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THE FRONTIER LINE
Hosts Wayne Aston and David Murray explore the critical global pillars of infrastructure development and energy production, from traditional methods to future-forward advancements. The Frontier Line covers the latest industry news, energy innovations, and sustainability trends that are shaping the future. Through expert interviews with industry leaders in renewable energy, utility-scale battery storage, and waste-to-energy technologies, the podcast provides insights into the evolving landscape of energy efficiency and sustainable infrastructure. By focusing on the intersection of innovation and the politics of energy, The Frontier Line highlights transformative ideas and technologies poised to deliver cost-efficient, resilient, and sustainable solutions for global industries.
THE FRONTIER LINE
Elon Musk, Power Grid Challenges, Grid Interactive Buildings, Headlines October 2024
Good afternoon, Dave. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Frontier Line here. We are again Happy to be here. It's a great day. It's a fantastic day. It just keeps getting better.
Speaker 2:What did we talk about?
Speaker 1:Well, nothing, there's nothing really going on. Is there? Is there really? Well, let's talk about the elephant in the room, shall we? I will start out with a headline, because it's a headline I think we could have written that we have been writing, we've been talking about, and this is AI boom fuels, data center growth straining US power grid. This comes to us via Straight Arrow News, known as SAN. They have a tagline that I actually quite like. I don't know how big they are, I haven't really researched them, just unbiased, straight facts. I like that. So let's see here. I'm just going to read part of this article, because it's a good one.
Speaker 1:The rapid expansion of artificial intelligence AI technologies is driving a significant increase in the number of data centers across the United States. This growth is placing mounting pressure on the nation's power grid, raising concerns about the future of electricity availability and transmission capacity All the things we've been talking about. Amen. Data centers, which house the servers and infrastructure needed for AI processing, are expected to account for nearly 9% of US electricity consumption by 2030. Across six states, these facilities account for over 10% of total energy consumption. In Virginia, data centers use more than 25% of the state's total electricity, making it the national leader in energy demand for these facilities. This surge in demand is also pronounced in Ohio, where projections indicate that the energy requirements of new data centers could be equivalent to the needs of three cities the size of New York. In some cases, electricity requests from these facilities can exceed the amount required to power an entire city, such as San Francisco. The growing competition for electricity created bottlenecks, as utilities are sometimes forced to delay grid connections to new data centers in order to assess and expand capacity.
Speaker 1:Now let's pause on that for a second. Yeah, I'm going to pause on that one. Right there, you and I both went. Hmm, can we study this for a second?
Speaker 2:That's pretty salacious right there, study this for a second. That's pretty salacious, right there, you know, we've been, we've been saying let's decentralize power. All along we have been, we, we are huge advocates of decentralized power. That's, that's building power, you know, in communities and and not relying on these centralized power providers that power the whole state or the whole region via the grid. Now, this is, this is a vulnerability that's worth discussing because if, if you've got folks out there developing data centers, specifically, or other high power consumption assets, and they're not generating their own power, that that is a tactical. A tactical, uh, volatility, uh in my mind, of being able to raise capital and not getting bent over the barrel by that power provider. Right, I mean, they're saying it pretty lightly here we've got to ascertain our interconnection capacity and blah, blah, blah In my mind. What's happening behind the scenes is how do we double the power price per kilowatt, right, and cause a?
Speaker 1:revolution, Exactly. And I will say this Thank you, power companies for getting us out of the modern times. I mean thank you, yes. I mean we need to be grateful for the power companies. Yeah, Also.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Agreed. They have, some would argue. I might even argue, are these oligopolies, these monopolies, and they set and control a market, which is why you typically have power, service commissions and oversight and those sorts of things. But let's be real, they are businesses, they want to maximize profits, they really control an area. And so when you're talking about decentralization, trying to come in as an independent, saying you know what? I want to build my own power, I'm going to go on a limb and say they don't really like that very much.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm going to agree completely. And look, as Utahns, we have the huge black eye. We keep talking about the IPP. I mean, folks, if we build a power plant and we can sell to our own community for a market rate in Utah that's about $0.75 per kilowatt Right, and it's clean and it's efficient and all the things that ought to be embraced rapidly, right, without friction. But when you have, if I go to the city and I say I want to build a power plant so I can sell it all to California for $0.22 a kilowatt but you're going to get all the emissions from it, right, city, and I say I want to build a power plant so I can sell it all to california for 22 cents a kilowatt, but you're going to get all the emissions from it, right, what the hell? Who the hell? Uh, who the hell authorized that? Yeah, how does this happen? Okay, so this is what we're talking about. You guys, it.
