Welcome to the Pyramid Insider. I'm Tyler Patner. Today we're going to be taking a look at a brand-new one from Air Force Air Guns, the Texan SS in 457. So we saw the Texan SS at the Shacho 2017 back in January, and now it's finally here. Not a lot of changes from the traditional Texan platform, at least from the back half of the gun. You're still talking about a 490cc bottle, the same non-adjustable trigger as you're going to find on the rest of the Air Force line, side cocking mechanism and single loading, of course, which all functions flawlessly. The Texan is a tried-and-true platform at this point, with the 45 caliber being the most popular of the three. So the Texan SS made sense to come out in that 45 caliber. Now, what Air Force has changed about this gun, of course, is a shorter barrel. So we're going from 34 inches to 24 and 3 quarter inches and, of course, a full-length shroud system that's going to sit off the front of the barrel, making the total gun about 45 inches. The Moniker SS fits on many of the Air Force guns. They have an Escape SS, a Talon SS, a Condor SS, and now, of course, the Texan SS. SS standing for super silent, meaning that the gun is supposed to be quieter than the non-trouted version. Now with the small bore guns, that's always proven to be very true, and in all cases, they're very, very quiet. But we don't know how that's going to happen with a big bore here. We have a very large shroud, a lot of volume. It is a very large diameter can here. And you have about four baffles inside, as best as I can tell, that should dampen the noise significantly. Now, I'm going to guess that we're talking still on the relative loud side for most air gunners out there. Probably not going to be a backyard friendly gun, but for those of you that are hunting out in the field, using this in big, wide open spaces, this is going to alleviate the need for hearing protection, which is something that, quite frankly, I don't like wearing big earphones, and I don't find that the little earbuds do it for me in most cases, especially when you're talking about guns that go over 120 decibels, for example, like the normal Texans do. So this SS model should give us the ability to remove that hearing protection, as well as keep a little bit of that silence factor, especially if we're going after some larger game. Now, we're going to take the Texan SS out to the range, put it through the normal battery of tests. We got a couple of bullets lined up. I've already done a little bit of pre-shooting, haven't put it on our sound meter yet, and obviously haven't chronographed it yet for you guys either. So they're claiming 400 foot-pounds out of this, and you really shouldn't see any diminished accuracy with that shorter barrel, but we're going to find out what it does at 45 yards. Let's head out to the range and check it out. All right, guys, before we get to the accuracy and the velocities and all that stuff, you'll notice I'm not wearing hearing protection. With the SS, it's really not needed, in my opinion, even though we are in a pretty tight confined space. So if you're going to be outside, you're probably not going to need hearing protection, at least I wouldn't. But right now indoors, with the noise bouncing off the walls, it's definitely a little bit louder than it's going to be outside. And we're going to throw it on the sound meter compared to a regular Texan and show you guys that difference. But just my take on it, don't need hearing protection, which means that SS is doing its job well. So let's head down range and see what we can do with these slugs. All right, guys, so we tested pretty much all the ammo options that we offer here at Pyramid in this 457 size. Came down to four that basically did the best for us out of the Texan SS here. First off, they got the JSB, the 234 grain, XXLs. About an inch and a quarter group, maybe a little bit smaller than that and 323 foot-pounds. So definitely moving pretty good, although not our most accurate option. You do have the 350 grainers coming in right again about an inch and a quarter or so and generating 431 foot-pounds. That's a lot of power and our most powerful projectile here out of this Texan SS, but still not terribly satisfied with the group. And then coming in at 407 foot-pounds is that 411 grain slug. That's a big freaking chunk of lead, guys. Pretty impressive results, obviously three shots with one going into that same hole there. This is going to be a lot of power and very accurate, but our most accurate is definitely going to be the 405 grain, 406 foot-pounds of energy out of the 405s, about 670 feet per second at their highest. Guys, this is absolutely phenomenal grouping right here out of this Texan SS. Again, about three shots is what you're going to get on a fill from something this heavy, but awesome groups. Definitely get yourself some of these 405s and the 411s if you're going to get you a Texan SS. All right, guys. You'll notice we use the 357 Texan and not a 457 Texan here for the untrouted testing purely because it's what we had on hand. The 457 is definitely a little bit louder in that untrouted version, but that said, if we look at the audio files here, you can see just how much higher those peaks are for the sound on the 357 untrouted Texan versus the Texan SS. So while that 5 dB difference may not seem like that much, it's actually very significant. It's a completely different sound profile, which really gives the Texan SS a huge advantage. All right, guys. So to wrap things up on the Texan SS here, obviously very impressive results downrange. 45 yards, half inch group, basically clover leaf in them at that 45 yard mark with 400 plus foot-pounds at the muzzle. These 405s, the 411 grain slugs definitely going to be the ones to get. The 350s are all right and they do produce a little bit more energy, but I'm sticking to those 400 plus grain slugs. They are very impressive downrange. One thing definitely want to note there, we did three shot groups, obviously. The gun only does about three shots per fill. You're sure you could eke out a fourth if you really had to in the field, but for our purposes to get that best accuracy, we're refilling after three. So that's why we did three shot groups. Overall, though, I got to say that SS, the super silent, the sound moderator on the end of this guys is doing its job well. To be able to take the earphones off and be able to shoot comfortably without any hearing protection is a big plus in my book. And if you're looking for some extra self in the field, this is definitely going to give it to you without compromising too much in the way of power. So if you are going after some big game or if you want to shoot long range with the Air Force air gun, the Texan SS is definitely going to be one to check out and compare. As always, guys, we want to hear back from you. Tell us what you thought of the video and if there's anything else you'd like to see, comment down below. Don't forget to subscribe, hit us with that like button. For the insider, I'm Tyler Patner. We'll see you guys at the next one.


This is Beyond the Lines on Think Tech, Hawaii. I was the head coach of the Puneville Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championships. My books Beyond the Lines and Beyond the Game are about leadership, creating a superior culture of excellence, and finding greatness, which is what this show is all about. My special guest today is the anchor on KHON2 News and the owner of the very popular Cole Academy. She is Gina Mangieri, and today we are going Beyond Journalism. Hey, Gina, welcome to the show. Good morning, Rusty. Thank you so much for having me. Now, Gina, can you tell me about your background and where you grew up at? Sure. I grew up on the mainland in a small mountain town outside of Denver called Morrison Colorado, and I was the daughter of a journalist, a newspaper woman, and of a builder, my dad. After journalism, my mom went into her own business, a retail store. My father had always sort of been in his own line of work building different things around the city there, and so I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family. My sister and I, my mom and my dad, so when we were always worked together and always contributed back to the family business in one way or another, and I think between those two things, between growing up with a journalist to influence me and also being in a family business where the work never ends, it seems I've carried that into my own life with my family these days. Well, you are definitely one of the highly respected journalists here in Hawaii, and I want to know, what is it about journalism that interested you in the beginning? Sure. Well, in the very beginning, I learned to read that way, that's how my mom would pull pages from the newspaper and didn't have us read, learn to read that way, but also to have the discussions as a family about civics, about local government, about news and topics that we saw in the newspaper. You know, I can remember back in, oh gosh, being a little, little kid in the 70s and reading about Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan and all of that, and he started growing up talking about national politics, local politics, but really, as I pursued it as my own career too, and especially the investigative journalism that I do, it's to be able to serve a community purpose, to be the fourth estate, to hold government accountable, to right wrongs, to find where wrongs, you know, maybe be hiding or hiding in plain sight and to help give voice to the voiceless. So journalism has such an important role now more than ever in our communities, locally and nationally. I totally agree. And Gina, you have a beautiful family, your husband and your two sons. How did you and your husband meet? Well, these days, I can say we met the old fashioned way in a smoky bar. He came up to talk to me in a bar in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. I worked at a newspaper down there. Gannett had a newspaper had been in Washington, DC, just prior to that. And they had a great little newspaper down in the St. Thomas of all places that was doing pretty good investigative work. So I went down there as an editor and had real terrible hours. You know, you work from late afternoon to really late at night, went to the local bar with my colleague, one of the girls who edited with me and caught a drink and met my husband there and he's a boat captain. And, you know, one thing leads to another. And we couple, you know, within a year or two were engaged and said, you know, where can we live that we both can have our careers? I had never really thought of myself as an island girl, certainly not an island that small for a long time. So we needed to find a place that was a big enough city for me and the kind where I could do the sort of