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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
Batteries and Electric Vehicles
Curious about how electric vehicles and battery storage are reshaping our energy future? Discover the groundbreaking innovations and challenges we face in transitioning to a more sustainable world. From driving Teslas and traditional gas vehicles ourselves, we offer unique perspectives on the electric revolution. Join us as we delve into the complexities of lithium mining, explore alternative materials, and share our excitement for emerging technologies like lithium extraction from geothermal brine.
Take a journey with us through the potential of utility-scale battery storage. We'll explore the current limitations and future possibilities of lithium-ion technology and discuss how software management and AI are pushing efficiency boundaries. Community-scale solutions, like microgrids, show promise for wider adoption, but battery recycling remains a crucial challenge. Our conversation emphasizes practical advancements over one-size-fits-all solutions, aiming for realistic pathways to energy sustainability.
Imagine a world where remote communities thrive independently of a brittle power grid. We explore how decentralized battery solutions combined with solar and wind power can transform energy consumption for small towns, making them attractive to businesses with high power demands. With AI and machine learning integrated into smart systems, energy use becomes more efficient and cost-effective. Hear how these advancements, coupled with evolving city codes and safety mandates, not only provide immediate benefits but pave the way for long-term sustainability and economic growth.
Welcome back. Good morning guys, dave, good morning, good morning Wayne, so happy to see you.
Speaker 2:Likewise, likewise, it's been a busy week. It has been a busy week in our world, probably a busy week in everyone's world. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:We've said, deliberated here in the studio before we hit the record button. You know we've got this whole list of what to talk about. There's so much to talk about and we've covered some really great topics For the listeners out there. We've kind of wanted to kick the show off and lead with foundational concepts. You know we've talked about different modalities of power production. We've addressed some of these issues, the problems which are the glaring problems we're we're trying to address and solve. But we've we've the.
Speaker 1:The intent here, you guys, is we've just kind of wanted to lay things out, lay the landscape out, for the listeners to kind of see the world the way we're seeing it right. And one of the things that we haven't covered just yet is big topic, it's battery storage and evs, electric vehicles. This is in the news every single day and, uh, it's, it's one of the big boxes to check here. That needs to be, that needs coverage for the show. So, um, as we dive into battery storage, let's talk pros and cons, let's talk the good, the bad and the ugly about this good, the bad and the ugly.
Speaker 2:Let's um, well, you know, and, and what we've seen in the space, uh, it's it like everything else is one of the parts of the industry that is quickly evolving, both technologically, from an awareness point of view, as more people purchase electric vehicles or bikes or any of these other things, and obviously, the phones that we're used to. We're getting used to recharging, we're understanding it. The culture has sort of you know, broadly, has become more accepting of it and more interested in okay, well, where do I want to fit in in this? Do I want to buy a car? Do I want to buy a hybrid? How does this work? That's obviously one part of this industry. That is probably the most, I think, talked about part of the industry right now.
Speaker 2:What's not talked about I think maybe enough, is what's happening in the battery storage, as far as industrial or utility-sized storage or microgrids, and how these kinds of solutions are coming to fruition and what they're trying to do and trying to help with so that, as we bring renewables online, we realize batteries could be that great backup. So, when solar, when the sun's not out, when it's not windy, when these things aren't working, what are the solutions? Well, the solution really is battery storage. That then goes into well materials and getting a hold of these materials. We know that, like lithium ion is quite the commodity and it's even part of the international political conversation about who has stores of this and what can we do and how do we do this and how do we leverage that and then some of the other types of batteries besides lithium ion that are being tried. So there's a lot in this industry right now that's happening that we we absolutely need to pay attention to. That is absolutely part of any conversation about energy going into the future.
Speaker 1:Agreed, just for fun. You know it's probably a novel to let the listeners know that we're pretty unbiased about this.
Speaker 1:I mean, you drive a Tesla, I do, I drive a gas guzzling, not Tesla, and so you know we're looking at this from two angles and trying to really look at the conversation objectively. You're not going to hear us saying this is a bad idea. What you're going to hear us talking about is an exploring. Here is the objective, pragmatic viewpoints of okay, we acknowledge that we've got advancing technology. That's pretty exciting. I think that hopefully listeners are interpreting the way or receiving the way we're putting this out is that, even though problems exist, the essence of the show is we have optimism for the future. We have optimism for all these possibilities. This is why we're passionate about talking about it. This is why we're putting so much money, time and energy into the projects that we're doing. That's right. And talking with folks who are developing and advancing and doing the R&D on these types of technologies and battery technology is a huge one. I mean to diverge away from that bipartisan attitude and get into the, the political conversation. There are folks out there who are saying with the lithium mining is more detrimental to the planet than any of the other combined. And you know, if we quantify the the real, you know damages to the earth, then that's not the answer. That's not what we're saying. That's not what we're saying. We've had this. That's not the answer. That's not what we're saying. No, that's not what we're saying. We've had this.