Speaker 2:Now, you can't blame the business, the, the power company, the IPP. They are about profitability, yep, and as we contemplate building power plants, it's tempting to want to accommodate customers who will pay a premium, right, that's tempting, very. That's capitalism, it is and it's finest. But to me that's a, and I think we have the right to talk about that until we're blue in the face. We do because we are utahns and we are a product of this in our own, in our own backyard and and literally in the backyard of our, you know, one of our projects. Okay, so, quite, quite literally. So so I think I think it's a good case study to just question the motives, the intentions of big power and and and I'm going to classify ipp as historically maybe not moving forward anymore, but historically falls into that category of kind of capitalism first, first, community Second, don't necessarily agree with that community and, I would argue, in state, second, state or third, absolutely Regionally, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It is very interesting and I think the more you and I have learned about this and we spent time in this space I'm not going to say yet on, I'm not going to come out and say what I actually say might say off off this, about, about, maybe, how I would compare certain entities, because, yeah, yeah, we'll just, we'll just leave it at. Maybe someday you start to realize how difficult it is to solve the, I guess, the foundational problems of of building infrastructure we're talking about, as I've talked, that's a brittle infrastructure, that we have the grid lines, running lines, doing this, trying to get, you know, power from one place to another. As I, you said, I've said there's all this, you know power that's just sitting there, unconnected to the grid right now, like a lot of it. So why is that? Yeah, oh, geez, hey you got a phone call.
Speaker 1:I got a phone call. I thought I turned that off.
Speaker 2:That's my ringtone, everybody.
Speaker 1:I should check my phone yeah, that's my ringtone everybody. So, if this issue of brittleness and connectivity, it all comes back to, why don't we have better infrastructure? And it's because you even part of it is patchwork, which is kind of decentralized, and it's all right. You got 50 states, you know, all doing their own thing, generally speaking. You've got the feds, then you've got all the power companies and everybody's trying to do their things. And so you know, you have agreements and we're going along with the interstate agreements and this and that and the other, but there's the it's.
Speaker 1:It's so, it's so scattered, yeah, and and now we're uncovering a problem that has existed, I'm sure, for quite some time. We're uncovering it because all of a sudden, demand is spiking, yeah, and there is there. It's not just normal, like linear growth, it's exponential growth. Yeah, and it's uncovering a problem, and the problem is is that we are not, our grid is not stable and not prepared to be able to handle this, and so all of these issues that maybe we could kick under the rug or they could kick down the road, are coming to the forefront. Finally, and and they're, they're real, and this goes to this, this, this is kind of what we're saying is like, you know. Well, maybe we can, maybe we can help you, maybe, yeah, maybe eventually we'll help you. Well, as a developer, you're like wait a minute, I'm not waiting five to 10 years. Yeah, what do you mean? Yeah, well, that's just the way you have to do it. Is it, though, right? And we're realizing that?
Speaker 1:that's where we kind of got it Like no, we're not, we're not waiting, we were no, we're going to go solve it Our damn selves. That's right, we're used to that language of like. Maybe we'll study it, maybe we'll think about it maybe we'll consider it in two years.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, the bureaucratic uh word salads, yes, and you know, and, and they're just doing what they do. But for us and for a lot of groups that are trying to build out, we're saying, okay, well, this is why things have to change, this is why we want to see a decentralization of power. So we're going to, yeah, we're going to build out. We're saying, okay, well, this is why things have to change, this is why we want to see a decentralization of power. So we're going to, yeah, we're going to build our own power. And you know what? We're going to build our own power. And if we have excess power, what do we do with it? Well, maybe we deal with the local communities and say, well, you know what we're going to give you. We're going to, we're going to try and do this. That's probably not going to make a lot of people happy and it's the way it goes, but that's also capitalism. We're saying we can do it better and quicker and faster and cheaper because we're trying to go around.
Speaker 1:Again, I appreciate the power comes in. I mean, you look around us, we're industrialized, we've grown. I mean part of it is in and all comes back to power and having the power to do that. However, there's a shift that needs to take place, so I'll finish out, because it kind of goes into this. I'll start over with the growing competition for electricity-created bottlenecks, as utilities are sometimes forced to delay grid connections to new data centers in order to assess and expand capacity, with some tech companies now facing years-long wait times. That was the gotcha. That's what we're running. It's years long Like oh, we could maybe help you out, but we can't solve that for years.
Speaker 2:Let's pause on that again, because we've had conversations with data center operators who have approached us, who have said, have said, hey, we understand you might be producing power on site, you might be able to meet. I mean, we want to talk to you because we had a conversation with the local power provider, right, and we've mentioned 300 megawatts and we kind of got laughed out of the room saying maybe five to ten years, five to ten years from now, we might be able to get around to that. But that's, that's a little bit. You know above, you know reality, right, and so they're looking for alternatives. They're not going to wait around either. Oh, and they're.
Speaker 2:And and this is this is being reflected clearly in the news none of these hyperscalers are waiting around. They're building their own dang nuclear power plant and they around they're building their own dang nuclear power plant and they're they're building their own alternative modalities to solve this. Yeah, so it it feels like the sooner we can get to an alignment and I don't, I don't, I don't have any preconceived notions that we will but maybe someday there will be more aligned, we bring enough decentralized power to the table, maybe some of these bigger providers will get a little bit more reasonable, a little more competitive. Maybe It'll be interesting.
