Making Aviation More Sustainable...With Shark Skin (feat. MicroTau)

We speak to Henry Bilinsky from MicroTau. The Sydney-based startup’s shark skin technology applied to planes has the potential to improve the efficiency of aviation by up to 10%, meanwhile saving airlines up to $61 billion a year on fuel.

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In Australia we love flying and given our vast and isolated land, we often NEED to fly. While there are a number of options to get to zero carbon transport, many of these solutions may take decades for mass adoption. This includes technologies like battery or hydrogen powered planes (which we covered on our episode with AMSL Aero) or even sustainable aviation fuel.

But in the meantime, we have to pursue anything and everything that can increase the efficiency of aviation. This is where MicroTau’s shark-skin comes in. 

In this episode we cover:

• The challenges of decarbonising long haul transport;
• How Henry came up with the idea;
• How the US Airforce got involved with the idea; 
• Sharks on a plane you say? How does this actually work; and
• How the technology could be applied to other forms of transport

About the podcast

A Positive Climate is an uplifting podcast about tackling climate change. An inspiring look at the products, people and technologies making a real difference. 

Hosted by Australian climate technology experts Alex McIntosh and Nick Zeltzer, two friends on a mission to find the solutions to keep our existential crises at bay. We cover it all on the show while keeping things optimistic and accessible: electric planes, waste eating maggots, plant-based meats, hydrogen made from beer, the solar revolution, the coolest new sustainable products and much much more.

If you’re passionate about the latest sustainable technology, the environment, or are just keen to know more about what’s going on in Australia to tackle climate change, this podcast is for you.

Previous guests have included innovators and technologists from JET Charge, 5B, Amazon, Zoomo, V2Food, Vow, Sea Forest, Great Wrap, Infravision, Zero Co, Hysata, Sicona, OneSmallStep, Tenacious Ventures, CarsGuide, AMSL Aero, Nori and many more.

Music by the late, great Nick Weaver

Production by our hero Mark Spencer from Here.Media

Social Media, Comms and PR by Alistair Perkins

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