2408 - Cleaner and More Efficient Diesel Engines Through Fuel Chemistry and Catalysts with Zelkam’s Brian Livingston

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0:46Visit podverify.com if you'd like to be featured as a future guest. I'm Josh Elledge. Let's get into it. With us right now, Brian Livingston. Brian, you're the president of Zellcam. You're found on the web at zellcam.com. That's right. We're also going to give away another web page here, which is kind of cool. So just to our friend that's listening, go ahead and jot this down. We'll get back to this later. It's decarbonize5.com. We also have it linked up in the show notes. Brian, it's great to have you from Peoria, Illinois. Hey, thanks, Josh. Good to be here. Yes, likewise. It's great to have you.

1:24Before we get going, talking about your work with Zell Cam, you always love hearing what leaders do when they're not at work, what they're kind of geeking out on or into. I understand you have a gorgeous backpack trip coming up. I do. I do. Yeah. My, my older son kind of organized this thing. And so my, my younger son and myself, you know, the three of us are going to be hiking the Escalante trail in the Grand Canyon. And yeah, and I'm the old dude, I'm going to be bringing up the rear. So I am training right now. I am going out to the park every chance I get, hiking some hills, trying to get acclimated a little bit, carrying a little bit of weight.

2:05So yeah, I got some training to do. yeah how how many miles is the total trail that you're doing i think it's about 30 oh and of course you're going to be hitting some serious elevation with that as well aren't you yeah your first day you're going down 4 000 which means the last day you're going up 4 000 yeah goodness gravity going down is a good thing i like that one but yeah that last day is gonna be tough now are you are you camping are you bringing yeah yeah yeah so well we'll have everything on her back, you know, you get water almost every night. So you'd be carrying some water as well. So I'm figuring I'm going to be about 25 pounds on my back, you know, trying to get as much ultra light stuff as I can.

2:48But, you know, that's exciting. Well, congratulations on that. That sounds like a lot of sounds like a lot of fun. But I think most importantly, is it's a lot of memories. And, you know, especially if you're doing that with your sons, you know, what a what What a great time. So very, very cool. We've done some similar things in the past. So yeah, we're really looking forward to, you know, that additional bonding time we get with each other. I love it. I love it. Well, very cool. Brian, let's talk about the work you do with Zellcam. What is Zellcam? Yeah. You know, just a quick background about me.

3:22I was almost 20 years with Caterpillar in their diesel engine division. I'm a chemical engineer by schooling. So I get the chemistry and I get the diesel engines. And another quick story here about as soon as COVID began, Caterpillar fired about 4 ,000 of us to kind of make the quarter end numbers meet. And so I fished around for another job during that time, right in the middle of COVID, not so good. So I kind of got forced into this entrepreneurial thing. I never expected myself to end up here, but you got to do what you got to do. And I have found it to be just super interesting, though. And if, you know, the things you'll learn, you would just never learn if you just stayed in corporate America.

4:06So I have zero regrets, you know, about the, you know, the heartache I've gone through and the heartburn and all that. You know, I'm not going to say, oh, everything went perfect. You know, I hear a lot of people kind of, you know, make that story. And yeah, well, for most of us, it's not that way. There's a lot of school of hard knocks, lessons you learn. And I have embraced those. It has made me just a much better person, a much better businessman. And I think a bunch of matter human, frankly. Yeah. Well, okay. So explain the technology behind Zell Cam. Yeah. You know, well, we have a technology.

4:40We use a technology that helps diesel fuel burn cleaner. And, you know, there's been a lot of people before me that kind of have, hey, we've got this magic black box, you know, that helps reduce diesel. and so I kind of want to get into the chemistry weeds for just a minute because it was so helpful for me when I heard about this technology I was a bit skeptical and so I had kind of had to dig into the chemistry of it a little bit and so if you guys don't mind I'm going to share just about 30 seconds of some chemistry here. That is why we're here. Well you know it's just it's so it was so helpful for me and when I talk to the people it's really helpful to understand because is, you know, there's been a lot of, you know, jokers come along.

