening, they, you're, you're talking a lot of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars that you're leaving on the table. By doing it the old way, right. You do it the new way in which we're, which is the Woodchuck way, you're creating value from what you didn't have before, Right. You now have a reduction of cost and a rebate system in which you get money back by doing a more operational, efficient method.
[00:39:10] Speaker B: So legacy system, contractors, manufacturers, businesses are paying someone to haul their waste and bury it in the landfill. In the woodchuck system, you're separating these materials, consolidating them, packaging them, turning them into commodities with value that can create soft revenue streams back to that contractor or manufacturer.
[00:39:34] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:39:35] Speaker B: That's a beautiful system, turning waste into value.
[00:39:39] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:39:39] Speaker B: I'm Todd Thomas. This is Abundant Energy. We'll be right back with one more segment with Matt Wheeler.
[00:39:46] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more solutions shaping the future of energy infrastructure and intelligent systems. Stay tuned.
Artificial intelligence is transforming the world, but it's also consuming more power than ever before.
[00:40:00] Speaker C: Todd.
[00:40:01] Speaker A: I'm Todd Thomas, entrepreneur, innovator and author of the Unleashing Abundant Energy trilogy. On Abundant Energy, we explore the hidden energy demands of the AI revolution and the breakthroughs that could power our future without breaking our planet. This isn't fear driven, it's solution focused. From advanced nuclear to renewable microgrids, from biomass innovation to power positive data centers, we're mapping the blueprint of for a carbon negative future. Abundant energy coming soon to NOW Media Television.
And we're back. I'm Todd Thomas and this is Abundant Energy on NOW Media tv. Let's dive deeper.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: Hello. Welcome back to Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas and I'm talking today with Matt Wheeler, the general manager of Woodchuck.
Now in the last couple segments we talked about the operational system that Woodchuck uses to transform waste into commoditized materials that can generate soft revenue, driving significant cost reductions for their employers or for their clients.
Now, Woodchuck has built a proprietary AI platform, Woodchuck AI that helps them with this operational process. And with the tracking and validation. Matt, can you tell us about this platform and the technology that Woodchuck has built?
[00:41:23] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's really cool.
It's a really cool system in which, you know, when we started it was how do we teach our camera systems what wood actually is? Right. Because as we've said previously, not all material is equal. Right. It's not all equal in value and it's not all equal in where it can go.
So, you know, with, there are biomass energy facilities that can take furniture manufacturing, wood waste, and there's some that can't. Right. And so we started with the camera being able to identify different types of wood.
And so we're talking pallets, dimensional lumber, manufacturing waste, all those different or forestry, all green wood, all the different types of wood to include what processed and fines look like. In the realm of wood and the off takes, fines are considered a contaminant.
[00:42:25] Speaker B: And what are fines?
[00:42:26] Speaker C: So fines are what you would think of, you know, when you're cutting wood at home, right. And you got these kind of dust particles flying out, these tiny little pieces, those are fines and at a certain percentage it can't be reused. Right. So if I have a truckload that has 30% what they consider fines, I can't take it to certain locations. So knowing what we have coming in and being able to identify the types and materials is crucial to us being able to plan on where those offtakes are going to be.
[00:43:07] Speaker B: So the AI system is identifying these materials and the contaminants within these materials?
[00:43:13] Speaker C: Yes. So the camera system can identify, you know, the type of wood we're going to receive.
Right. If there's contaminants in there and not just fines. And so we've trained, we've trained the AI system to identify waste, but also identify or wood waste, identify plastic and cardboard and metal and these different materials that don't belong in a wood dumpster. And so what we have here is if I have a wood dumpster, and it goes back to what we talked about before, if I throw a bag of trash in there, this is now a contaminated load and it will not go to where it's supposed to go. Right. And so our AI system now can detect a contaminant that's not supposed to be in there, alert the superintendent or foreman or whoever's on site that a contaminant was thrown in the dumpster so that it can be corrected, behaviors can change, and that material can actually go where it's supposed to go. And so that was the beginning of the camera system, we have been training our cameras in real world environments. Right. So it's not in a warehouse and in this controlled environment, because that's not where dumpsters live.