Speaker 1:Well, nate. He goes on to say in response utilities are considering increasing prices and offering long-term contracts to fund grid expansions and maintain a stable energy supply. But again, that's great, that's five to 10 years, and this is a now problem, this is a today problem, this is a yesterday problem. This is not a, I mean, it's a five to 10 year problem for sure, but it again, somehow this is going to get solved.
Speaker 2:But let's also let's also go back to conversations we've had within the past 12 months with smaller power providers who are handcuffed by supply chain. Yes, different conversation. They're saying, well, we might, could provide x number of megawatts, but the lead time on the transformers and substation equipments, you know, 36, 48 months out Right For them, right? Not for the developer, right? So, depending on where you're at in the food chain of power production you are facing, we are all facing supply chain issues If we choose to go down the traditional route of running our powers through a traditional grid system, the way it's been done, which which makes this tantamount that we figure this out, this decentralization out, as an alternative to be putting power where it's needed, right? Uh, irrespective of grid issues, that's right and supply chain issues.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely. That actually brings up you bring up kind of an interesting point that is also currently in the news and we talk about. I've got one more paragraph because I think you know I'll just finish it up. As AI technologies continue to evolve and more data centers come online, experts warn that without significant investment in power grid upgrades, these challenges will likely intensify. This could lead to higher costs, not only for tech companies, but also for consumers. So, across the board, you know, tech companies, consumers are going to hit because it's like, okay, we're not going to do anything fast, we're going to have to go and get to raise this money and we're saying, yeah, that's one solution, yeah, but there are other solutions and we think we're on to the other, the alternative solution to this, and it's a long-term solution too. It's a, yeah, it's a, it's a it's. It's a paradigm shift in how this is done.
Speaker 1:It's not typical that you get a development group saying you know what? What if we build a power plant? Yeah, we did like, what if we? What if we solve? What if we utilize what's out there? Because we knew one of our locations, we know we sit on geothermal and we've known that for a long time and we know that's and that technology is progressing really fast. We're excited about that anyway, and we consider that. But now we're considering all these things, saying yes, it's all of these things.
Speaker 2:Why not do all of these things and bypass the red tape as much as we can? I will go as far as to say that the valley forge impact park business model is an aberration from the traditional way of getting it done and it's a little disruptive yeah, but but we like disruptive.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's that's how things change and they improve. It's also how things blow up. But we, we, we know and this is where I think you and I have come to a realization in probably just the last couple, three months when we're talking to who we would consider the leaders in this industry, the people at the forefront, at the cutting edge, the ones that have been doing this, massive companies seeing all the problems, all the issues, solving it, when they're telling us ah, it's good to hear you guys talking about this, because you're right on, you're right on, the money been, it's been good, and we're we're getting that feedback, and so that's why we were excited to talk about this and because the more we get a chance to talk about this, the more it becomes. You know people and you know people in power become aware of these issues, and so you know this isn't going to be one problem solved by Invictus sovereign. No, uh, or or value for it, no, this is, this is a. This has got to be solved across the board.
Speaker 2:I think it's important to really underscore, though, back to our values. Yeah, you know, we're not intending to go in and build power plants on our parks so we can charge 22 cents a kilowatt. No, if that was the market standard, we'd do it, but that's not what the standard is in Utah, and I think it's really critical to understand that. What we're talking about is empowering a community, empowering the small communities that we're going into and some of the larger communities we're going into. Providing options, providing solutions, cost-effective solutions that affect the bottom line of every household in the community.
Speaker 1:That's really important to us, very important to us, because, ultimately, the community is going to support, it's going to live. It needs to be an ecosystem and if something's out of whack in that ecosystem, it's going to be out of whack for the community. And if our parks function the way we want them to function and if they're going to be successful, it needs to be successful within the context of that ecosystem. And the only way that ecosystem works is to have all these things working in conjunction. That's right. So, and it's important to us. It's very important to us. That's right.
Speaker 1:You know, as we said, these are communities. We're happy to have family members, whether we live there or us live there. We want that kind of a or you were, where people are proud of there. So it's not the we're gonna, you know, big park coming in and changing the makeup of community. No, no, no, it's. It's a working with the community and each of these uh, valley, forge, impact parks taking on the flavor of that community, right, right, so that taking that community right, um, it's not going to be. Well, these are cookie, they have to be. No, it's going to. We're going to work with these communities and say what does this need to look like for you?
Speaker 2:well, we're actively doing that. We're actively doing this in utah and wyoming currently. No, I'm really eager to get into the next few sites. Our acquisitions team is already identifying the next five sites. Site selection is really exciting, cause then we get to start engaging with municipal authorities. We get to start understanding feasibility, understanding attitudes and temperature within the community and how we can tailor it, you know, to each of those project sites. That's exciting.