Speaker 1:This global economy has embraced mining of all sorts for many, many, many years and it continues to evolve and improve. And, and that's going to be an inevitable thing. There's nothing, no one out there's going to stop mining generally from happening, from ablating. We'll find better ways to do it. I'm reading about these different lithium resources coming out of the Salton Sea, for example, or geothermal brine that could also produce lithium from underneath the Earth's surface. From underneath the Earth's surface, I mean, there's a lot of emerging concepts and technologies being proven out that point to batteries being the way of the future to some extent. And I think it's probably self-evident right now that in consumer retail, batteries are the common thing for our cell phones, for our laptops, for most of our products, most of our devices. So, on a consumer retail scale, batteries are the thing and they continue to evolve. On a utility scale, we're talking about battery storage. Enough to you know, back up a power plant. That's a whole nother conversation, right?
Speaker 2:whole nother conversation um, or maybe part of this conversation hard to say.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we end up, that's right that's right, and so we we're again. We're wanting to just bring something to the surface for the listeners to consider. This is the way we're seeing the world Half a dozen different concepts pitched about how these massive batteries could be produced, and they could actually accommodate utility-scale backup. The Tesla Powerwall is that what they call it?
Speaker 2:Yes, the Powerwall, they also have a Powerwall. Is that what they call it? Yes, the Powerwall. They also have a Powerpack. I think it's more of the enterprise version, where you would send it in to. You have a building, for example, if you need something. I believe it's a commercial version, but I A commercial version for industry, but not the individual consumer.
Speaker 1:The Tesla Powerwall, in my understanding, is like the guys that can afford that in their $10 million mansion or plus will have Tesla Powerwall and it'll back up the whole house. That's still consumer-scale battery. That's a massive battery, but that's still a consumer scale. We're still not talking about megawatts or gigawatts. That's still an equation that's to be resolved right. That's. There's no solution out there I'm aware of. It's just conversations. It's just concepts. It's just like the hydrogen conversation is highly theoretical but everyone is focused on developing it, which I think is exciting. Um, what are your thoughts on? What are your thoughts on the real feasibility? Because if we try to quantify lithium and other minerals to actually build things that big, what does your gut say about the future of utility scale battery storage?
Speaker 2:Well, in conversations with people that are in the industry and what I've read and again, I haven't read everything and I know, if we look at probably some of the science, I'm sure there are some things on the horizon that are very exciting, undoubtedly to your point. Are they practical? Are they in use yet? Probably not, um, I've, I see not. I see discussions around one, two, three, four megawatt type solutions. The question is is how much storage capacity is that and how long will it last? Typically, with you know, like a lithium ion, you're looking at a four to six hour kind of discharge thing, and so it's not something that is, say, good for a day or two or three. I know there are solutions out there that are getting better, but there are a lot of factors, a lot of formulas. It depends upon what machinery it's running, how much power it's pulling. For example, in your house, I do have some knowledge of this there are other competitor products to the Tesla Powerwall that they would argue, these companies would argue, are more efficient, convert better, can actually power more things in your house. Some of it's done from the battery itself, some of it's done through machine learning or some AI augmentation. So where they're managing the. They're managing the power. So there's there's a the, you know, a software component on top of these things that actually helps increase efficiency, which is also part of the conversation, even on these bigger applications where, you know, if we have a say, a giant like a semi-truck size battery or batteries giant, like a semi-truck size battery or batteries that have a management, a kind of a management or a software component to it, it could extend the life of that for a while. Manage properly, like it would understand what systems actually need to be online versus don't, that kind of a thing. And so there are those solutions coming into the space right now where they're trying to solve it on a, I guess, a slightly bigger scale, someone in terms of like stacking, kind of like daisy, chaining these things together to create these bigger backups.
Speaker 2:The question is is how long and what's the cost? And that's where the real rubber meets. The road right now is cost. Unless there are incentives, typically, right now, cost is still out of reach. Some of it's starting to pencil. Finally, some of the technologies are advancing, costs are coming down, innovation is happening, which is the whole part of this.
