Making Palm Oil Without Palm Trees

Palm oil is a cheap and remarkably versatile vegetable oil. It’s in a ton of products, from food to cosmetics, detergent, and chewing gum. But producing so much palm oil is really bad for the planet. Shara Ticku is the co-founder and CEO of C16 Biosciences. Shara's problem is this: Can you get yeast to make an oil that is just as useful as palm oil – without clearing land to grow palm trees?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Every week on What's Your Problem?, former Planet Money host Jacob Goldstein talks with entrepreneurs and engineers tackling the biggest challenges at the forefront of technology. How do you make a trip to space as routine as a plane flight? How do you turn solar energy into clean fuel? How do you use AI to stop deadly infections before they spread? We hear a lot these days about how the world is getting worse. What's Your Problem? learns from the thinkers and doers trying to make our future better. iHeartMedia is the exclusive podcast partner of Pushkin Industries.