journalism that I wanted to do for the long haul and also a place that he could do his job, which is hospitality and ocean recreation. And so Honolulu was the perfect fit for us. Gina, he has a very successful boat business. Can you tell me about that? Sure, it's called Hawaii Nautical and it is in its 20th year this year. What a year to be turning 20. But it's it's been it's been quite a ride. Wonderful company, full of wonderful people of all different ages and talents and captains and crew and reservation experts and hospitality professionals. And it's 10 boats across two islands serving all of Oahu and also Kona and the Kohala areas of the Big Island. Well, I love hearing that. And and Gina, I love watching your always investigating segments. And I want to ask you, why do you think your segments are so popular among so many viewers in our community? Well, we really spend a lot of time. I get the good fortune of of a long time on in TV time, so to speak. It's in my my stories tend to be two or even three times longer than the average TV story might be. So I've always thought of myself as as a newspaper girl, even though I've been with KHON for almost 18 years now, I still think of myself as the newspaper girl I was back in the beginning of my career. And so I like to write. I like to investigate. I like to dig and research a lot. So I think one of the big reasons is there's a lot of information in there. There's a lot of detail and scope and context that we have the time to give. And also we ask the questions. I think that that the people want to ask no magic formula there. I'm you know, nothing that takes takes any kind of mystery formula. But it's the kind of things you might shout at your own television if you were wanting to know why in the world is that happening that way? Or how could that be? And simply being able to ask the people having the access to ask the people in power. Why is this so and what can you do about it? And I've always tried to be tough, certainly, but fair and kind. You know, and it's not that when you when you're doing investigative journalism, you don't have to be mean or harsh about it. You can ask tough questions in a very respectful way because we're both going for the same thing. Even if someone has done something supposedly wrong or there could be a better way. Generally, it's well-meaning people. Even, you know, even even even when they might be doing making the best choices. And together, we can get to a better result. And so I've always tried to hold that respect as well, even when the might seem like a confrontational topic. No reason to be confrontational in the in the interview process. Well, you're right. I do like it when you ask those tough questions and I'm sure they don't like it. But Gina, I want to know of the thousands of stories that you've covered. What's one of the most meaningful, impactful stories that that really sticks out to you?  I would have to say that this year wins out among anything else because there's so much information, so much potential for misinformation. And so many times where we have to really read between the lines to borrow a phrase from, you know, the title of your book to say, what? Well, OK, what what is that? There's a spike in numbers. OK, but what does that mean? And like take our most recent spike, for instance, big, big numbers in the summer. But thankfully, most of them, the majority of them were younger, generally healthier and generally recovered much more quickly. Now, it's hard to see that when the big, you know, some of the more tragic news can grab the headlines and it's still very important the tragic deaths that mount at a nursing home, for example. But that has to be balanced with looking at what the reality is as well in terms of for the vast majority people, they're going to be OK. And for the small minority of people, they're going to be very, very sick. And we need to help those people while still freeing up our economy to safely a handle the rest of us who may generally come through it in the end. And so how do you balance that without falling into that political shout match dialogue? You can see so easily on Facebook, right? Oh, it's just the flu. No, it's not just the flu. It's worse than that. But by the same token, we can live with it. And so I think trying every day to tiptoe that line down the middle to say it's a little bit of both and how to safely get through that. I think that's how I can continue to be the most impactful through this pandemic is communicating clearly and concisely. Well, you are fantastic, Gina. And you and my buddy, Justin Cruz, I mean, you guys are very popular, super terrific on the news anchor desk together. Why do you guys make such a great team? You know, Justin has been part of my life in one way or another for more than 20 years. Back when I first came to Hawaii, I was the editor at Pacific Business News and he was in the same building as I was down when he was at the radio station. So we were elevator buddies. I'd see him on the way to get a snack downstairs and just always thought the world of him, you know, who wouldn't?  And as I got to know him more when he came to Channel Two, I saw we've kind of lived parallel lives.  You know, we're about the same age. We sort of grew up in sort of the same everything from the music we grew up with to our experiences with family businesses. Even find these funny intersections in our lives sometimes turns out he was in the musical Annie in high school and so was I. So I rib him that sometimes we're going to have to reprise our roles from our from our illustrious musical careers. So even to this day, I continue to be surprised how much overlap we have in our lives. And I think we just sink up really well there. And we both fundamentally, I think, have the same belief in serving our community and informing people clearly and concisely, even on really scary things. And he's the master of that, right? Hurricanes, you know, he's the guy you want to watch. He's going to tell you what's happening, not scary and not sensationalize it. No, nothing about ratings there. Just give you the information you need to know straightforward. No, I like I like hearing that, Gina. And I want to know if you really look deeply, you know, into yourself, why do you think you're such a successful journalist and TV anchor? Oh, gosh, I don't know about the TV part. I've always wondered that myself, too, because again, as I said, I'm just I'm just a newspaper girl in a TV world, so I can't explain the television part. But I think from journalism, you know, it really is journalism for journalism's sake. You know, I never wanted to be in TV to be an anchor. I wasn't about, you know, image or being on TV or that or that for me. This just happens to be one of the mediums that I've been able to practice my craft in. And these days, of course, online, too, we could still write a lot and type up a lot of longer pieces that we put up on air, too. So the television part I think is, you know, this just happens to be the way that we are communicating right now. But the journalism part at its core, it's how can I best amass a whole lot of information, simplify it as much as possible for the broader community and get the questions answered and most importantly, get access to the people who need to be the ones answering those questions and solve some problems. So I think it's that part of it. It's it's doing the job of journalism with the end result in mind. What's the problem? How am I going to fix it? And who do I need to reach to hold them accountable to do that? That makes sense. And Gina, it seems like you guys have such a great culture of excellence among your co-workers at KH1 too. Well, why is that? I think we really are working for Hawaii. That's, you know, a tagline, but it's it's not. It was crafted from us, from ourselves, from talking together, not handed to us from a consultant or that it's I can remember over the years that really developing and say, well, what do we do? Well, we get up every morning and we we work for you, for our community. What does our community need to know to keep, especially these days to keep you and your family safe? We've had so many just crazy things, if you think over the years, lava flows and rain bombs on Kauai and hurricanes and pandemics. I mean, just take the natural disasters alone. That takes a whole community to stay in touch about how we can best keep each other safe. And then you think of the really big issues in our community, whether it's, you know, rail here on on Oahu or issues with with how and when the neighbor islands are going to more open to tourism safely in the face of a pandemic that largely has avoided them. Thank goodness. You know, so I think when you look at what we do, we think about that every day as a team, and then we just all jump in. There is, you know, we have, of course, as every business does, you have meetings in the morning about who's going to do what. But throughout the day, it's just constant communication. Oh, I can do that. I can grab that. Hey, did you hear this? Oh, I hear you're working on a story about that. Here's here's a phone number. Everybody's always throwing stuff in the stew together. And everyone really does jump in when they're needed to. I think that culture is it's never just a one and done for us as a team. It's constantly contributing and weighing in with each other about how we can do it better day to day. Well, and Gina, as you know, you know, I talked about, you know, creating that superior culture of excellence in my books, and I know you have my books and I want to know what principles stood out to you in my books. Well, one of the things I think they jumped out to me immediately is your four P's. I have four P's as well in our business. They're different, but but I could see where they really align.  We weigh everything on the four P's of people. We started with people as well. Partners also, if you think of especially this is real business oriented, right?  OK, I used to when we first started out thinking that third P was was profit, but that was too narrow. Profit might be good for me, but come at the expense of my people. They need to be prosperous. So we changed profit pretty early on to the concept of prosperity. Of course, the business needs to make money, but so do the people. That's why we pay our minimum wage is far above a minimum wage. It's the living wager above, right? There has to be prosperity. And finally, perpetuity. Can we do this for the long haul forever or whatever forever means, right? So in the ocean activity business, it's we don't swim with dolphins. We don't swim with man arrays. We don't use plastics and things that can pollute because that's not sustainable. That's we can't have perpetuity doing that. Might be able to make a lot of money, but it can't be done forever. You know, and same thing in for the preschools, perpetuity might mean something different over the years there. It's been making sure we look at the kinds of locations and the kinds of whether it's the physical structures, the security, certainly these days, the precautions against pandemics and what the future might bring for us there to say, how can this keep going safely for the long haul? So those are our four P's. I think that really synced up to me and I loved reading yours. And now I have eight P's. Well, Gina, I love your four P's there and it makes sense.  