Speaker 1:It's exciting and I think our experience so far in Wyoming has has, you know, been that we've had a terrific, uh, dialogue with a community and and you know they're, you know this this community is, you know they're like a lot of communities, you know they, they, they, their biggest export right now, or their you know kids. Even though it sounds terrible, I mean it sounds terrible, thinking in a certain way, but it's, their kids are leaving and never coming back to town and so the community is slowly aging out and kind of dwindling. Yeah, and that's common, that's not just an aberration. And these people, who have lived there their entire lives, love these communities. I mean it's who they are.
Speaker 1:And so in talking to them and working with them, I mean obviously they've been incredibly excited about what we've been talking about. They've been very accommodating and they have taken an interest from day one and they see the value. They see the value because they've lost an industry. They've already said goodbye to last year, to 100 and some odd jobs as rail changed and you know. So they've taken hits and they want growth and they want to move in, but they don't want to change the flavor of the community, which is great. So it's like, well, how do we do it? And so the dialogue we've been having is fantastic. Couldn't ask for anything better.
Speaker 2:Agreed, I'm going to drop another headline that kind of does a good follow-on to your headline on data centers. Here AI milestone achieved as Musk's new Memphis data center.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, at Musk's new data center. So this is crazy guys. This is crazy guys. Elon Musk, recently established XAI data center in Memphis, achieved a significant milestone this week by activating all 100,000 advanced NVIDIA chips simultaneously. As confirmed by sources familiar with the development, this accomplishment makes the data center known as Colossus, the most potent computer ever constructed. Colossus, the most potent computer ever constructed. It also marks a noteworthy technology feat for XAI, a relatively young company that made the colossal facility operational in under six months.
Speaker 2:The industry raising doubts that that this, this capacity to power and you'd be able to actually manage this many gpus, uh, is is realistic or could be sustained. Um stating that no one has ever even attempted to interconnect a hundred thousand gpus due to limitations of networking technology required to connect them all and make them function as a unified computer. Okay, so, so, beyond the power consumption you're talking, you've you've talked about the new future of fiber. Yeah, but yeah, that's just that's. That's amazing. But this is incredible for so many. I'm so I'm excited about it because it it's, it's, it's a historical marker, it's a stake in the sand or stake in the ground here of how this is advancing and how quickly, yeah, and how quickly. Once that, now that that's happened, we're never going back to half that capacity, no, the limitations. We're never going to be settling for less right. Everyone's going to be pushing to to be, you know, at least meeting or beating that they're going to fail forward.
Speaker 1:I mean, even if they, even if it's you know they discover problems which you should. I mean that's the whole point Find your problems and keep moving forward. And one thing you, Elon, or hate Elon Elon has always been somebody who has not taken no for an answer and he's always pushed the, the, the, the. He's pushed, he's pushed the frontier, he's, he is truly pushing the frontiers. He always that's marked his, his entire modus operandi, for I think his existence is that he, it seems to me he thrives when people say you can't, it can't be done, absolutely, and, and, and, and. He figures out a way. Does it mean it's perfect all the time? No, um, does it mean my, my, my car doesn't sometimes have the decision? No, yeah, yeah, it had, but, but.
Speaker 1:But you look at how far it's pushed things, I mean. I look at SpaceX, I mean it's so, it's been so successful that you know, the government has obviously government contracts and the government is using it a lot. Wow, that was a private endeavor, and you know. So he's just doing these things, and I mean with Grok and the other things he's doing, he's pushing the forefront, he's saying, oh, it can't be done, let's put all the smartest people together and let's let's figure out how we can do it, or let's find out how we can't do it, but how we can get to something that is close to this or whatever that might be, and I you know it's. It's fun watching.
Speaker 2:I want to drop an additional. There's a, there's an additional nugget here for our listeners, oh boy, and if you know, you know I'm laughing for a second here. Okay, the breadcrumbs. Just this final thought on this article and we can move on. I like the picture too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which you can't see, but it's a very cool picture. Xai has been aggressively pursuing its goals, even resorting to connecting natural gas turbines to supplement conventional towers. No shit, okay, so I'll leave it at that. Okay, they're working with utility officials to enhance the facility's power supply, but that's a pretty good idea, elon.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we agree with that. We agree with that. And here's the guy who is you know we're going to go. You know is the godfather currently of like getting us, you know, at least in the car space, electrified and, like you know, bringing it to a mass market. I've heard him talk. He wants to move everybody there. He wants to, he wants to get to green.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's been his mission because he thinks it's it's the best business. It's the best business is where we should be. All all those reasons, and he's recognizing that, yeah, before we get there, we've got to do these things. Yeah, we've got to do these things. Yeah, uh, we've got to like, actually have baseline power for a while. And you know, and, and I and he again, I would argue that he wants to get there. That's kind of been there. You know, their, their whole brand, I mean his whole brand for a long time has been that I believe we say it's been part of him and so he's going to go push the frontiers of being as green as possible as he can, yeah, and when he's got to use gas resips, you realize there's a problem out there folks, yeah, yeah, and also it's a problem and an opportunity.
