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This metal is more valuable than gold - YouTube
Channel: Verge Science
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this tiny piece of metal is almost twice
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as valuable as gold
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it's palladium a rare metal which has
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seen a spike in popularity
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and price nationwide and in the process
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has created a new class of car thief
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thieves are still on the lookout for
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those catalytic converters in vehicles
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as soaring demand creates a palladium
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crunch the race is on to find a new
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alternative
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before the auto industry really ends up
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in a bind so like this right here it'd
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probably be worth
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50 right now just the dust itself just
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the dust itself
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it's really kind of crazy when you look
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at it the most expensive dust i've ever
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touched
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palladium was first discovered by
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william williston in 1803
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and belongs to a group of metals known
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as platinum group elements
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or pges these elements are known for
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their high melting points
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resistance to corrosion and most notably
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their great catalytic properties
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when we want to control chemical
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reactions a lot of times the problem is
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they're they're too slow
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so a catalyst is remarkable at
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accelerating reactions paul danhauer is
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a professor of chemical engineering at
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the university of minnesota
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he walked us through the basics of
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heterogeneous catalysis
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or how a metal palladium can speed up
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the reaction of a gas
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we can actually take molecules and stick
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them to a surface when they stick on the
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surface they can rearrange very quickly
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and then once they rearrange they come
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back off that surface that enables that
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rearrangement of molecules
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is called a catalyst so it helps the
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reaction speed up
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but it's not actually used in the
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reaction as a react endurance product
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palladium has been used in cars since
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stricter emission standards were first
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introduced in 1975.
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it's built into a device called a
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catalytic converter which tackles a
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bunch of toxic emissions
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all at once so out of your engine when
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you when it's operating you have three
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things coming out that we don't want
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unburned fuel is one problem another one
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is carbon monoxide
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from fuel that hasn't been fully burned
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and then the third one is when it takes
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in air
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the nitrogen in the air will actually
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oxidize also and make
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nox which if it comes out of your car
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will make acid rain
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so when these gases pass through the
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honeycomb structure inside a catalytic
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converter
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the nanoparticles of palladium and other
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pges inside
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work to burn up or break down the toxic
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gases into less harmful ones
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catalytic converters have led to a
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significant drop in carbon monoxide and
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nitrous oxide emissions
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since their adoption in the 1970s and
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the more palladium they use
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the more effective they are with more
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manufacturers trying to reduce their
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impact on the environment
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and with stricter emissions regulations
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coming online in places like europe and
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china
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the demand and cost of palladium is
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skyrocketing
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and there just isn't enough to go around
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the u.s
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only mines around 14 000 kilograms of
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palladium each year
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but uses over 90 000 kilograms annually
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and with only two major suppliers of
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palladium in the world russia
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and south africa there's a real
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bottleneck in getting the metal to where
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is needed most
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that hunger for palladium has created
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some new wrinkles in the market
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some aboveboard and some less so
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with these catalytic converters exposed
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to the public so easily where someone
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can slide underneath and cut them with a
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portable sawzall
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it's going to be a problem tom buschel
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owns rockaway recycling a scrap yard in
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new jersey
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he buys hundreds of catalytic converters
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every single day from scrappers around
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the country
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and eventually sends them off to be
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refined for their precious metals
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this guy sent the whole muffler so we
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got south carolina california
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tennessee wisconsin florida
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each catalytic converter could contain
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between two and three grams of palladium
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each
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tom is one of many recyclers who account
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for over 85 000 kilograms of palladium
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recycled in the u.s each year
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nearly all of which comes from scrap
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catalytic converters like these
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it's the kind of business that grows
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when an industry is looking for every
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last available scrap of a precious metal
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my risk has only increased over time
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yeah because all of these cats used to
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be worth 150 200 bucks each
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and now they're worth triple he's got a
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knack for looking at any catalytic
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converter and quickly estimating its
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value based on its make
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model and condition this is off of a
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this is off of a these are often
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so those are both down there yep okay
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this is a
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i mean this is a 900 cap wow
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now we're bleeping the car manufacturers
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names because there's one thing we have
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to talk about
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and that's catalytic converter theft as
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the price of the precious metals inside
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the converters continues to rise
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so does the rate at which they're stolen
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in just the past three years alone
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monthly catalytic converter thefts in
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the u.s have increased dramatically
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from more than 108 thefts per month in
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2018 to over 1200 a month in 2020.
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how do you address that here in your
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recycling process
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we've dealt with a lot of authorities we
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helped them catch a lot of people
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that were stealing them because as a
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certified recycling establishment
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we're taking driver's licenses from
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everyone and if someone doesn't want to
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give it to us then we're not going to
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buy their material
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the price of palladium is the driver of
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this whole story i mean
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this is the most palladium my producer
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said we could afford for this video
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which really makes you wonder why we're
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relying on such a scarce material for
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important everyday tasks we don't really
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have a choice right now
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but that might change the replacement of
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precious metal is an active area of
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research so we say we want to use earth
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abundant materials or things where we
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have so much of it that the cost is
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incredibly low
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not only in catalytic converters but
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lots of other applications where
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precious metals are important
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it's a very big challenge another
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approach is to use materials like
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palladium more efficiently
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increasing their surface area by doling
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them out atom by atom
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that's the ultimate minimum amount of
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metal you could use in these
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and it's a very simple principle if you
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have a particle of material the smaller
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you make it
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the more external surface area you have
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per amount of that material
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and so you can make these incredibly
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incredibly small particles you get the
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most bang for your puck
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but engineering palladium at the atomic
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scale also comes with its own fresh
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challenges
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a single atom is much less stable than a
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cluster and that's much less stable than
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a bulk metal so a lot of research is
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going into how we get a single
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atom of palladium or rhodium or platinum
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to stay in place and keep its
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functionality over a long period of time
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it's a very exciting area of research
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now there's still a ways to go before
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this technology is ready for any
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practical application
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but a world full of zero emissions
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electric vehicles is still a ways off
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too so for now if you own a gas-powered
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car
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keep an eye on your catalytic converter
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and don't get caught up in the palladium
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crime wave
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so you guys are never going to believe
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this but between the time that we shot
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this video and posted it
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the catalytic converter on my dad's
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truck was stolen
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from the lot in which he was getting
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work done the thief hit
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four cars his was one of them so the
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threat is real
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