I want to know why why did you start the Cole Academy? Sure. Well, my husband and I are stay at work parents. You see, I always wish I could be a stay at home mom. I just never had that luxury. And so as stay at work parents, we needed to have a way when our first son Cole was coming along. Now, almost 18 years ago, he's almost off to college. And we said, you know, as stay at work parents, what do we want in early childhood education and in infant care? Most importantly, I only had six week of maternity leave back from the newspaper back in the day. And there at that time, there wasn't a lot of options for center based downtown specifically infant care that worked the hours that we needed to work. And so we started it. We started the Cole Academy downtown so that working moms and dads, grandparents and aunties and uncles, for that matter, could have a place where they could safely rely on us from bell to bell all day long, all year long, too. So you'll only see us closed on the big holidays when, you know, when the workers also have off maybe a fourth of July or Christmas Eve and Christmas day, but we don't disappear for a summer break or a spring break or fall. We're there when parents need to work. So the first campus opened downtown and then five more over the years through the different communities and into the into the suburban communities and even one off island on the big island.  What do you think are the reasons for its success? The people, my number one, the people for sure. And their consistency and their excellence at what they do day in and day out.  And when we were first forming the Coal Academy, we knew what we needed as parents and we knew we could handle the concept as a business in terms of finding a location, dealing with leasing, getting loans, those kind of things. That was our area of expertise. But we weren't educators and we needed to bring on the experts to turn that part of it over to and truly did. And from day one and to this day, Emily, our CEO, who has that background in that education, and she ran large center based care on the mainland before coming back home to Hawaii. She's a Hawaii girl born and raised and moved back home to Hawaii with her husband just as we were forming the Coal Academy. And you can see us sort of in parallel, us thinking, OK, we want this formal, high end, center based, safe, you know, bell to bell downtown oriented center, but it hadn't been done before. And Emily coming back from from, in her case, Portland, Oregon, running large centers there, her probably saying the same thing. Look at my skills. What am I going to do here? It doesn't exist here. So it was the perfect timing and the perfect marriage where she could continue what she was doing and bring that level of expertise to Hawaii and grow it from there. So she's just amazing and has has formed that education team, which grew at this point into six directors of campuses. Picture, they call it a principal of a preschool is essentially is a director. And then they hire all of their caregivers and their teachers from there. So it is it is those people, those dedicated, early childhood education professionals, they're not babysitters, they're teachers, they're caregivers. And they take that to heart. And boy, have we seen that in the pandemic, what excellence can really do. We never shut down. We couldn't or among the most essential of the businesses. How can the doctors and the grocers and the EMS workers, you know, and the nursing home workers, for that matter, get to where they need to be if we weren't there and Emily and her team kept it going without missing a beat safely and is just an astounding example of what can be done. Well, you're so right, Gina, about, you know, it's about the people and really having great leadership and what do you what do you feel the best leaders do? I think they are servant leaders. They lead from from behind. They encourage their people to find their passion, to work in their passion and to find that purpose, you know, every day and to fuel that for for the people. And something really jumped out at me from your book when you talk about discipline, not being disciplinary, it's not punishment, it's repetition. It's it's it's perfecting what you do to the extent that perfection can always be out there on the horizon, right? But it is it is the discipline to continue to do every single day what you do. And again, there's no we talked about this with the television, even with the television formula to there's no secret sauce to what we're doing, there's no magic formula. Our competition can see every day what we do. So when when what you do is not top secret, the only way you can succeed relative to the competition is to just do it better and more consistently. Yeah, I totally agree with you.   But again, have to be this whole year of 2020. I think this is going to be and has been for all of us. Where were you when it happened moment, you know, in the last ones before that for our economy being sort of the 9 11 moments, you know, so certainly this year has been the most adversity that we've ever faced as business owners, as parents of kids in the other room doing their online schooling. It's it's one challenge after another and one opportunity after another to just continue to test your resilience. And just when you think you're tired from your ultra marathon, you know, you've got another 26 miles ahead of you for another lap. Just pick it up and do it again. So I think this covid has tested all of us past the point, past the breaking point. If you had asked in March, would you be still, you know, running at full speed? Could you be? I think I probably would have said no, there's no way. There's no way I can make it to September. Especially when you look at the boat businesses, we were shut down for months, open for a sliver of time, shut down again. If you had told us in March, you're not going to really be in business until probably October would have been a, you know, soul crushing moment. I think none of us believed back then it would go on so long and it has. So you just you keep on going. I know it'll be in retrospect that we all learn really how we did keep going. But it's a matter of continuing to pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Take help when it's offered. We've never been ones to reach out for help or ask for a dime that we didn't deserve. But, you know, in these days when when the the rescue loans, whether it's the payroll protection loans or some small grants along the way happened, that's been helpful for many small businesses, including ours. But again, it's it's those people being able to go to work every single day. Let's take, for example, the the news station or at the preschools, essential workers in both cases.  Of course, personal safety number one. And then for those who had to be shut down by order of the government and the boat business, hang in there. Oh, my gosh, how? When am I ever going to be able to give back to my career? They're asking, will I ever sail again? And keeping keeping the momentum up there somehow, despite the shutdown, keep that sense of ohana and teamwork. It's been a challenge. We've managed to do it. The team is still intact to this day, despite being shut down in March in the hospitality business. It's remarkable to me that they've all hung in there. Well, you know, you're right. We learn a lot about ourselves during adversity, you know, because when we get through it, when we deal with it and get through it, we become better people for going through that experience. And, you know, it's it's a mindset. It's it's having the right perspective and it's having, you know, a choice that we all have, you know, that power to choose what we wanted. You know, how we want to achieve what we want to achieve. Gina, I want to ask you one more question before we wrap up. What what gives you fulfillment? The success of our people with the businesses gives gives me great fulfillment. The excess of the success of my people, my family people gives me tremendous fulfillment to see, you know, my husband enjoying what he's doing, to see my kids grow into their own individual young men with just amazing interests and pursuits that I could have never imagined for either of them. And to see them becoming their own their own young adults gives me tremendous joy and excitement.  And it's I feel like I'm applying for college again with him. It's such a joy. And my younger one is just continues to astound us all with his creativity. He's a little artist and just an amazing person to be around as is the older brother with his.  But just as I take great joy in them finding their way and finding their person, I really do think that about all two hundred and fifty of our employees across both family companies, they tend to be the older I get the younger they seem, but they tend to be younger people generally who are, you know, the world is their oyster. And I'm so sad that they've had to go through what they had to go through early in their careers with this COVID thing. But my husband and I can give him a few pearls of wisdom. You know, we did survive as a business through 9-11, through the 2008 and 9 crashes and little bumps and bruises along the way with the economy. And we have told them from the beginning, it's going to be OK. You're going to get there. OK, keep doing what you're doing and we'll be here. And, you know, we may cry ourselves to sleep at night wondering how we're going to be there, but they don't have to see that part. We're going to get them through somehow. And it brings me great pride and tremendous personal happiness when they succeed. Well, Gina, you know, it's been fantastic having you on the show today. I mean, you're making such a great impact in our community in more ways than anyone and really want to thank you for taking time to be on the show today. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And thank you for watching Beyond the Lines on Think Tech White. For more information, please visit RustyKamori.com. And my books are available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. I hope that Gina and I will inspire you to create your own superior culture of excellence and to find your greatness and help others find theirs. Aloha.


