Rei Vardi is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Eon, a car rental company that is "building a mobility platform." Rei explains the genesis of his business and what can now be seen as an exciting, disruptive business model: He was a college student in Boston. When his father planned to turn in the family Tesla, Rei was determined to keep it and pledged to make the payments. To do so, he rented the car to family and friends, and recalls some really bad arrangements, including a bank robbery. But his experiences sparked a novel concept... enabling EV car owners a new means of income. Since most cars sit idle 95% of the time, why not rent them out?

The discussion then focuses on how he de-risked the concept. Instead of an owner -- "an amateur in the car rental space" -- taking on the challenges of rentals to strangers, why not have a platform to manage a network and to remove the risk and hassle for car owners? For renters, why not create a new car rental model that makes renting easy, really easy? Forget rental locations and lines and consumer frustration.

Eon boasts that its network now is the easiest way to rent a car. The company only rents privately-owned electric vehicles, primarily Teslas, Rivians, and Lucids. There are no keys involved at all. More and more, its business partners -- the car owners -- are developing fleets of EVs for program participation that they post on the company's website. Then renters get instructions on how to access the vehicles and use their phones to unlock and turn on the cars. Renters can even pre-warm or pre-cool the cars. They get explicit instructions on where and how to charge the vehicles too.

Owners put their cars on the platform and specify the terms they want... like car pick-up and drop-off location, the daily price, etc. Eon screens renters to assure a positive experience for the owners, and similarly stipulates a set of terms for owners... like vehicle cleanliness. Now, after eight years developing and scaling the model, Rei and his colleagues have over 3,000 cars in their network, with business activity in 50 cities across the nation. And the business model is popular, Rei notes that 45% of his renters are return renters. Check it out at Eonrides.com.

Sam Teicher is the Co-Founder and Chief Reef Official for Coral Vita, a company he and a graduate school colleague formed in 2015 given their great concerns with coral reef decline. Sam makes clear that fully half of all coral reefs have been killed, and 90% are expected to perish by 2050 without concerted global interventions. Sam and his colleague, Gator Halpern, decided to take action and to build a business case for scaling coral reef restoration efforts. Yale provided the initial $1,000 for them to develop a business plan.

The conversation begins with a clear definition of coral: They are living organisms with exoskeletons of carbonaceous material. The coral form colonies that grow and grow, notable in size... like the 2,300 kilometer long Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Remarkably, reefs that cover 1% of the ocean floor provide for 25% of all marine life. The reefs provide habitat and thus food for fisheries. The reefs also play an important role in protecting beaches.

Sam explains that there are about 6,000 types of coral, mostly located in tropical waters between the 30th latitude north and the 30th latitude south. To thrive, corals need suitable temperatures, plus appropriate salinity and light. The death of corals is attributable to several factors, but primary among them is climate change which has driven up water temperatures. Pollution and sedimentation also harm reefs, as does some forms of fishing and development.

Sam recounts the genesis of Coral Vita, how he and Gator drew upon extensive research and development of restoration techniques. Then they developed a business plan that aligned the interests of myriad stakeholders in reef restoration and ecological regeneration. They began their operations in The Bahamas where resorts and other industries have had to displace reefs. Coral Vita has been effective in relocating these wildlife assets to comply with regulations and to support the local economy and tourism.

Soon thereafter they were awarded a prize from Prince William and his Earth Shot Prize. In fact, William and Kate came to The Bahamas to witness Cora Vita's operations. Sam and Gator were also recognized by Forbes Magazine for their entrepreneurship. And the business has grown, now including operations in countries including The Bahamas, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The firm now employs 40 staff.

Sam described the process of growing coral in aquacultures which dramatically shortens the growth periods of coral. At what he calls "the coral factory," Coral Vita is intently studying corals to determine which grow fastest and which are most resilient to changes in water temperatures. Today, Coral Vita licenses some of its inventions and software to other organizations with the same mission of protecting corals and the fragile ecosystems that they develop. Fully one billion people rely on reefs in one way or another.

Ted asks Sam at the end about optimism. Sam makes clear that he is pragmatic and that unfortunately, things will get worse. He notes that it may be generations from now that realize the benefits of today's work to reverse the course of coral reef destruction... until reefs survive and thrive. He notes that clearly the best thing would be for our global society to stop killing the reefs, much like ending deforestation. Until then raising awareness about the importance of corals is key, so is coral reef restoration. To get involved check out https://coralvita.co.

Hugh Broadhurst is the Chief Operating Officer for Aclara Resources, a company focused on sustainable mining of rare earth minerals, followed by the separation of ionic clays laced with rare earth minerals, and selling these to a host of users, notably electric vehicle makers and others in need of high intensity magnets. Applications for the 17 rare earth elements include electric vehicles, wind turbines, submarines, drones, and robotics... anywhere that electric motors are used.

The conversation begins with a primer on rare earth minerals -- of which there are 160 -- and rare earth elements which number 17. These have been largely sourced from China which currently mines 90% of rare earth minerals and processes over 99% of them, importing minerals from Myanmar and other countries to do so. Aclara is not only developing an alternate supply chain for rare earths, but as Hugh explains, is doing so in a sustainable manner, in line with consumers' expectations.

Hugh joined the podcast from Brazil where Aclara is developing a rare earth mining operation, tapping into ionized clays that can be surface mined, stripped of their valuable elements, before the clays are redeposited on the sites without harmful pollution and disruptive effects. Aclara, a Canadian company, is working in Brazil and Chile on mining operations, while collaborating with Virginia Tech on a separation technique. At the tail end of the company's vertical integration, Aclara is selling refined rare earth element powders, metals, and alloys to manufacturers.

Hugh begins by presenting the value of rare earth mineral for electric vehicles. Their motors depend on high intensity magnets to support their dramatic acceleration. Many magnets lose their magnetism when their temperatures exceed 100 degrees Celsius and EV motors reach temperatures of 150 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit) and thus need special rare earth elements to maintain their magnetism. Two of the 17 rare earth elements are critical for this function: terbium and dysprosium. They are blended into the magnets' formulation at a rate of 2 - 3%. While the cost of these materials for a typical EV is less than $50, Hugh notes that without them, the EV would not function.

Hugh was born and raised in South Africa. His parents were academics and he jokes that his engineering is a genetic disorder he got from his parents, his father an electrical engineer and mother a mathematician. After studying in South Africa, he came to America for graduate school in chemical engineering, before focusing his career on specialty minerals, for semiconductors, for agriculture, lithium for batteries, and at Aclara for magnets.

Rare earths enable the renewable energy revolution he explains. At Aclara, he and his colleagues are proud of doing the right thing in their mining and manufacturers, to meet environmental and ESG standards that people have come to expect. "It's not just what were doing but how we do it."