Silicon Valley Takes On the Pentagon’s Explosives Shortage
WSJ Tech News Briefing

Silicon Valley Takes On the Pentagon’s Explosives Shortage

B2Upper-intermediateOctober 29, 20269 min

The U.S. military plans to buy millions of modern drones, but a chronic shortage of domestic explosives leaves the drones without the bombs they are supposed to carry. Wall Street Journal reporter Heather Somerville explains how emerging tech startups are working to address the shortfall in critical energetics—chemical compounds essential for weaponry, mining, and manufacturing. Danny Lewis hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Play episode

Opens the player: the full transcript, every word clickable, with translation and flashcards.

Try it: tap any word

Real sentences from the start of this episode. Every word is marked with its level.

Sentence 1 of 12 · 0:00

. , .

Street Journal.

Hear this sentence

Tap a word to see its meaning in your language.

Do you know these words?

8 harder words from this episode. Tap one to see what it means, then mark it.

  • B20:50
  • B21:17
  • B23:27
  • B24:16
  • B25:53
  • C16:57
  • C18:16
  • B28:49

Mark a few words and we'll tell you how this episode fits your level.

Is this episode right for you?

B2

B2 · Upper-intermediate

Comfortable if you already follow TV news

A1 19%A2 37%B1 23%B2 13%C1 8%
  • 79% of the words are B1 or easier.
  • 163 words a minute: natural, fairly fast speech.
  • 63 harder words (B2 and up) in the whole episode.

Transcript

The opening of the episode. The whole transcript is in the player.

0:00

Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Thursday, October 29th. I'm Danny Lewis for The Wall Street Journal. The US military is planning to buy millions of drones in the coming years. But can it adapt to modern warfare without the bombs those drones are supposed to carry?

0:18

America is facing a chronic explosive shortage that threatens to get in the way of the Pentagon's efforts to replenish its weapons stockpiles and armed troops with top-of-the-line And a big part of the problem is that the US doesn't have enough of the materials and chemicals needed to build explosive weaponry.

0:33

But now, new tech startups are stepping in to fill the gap. Heather Somerville covers technology and national security for the Wall Street Journal. She joins us now. Heather, what are the materials we're talking about here?

That was the opening. The rest of the episode (9 min) is in the player: every word clickable, with translation, saved words and flashcards.

Continue in the player

Automatically generated from the audio. May contain errors. Audio belongs to its publisher and is played from their feed. Rights holders can request removal — copyright & takedown policy