land to compensate for the additional tax that they will be paying. That is hardly surprising when someone earning £50,000 a year will be paying over £1,500 more in tax compared to someone south of the border. That simple illustration puts into context all that we have heard from the SNP messages this afternoon about some of the so-called benefits from their approach, because clearly that is not seen by many of the people out in the real world who might be attracted otherwise to come and work in Scotland. There might be some justification for the approach that we have outlined by the SNP if people really felt that they were getting good value for money. According to an opinion poll published earlier this month, by a margin of two to one, people in Scotland do not believe that the additional taxes that they are paying represent good value for money. Even on the SNP benches, we are starting to hear those who are raising concern about the tax differential. Kate Forbes was in the press a few weeks ago, describing continually increasing taxes as ultimately counterproductive. Even the former finance secretary, Derek Mackay, understood that equation. What a pity that the current incumbent of that office does not get that higher taxes do not necessarily lead to greater revenues. Can I thank you for taking intervention? He has carefully avoided mentioning the fact that the Tories have now got the highest tax burden since the Second World War. As well as the differential that he mentions, and he also never mentions a £400-500 less council tax in Scotland, will he at least acknowledge the base that the UK level has set in terms of the highest tax burden since the Second World War? Mr Brown makes the point about the tax burden. He seems to forget what we have had over the past few years. We had Covid when the entire economy was closed down and had to be supported by the Government borrowing money to support the economy, to support the furlough scheme, to support the very generous business support and individual support payments that were made to keep the country going. At least he is not suggesting that that is a bad idea. Of course, we had the invasion by Russia of Ukraine that had a devastating effect on the world economy. Again, the Government had to borrow money in terms of giving cost of living payments to many of our constituents who benefited from those payments. Of course, the Government had to borrow money, and when the Government borrowed money eventually, it had to pay it back. It should recognise that particular point. I have already taken an intervention. I might get away to Mr Swinney later if I have time. However, the fiscal commission pointed out that behaviour change will wipe out many of the potential gains from higher taxes on higher earners. It was an argument that was made many years ago by the economist Art Laffer, and it is true today as when he made it. I am used to hearing that argument in this chamber all the time from Alex Salmond. I know that we are not allowed to mention his name any more, Presiding Officer, but he used to mention it all the time. That seems to have been erased from the memory of the current SNP front bench. If he were to grow the economy, we would have more tax revenues. Instead, we see a real risk of higher earners leaving Scotland or not coming here in the first place. We are hearing about a boom in property sales in Northumberland and towns such as Berwick on Tweed, as the Scottish Government is creating tax exiles and then losing out on vital tax revenue as a result. Capital by £1.6 billion over the next three years will help to boost economic growth. I have to say to Mr Gibson that if he had done his homework and looked at the whole plethora of cuts being delivered by the SNP Government right across the economy and fair work portfolio, he would have a real brass neck to raise that particular question with us, given what is in the Government's support. What we see in the budget is simply a long list of cuts. No, thank you. Cuts to local government. We see right across the country, local services being cut, local services disappearing, libraries being closed and Mr Swinney's constituency, letter centres being closed, public toilets being closed, cuts to educational support staff, cuts to teachers and SNP-run Glasgow. 172 teaching jobs to go in Glasgow is city run by the SNP council appointment, made very strongly by Pam Goswell. All thanks to the choices of this SNP Government, Presiding Officer, those are cuts being handed down to them. When it comes to capital, we see cuts in funding of 26 per cent in housing at very time when we see homelessness at record levels. It cuts of 75 per cent in the Just Transition Fund, a total freezing of the NHS capital programme, meaning long-awaited patient treatment centres in cities such as Perth, not now proceeding. Health centres, long-awaited health centres, places like Lockhill and Concardin, not now being delivered. Of course, the SNP is trying to flag criticism. Yes, I'll give way. That's Mr Swinney. It's so persistent. I'm grateful to Mr Fraser for giving way. In responding to the intervention from my colleague Keith Brown, Mr Fraser mentioned some of the major difficulties that have faced the United Kingdom economy, Covid and Ukraine, and I agree with him that those are big factors. Would you now like to apologise for his support for Liz Truss's economic madness? Mr Swinney was the education secretary in the SNP Government. At the time when we have now had the result, the average child in Scotland is one year behind the equivalent child in England. If anyone makes it, you may apologise to Liz Truss. It's Mr Swinney for his record as education secretary when he was in the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government tried their best to deflect criticism and put the blame on Westminster for those cuts. Even if we accept that the capital budget has been reduced, it is down 10 per cent in real terms. How does that equate to a cut of 100 per cent in the NHS capital budget, or a 75 per cent in just transition funding, or a 26 per cent in affordable housing? You cannot take a 10 per cent cut and turn it into a 100 per cent cut in all those areas with any credibility and justification, but most worrying of all has been the cut in relation to the economy, fair work and energy portfolio. We know that this has been downgrading in the recent Scottish Government reshuffle, lumped in with net zero and environment, and perhaps that's no wonder. With an 8.7 per cent real terms cut across that portfolio, tourism down 12.3 per cent, enterprise trading investment down 16.7 per cent, Scottish national investment bank down 29.2 per cent, employability down 24.2 per cent, all the measures that could help with economic growth are being cut in this budget. This is a Government that has no interest whatsoever in promoting economic growth in creating jobs or supporting household incomes. This is a budget that has no friends outside this chamber. It has no interest group outside this chamber telling us to support this budget. It is a budget delivering real pain for communities across Scotland who will lose vital services, a budget hiking taxes on hardworking families but delivers no benefit to them as a consequence. It is a budget that fails Scotland and it is a budget that we should reject. Thank you and I call on the cabinet secretary to wind up up to 10 minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. First of all, let me thank all contributions this afternoon from members across the chamber. I'll come back to some of them in a moment. Through this budget, we can show the breakdown and allocation between different portfolios and areas of activity within them. We're very cognisant, though, that in practice there will be areas that overlap in how they affect people, which is why we always consider our budgeting in the round. Of course, we always reflect on the priorities of the people of Scotland as we set budgets and will continue to seek new ways to engage with as wide an array of people and interests as possible as we work towards future budgets. As I set out, this budget, in difficult circumstances, prioritises front-line spend. I'll come back to that in a moment. However, there is a theme that we've heard throughout this budget process. The theme is that the members, particularly in Opposition Benches, focus on areas where difficult decisions have been made, with less focus, of course, where funding has increased in those front-line services. A refusal to bring alternative spending plans on any aspect of the budget, and of course not being straight with the public on pretending that you can cut taxes while increasing public spending at the same time. I'm afraid that that is not credible and it does not work. Whether it's Labour's £560 million that they would have to find through reductions in spending in order to fund their tax cuts, and of course what we've heard from UK Labour is a commitment to continue with Tory spending plans. The idea that there is any more money for health or housing or anything else is misrepresentation to say the least. Of course, the Tories, who have said essentially that they want to return to UK tax levels, would lose the Scottish budget £1.5 billion of revenues. Can you imagine the impact that that would have, whether it's on employability or areas of the economy or on housing or health or anything else? I think that we need a bit more transparency from the opposition here when it comes to the budget setting process. I want to turn to a couple of areas. First of all, on health, there was an interesting difference of opinion even on the front bench of the Labour benches on health. Daniel Johnson at least acknowledged that the health budget had increased while we heard Jackie Baillie and Michael Marra saying the opposite within the very same debate. The truth of the matter is not in a moment, because she didn't to me, but if I have time I may. An extra half a billion pounds for front-line NHS boards with total investment of £13.2 billion and an above inflation increase of 4 per cent in contrast to the UK Government's real terms cut. That's before, of course, we look at in-year revenues going to health, which of course depend on whether we get agenda for change pay consequentials from the UK Government. That, of course, we will pass every penny on to the NHS as we have done. An additional £230 million to support a minimum of £12 an hour for adult social care workers, a 10.1 per cent increase for all eligible workers, something that you would think would you not that the Labour benches would welcome and vote for, but they are voting against that proposition, which is quite astonishing. I also want to turn to the affordable housing supply programme, because it encapsulates again the refusal of the opposition to recognise the impact, not just of the 10 per cent cut in the capital budget, but the cut in financial transactions capital, which has had a devastating impact, £290 million less through financial transactions, which was underpinning the affordable housing supply programme. Just two weeks ago, a further 64 million cut to financial transactions directly impacting on the affordable housing supply programme, so it is not just the 10 per cent cut in capital, it is all the other cuts that undermine our ability to deliver. Of course, we have a good track record of delivery on affordable housing and one that we are determined to continue. As I have said, and I will say again, if we get additional capital at the spring budget next week, then of course the priority will be the affordable housing supply programme, because we recognise the importance of continuing with this Government's record on delivery, higher than anywhere else in the islands of affordable housing and of course the impact that that can have on homelessness. Let me turn to some of the other points. Liz Smith talked about Scotland's economic