5:25So I'm not the first joker to come along and say, I've got this magic thing. And it's not magic. It's just chemistry and physics. And so I grab a prop here real quick. This is what the thing looks like. It looks like a copper tube filled with stuff because that's exactly what it is. You know, it's a copper tube, but it's filled with rare earth catalysts. You know, those expensive metals you hear with the, that end in IUM, rubidium, estrondium, all those things, you know, and you can see some threads on the end. And so you basically just thread this thing. You know, you put your diesel fuel in one end and it takes longer chain molecules.

5:58And by catalyzing this, the cracking them into smaller chain molecules, you get some shorter chains coming out the other end. And if you remember your high school chemistry, shorter chains of hydrocarbons burn better, more efficiently than longer chains because you don't have to break them up as much. Well, anyway, that's enough of the chemistry. You know, the outcome you get with that is about 5 % to 7 % better fuel economy, which means also 5 % to 7 % less carbon dioxide, right? And because you get a cleaner burn, you know, it's more efficient, lower emissions, all those other nasties we hear talking about, NOx and carbon monoxide and soot and particulate matter, all those are lowered as well.

6:41So anyway, you know, when I kind of, when I first heard about this, again, being a little skeptical, I did my homework on it. I studied the chemistry behind it, actually flew down to Florida and talked to the inventor in the manufacturing facility and such. And by the time I was done with all my homework and understanding the chemistry, oh, by the way, I also read through stacks of test reports. Anyway, that converted me from a skeptic to a believer in the technology. That's when I decided I needed to kind of throw my reputation and my knowledge behind this. So anyway, that's just a little bit of background.

7:16But yeah, bottom line, saving fuel while you're reducing emissions at the same time. And, you know, I think from my business perspective, what I want to do, I mean, yeah, sure, I'm selling things here. But, you know, I want people to know there's another option because most people don't know this option exists. You know, they think about efficiency. Like if you drive on the road, you see semi trucks, right? You see the skirts they use down the middle. You see the aerodynamic things on the back. You see the, you know, the hubcaps that, you know, try to make things more slicker and aerodynamic and all.

7:50Well, nobody knows that this technology exists and nobody thinks of it as an option. It's one more lever that we have, you know, to save our fuel, to use less fuel, produce more carbon dioxide, and of course, put more money to the bottom line.

8:07So is it just awareness at this point? I mean, obviously, you're not selling snake oil. I mean, this is, you have before and afters, you can show the data, you could show the savings. So I guess my question is, is, you know, why is this just not standard then? Are there any downsides? I think it's just lack of awareness. You know, it's been a small company from the beginning. And, you know, we're trying to blow that out now and just get the awareness. You know, people do ask me, what's your biggest competition? I always have to say, well, it's just lack of awareness. Nobody knows this is an option.

8:41Well, especially as of when we are recording this. It's so funny because I dare not even imagine, you know, when this airs in just a couple of weeks or whatever. You know, who knows what life is going to be like. But as of when we're recording this. Yeah, what the diesel price is going to be. Yeah, I think people in the future are going to maybe smirk at us right now. But we are getting a little bit of sticker shock from the cost of fuel. Do you mind talking about fuel price variations and the impact that that can have on large trucking company? Obviously, you come from the background of construction.

9:21I mean, these are not insignificant costs. No, they're not. Like in the trucking industry, for example, fuel is their number two cost. Their number one cost is the price of the driver. you know and the second cost though is your fuel and if you're an owner operator that's your number one cost you don't have to pay yourself and so this is significant if you take five percent out of your biggest cost and that drops straight down to the bottom line I mean that is very significant and it's uh well I got I've got some big numbers here in front of me I got some notes here the trucking industry in the U.S.