Speaker 2:As innovation continues on, whether it's whatever it is, I mean you, you, you brought up the mining, the lithium mining. I read a story where there's a company down in Texas and they think that they've stumbled on a way to extract lithium ion out of old fracking or like the old. Well, and so like all of this material that's sitting there, or all this liquid sitting there, be able to harness some of that, put it back together. We've been introduced. So if you have a challenge, you're going to have 10 companies or people going. Wait a minute, we have a way around that, and I think that's what we're seeing right now is okay, we've run into an obstacle, okay, is there a way to solve it better? And that's the great american spirit. To a certain degree, now, that is exclusive to america, but we're certainly good at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about innovating and pushing, and pushing and pushing and saying how can we do that perhaps more efficiently, less expensively, better, or reimagine how it's done completely. And and that's where I see the battery and should we? We we've gone from from running all of our little devices with batteries we know that we get that to, obviously, rechargeables, and now we're seeing it on a bigger scale and that's exciting and it is working. So I know there are some of these communities where they're almost like a micro-community, where you have a 50-door, know, 50 door, 100 door development, where they are a micro grid and they've put batteries in these neighborhoods or in this neighborhood and these batteries, managed smartly, can provide power, continuous power, for everybody in the neighborhood, and do it very efficiently. Yeah, usually that's in conjunction with power efficient homes. You know using, you know using things that are that help, so you're not taxing the system.
Speaker 2:There are a lot of things right now being thrown at this. As somebody who has a very practically somebody who has a rechargeable car, it has its pros, it has its cons. Yes, do I like it? Yes, is it nice not having to go and fill up at the gas pump? Sure, do I have to plug in all the time? Yes, is that getting better? Yes, do I fully know that that giant battery sitting on the bottom of my car maybe doesn't have a home right now, once my car is at the end of its lifetime?
Speaker 2:yes you know, and so there's a lot of people out there, there are a lot of groups out there right now trying to solve that, right? Um, you know, that's all part of this is like how do we, how do we go, how do we go forward and solve a problem without creating a bigger problem? Well, you know, and then also not looking at it as a panacea also.
Speaker 1:Well, maybe, thinking objectively, it doesn't have to be this end game of battery technology being the utility scale solution. Maybe that's just a far-reaching, ambitious kind of fantasy that doesn't necessarily have a relevant place in any of the conversation. It doesn't necessarily have a relevant place in any of the conversation. It's just an idea, because if we focused our excitement and enthusiasm on the advancements as we see them, I could think of a couple of fun ideas Like like just with. You know, within the last decade you know you have the, the detachable battery pack you can plug your phone into. That's pretty cool If you're camping and your phone's back plug it into the battery pack it's goes in phone into.
Speaker 1:That's pretty cool. If you're camping, your phone's not plug it into the battery pack, it's goes in your backpack. That's cool. This summer you, you and I, were both in Wyoming up, you know, visiting with folks, and I got this idea to rent this Mercedes sprinter van. Yeah, I've never done that, but I, you know, we got an idea, like, instead of staying in hotels up there, I'm going to try it out and see what this looks like.
Speaker 1:And this van was surprisingly really cool. It had a solar panel on the roof. It had this specialized battery pack in the back, kind of storage and kind of a power management system with it. But what was great about that is you didn't have to run the diesel engine the whole time to power what was inside the van. Like there was a microwave, there was a stovetop, there was a refrigerator, so there's all these appliances inside the van and you could turn the van off at night or just in general on your part, and this battery pack would run all this stuff, including 110 outlets in the van Super convenient, right.
Speaker 1:It had a nice air conditioning system, you know, one for daytime that could really cool it off, and then one kind of fan system that was a really low voltage thing that just trickled off that battery pack that would run all night. Just trickled off that battery pack that would run all night, and those were really All of that. Technology was very, very fun to digest. It was fun to experience all of that because I had the same experience up camping.
Speaker 2:My brother has a big trailer and it has solar on the top, and so, as a result, we don't have to run the generator all the time, which is really nice I mean from a just being in nature, being quiet.
Speaker 2:To practicality, sure, we don't have to worry about, say, having the gas as much, because we can rely on it. It's a really nice thing to have. And it's changed it and so it's made it to where it's less impactful across the board. We're not using as much fuel, it's quieter, it's just. Everything's better, everything's better. Yeah, and I and I quite liked it. Is it enough to? This is where we come back to. Is it enough storage? No, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's, it's backup. Yeah, it appropriately labeled backup. Yes, it's not it's not intended.