performance and of course there is always an attempt on the Tory benches to talk down Scotland's economic performance while presiding over a recession with economic commentators all to an institution saying exactly the same thing. The IMF of all organisations, the OBR, the IFS, the Resolution Foundation, talking about Tory economic incompetence of tax cuts instead of public spending. If that happens at next week's spring budget, it will be an outrage and will further compound the economic incompetence of the Tory Government. I'll give way to Liz Smith. I'm grateful to the cabinet secretary giving way, but I know full well that there are concerns within our own party about the comments that are forthcoming from so many in the business community just now about the increasing tax differentials and the difficulty that that is presenting to Scotland in terms of recruiting new labour that we absolutely desperately have in Scotland's powerhouse industries. We can't get some of these. These are not our comments. These are coming across the business community right left and centre and that's why this budget has had such a negative reaction. Let me say two things about that. Of course the Scottish Fiscal Commission built in the assumptions in terms of behavioural change. HMRC are doing a lot of in-depth work, which of course will pay close attention to, but the NRS data shows net immigration to Scotland, something again that the Tories just doesn't fit with their narrative so they can't bring themselves to welcome the fact that more people from the rest of the UK make an active choice to come and settle here. Why do they do that? Well, they do it because of free tuition, of the free supports that are given, but also the social contract where whether it's child care, there is a better offer and local services give a better offer to people. That is why we see people coming here from the rest of the UK to locate in Scotland and the Tories of course cannot bring themselves. Of course in terms of Scotland's economic performance, earnings in Scotland have grown by 8 per cent in 2023, faster than in any other part of the UK, including London and the south-east, providing much-needed revenues for our tax base, so it doesn't fit with the Tory narrative, but these are the facts about the performance of the Scottish economy. For once it would be refreshing to hear the Tories welcome some of those aspects. No, I don't have a lot of time. I will just gently say to Alex Cole-Hamilton when he talked about liberal budgets. We know what the last liberal budget looked like when it was part of a Tory liberal coalition that butchered welfare spending in the UK Government, which people are still seeing the consequences of whether it's the rape clause or the two-child limit. So we know what liberal budgets look like, so we'll take no lessons from Alex Cole-Hamilton very briefly. I'm very grateful for the cabinet secretary allowing me to interrupt yet another bizarre tirade from prominent SNP politician. She mentioned the rape clause. Rape clause did not come in under the Lib Dems.  My goodness. Let's hear Mr Cole-Hamilton. My goodness, can't you see the tempering influence we held over that Government? Cabinet Secretary, I'm really not sure what to say other than if that's the best the Liberals can do to stop the worst successes of a Tory Government by propping up that Tory Government, then we know what happens when you vote Liberal Democrat. Like Kenny Gibson, I'm still waiting for any alternative budget proposals. He reminded the chamber quite rightly of the impact of the trust's budget, which is, of course, the leadership of the Tories in this place were urging and demanding in fact that we follow. He also, of course, quite rightly reminded the chamber of the position of local authorities down south, eight councils in England going bankrupt compared to record funding here in Scotland of £14 billion, a real terms increase to local government, even setting aside the money for the council tax freeze. Of course, isn't it ironic from the Tory benches that the only council so far to not freeze the council tax is the Tory Liberal Coalition in Argyll and Bute? Coming here, lecturing us about tax increases, whereas the only place where they are actually able to act rather than just their words, what do they do? They increase people's taxes by 10 per cent. They do one thing in opposition in this place, a very entirely different— The cabinet secretary must conclude— Government in a local authority, so we'll take no lessons from the Tories on tax policy. This is a budget in difficult circumstances that prioritises funding for front-line public services, and I urge the sensible people within this chamber to back it, because it means funding for services, it means funding for social security payments, and it means making sure that people are supported in difficult times. That concludes the stage 3 debate on budget Scotland's number 3 bill. It's now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of business motion 1, 2, 3, 1, 8, in the name of George Adam, on behalf of the parliamentary bureau on changes to the business programme. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request-to-speak button now, and I call on George Adam to move the motion. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I'm moved. No member has asked to speak against the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 1, 2, 3, 1, 8 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. And the next item of business is consideration of parliamentary bureau motion 1, 2, 3, 1, 9 on referral of an SSI, and I ask George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau to move the motion. I'm moved, Presiding Officer. Thank you, Minister. The question on this motion will be put at decision time, and there are two questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that motion 1, 2, 2, 9, 5, in the name of Shona Robison, on budget Scotland's number 3 bill, at stage 3, be agreed. And there will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.


Welcome to Stan Energy Man, welcome to my show. We got a special show today that I'm trying to make as confusing as humanly possible for all of you watching, but it's focused on the teachers. The teachers out there that wanna teach hydrogen safety and hydrogen technology to their students from intermediate all the way through high school. So what I've done is I've brought in some equipment that we use during the World Conservation Congress this past Sunday to show the audiences there, the technology that's available nowadays using hydrogen. And you might say, well, you know, what is hydrogen compared to any other fuel? Well, hydrogen's really an energy carrier more than a fuel. So what we do is we try to emphasize you can use hydrogen for storing energy and in certain circumstances, like you need a lot of power for a long time. Hydrogen's actually one of the more efficient ways to store energy as opposed to a battery. For comparison, because batteries on a large scale or for a long duration like days or weeks, they're super expensive. So what I've got with me today is a little kit that's available online that you can buy from the hydrogen fuel cell or the fuel cell store. And they've got a whole bunch of different ones, but we picked two of them. This kit here is kind of nice because it shows you how you can take renewable wind power. This is actually meant to go outside and the wind, when the wind blows it, it generates electricity, just like the big wind turbines out at Hawaiian Electric.  Instead of using that today, I'm using a little battery pack and cheating because I don't have any sunlight in here and I don't have any wind. So we won't be using these today, but we will be making some hydrogen using electricity and water. And so all this stuff is in this kit along with a couple of extra blades. So if you really want to teach wind power, these blades rotate and change pitch. And they also have three different style blades in there so you can experiment with different pitches and different blade shapes to show the students how the wind velocity and stuff changes, how much electricity you produce. It has a little electrolyzer kit. That's what this is. It's a PEM electrolyzer, a propane, excuse me, proton membrane, exchange membrane electrolyzer, PEM. And then a small fuel cell. So what we're gonna do today is we're actually gonna take some water. We're gonna put water in these two containers, distilled water, just plain water. And we're gonna make some hydrogen by splitting the water into hydrogen and oxygen. Then we're gonna take the hydrogen and we're gonna feed it into this fuel cell over here and I'm gonna show you how it'll take air that comes in through this little part here and the hydrogen and makes electricity and we'll actually run that propeller. So what we'll do first is we've got some distilled water here from our local Safeway store or wherever grocery store you wanna go to. We'll fill these up about halfway. There's actually graduated marks on the containers there so the teacher can look and fill it exactly where it needs to be. I'm gonna end up probably injecting a little bit more. There's two little notches on the bottom here and I'm gonna try and push this in here and I'm gonna release this so that it actually lets the, lets it fill up with water because that's what you want it to do. You want it to actually fill with water and not sit there and have a big air pocket underneath. But once it goes in there, it actually locks into the bottom and likewise this one will pull this off so that it can actually fill up inside here. There we go. I'm gonna make it sit in there tight too so it doesn't bounce around. There we go. And we'll put it in here and I'll explain to you how all this stuff is hooked up. The instructions are pretty good but I'm gonna kind of emphasize some really important points. The first important point is whenever you're working with the DC power and this is all direct current, DC power, red is always your positive, black is always your negative, red is also the side that the oxygen is gonna come out and black is the side that the hydrogen is gonna come out. So when you look on these cylinders in your kit, you'll see that all the lettering on this one is red for oxygen and all the lettering on this one is black and it helps you when you're wiring everything up the teacher won't be confused because all the places you plug the black wire into are black and all the places you plug the red wire into are red. So what we're gonna do here is we've got this, all this thing does here is shuts off the hydrogen so it won't leak out after I've made it. But we'll turn on some electricity and what you'll see is you'll see bubbles if you can see this through the camera, you'll see the bubbles start moving through the line there. We're actually making hydrogen and oxygen and as these things work, it'll take maybe three minutes for this thing to fill up but you'll see approximately twice as much hydrogen being made as oxygen and why is that? Well you've got H2O so you've got two hydrogen atoms for every oxygen atom in a molecule of water. So for every, when you start to break it apart you'll see more hydrogen and you will see oxygen initially. So all I've done here is there's two AA batteries in here and it's set up to run like that and you use this in place of the photovoltaics or the wind power but if you did this experiment outside you could just as easily take the PV array instead of the battery or the windmill instead of the battery to generate the electricity you need to split the water into hydrogen and oxygen. So after a couple of minutes we'll have a nice stock of hydrogen and we'll have some oxygen in there and what I'll do is I'll shut the hydrogen off, I'll cap it off so it doesn't leak out and I'll connect it to this piece over here. This is actually a fuel cell just like what's in the