Speaker 2:Well, it also underscores the viability of how we're doing certain things. Yeah, that's hell of a nugget. Yeah, that's a good one. I'm gonna bounce right to the next one, okay, before I'm gonna give you a chance to go to your next one.
Speaker 1:I don't even my.
Speaker 2:I've turned my computer back on so the guardian this week headline private equity firms plowing billions into fossil fuels. Analysis reveals, guys, we're going back and forth on the spectrum of of the energy transition. Okay, it is a transition. You know what our position is on this energy transition but I really love reading about this now, again, this, this um, mr damian gale puts a pretty negative spin on the fact that these big private equity firms like Carlyle are putting billions into traditional power production, using 401ks and pensions, and he's actually stating here that they've plowed more than $1 trillion into the energy sector since 2010. Trillion into the energy sector since 2010. But what he doesn't like about this is that they're not making proper financial disclosures, they're operating outside the public eye, they're pouring all these emissions into the atmosphere, and so it's a very negative report here.
Speaker 2:But I'm always going to say pay attention to where the money's going, guys. Mm-hmm, when we're throwing around billions or trillions of dollars, it doesn't really matter what someone reports. They're doing that, they're making that investment and there's a reason behind it. Smart money says while everyone's over here trying to build solar and do all these things that are really green and renewable, we should probably be gobbling up the traditional means that are currently working, that we're currently depending on Right. I think that's pretty smart yeah.
Speaker 1:We're going to hedge and we're going to do this and we're going to take these and even if there's diminishing, if we can get these for a lot less than we could have got them before, I mean, yeah, absolutely Well, and I'll throw this in there to go about like the stuff going everywhere. And then you've got this out of the Nikkei Asia. Uae to invest $23 billion in low-carbon energy solutions over the next five years. Okay, another one, another one, uae to invest $23 billion. So a national oil company to export hydrogen and ammonia to Asia and Europe. So they're looking at hydrogen, which we've talked about and will continue to talk about to Asia and Europe. So they're looking at hydrogen, which we've talked about and we'll continue to talk about to Asia and Europe.
Speaker 1:And again, we're seeing headlines of like nope, we're pulling out of hydrogen. We're seeing headlines, nope, we're going into hydrogen. It is all over the board and I know, you know and spending a little bit of time on the technical side of this, the science is pretty excited about, you know, about the, though. The scientists, the people ruling the space, are very excited and very bullish on this, even though some of the bigger oil companies have plowed a lot of money into it and didn't get the results they wanted, and but there are others saying no, no, this is, this really is gonna work and this is. And again I've come to think the UAE really is there. There's some pretty smart money there.
Speaker 1:I agree, I am, and, and I, and I think they're looking at the world going. You know, okay, we're going to do this here, we're going to do this here. I mean, again, you know, hedge here, hedge there, or we're going to go in because we think there's a possibility there and we realize that there's a lot of value in this space. But we need to seed it and get it going. And so, again, there's a lot of money going to a lot of places.
Speaker 2:I love the Maverick attitude coming out of UAE. I mean they seem to be pushing the forefront of energy transition and all the things that we keep talking about. There's hundreds of billions of dollars coming in. They're putting their money where their mouth is right to help advance this energy transition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think they maybe arguably know better. I mean, they sit on you know a lot of you know over there, generally speaking, over that part of the world, a lot of cheap oil and yeah, that has made them incredibly wealthy, um, and they're saying, well, that's not going to last forever. I think that's the, that's the other, you know, if you read between them, which already just see what they say yeah, and where where do we go and where do we take this next? What's the next thing? How do we build out infrastructure? How do we take this money and leverage it forward? So we're not just sitting on piles, we're actually okay. What's you know? Where does this then benefit us in the next 20 years, 50 years, 100 years?
Speaker 2:and that's what we're seeing right now well, you know, you were on a call with me earlier this week with I'll go on a limb and say one of the foremost authorities in the electrical space globally. Yep, part of our plan for this tier five data center category, are we using hydrogen fuel cells, asa backup or as a redundant uh resource of power production for this data center? Yes, yes, yes, okay. Well, we think that's a really good play yeah okay, we're talking about energy mix with these guys.
Speaker 2:That's not being done yet. No, that that's. That's something that still needs to be developed. Hydrogen fuel cells as a redundant power source yeah, in a data center yeah, it's not, hasn't been done.
Speaker 1:As far as I know, it's gonna be part of tier five. I mean, I would deal if, if, if we're wrong, again, as we say, correct us, set us a thing, but I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, and that, and that's that goes to our point of everything needs to be on the table. That's right. Um, and how and how do you take that everything and then mix it specifically to a particular area of the country or project? And and then how do you get it from, maybe, where it has to be right now because of, perhaps, regulation, availability of whatever it might be? Yeah, and then, with the goal of getting logistics, yeah logistics, everything else, and the goal.