Speaker 2:You know power source well, I, I think this you know, I want, when we look at, like our energy sources right now, we look at, so the two things that could benefit a huge of solar, obviously, and wind these are, um, renewable, uh energy sources that are, if you take away on the solar side, obviously there's a lot of argument over the materials, right, but if you take it away, it's a very clean way to power things. The problem is that we all know if it's cloudy, we can't rely on it all the time. So batteries, in both cases, solve both those things. This is why solar is growing so fast. So if you can solve batteries better, solar becomes really quite sexy. Um, and then if you start looking at some of the crown of the crazy little numbers, like I think it's, I read 90 in 90 minutes, the sun or the, the earth, gets enough energy. You know, if you, I, if you capture everything to power the power of the entire planet for a year, right, 90 minutes, right, that's how much energy is hitting us all the time. That's incredible, and so it goes. It stands for reason If you can put more solar or ways to capture that energy, um, and you can do it in a, in a game, maybe in this, maybe it's improved manufacturing, it's all these things, and you do it cleanly and you can store it. Yeah, yeah, well, then you've got something right.
Speaker 2:Same thing, same thing with wind. Wind is, generally speaking, clean. It has its issues, we know. You know some effects on animals and noise and certain things, but you know a typical windmill or wind, you know turbine can power about 1500,500 homes a year. It's pretty good for one windmill, but what happens when it's not windy and what do you do with it and where is that energy?
Speaker 2:So if we can solve battery and I think everybody, this all comes back to the battery If you can effectively solve batteries, then all of these solutions that are out there right now become far more plausible for what you're talking about, which is more utility scale. If you can grow those battery solutions and you can manage them, then you could get up to where maybe, for example, you could have a battery backup eventually for a high-powered data center Right, for a high-powered data center, right. And instead of having diesel engines sitting there ready to go in case something fails or having to have okay, we've got gas coming in and we've got line power. Well, with the right kind of battery and right proven technology, well, maybe a battery is where this is at, and then that's constantly getting recharged and charged on renewables and the whole thing becomes far, far more clean and far more inexpensive as time goes on.
Speaker 1:In order to do that, I think that last word you used inexpensive. As time goes on, that's a really critical kind of buzz term, because we've watched solar move from being too expensive that it's preclusive to install, to now we've got big outfits that will pretty much put the stuff on your roof for free because of the long-term benefit and revenue they can produce off it.
Speaker 1:It, pencils it, finally pencils it finally, pencils Cost of materials, but cost of materials. Finally, pencils costs of materials. And we're talking about all the way back to the mining but to the sand required to to manufacture those panels. We're talking about commodities. Costs and manufacturing costs have dropped accordingly over enough time and I think it stands to reason that because we've been able to make those advances of solar, we were likely to see those advancements in battery. If we're paying attention to the news headlines, there's enough money and there's enough businesses out there focused on battery storage and it's a hot topic right now. It is advancing, so it's an exciting space to be keeping our finger on the pulse of.
Speaker 2:And batteries do for a lot of reasons, make a lot of sense for lots of applications. If you can afford it and that's kind of where it is right now for homeowners, generally speaking, if you can afford it. So it's not broadly out there, but for a lot of folks it is, and if they can afford it, it's really advantageous to know that you're never going to go down when the power goes out. And you look at places like California and Texas and even some places in the south who experience a lot of outages or brownouts during the summer months. Well, if you know that you're not going to have that and you can avoid that, that's good for a lot of people. And, considering that we operate a lot on electronics, we know what it's like when we go caveman. It's a very interesting experience. Part of me likes it. Part of me is like this is fantastic. Like nothing's working, nothing's buzzing, it's quiet, right wow, this is great to like I can't do anything right now.
Speaker 2:I can't operate right now, um, because we are so dependent upon our electronics, um, and our electrical footprint. So if we want to remain dependent upon that, we have to have battery storage, and that doesn't even touch. There's a lot of people out there who want to get off the grid.
Speaker 1:They don't want to be on the grid.
Speaker 2:Right, you know, and this you know, this is okay if something happens, major, right, they want to be able to have their own power. There's a lot there and battery storage plays into that. You have to have most of this. You have to have, probably, a battery solver. Most of these people are coming up with a battery solver, a battery backup for whatever is needed.