Toyota Mirai or any other vehicle that we build with down at Hcat for the Air Force and what it does is it takes the hydrogen and it takes the oxygen from the air and turns it back into electricity. So as soon as the hydrogen and the oxygen start hitting this fuel cell membrane it'll turn it back into electricity and so what we'll do is we use this to run first the propeller and I'll show it running the propeller and then we'll plug it into these lights and show you that it'll run lights it'll run motors, it can be used for anything. So in a car, in our cars, our vehicles we use this fuel cell but it's much bigger of course it's a 30 kilowatt fuel cell in the vehicles and it can actually drive a really powerful motor and that's why Toyota in their cars and Hyundai and all the folks doing fuel cells, Honda they've refined this technology to a point where they can do a high performance car using hydrogen and people ask, okay what about the safety of hydrogen stand? You know you hear about the Hindenburg you hear about eight atom bombs or hydrogen bombs and stuff and you say, you know, is it really safe? Well, you'll notice that when we're making the hydrogen we keep these two gases separated in these containers we have oxygen separated from the hydrogen and that's for a reason as long as you have pure hydrogen in the hydrogen container it's not going to be flammable it doesn't burn, it doesn't explode it doesn't ignite as soon as you put an oxidizer with the hydrogen in the right proportions and the proportions are pretty broad anywhere from four to about 74% by volume you can actually have a highly flammable mixture so a lot of times around the internet you see people making hydrogen with metals and acids and what they're really doing is they're making both gases at the same time and mixing them and that is very dangerous you don't want to do that you want to keep the gases separate so as you notice on the hydrogen side now we're getting quite a bit of hydrogen built up in here you can see that bubble's kind of extending down further and further and the oxygen side of the bubble is still a little bit high, it's up here so we'll let this go for another couple of minutes and see how much hydrogen we can produce when we're at the convention center we actually had it pretty much down here near the base and it ran both of these units for a pretty good amount of time but for you teachers this is actually a great way to show students what they could do at their home in terms of powering their own house because in your house you could have a small wind turbine or several wind turbines around your house there's different styles they have some wind turbines that go along the ridge of your house with the wind blowing and will produce electricity that way instead of having a big propeller spinning around and then of course people are really familiar with the photovoltaic cells and there's different kinds of photovoltaic cells this is a monocrystalline photovoltaic cell and it's about 17 to 20% efficient it's pretty efficient it's one of the more efficient cells that you can buy and we probably could do a show on just how a photovoltaic cell works but actually what's interesting is if you get the reading material that comes with these kits and go through it it'll actually tell you how a PV cell works how the wind turbine generation works so you can actually use this to teach your students not just about the hydrogen and the electrolyzer and the fuel cell but how we actually can make electricity using sunlight so we got a pretty good amount of hydrogen built in there so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna turn off my power on my little battery pack here and I'm gonna shut off my hydrogen I'm gonna disconnect the hydrogen from the electrolyzer and I'm gonna come over here to my fuel cell and I have a little place to connect my hydrogen to my fuel cell now normally this thing would just start running right away but I've only got hydrogen going in one side but if I let some air in it should, oops, but oh, I gotta loose this first it should actually start, there you go, make electricity so what we have now is a pure hydrogen coming out of the hydrogen tank going into the negative side, the black wire side of my fuel cell and I have oxygen coming in through this little vent here through just the air from the oxygen or oxygen from the air that's creating an electric charge as the hydrogen and air turn the hydrogen and oxygen and air back into water so it ran out of oxygen so I let a little bit more in and it starts running again and so as long as you are using a mix of oxygen with the hydrogen you can produce electricity so before I run completely out we can also take this and show you you can even do lighting you can put lights into your house and run lights off of it, not just motors but you can also make electricity for your house using stored hydrogen and a little fuel cell so for example, if you had a lot of PV on your roof and all day long you didn't need all the electricity from your PV they'd call that curtailed power if it was on the grid but if you had a lot of electricity being made that you weren't using you could have a little electrolyzer like this at home that would store hydrogen in some low pressure containers maybe 150 to 200 pounds per square inch containers and just store it up and then at night when you came home you could take your Toyota Mirai or your Honda Clarity or your Hyundai SUV with this fuel cell in there and run your hydrogen that you collected all day long into your car, start filling the car up with hydrogen and also giving power back to your house at night using the hydrogen that you made all day long and that way you would be using your electricity that you're generating from your PV and your wind power not only to power your house but to fill up your car so all night long you could have a small compressor small volume, high pressure compressor putting hydrogen back into your car all night long and charging it up so the next day you'd have hydrogen in your car and all night long you had hydrogen running into your house, your electricity in your house and you can see we're just making little tiny bubbles of hydrogen basically but if you use LED lights, low draw lights and motors, you can actually get quite a bit of performance out of even a small amount of hydrogen so as the technology gets better and more efficient you just get better and better products that are more efficient and you can do more and more at home and be more and more versatile other piece too is, like I say, using LEDs and being efficient at home and trying to save as much energy as you can is the first step you make just ask my friend Ray Starling he'll tell you, you always go for the efficiencies first so what I'll do now is I'm gonna take a quick break here and I'm gonna set up for another kit that we got about the same time we didn't get to demonstrate it at the convention center but it's got a more advanced technology than this instead of using the two different devices to generate electricity Hi and thanks for watching Think Tech Hawaii my name is Justine Espiritu and I host the Hawaii Food and Farmer Series my co-host Matthew Johnson is a new version of a fuel cell called a reversible fuel cell it actually can meet the hydrogen and then it can take the hydrogen and make it back into electricity so we're gonna take a quick short break here and I'll be back in about a minute and we'll have the other kits set up for you Hi and thanks for watching Think Tech Hawaii my name is Justine Espiritu and I host the Hawaii Food and Farmer Series with my co-host Matthew Johnson of A Waku Fresh every week we bring on farmers as well as all the other individuals and organizations that help support a thriving sustainable food system in fact it's interesting to learn what others are doing so you don't have to be a Hawaii resident or producing food on Hawaii to be featured on the show like today's guest Wyatt Bryson of Jewels of the Forest and Michael Lab Solutions Aloha thank you it's been a pleasure being on the show I love seeing what you guys do and I really support your mission and it's really nice being back in Hawaii and thank you again it's an honor so you can see guests like Wyatt's every Thursday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii thank you for a very healthy summer watch Viva Hawaii we are here live on Mondays at 3 p.m. and we bring guests like our best health coach Elena Maganto eat well and follow her tips Viva la comida saludable Aloha I'm Chantel Seville the host of the Savvy Chick Show which you can watch every Wednesday at 11 a.m. on ThinkTechHawaii.com on the Savvy Chick Show we are all about inspiring and empowering women and girls to be the best they can be by having amazing guests from all around the world so we hope you'll join us every Wednesday at 11 a.m. Aloha hey welcome back to my lunch hour stand the energy man here at the special show for teachers that want to teach hydrogen to their students and a couple kits that are available online the last one I had was kind of a general purpose renewable energy with PV and also wind power that you can make your hydrogen from that electricity that DC current this kit that I've got out here now is really kind of slick it's the model is T107 tutorial high runner what it is is it's a scaled down basic version of a fuel cell car but what's neat about this fuel cell car even cooler than the cars even cooler than the cars that are that are out there right now in production or the fact that this one this fuel cell in here is reversible so this is a reversible fuel cell and again just like in the other one I'll turn it this way so you can see when you have your connection set up you have an oxygen side that's red and a hydrogen side that's black and what I've done is I've already filled up the the hydrogen side with water and I'm going to fill up the oxygen side over here which is the hardest part is just filling this dog on thing up because I've got to connect that and I've got this part disconnected so that as I fill it it actually has to go in far enough to start running out of this side so I've got water all the way in the system till it comes out there it's popping out you can see it running out there I keep some once you got this thing full though it's actually got a vacuum for the most part I must have a leak in there and I keep some napkins around just in case it doesn't leak too much it's got little caps on there to finish fill it off I'm going to unplug these now because these are actually set up to run and again just like in the last segment I have this battery pack here that I'm going to use another nice thing to do is whenever you have these battery packs you don't want these things shorting out they have a switch and on off switch but as a backup you don't want the positive and negative hitting each other so I put a little cap on the positive side and you always want to try and do that to the positive side because that's your hot side so if you have any other shorts if you cap off the positive side it's safer okay so what I've got now is got power coming to my fuel cell and what you'll see is you'll start to see water fill up in the top part of the container as the hydrogen starts to fill and the oxygen start to fill in and displace the water in the bottom part of the container so while it's doing its work I'm going to clean up my water mess here that I spilled all over the place but this is making the hydrogen just like in the other kit you have the hydrogen making being made by its own electrolyzer in this kit like I say the electrolyzer is also your fuel cell it also makes the electricity after the fact so let me get this back in the middle here put my paper towels away so we've got hydrogen being made on this side oxygen being made on that side and we'll give it a little bit of time to do all that stuff and then what you'll see is the