Speaker 1:You know we all have goals of getting it to a certain point, but you also have to work with when, what you have, what you have and you can do, you can mitigate a lot of these things. I mean, we know, with gas resips, we know you can put on scrubber all kinds of things that really like get this to it. Now there's the coming out of the ground part of it, there's the methane part, but they're and it's not, that's not I'm not dismissing that, but as far as the impact, uh, on the burning part of it, you can almost mitigate it to zero. And you know, and it's far better right now than coal, that would, I think everybody agree with that. And so it's like, okay, let's go here, but it's not here, but it's not it, that's not the okay, don't just rely on that, because then, as some of these others come online, or their availability, for example, geothermal.
Speaker 1:If you happen to have access to geothermal, oh my, I mean they're having terrific successes with geothermal and it is incredibly renewable. I mean it's a clean source and can and you, it's consistent and and that's that also is exciting, it's sort of like where you know, where are you, what can you get to? And then, as we come back to, okay, well, great, if you have a giant, uh say, geothermal plant 90 miles from you, well, you don't just string a line, yeah, overnight, yeah, for example. Yeah, like we do, like if we wanted to, even we wanted to contemplate, like, how do we get a power from, if we could even consider that power from a group, well, it, you don't just run 90 miles of of high voltage power lines. No, that's an incredible undertaking.
Speaker 1:180 million dollar, yeah situation and permitting and all this stuff and supply chain. And then, as we mentioned, the big power companies are going to maybe not want that to happen because they want to be able to or if you've got to cross their lines. They're going to charge you exorbitant rates to get your power from point A to point B, and so, even if it's in proximity, it's not necessarily a quick solution.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Which is why everything for us is on the table.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, the hydrogen conversation is interesting and I can foresee that that will be an ongoing subject that we're going to cover. One of the things that conceptually has been presented to us is just this notion that green hydrogen or blue hydrogen or any of the seven colors of hydrogen could potentially be distributed through natural gas lines. If that were the case, how awesome would that be. I mean, we already have a fairly extensive network within this country for natural gas lines, big ones, you know. Both of the projects in Utah and Wyoming are in proximity to major major gas pipelines. So to put a straw in that, so to speak, and pull natural gas and hydrogen out of it, that's a really exciting proposition. Absolutely, that's a really exciting proposition. Absolutely that'd be something that I would.
Speaker 2:I would vigorously support the r&d of that becoming reality.
Speaker 1:Absolutely right, absolutely well, we've talked about this. Should I talk about this one? Did you see that? I don't know if you saw this one. Absolutely, I mentioned this to you. Uh, yeah. So another article. Uh, westinghouse's new nuclear micro reactor could power tomorrow's ai data centers. Uh, so excited to see this. So Westinghouse's new nuclear microreactor could power tomorrow's AI data centers. So excited to see this. So Westinghouse Electric has submitted its preliminary safety design report, the PSVR for the Evinci microreactor, to the National Reactor Innovation Center, nric, at the US Department of Energy. A major milestone in a process that began last October. And then it does some history. America largely abandoned nuclear energy after the Three Mile Island disaster in 1979. But it is making a comeback thanks to astronomical energy and cooling requirements of today's Frontier AI models. Frontier AI models.
Speaker 2:Hey, frontier. Look at that, that's cool, that's a new term. Right there. It's a new term Frontier AI models, frontier Frontier line that's cool.
Speaker 1:That's a new term. Right there. It's a new term Frontier AI models, frontier Frontier line that's cool. A recent study by the Washington Post and the University of California Davis found that using chat GPT to generate a single 100-word email, which we've talked about previously, can consume up to nearly a liter and a half of water and enough energy to power 14 LED light bulbs for an hour. Wow. And as AI models grow and even larger and more complex, their power demands are expected to increase in step With AI data centers consuming multiple megawatts, up to a full gigawatt of electricity. We're going to eclipse gigawatt very soon. Wow.
Speaker 1:With the submission of this, westinghouse can now deploy the EVENCHI for testing at the NRIC's Demonstration of Microrreactor Experiments facility. The NRIC is tasked with developing four new experimental facilities and two large reactor test beds by 2028, where it will conduct comprehensive technology demonstrations before finalizing a pair of advanced nuclear technology experiments by 2030. A pair of advanced nuclear technology experiments by 2030. The completion of the PSDR for the Evinci test reactor is an important step towards enabling a microreactor developer to perform a test in our dome facility, said Brad Tomer, acting director of NRC, as a, and quote as a national DOE program and part of INL, the nation's nuclear energy research laboratory. Nirc, is committed to working with private companies such as Westinghouse to perform testing on and on and on and on. So this yeah, they actually go on to actually get into this that the Vinci works essentially as a battery.