Speaker 2:And solar is obviously, even if it's cloudy. Even if it's cloudy, I think solar still gets 50% to 60% of the energy needed. But again, panels are still not very efficient. They're getting more efficient, lots of innovation coming, but they're still out there. I mean they're like efficient, right, lots of innovation coming, but they're still out of there. I mean they're like what I 15, 20 efficient, they're not where we would expect. So, as they get more efficient and are able to get cat you know, capture more energy, we need batteries that can be also more efficient to store it, and then this is a whole different picture. Now, you and I have talked in previous episodes about microgrids. Yeah, what does it mean when you decentralize power, when a community has a battery backup and doesn't need to rely on a utility now we're picking on utilities, but doesn't really doesn't have to rely on a utility because the battery backup might provide power for a certain. When you have those options available, what does that do to the conversation? Yeah, it changes everything.
Speaker 1:And there's two buzzwords in that thought that you just shared, and one is decentralization. We're going to keep talking about decentralization continuously because that, that, to me, is fundamentally the way of the future Decentralization of not only power production but transmission, but also the way we look at power. Just wholesale Decentralization, to me, is the key. And so you bring up microgrids, we talk about solar, we talk about solar, we talk about wind. We still can't forget about the power density we brought up a few episodes ago. You can never.
Speaker 1:Until solar panels become so efficient, you still will probably never have enough land to be able to use them wholesale. So the other big buzzword is the blending, or the bundling of power resources and backups to produce redundancy and latency, and that's where batteries play a huge role. Huge role, in my mind, is if we can look at this and say if we could see a future world where a small town has its own power plant that has clean gas as a baseline, for example, augmented by solar, augmented by wind, augmented by geothermal or hydropower, that's right that also has battery.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we haven't talked about that. I mean, those are obviously two other really good power sources for this battery conversation, right?
Speaker 1:I mean up in Guernsey, you know I was looking at. We drove over the dam when we went up to the Guernsey State Park Reservoir. Yeah, that hydropower, that hydropower. I think I read they were producing 38 megawatts off that dam.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's significant hydropower and it's predictable because they know how much water they have. They know, I mean, it's a very predictable thing. It's unpredictable, for example, at glen canyon, when, when water levels dip and we have some of these drought issues, and that that's where this becomes a challenge. I mean it's not to say hydropower doesn't have its own again, everything has its pros and cons, right, yeah, well I grew up, you know, outside las vegas.
Speaker 1:Uh, went to high school there in Logandale. Yes, not far from Hoover Dam, and if you ever had a chance to drive across the Hoover Dam, that's a historic monument of engineering, of hydropower. That Hoover Dam is a massive undertaking, a long time ago Built this a long time ago and it still stands there producing. I don't know how much it produces, but it's a significant amount. We'll look that up. It's one of the biggest in the nation.
Speaker 2:Well, china went with the Three Gorges Dam. I think it's the largest man-made project in the entire world at this point, I believe, handmade project in the entire world at this point, I believe, wow, it was so, so massive to dam up river, but also the amount of power they're producing out of there and so here, hydropower-wise, look what they're doing. They obviously see the value of it and that's a massive project.
Speaker 1:So to the extent it seems to me, to the extent that we as a civilization can advance our technologies to more sophisticated blends of power production that are appropriate geographically, that battery can and will be one of those very flexible ways to improve geographic disadvantages. Absolutely Right. I mean we talk about getting off the grid or decentralizing. I mean battery happens to be one of those things that's fully mobile and could be used to augment any of the power production modalities we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:Let's take a case out here in the West, which is the West is where all the geothermal is Right. Very little in the East, it's pretty much at. Most of the states that can take advantage of it are all at West. So it's Utah, it's Idaho, it's Nevada, it's New.
Speaker 1:Mexico Historically. Yeah, historically Historically.
Speaker 2:Historically because of where the geothermal pockets are and somewhat accessible, and so we understand that. So out west, okay, let's just say we've got a lot of sun, a lot of wide open space, and let's say we've got a lot of water under feet. Well, what can we do with that? Now, if you're a small town out in Soho, we've talked about how brittle the grid is and how challenging it is right now to run and increase power to certain areas, just because of the way the grid is set up, right. So how, if you are a more remote community, how do you circumvent that? Do you wait until they bring more power? So say, you have a company that wants to move into your community of, say, 5,000 people, and the company might need maybe 10 megawatts to bring in a manufacturing plant that's going to bring in, let's say, a lot of really good jobs, but you can't do it because you can't supply the power. Well, so that company is going to go elsewhere.