magic in this fuel cell is as soon as I as soon as I start plugging it around it'll actually start I can turn the car on and start driving it or IT so so this kit again is available online at the fuel cell store and they have lots of cool stuff on that site if you're a teacher there's lots of things you can you can do over there and lots of different models they have you can actually run this one two different ways you can either run it using the oxygen from the oxygen side or you can run it using air so for those of you that that aren't basically scientists air is mostly nitrogen and about 15 to 20 percent oxygen depending on what altitude and where you're at and other minor gases CO2, argon, whatever else is hanging around in your vicinity but primarily it's nitrogen and oxygen but pure oxygen of course is highly flammable really dangerous to handle and those of you that don't know if you take pure oxygen and you have an oily rag or oil on your hands and you get near pure oxygen you can actually have a spontaneous combustion and start a fire with no match or anything just with oxygen and oil okay so we've given this thing a little bit of time here I'm going to turn the electricity off and I'm going to unplug the power that I made the hydrogen with and through the magic of this this reversible fuel cell I'm going to plug the motor into the reversible fuel cell I'm going to lift the back end off the ground but I'll let it go this thing actually starts driving and it'll go for quite a while off the hydrogen that's in there and what you'll see is if you look at the different water levels in here you'll notice on the hydrogen side the water level is pretty high and the oxygen level is really low again it's H2O you got twice as many hydrogen atoms as you have oxygen atoms in a molecule of water so you have about twice as much hydrogen as you do oxygen in your fuel cell but this thing will run for actually quite a bit of time it'll probably run at least a good five minutes off of the hydrogen that we've made with a little bit of electricity so if your teachers are really creative you could actually take both of these kits and you could make your hydrogen on this kit with the same wind power or solar or photovoltaic as you did from the other kit and teach the students not only the different technologies that are out there and how they can be used in a grid or in your house but also a little bit of safety and the biggest safety issue I can tell you on hydrogen is that you really really really have to make sure that you don't mix the hydrogen and the oxygen in a container that's probably the biggest safety factor involved with hydrogen as long as it's pure hydrogen it's relatively safe to handle follow the procedures that it has in your kit that it'll tell you about and safe to use safe to work with hydrogen is not toxic but if you were in a completely hydrogen environment you'd suffocate because there's no oxygen but it's not toxic to you you could actually breathe hydrogen gas and it's not going to hurt you the Greek the word hydrogen comes from Greek and it means water maker and it's because as we run this fuel cell in here and turn it into electricity the byproduct is heat and water and so in our in our vehicles the only thing coming out the exhaust pipe is water so that's the beauty of this technology and people say is so Stan why should we use hydrogen instead of batteries or hydrogen what's so good about it and what I tell them is if we actually had hydrogen cars right now and we were driving hydrogen vehicles all the time and I explained to you what it would take to make a gasoline-powered vehicle and how efficient it was you would just shake your head and go why would we ever be using a gasoline-powered vehicle they're about half as efficient in terms of the energy that they give you back for the energy you put in they're dirty they have pollutants they have carbon dioxide carbon monoxide and particulates that come out of the engines nowadays all the diesel vehicles have to meet higher emission standards the like we had Dave Ralph on the show a couple weeks ago the new cafe standards the the vehicle standards for for reduced pollutants are all kicking in hydrogen fuel cell all that kicks out of the tailpipe is water pure water vapor and if you start with photovoltaics and renewables there is zero carbon zero carbon in the whole process so you're not going to be doing anything except making the climate better by keeping the carbon down to zero and and giving yourself all of the energy needs that that you need filled whether they be for transportation or at home when you're not making electricity at night with your PV you can use the hydrogen to make some electricity for you at home so these technologies are really amazing and people go well this is great Stan why aren't we already doing it and the reality is that there's been trillions and trillions of dollars invested in oil tankers and oil refineries and internal combustion engines and we're not going to see those things go away in a month or a year or two years but what you will see is these technologies like hydrogen fuel cell vehicles the technology is a hundred years old it's well understood the safety factors are well understood and the vehicles will start coming online they've already started with Toyota and Hyundai and Honda you'll start to see Mercedes GM and Ford bringing vehicles out by 2020 and we already have commercial off-the-shelf forklifts and and material handling equipment you'll see buses there's buses in California they're a runoff hydrogen right now and that's the way we're heading and one of the great quotes that actually came from a Middle Eastern chic who who ran an oil economy for his country said we're not gonna we didn't move out of the stone age because we ran out of stones and we're not going to move out of the oil age because we ran out of oil we need to actually get this technology developed and get it ready so that rather than running out of oil and figuring out what are we going to do now we already have the technology in place we have a replacement for oil when it starts getting scarce and we take that oil and use it for things that we really need that petroleum for and when it comes to energy we have technologies like this that we use to make the energy that we need so hydrogen's a great a great great energy source it's powerful I mean I can stop this thing but you can see it's it's got plenty of torque it's got plenty of plenty get up and go and we use it in the real vehicles and it works great so I'm hoping that some of you teachers out there will start to get some of this this this technology in your classroom and this unit is kind of neat when I first got it and I went well how do we keep all this stuff together and keep the water from tipping over all of these pieces have little magnets on the bottom so it actually sticks sticks to the chassis by magnet and that gives you some idea of the versatility of these units too the magnetism doesn't bother the electrolysis at all and you can be making hydrogen even with magnets around and it's just water electricity giving you hydrogen and oxygen it's so basic it's so cool and that's why we get fired up at HKAT about the hydrogen technology because it is the future and we've always heard hydrogens the future the fuel of the future and always will be but I hate to tell you this guys that are pessimists it's today the vehicles are coming out the technology is proven and we're ready to rock and roll so that's a little picture of what what the teachers can do we're always available for our Q&A at HKAT where you can send them right in here to ThinkTech maybe next week when I'm on you can call in the show here<PHONE_NUMBER> and you can ask questions you can you can call in anytime that I'm on and we'll try and answer your questions next week I'm trying to get actually one of our great electrical engineers that's doing some great great workforce out of the base to talk a little bit about how this kind of technology can help why electrics solve their grid problems and he's an electrical engineer that's got a whole lot of time on microgrids and on hydrogen technology and he's going to help us prove this at Hickam Air Force Base so that the Air Force can take advantage of these technologies in the future so that's about all I really have for today's show and I'm looking forward to any questions that you have again you can get these things online from the fuel cell store and I encourage you to order them and bring them in if you're a teacher especially if you have funds I know you poor teachers end up buying a lot of this stuff on your own pocket and that's that's too bad I hope you're taking a tax break for it talk to your accountant and do that because you should be able to but this technology is really cool in the classroom really easy to work with if the instructions seem kind of confusing the main thing to tell you again is is black keep the black wires on the same side with the black and black is hydrogen and keep the red wires with the red and the red is oxygen on your fuel cell and on your electrolyzer and it's about that simple so DC current is real easy to work with it's really safe and it's the main thing you do with fuel cells in your house you would actually take an inverter that would convert your DC power into AC power to run your vacuum cleaner and your microwave and your TV but what you'll find is a lot of the current that you use at home is actually DC power anyway you can have DC power lights that are really efficient fluorescent lights you can have DC your computers use DC power even when you plug them into an AC outlet it's converting it to DC to charge your batteries so you'll find that if you actually design the house to run off of DC there's not too many things besides motors that you need the AC power for so for this week I'd like to thank you for being on Stand the Energy Man and we'll see you next week same time my lunch hour 12 o'clock on Aloha Friday


Hi, my name is Susan and I am a counselor at the Student Financial Services Office at UVM. This video will walk you through the steps of submitting any outside community-based scholarship information to us at UVM so that we can include it in your final financial aid package. When you receive an outside community-based scholarship award, you want to notify us at Financial Services of that award as soon as possible. You can send award letters to us by email at sfs at uvm.edu. Please make sure to include your name and your student ID number or your 95 number on your email. In the vast majority of circumstances, outside scholarship awards will reduce what a student or their family would otherwise be borrowing or paying out of pocket. But do know that every situation is unique and an outside community-based scholarship can affect your financial aid package differently. So please get that information to us as soon as possible so that we can let you know how your individual package is affected. When you are submitting your scholarship checks, please mail them to UVM Student Financial Services Office. You will endorse your checks that are jointly payable and your checks that are payable only to you the student before mailing them to our office. So you will sign them on the back and you will send them to Student Financial Services, 223 Waterman Building, 85 South Prospect Street, Burlington, Vermont, 05405. And make sure that your name and your student ID number are clearly noted on your correspondence. You can check out all of this information and get all of these addresses at uvm.edu forward slash student financial services forward slash submitting outside scholarship information and checks. My colleagues and I are looking forward to welcoming you to campus and to helping you to navigate the financial services world. Please check out more videos on these processes at go.uvm.edu forward slash SFS orientation. Thank you very much.