Speaker 1:According to Westinghouse, it uses very few moving parts instead of relying on the first ever 12-foot nuclear-grade heat pipe to transfer heat from the nuclear core. In addition to providing electrical power for remote sites and installations, the reactor can also generate the high-temperature heat needed to produce hydrogen fuel. Each reactor unit is designed to operate 24-7 for eight years. At a time. When a reactor expends all of its fuel, westinghouse will swap it out wholesale for another sealed reactor. Wow, as we're talking and we mentioned this previously I mean the technology is advancing, they've got to go in through a whole reactor. Wow, as we're talking and we we mentioned this previously I mean the technology is advancing, they've got to go in through a whole process. That's where a little bit of the bottleneck is. Now. It's not something they can just go and you've got a group and they can just give you a permit in a few months. This is this. This takes a while. It has to be tested out, and proven how much power production one of these units could do.
Speaker 1:They didn't. I didn't see that. I was going to look. I know there was the other reactor and I forget it was out of Europe, it was European, they authorized it. Finally, it was the first one ever authorized somewhere in Europe and I think it's been submitted to the NRC. Similarly, there's another company that's done this. They're already ahead of the game and they're going through the process right now at the NRC so they could eventually bring it into America. But again, similar. I don't know if the technology is similar, but they're calling it a micro reactor, so it's some smaller scale and I think that one, if I'm not mistaken. I want to say I want to say it seems like it was like four or five gigawatts. Wow, maybe, maybe not that much. I need to go find it. We need our assistant. Yeah, go find, but I know that's. The thing I wanted to know is, like you know, on this micro profile, how much power, and then how many would you need?
Speaker 2:I mean, even if that was a 500 megawatt solution, that would be formidable.
Speaker 1:It would be. Oh, here we go. Nope, nevermind, this is a. It's just. They talked about, um, uh, when you got Amazon. Aws recently purchased 960 megawatt data center campus from Talon, and Microsoft is currently seeking to reopen unit one reactor at three island, uh, three mile, three mile island itself to power its ai data centers. So, which we've talked about, yeah, so uh, I'm gonna look and see if I can. I see if I can find anything. Do you have, uh?
Speaker 2:while you do that, I mean I'm gonna see if my next headline.
Speaker 1:Please do, because I'm gonna see if I can find this answer, because I want to know. So I love that.
Speaker 2:So energy this is from energy mix dot com, and we're continually focusing on the energy transition. The headline here is smart energy buildings could save billions during energy transition, could save billions during energy transition. And this really caught my eye because you know the last episode we talked about. You know concrete mix and advanced materials and things that could, you know, reduce the carbon footprint or improve efficiency, and this one brings up a a new term that I've just learned with this article, called grid interactive. So grid interactive smart buildings are emerging as a way to steady the grid during high demand, and Toronto-based clean tech startup Parity is identified as a leader in the field in a recent news report.
Speaker 2:Recent news report, parody deploys its heating, ventilation, air conditioning, hvac optimization software at several residential buildings and hotels in the eastern united states, adding up to about 70 million square feet of real estate, reports canary media. Designed to squeeze a certain amount of savings out of day-to-day operations, parody's software can cut a building's energy use by 15 to 30 percent, while saving 10 to 15 percent on residents' utility bills. But what we're so excited about is this new concept of grid interactive efficient building, where it's not just about how much you're consuming, but when you're consuming it. James Hanna, us Managing Director of Parity, told Canary, coined by the US Managing Director of Parity, told Canary, coined by the US Department of Energy.
Speaker 2:The term grid interactive buildings describe structures that combine energy efficiency measures and load flexibility, meaning they can shift their power use to match when the grid can deliver it most cost effectively. Such buildings stand to deliver big savings. Doe-sponsored studies show that their widespread implementation could reduce the cost of the clean energy transition by $100 billion per year by 2030. And cut the cost of achieving nationwide carbon-free electricity by 2050 by more than one-third. I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1:Me too.
Speaker 2:For many obvious reasons. We're deep where you know we're talking to schneider electric because they have this proprietary ai driven power management platform. We have been collaborating with schneider to help, you know, implement that into a unique energy mix situation on Valley Forge Impact Parks, where we're taking traditional means of power coupled with some renewables, blending it all together and optimizing how the power gets distributed within the park. This is a more consumer-level approach, yes, and it seems super exciting. I mean, if put put this technology on every apartment building you ever built, you can put this in a home. We talk, we and you know we talk. This kind of reminds me of that sprinkler story you shared with the efficiencies in the water just having that technology manage how the water and the sprinklers work. Well, this is doing that for power. But that's a serious, serious uh solution, very, in my mind, very serious consumption, and then we're not having to produce as much or, as we produce more, as we grow, it spreads more we can deal with.