Speaker 2:But what if part of this solution and this is where this is the what if out here, as you start to leverage batteries and some of these other sources, well, now you become part of that conversation. Now there might be workarounds until the grid maybe matures or grows out, and I think that that's that's something to think about, where, whereas communities realize that maybe there are other solves that might give them an advantage that they wouldn't have normally seen, um, and you know, batteries, bigger batteries might be that part of that piece of that solution. Pie, like, okay, you get geothermal, well now, but you're now geothermal, let's say geothermal and solar, let's say we have, we've got this pretty good battery now and this, with this management system, we're able to power the town yeah and and do what we need to do, and so the power we have coming in now is extra, so maybe that goes to the main.
Speaker 2:That's where this becomes part of those that that may be the the solution set going forward well, it's really interesting.
Speaker 1:You bring up, you know, if we use the typical case study, as middle america it's, it's that small town on on main street, america that's got five to ten thousand population.
Speaker 1:Um, if, if that, if that township, where that city is consuming 10, 20 megawatts and you start installing battery tesla walls in every home in that community, in every business in that community, if you could cut that power consumption in half because you're more efficient, you decentralize and and you've, you've improved the consumption efficiencies that's right of the same power plant. Well, now, now you have a really disruptive possibility here. To to to, because the batteries exist on all scales, all all size scales, right up until we start talking about the utility scale, which they're not there yet. But for all of these consumer, decentralized applications they're so versatile they are. And when we talk about power production, solar has attempted and they're doing that pretty effectively putting the solar panels on a home. I'm not sure that you can get enough panels on a home to fully power the home. So it's more backup or it's more for action of production. But I think we get a lot more mileage out of this battery concept, talking about improving the grid and decentralizing things.
Speaker 2:And also, I mean I here, here's a. I mean I'll give you the cost thing. So, if you know, between three o'clock in the afternoon and, say, eight o'clock at night, for most regions that's when power is the most expensive because that's when it's most taxed on the grids when they have to go to these things. Well now, if your smart system, battery system, understands that when you're at home it pulls from the battery between those hours, well then your bill just went down. Now, granted, it's got to cover the cost of this, but that's where, that's where you have to figure out where, where, where is the number? Where does it actually start making sense?
Speaker 2:Is it on an individual home basis, or is it on a community kind of a basis where you have a couple of these in a, say, let's say, in a neighborhood, and you know the and the neighborhood's using this one thing, but similarly so it's not used, it's not pulling from, it's not just pulling, it's not pulling from electrical power, regular electrical power, when you know certain at certain times of day, which then allows it. Then at night, when it's cheaper or where you know that's, that's when you'd want to, that's when you could use, you use your power, and then in the morning, this is where these smart systems are also playing and becomes a far more efficient system. And you're just saying you're saving money too, which is going to be great for everybody, and as long as that savings then translates into like okay, ultimately I'm going to save x amount, so this pays for itself. Yeah, and then some. That's where these I think these systems get really sexy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know now, when you talk about smart systems, you're not necessarily um including ai, but you're also not excluding ai, because as that, as that comes on board, that's going to be a more prevalent yeah, power management right modality.
Speaker 2:But right now. It's been machine learning basically. I mean it's that kind of that version of AI which is the machine, very basic stuff of like if this, then this, yeah, and it's in its. You know certain types of like we do with sprinkler systems, like, ok, it rains, we turn off, it's windy and hot. Well, we know we're going to have to put more water on the grass. These are these algorithms that have been built Same thing, same principles in battery management and power management for a home, and they're already there, I mean there are systems that are already doing that very effectively, you know.
Speaker 1:But the whole advent of AI is an interesting thing because the costs of developing AI have been born to a large extent. Now there will be continued cost to continue to develop it, yes, but from an infrastructure perspective of having AI proliferate all of these systems, to me that doesn't seem like a cost-perclusive situation. Like if chat or open AI or the guys developing the big, the big, you know, language models, are doing it already and just the number of applications keep popping up and expanding virally is what it feels like, then that's going to be a very affordable bolt on to some of these things that we already have, some of these smart battery, you know, home storage, backup systems, and I think it feels natural that over the next five years AI is going to just bleed into all of this.