Right. And so we've, we have a site that's outdoors, gets the rain, gets the snow, gets the heat, the sun and the shade. And it's all focused on learning the material in every type of day and night and weather pattern so that we can ensure the best results.
And so that's our camera system, but it also plugs into our dashboard and our tracking mechanism.
And so that allows us to determine the material type, where it's going, who it's coming from, and then all the calculations based on the EPA and different other tracking mechanisms for what the CO2 equivalents are for the material being diverted. And so that is all built within the system in order to be verifiable and be transparent. And so it's, there's, there's nothing in there that's, you know, there's nothing in there that is just made up. It's all verifiable data. And then it produces the tracking mechanism. So you know exactly your weights of the dumpsters or semi trucks or whatever your material is to create a sustainability report that lists all of the details that you would ever want to know in whatever format that you want and as frequent as you want it.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: So the end result is a sustainability report to the client of exactly what their materials were, what, where their materials ended up, and the CO2. The net CO2 avoided.
[00:46:23] Speaker C: Yes. And so it all circles back to allowing people to understand what their waste is so that we can do better in the future. Right. So everything is tracked on that report.
And you can see exactly how many dumpsters went to the landfill. You can see exactly how many went to Bioenergy, went to Remanu Wood that went to Bioenergy Wood, that went to remanufacturing or into industrial products, you know exactly where. And the amounts of the material went to include plastic, cardboard, metal, concrete even. I mean, we can do everything on that system.
[00:47:03] Speaker B: So when you're working with your clients and you're creating these operational efficiencies and then you're producing the sustainability reports,
[00:47:12] Speaker A: what
[00:47:12] Speaker B: are your clients telling you? What is providing the most value to them? What are they most excited about? Is it the operational efficiencies, the cost reductions, the sustainability reports?
What are you hearing?
[00:47:23] Speaker C: Yeah, so that's a great question.
And the simple answer is, depends on who you're talking to. Right. So the Sustainability team loves the sustainability reports.
Right. The foreman or superintendents that are on the job site love the reduced method of trucks coming in out of their site. They love the consolidation. And frankly, they love that someone else is managing the dumpster other than themselves. Right. And so it really depends on who you're discussing it with. And so when you look at, you know, kind of higher up in the company, you know, the fact that we can really create verifiable data, I mean, that goes to their marketing. That goes to like their, you know, what they're telling their clients that they're doing. They can, they can.
They're telling their clients that they can actually verify what they're doing. Right. So
[00:48:32] Speaker B: what are the challenges? What are the things that the clients don't like?
[00:48:37] Speaker C: Well, the biggest challenge is changing the process.
Right. And so when you get into an operational rhythm, especially on these massive construction sites, there are the way things have always been done, right. So everyone's integrated into that system now. You want to throw a wrench into that system. There are growing pains, there are changes. There are a lot of things on the operational side that frankly, in the short term can cause a little bit of chaos. Right? But it's once we just experienced this once that happens and our solution isn't there anymore.
It's like, okay, where's Woodchuck? What do we do with this stuff? Right? And so we've created an easier way to do it. It's the adoption that takes a little bit of time and getting everybody on board. Because when you're talking about a mega construction site, you have, you know, countless number of trades and everyone has to be on board on the new way.
And that's easier said than done most of the time.
[00:49:52] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Matt. If people want to find you or they want to find Woodchuck, how do they find you? How do they get in touch with you? Or Woodchuck?
[00:50:00] Speaker C: Yeah, so just you can go to Woodchuck, AI.
I have my contact info there. You can also look me up on LinkedIn.
Yeah, that would be easy way to get a hold of me.
[00:50:13] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Matt. Appreciate you being here today. I'm Todd Thomas. This is Abundant Energy and we'll see you again next week.
[00:50:20] Speaker A: Thank you for watching Abundant Energy. I'm Todd Thomas. Join us next week as we continue powering the future and protecting the planet. Only I'm now New Year to.
