The craziness of February
Renewable aviation fuels, research in labs and early diagnostics
If you're a new subscriber to my newsletter, I'm Theodore, a 15-year-old passionate about alternative energy. Focusing actively on renewable aviation fuels and lithium-ion batteries.
This month of February has been jam-packed with so many things to do, that it was hard to keep up. From working with a billion-dollar company on early diagnostics to finishing up my article and video on renewable fuels, to starting a part-time internship at UQAM labs. Let’s dive into the craziness of February.
Renewable Aviation Fuels
A month ago, I decided I wanted to decarbonize planes after finishing up a hackathon. I wanted to go deep into all the different alternative fuels that are being proposed. These alternatives are lithium-ion batteries, hydrogen, biofuels and renewable fuels.
Renewable aviation fuels are the idea of converting biomass into aviation fuel (aviation fuel = kerosene). This bio-kerosene theoretically could replace the kerosene we already use in all of our aircraft, as it’s converting the biomass into the same chemical formula as regular kerosene.
I wrote an article and made a video about all 6 ASTM (American Society for Materials and Testing) approved processes for max 50% blends in jet fuel. This taught me a lot about where the aviation industry is currently in terms of sustainability, and where it needs to go to fully decarbonize.
Here’s my article:
https://medium.com/@grethermurray.theodore/how-do-we-decarbonize-planes-c46a258d6b30
Here’s my video:
LinkedIn Posts
In addition to what I was doing content-wise for my projects. I started posting every week on LinkedIn about my projects. I now realize how powerful consistent LinkedIn posts are. Constantly posting every week got me in contact with a bunch of experts and created a lot of serendipity for me.
This also helped me keep myself accountable during the week for my project, as I wanted to bring new information to the table on LinkedIn.
Here are all the LinkedIn posts I did on my journey this month to learn more about Renewable aviation fuels:
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theodore-grether-murray-a2aaa5246_recently-ive-been-looking-into-biofuels-activity-7030167024844570624-4kmf?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theodore-grether-murray-a2aaa5246_theodores-newsletter-theodore-grether-murray-activity-7032155005356781568-Xw4E?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theodore-grether-murray-a2aaa5246_summary-of-update-figured-out-there-were-activity-7034719245695377408-ib22?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theodore-grether-murray-a2aaa5246_hi-everyone-for-the-last-few-months-ive-activity-7037021478143324162-SkHr?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/theodore-grether-murray-a2aaa5246_how-do-we-decarbonize-planes-activity-7038138300775190528-MGCw?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
Early diagnostics and my Switch Health adventure
In TKS, my team and I were where given the opportunity to work with a billion-dollar diagnostics company called Switch Health. This company sells at-home testing kits to make the diagnosis of diseases cheaper and more convenient.
I love my team and being around high-performance people trying to help Switch Health develop a new product is extremely exciting (though it can sometimes be very stressful).
Back to the lab
In my other newsletters, I talked about getting an opportunity to go to a lab. This opportunity has now blossomed into a part-time internship where I go every 2 weeks to work on lithium-ion battery research at UQAM chemistry labs.
During my first experience there we decided to make the slurry. This is a mixture that you put on the electrodes of batteries, this is a combination of a binder, carbon and active material (which is the electrode LFP). One thing I realized during my first experience was the amount of precision and detail you need to run these experiments. It’s actually insane!
Currently, I’m under the tutelage of a Ph.D. student who is teaching me a bunch about batteries and I’m trying to help her with her project. This is an amazing opportunity that I’m really happy about, as there is a lot of specific knowledge that I can learn, about how researchers do research!
Takeaways from the month
Since I was running around all the time trying to get things done I didn’t have much time to contemplate philosophy. But the main thing I tried to put into practice this week was not being stagnant.
Failure = Not doing = Stagnancy
It’s way better to just do, than to not do, even if you fail you learn. This seems obvious but this month I’ve had to catch myself repeatedly not doing things because I was scared of failure. It’s been a challenge to maintain momentum and not stay stagnant.
What’s next
What’s next? I actually don’t know 😂!
I’ll be trying to work on figuring out how to lower the cost of a biomass-to-kerosene process and I’ll be doing a lab internship. But as for everything else, as usual, it’s up in the air.
I’m excited to see where my life goes this next month and I’ll keep you updated!
See you next time!