Speaker 2:Naturally it's a more efficient way for all of this to work Absolutely, I think I mean with more compute power and just more technology bigger, if you will, the bigger AI brain you're going to be able to leverage that to find efficiencies where maybe it was preclusive before, right, and all of the systems that are already in place will benefit from that. Then that's actually been Bill Gates' hedge. I mean he's talked about that. He's talked that, you know, on power, he doesn't know that we're going to need. I mean, I don't know if I'm going to quote him right, but he doesn't think we're going to maybe need as much as we think we are, because he thinks AI is going to help companies and scientists and groups find efficiencies that maybe we don't know are there. I don't know about that he's a billionaire I'm not but he's on to something meaning there is something to be said, for there are going to be a lot of efficiencies found in the coming years that we just didn't see. Once we maybe have an AI, we take the management of our, say, our energy at home and we turn it completely over to a system and it's managing in the background, maybe it will find far more things than we were expecting, far more efficiencies than we were expecting, far more value. That we just didn't know until we were actually using it in those ways.
Speaker 2:Because right now the AI again it's more algorithm. It's these algorithms that have been based in these small systems saying again like the sprinkling because I know that's out there, it's been done same kind of thing. It looks at certain kinds of things as if this, then this, and when we know that you know we can find a lot of efficiency just in tweaking a few things. Same thing in running, uh, running the power of your house or even a warehouse. Warehouses are a big one. Sure, warehouses are actually warehouses are, I think, one of the one of the big areas where we're going to see a lot of cost savings come because warehouses are finally starting to adopt some of these smart systems on the HVAC systems and everything else that I think is still coming, where you might go to a warehouse or even like a big box store or any of these big buildings, and once you fully integrate an AI package or a machine learning kind of a package, you know they're going to see probably costs drop 30 and 40%.
Speaker 1:I can easily envision that. I mean on the most base level. I just think of you know my own home and raising a family. You know I have five kids. So anyone out there who's got a home and five kids, or three kids or one kid and you think of lights always being on. You think of things being plugged in that maybe aren't even running but are drawing power. People don't realize that. So having the blender plugged in all the time in the kitchen is a draw, and so if you've got an AI package that's managing every possible draw on a system in something as small as your home, I think you could find 30% very easily, very easily. I think it would push closer to 50 when we get really down into the weeds on it Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I installed one of the motion sensors for one of the bathrooms, yeah, Because inevitably, bathrooms are always where the lights seem to be left on Sure. And so I, you know, I, I, I wondered, and I I know that it's been a lot of savings over time, even even though it wasn't I mean not a ton, but you know, we have a bar of lights usually and they, um, and I think it probably saved quite a bit, Just that one little fix, and that's a switch. So now imagine having a, as these homes you know, the newer homes come online and they're already wired for this, you have not only the switches and all the gear, but now you have a computer system that sits over the top of this. That's also managing, kind of the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Well, when you talk about warehouses and commercial facilities, if it's codified into municipal building code to use certain things like LED lights versus incandescent, right, there is a massive draw reduction coupled with an ai package. You I mean you, you find some extreme extreme efficiencies.
Speaker 2:When the led space won me over, I was. I was one of those. I just like the incandescent light better. Yeah, you know, I was like oh no, absolutely not. I hate the white light, I want, I want the the temperature down to me it's the 1800k kelvin or 2300 kelvin, and once they came out with lights that I mean, I was like oh okay, yeah, this is good. Well, I'm in now. I mean now, now they've got. You know, I've got lamps in the bedroom that are well.
Speaker 1:I've got lamps in the bedroom, the kitchen and the living room that I can control from my phone but I can adjust dim, I can change the colors they're led and I can room. That I can control from my phone but I can adjust dim, I can change the colors they're led and I can get that 1800 Kelvin. You know a temperature that I, that I enjoy that more comfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they eat more of the yellow. I'm allergic to the bright daylight too, which was love it. I do not.
Speaker 1:That was the incipient led entering the market was bright plastic white.
Speaker 2:PTSD from, like you know, I do not. That was the incipient LED entering the market was bright plastic, white PTSD from, like you know, schools way back when the lights are like oh no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah, totally agree. So it's become more familiar, it's become more usable. I think it's more the norm now having LEDs. You go into Home Depot, you can find all of these things. I'm not sure that municipalities are codifying that yet. I think it's still up to the builder or the homeowner to make these choices. But I think it probably makes a lot of sense to be eliminating some of these old technologies if we're truly committed to finding the most efficient consumption. This brings a point.