What do you eat a cat? I would eat a cat if I knew it was killed humanely. If it was in a country where I was accepted, I wouldn't really mind if I knew it wasn't like fortunate to death.  If it was legal and it wasn't... I'm not even joking. So we're talking about a sandwich here.   Yeah, I eat chicken, bacon, beef. Bacon's not an actual animal. I like pig. See what they do? They get you thinking of animals as products. I eat every animal. So even dogs? Yeah. You mean every animal they tell you to eat? Society tells you to eat. Interesting, you said every animal, right? How many are there? Life, cow, pig, chicken. Lamb? Yeah, fish.  I just ate salmon. So cats, would you eat a cat? I would eat a cat if I knew it was killed humanely. If it was in a country where I was accepted, I wouldn't really mind it as long as it wasn't like orchards and stuff.  If it was legal and it wasn't... I'm not even joking. So what I'm saying is like, if they want to live, it's okay to kill them even if you think it's like, humane. I've got a mic on. It's all right, brother. Use it up for you. Oh no, I wouldn't kill a human if they wanted to live. If they wanted to live, okay. So we've got no for a human. You've got no for a human? Hmm?  Even if they didn't feel pain? Just for a burger. Look, if they didn't feel pain, I think I probably would kill them. It depends on the situation. Oh, of course. Well, I'm saying for a burger or something trivial. Probably not for a burger. Probably not. Probably not.  That justifies stabbing the cow, but not stabbing the human being. What's the moral difference? Humans are self-aware. The cow doesn't know it's a cow, so the cow just knows it's kind of there. Let me ask you this. If a human being was about as self-aware as a cow, would they do exist? Human beings like this? Some disability? Would it be okay to kill them for a burger? If every human was like that, then yeah. But if we were like something special, like aliens, and the humans were like cows, then yeah, probably.  I'm asking, what is it about cows that makes it okay to stab them in the neck and cut their head off for burgers? For their taste-nice. What do cows do for us? They give us burgers for us. One sec, you said that because they taste-nice, right? Yeah, yeah.  Well, we would never know.  So if a human's right, and you do eat cows, trying to figure out what that is, you said, what do they do for us? Cows? Like, do you think if someone does something for you, that's the only reason they have moral value? Not really. I mean, I don't know. Like, do I have to do something for you in order for you not to respect my rights? Probably not. Human rights, you just have them, don't you? Yeah. You have them. Some countries, people don't have them. But in this country, we have them. That's where cows don't. So do you think that we shouldn't eat any animal? Like, what do you think should happen? Yeah, like, what do you think should happen? So it sounds like you got to a point where you're like, okay, what's the solution then? Yeah, what do you think the solution is? Well, I don't think it's right to take animals and cut their heads off for a sandwich. I think they deserve rights just like we do. But not the same kind of rights. Like, don't do something bad to them. That's what I'm saying. They don't need driver's licence and that. Exploiting them for our trivial purposes at all. Is there anywhere to kill them without hurting them? Like, I'm sure some places do. When you talk about animal rights, because you're talking about animal welfare, don't be cruel to them. When I say animal rights, they have a right to their life as well. So even if you killed them without suffering, if I did that to him right now and he wants to continue his life, it's murder, you know? Like, I know that there's like, free-range chickens that get to live first. Free-range is a marketing point. It's a lot to do with labelling and propaganda and that. But let's just say there was a chicken out there roaming, right? And he came and you painlessly took their life for a sandwich. I'd say that, would you say that's justified? I mean, they won't really know once they're gone. If it didn't hurt, I'm sure they're not going to miss much. A lot of people get killed, they don't know they're gone either.  Is that okay? No, but like, that's because... So what's the difference then? I still think that human, like, self-aware thing applies. Yeah, but some humans aren't. No, I know, but that's different because like, they came from a self-aware human.  What do you mean about self-aware? Like, they know, like, we know we're human.  He just kind of knows he's living and he's doing his thing. Like, the person who's not self-aware, I'm sure they have a mum or a dad or like a carer or something. Yeah, but you can be aware of the world, right? You can be aware of your experience, right?  But you don't know who you are or what you are. They can still experience all these things that matter. They still feel. They still feel. So do you think it's really self-awareness or awareness that matters or sentience that matters? I think it's just like, we're more conscious. We're more conscious. Yeah, like, you know, we know we're... If we were a little less conscious... I think it's the same for animals. Like, if I had a baby cow, I wouldn't want to kill it because I care for it, but then there's cows I don't care for. So I think it goes for like... For humans, I don't care for like, I mean, I got to know you. I don't care for like, a lot of people. Like, personally, but I don't want to see them harmed or enslaved or killed, especially for like, but we're talking about a sandwich here. We're talking about, you can eat something else, eh?  I've been vegan for 10 years. 10 years. That's good for you, but like, I've never seen an animal get killed, so... Can I show you? Quickly? I'll show you what happens inside slaughterhouses. This is the dairy industry. When they stop producing milk, they drag them away. This is one, limping in, spent dairy cows. They're trying to get out of this box. It's called a knot box. That was nice. Yeah, yeah. So that's what I'm saying. Like, when you pay for that, like in Australia, that's what you're generally paying for. We're talking about situations of like, like hypotheticals where if you killed an animal without pain, is it okay? And I'm saying no. But that's not, that's not where you get meat from anyway. I don't, I don't know. I feel like if like 10 people stopped it, it would still continue anyway. I don't know the exact... I don't know if it's ever going to stop. If we don't murder someone today, someone's going to get murdered today. True? Well, I'm not actually doing the murdering. I'm just enjoying the... You're paying someone to... So if you pay me to do the killing, is that still murder? No. I think it's...  When you consume products... So you're a vegan for 10 years? Yeah. So what do you eat? Like, can you tell us your daily goals?  So if I want yoga, I eat vegan yoga. If I want a sandwich, I make a vegan sandwich with vegan cheese or I get like some... Make a vegan burger. We just went to Rolls, the Vietnamese restaurant. We got vegan, lemongrass, chicken rolls. We got fowl buns. We have tofu in there, you know? Like, so you can go to... We just get a vegan burger. There's heaps of stuff around there. Oh yeah, I've had those. Like the vegetarian one. But if you want oats, what do you want? You know, bread and pasta and rice and tofu and vegan meats. Can you not have bread? Yeah, I have the bread, so you can... Most bread is vegan. Log. But it's basically, you veganise your own... what you usually eat. What do you eat now? Um... Chicken. I'm bulking, so... Chicken? Yeah. Look, I feel bad for killing animals. I actually hunted a bird once. In Lebanon, I went to Lebanon and I went hunting. My mate, one of my best mates was like hunting and then hunting was massive over there. Birds. Yeah, yeah. I killed like three of them. How'd you feel? At the time, I didn't... You didn't feel anything at the time? I didn't feel anything. Was it hunting better? At the time, I was numb. Wouldn't you consider hunting better than the farms because they died just in the wild? Just ask yourself that question. Is it better for me to hunt you or better for you to be... I would rather die just a year than I would be like stuck in a great dungeon for. It might be better than being in a dungeon being tortured, but it's not good to kill you, is it? No, but... Yeah. So why do we do it when there's another option? I guess there's another... I don't know. I don't think many people would get behind that option. Well, I'm not just asking you, man. Well, I... Everyone else. I want to know what you... I do, but you have a conscience. You don't go and copy people that do bad s***, do you? Yeah.  If you think something's wrong... Exactly. It's a matrix. It's the matrix. I got that on my phone. It's a matrix. They trick you. They don't show you the slaughterhouse I just did. They don't show you that old growing up, do they? You ever see that? Why don't they show you? Because they don't want me to stop eating meat. They want you to buy their product. They're torturing animals.  S*** knows what it does to your body. And, you know, when you watch it, if you feel bad, you're like, I don't want to see that. That's bad, right? But you're paying for it. They're tricking you to pay for it. Honestly, personally, I don't think I'll be vegan anytime soon. Maybe I might choose to do it. Just minding the seed, brother. Just minding the seed. I love that. I love that. Mind the seed. Do what you want. I get what you're coming from. I don't know if we'll ever be truly gone of all evil in the world, so I think you might as well just... What you can control, though, is what you put in your mouth. Hello. Hello. Hey, friends. Hey, friends. Anyways, have a good Christmas, brother. No worries, man.  Take care. No worries, brother.  Enjoy your Christmas.