9:56uses about 42 billion gallons of fuel per year you know and If you look at it on the environmental side, that equates to, well, if we say we save 4 % on that, that gives you a carbon dioxide savings of about almost 17 million tons per year. Now, that's just one industry in one country. I've got another one, like just for a mine, just like a standard mine around the world. And mining is kind of the bread and butter, actually, because they use so much fuel. The paybacks are fabulous. Oh, by the way, I'm kind of disjointed here a little bit, but on that trucking thing, the purchase of this technology pays back in about one year on a truck.

10:49And depending on where fuel prices are, plus or minus that 12 months a little bit. And if you think about, you put your CFO hat on for a minute, you probably don't have a lot of 100 % ROI projects sitting at your desk waiting to be approved. And in the mining industry, it's usually more like three, four, 500%, getting your money back three, four, five times every year. So like on an average size mine, you can save almost a half a million gallons of diesel every year. My goodness. Yeah, which is close to$2 million, just for an average size mine. And so, yeah, I mean, this stuff is real. There's real savings.

11:31And as I mentioned earlier, I got this large stack of reports, you know, that come from other customers, that come from a lot of laboratories. You know, millions have been spent on this long ago on testing or proving it works. Most everybody wants to test it themselves. That's human psychology. I get that. And I help customers go through that. Because when a lot of people hear this, they were the same reaction as I had at the beginning. And he said, wait a minute, you know, how can this be true? You know, like I worked for Caterpillar, the largest heavy duty diesel manufacturer in the world, you know, and to my knowledge, we didn't know about it.

12:09And so I understand the skepticism, you know, and for you listening or watching, I get the skepticism. I was totally with you. Give me a call. I'll step you through it. Yeah. Well, you've got some calculators, too. So the website I mentioned that we have in the show notes, decarbonize5.com, what are these calculators? What do they figure out for someone? Yeah, you can put in some things about your fleet, you know, or your particular machine. You know, if you're a small operator, that's fine. And then kind of put, there's a guy got a slider on there. You can kind of assume what your savings is going to be.

12:42You know, I'm telling you five to 7%. You can zip it all the way down to five or be optimistic at seven, whatever you want. It's going to calculate how much money you can save, how many gallons of fuel you can save. But the trickier calculation is how many tons of CO2 you can save. One of my favorite people to talk to actually is the poor beleaguered decarbonization champion that almost every company has. And he's given lots of goals, he or she, actually a lot of females in that role. But no budget. you know, we want you to bring all these numbers down, but yeah, you can't have much money to do it.

13:19And I really love talking to those people because I can give them a project that helps them meet their goals, but also delivers a substantial cost reduction for the operations department. Yeah. And it's a whole lot easier to sell a project that it is, you know, that actually makes money, you know, instead of one that just costs money. Yeah. Well, Brian, also Zellcam.com, do you mind sharing, you know, other kind of next steps that you'd recommend for a friend that's been listening to our conversation? Yeah, well, actually going to decarbonize five, it's kind of a shortcut, if you will, because you can actually do the calculations yourself, decide if this is, you know, worth your time.

14:02And if it is, you know, there's a thing at the bottom just scheduled directly on me to have a talk with me because I love talking to people. But the website is very informative. It goes down and it kind of breaks up into the various industries. So it gives you just a quick statement of what we do. But then we do a deep dive into each industry, whether you're in maritime or electrical power generation, mining, locomotives, rail, all those things. So I kind of break them out so you can see what it means for you and your industry a little more of your language yeah yeah maritime oof that's got to be another one where they can save a ton of money potentially yeah oh yeah those things drink a lot of diesel going across the ocean uh-huh brian livingston zell cam.com and decarbonize five the number five.com uh for the free calculators uh brian's been a fascinating conversation.

14:59Keep, I'll tell you what, keep, keep saving these companies money. That's my intention. Less, you know, less we have to rely and more we can, you know, kind of save on our fuel costs, the better. So appreciate you sharing your wisdom and please do enjoy your upcoming backpacking trip. I'm going to. Thanks, Josh. Thanks so much.