Speaker 2:I'll ask you a question. So this is going to get into one of those. So what do you think about, say, mandates on a federal or on a local level to move people, to force people into a direction? So LEDs, I mean, you had a national movement to say we need to get, you know, rid of of these kinds of light bulbs. Obviously it impacted the industry.
Speaker 2:The people were making incandescence. Yeah, um, I will tell you as an aside, you know the people who, like, uh, in the reptile industry in the state, who have reptiles like that's still kind of a thing, because you're actually buying light bulb not only for light and the uv ray, but you're also getting it for heat, yeah, and so there's a. So those, those light bulbs, for example, have, are really expensive. Now specialized, uh, they were expensive and now they're way expensive, so you can have bulbs that are 75 and 100 dollars. Um, what do you think about mandates? Because this kind of this kind of goes across the industry. Is that, I mean, in order to push people in a certain direction? Sometimes it's needed. Is that too heavy-handed? I'm throwing it out there. I love it, we have like. However, if we're going to go a few more minutes over. We've tried to shoot for 45 minutes on these, but that was probably one to ask right here at the end.
Speaker 1:It's probably not fair. No, it's a great one to end on. It's a fair question and I typically I'm a true capitalist and I'm typically against mandating anything, but in this certain instance I think incentivizing properly is a more appropriate tactic. But I think, look, if we're talking about bulbs and we're comparing incandescent to LED, and we're talking about builders being mandated to use those in construction, commercially or residentially, if you can get the temperature and the familiarity, so it's the same, basically the same, you're not sacrificing the quality of living and the cost is about the same Then I think there's no reason you don't mandate that in code.
Speaker 1:I think, look, the building standards, international building codes, evolve every couple years and those building codes mandate all kinds of things. If you want to build a house in 2024, you must meet this new code and it was just updated a couple of years ago. And to the extent that the builders, well, there's not even an option. The new code advances each every few years and the builders are mandated to meet the new code, the new standard, and I think using more efficient products and materials in the building of things makes a great deal of sense. I think it is possible to mandate it, as long as your cost and your comfort are a rough match, because then there's really no argument for the consumer to say, well, I'd prefer this incandescent because of these reasons. If you eliminate those reasons and you make it affordable, why wouldn't they want that? And it makes it much easier to build that into code by mandate.
Speaker 2:Do you think in that sense, do you think the governments are picking winners and losers when they're incentivizing? So, in terms of the businesses saying we're going to incentivize this and discourage this, and I I bring that up because it is a, it's an argument I've, I see a lot, we see it in the in, in the bigger space, the oil and the gas, versus these things saying, hey, you're, you're, you're picking this versus this, or say, well, environmental. They're saying, well, it's not real. I mean, so there's a lot to it. But do you also I mean, how do you see that? Or do you just see that that's kind of the necessary part to progress in order to push us down the line of innovation or helping? Is it helping shape the market? So the innovation, so the companies? You're right. So the companies, small companies, people with ideas going you know what. I can do that and now I might have some incentive to actually get that done. It's pushing, it's helping push and inspire innovation.
Speaker 1:Look, if it weren't for building codes advancing the way they are and we were still building on the standards of 1920s, we'd have house fires every day because of those unsafe systems that were available then. And if you have a choice to use some of that old stuff versus the new stuff that's safer, that's a problem. Now you're putting the community at risk because you choose to use something older. We had an interesting situation recently, well, a year ago, in one city where they wanted to use this old ductile iron pipe versus the new PVC pipe, which is much safer, has much greater longevity, costs less and for whatever reason, you have engineers fighting to keep this old, inferior material. We finally won and we were able to get text amendments done to to start using the new.
Speaker 1:I didn't realize that you get. You actually fought. I had to deal with that. Yeah, we had to fight that to get that codified within the city ordinance to. And they were the only city, by the way, in the entire state, not using the new, the new PVC pipe. But you still are, and we new the new pvc pipe, that's, but you still are, and we're still dealing with old codes and codes evolving, and so when you talk about code. You really are talking about mandates, and I think it does make a lot of sense when it comes to efficiency, safety and and it's uh, it takes that individual kind of, um, selfish choice out of the mix and it just says well, if you want to live in the city, you're going to adhere to these codes and these laws and these rules and and you choose into it. Right, it's not forced on you, you choose into that. So that's that's my short answer. To love the answer on the mandate. Yeah, thank you. With that, let's wrap it up.
Speaker 2:This was awesome.
