About this episode

Dacia Leon discusses how Supercool Earth is using engineered microbes to address the water crisis through innovative snowmaking and cloud seeding technologies.

California recorded its second-lowest Sierra Nevada snowpack on record this spring. That's not just a bad ski season, it's a water supply crisis. Snowpack is where California's water comes from. And when it doesn't materialize, agriculture, hydropower, and fire suppression all feel the strain. Dacia Leon, CEO and co-founder of Supercool Earth, is building a company around a deceptively simple idea: use biology to make it rain and snow where it's needed most, on demand. Her company's core technology involves engineering microbes to produce high quantities of this pure protein cheaply, which is then used in snowmaking machines and for cloud seeding. Supercool Earth is targeting high-margin markets first, starting with a snow-making additive for ski resorts. It’s a cheaper, greener, and scalable alternative to existing products like Snomax largely because it’s made of pure, biodegradable protein (no bacterial cells), has no smell, and is stable at room temperature. The company is intentionally using natural proteins instead of non-degrading silver iodide used in traditional cloud seeding to streamline the regulatory process through EPA TSCA, which is faster than dealing with GMO…

People in this episode

Host: Lara Pierpoint

Guest: Dacia Leon

Topics covered

• water crisis
• microbial technology
• cloud seeding
• agriculture
• geoengineering

Keywords

• water supply
• snowpack
• biodegradable protein
• geoengineering
• cloud seeding

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Supercool Earth, EPA, TSCA

Products: Snomax

Places: California, Sierra Nevada

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