Speaker 1:We can deal a little bit better with the growth. Yeah, um, a few years ago and I forget the name of the company, this being one of them there was a group that I knew was doing a similar thing and had kind of gotten some warehouses online down in Southern California and had actually done if I remember correctly, had done some work. They did a pilot project with a Walmart there and Walmart basically said this is fantastic, you've just cut our energy bill by 30. And it was. It was a iml yeah, just smart managing this, you know smartly. Hvac and all the energy yeah, um, just that alone introduced all kinds of efficiency and savings. And and if you look at the cost, I mean for them it was like, well, this is a no-brainer because, yeah, if you, even, if you, even if we charge you, whatever it is, you just saved us, especially, like in some places where higher energy costs, you save us millions, yeah, and that's just one location, yeah. And so last I heard they were going to take this and then roll it out to a number of locations and they wanted to. But then, uh, this gentleman who had founded this company, he was in discussions with some of the bigger gentleman who had founded this company. He was in discussions with some of the bigger you know, uh, bigger warehouse groups to say let me come in and let me try it on, and they'd go in and they'd put all these sensors and things I mean it's a whole thing and the ai and sensors, and then they'd run for a month and they'd they'd learn all these things and then they would adjust it and then, and then you were off the races and you, you know, these companies could save a lot of money. And I can only imagine that maybe this is group, you know is getting better and better and better and better and better. Sure, and that's also part of the problem.
Speaker 1:So, as you know, I'll go back to the, the sprinkling thing. I mean, I talked to the you know here in the Utah. I remember meeting with the state head of the water for the state and said you know, we have really cheap infrastructure here. We have mountains it creates gravity right next to our population and and we have plentiful water. We've had plentiful water for a lot of years and so we haven't had to worry about it. And so people kind of got lulled in the sense of like, ah, water's there, it's clean, it's, it's, it's tasty, it's, it's plentiful until we've experienced the growth we've experienced over the last decade.
Speaker 1:He said you know, we can do this a couple ways. We can build more capacity, which takes a long time to do, new reservoirs and faces all kinds of uphill battles. Or we can start metering this and start actually letting people know what they use, because there are a lot of areas in utah where people they don't know it. The site metered and and and and. We do that, or and then we can like, and then we can also encourage the use of these technologies which allows you as a consumer, as a homeowner or as a, to understand what you're using, when you're using, and if you can cut your, say, and if you can get.
Speaker 1:I mean yes, there are big consumers, like here in Utah, that was. I mean there've been stories like we can all sit here and save our water and our yards yeah, but if you look at where the water is actually going, it's mostly agriculture. Yeah, and so you can say you can do everything you want, but you can only dent it this much yeah. That said, if everybody can contribute, that just means we can deal with growth and keep our prices in check, and and they were trying to solve this for agriculture, because agriculture is another one where you still have ditches and all kinds of things where the water evaporates, so you just it's inefficient. Yeah, and there are efficient systems in that growth, but they're expensive.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know it's a. You know a farmer doesn't want to have to go out and spend a million bucks or a hundred thousand dollars to do new. You know new sprinkling systems to save water, when, when he or she's paying X amount and they're good. So you have to and say if you really want them to make a change in their behavior, the government has to in most cases have to say okay, well, we'll incentivize you to go buy this new equipment. So it's and we're seeing it on. So we see exactly that thing on the power front.
Speaker 1:Absolutely we produce a lot of power and then we start selling it back and they're like no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:Well, if we can, I think I think again, it, it, it works both ways. You know, if we can, I'm going to reach out to the guys at parody. I'd like to interview them. I'd love to, I'd love to Great guest to learn more about that system.
Speaker 1:Joking power, I mean. I remember back in the news we had a joke. I was like, okay, you know the Utah like hey, we need to say we need to save, we need to save, we need to save. But it was sort of like, be careful, because then save and then the power comes in your back. Well, we're not selling as much, so we need to raise your rates. So it was this double-edged sword.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, we want to save because that's what we want to do, but they weren't seeing power demands growing 20% year over year. No, that's the difference.
Speaker 1:But even then, I remember after a couple of those those summers, when you know the, the governor institute when they were the governor institute this red, green, yellow, uh, to let people know when to you know, maybe up their thermostats and stuff, they saw a significant decrease in demand. And I do remember after that them coming and asking, saying, well, we've seen a drop in demand that the state asked for that. They said, please help, and so it was kind of a you're gonna save, but then we're gonna come back and punch you in the eye and again, I'm not being, but that was what I recall and I might be wrong on that, but that's the, that's the sense that we all have of like wait a minute, I'm gonna do these things and then you're gonna charge me more. Yeah, yeah, so great, I'll help out, and then you get to charge me more.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, why? Anyway? It's that? It's that you know that helter-skelter approach to this, and so it complicates all of our reactions to do I save? Do I not save? What does it do? Yes, we want to bring all kinds of solar on people's roofs, but then we're getting into these things where in California, right, meme 3.0.
Speaker 2:Well, in California, we're Slashing all those rates and crushing the solar company. Yeah, I mean California, we're slashing all those rates and crushing the solar company. Yeah, I mean interesting. So anyway, we're up on time. Dave, that felt like 10 minutes. I did feel like 10 minutes. Thank you for joining us again and we'll see you on the Frontier Line Until next time.
