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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
Operation Gigawatt- Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, The Shawn Ryan Show, David Tice Documentary "Grid Down Power Up"
Can Utah double its power production in just a decade? Join us as we explore Operation Gigawatt, a bold initiative unveiled by Governor Spencer Cox at the One Utah Summit. Promising to transform the state's energy landscape, this plan focuses on expanding transmission capacity, boosting production, supporting clean energy policies, and investing in innovation. Discover how these efforts aim to preserve Utah's quality of life and economic growth, solidifying its status as a net energy producer while navigating the challenges of nuclear and geothermal energy.
The journey toward a sustainable energy future is fraught with complexity, but Utah is uniquely positioned to lead the charge in renewable energy. We examine the state's potential to spearhead advancements in geothermal power, thanks to its geographical advantages and pioneering projects. As we confront the intricate balance between growth and sustainability, we'll also discuss the evolving role of nuclear energy and the technological innovations that could transform public perception and political hurdles. Additionally, we delve into Utah's longstanding relationship with shale oil and gas, painting a comprehensive picture of its multifaceted energy future.
The fragility of the U.S. power grid poses significant risks to national security, and it's time to address these vulnerabilities head-on. From the threats of EMP attacks to the consequences of natural disasters, our discussion emphasizes the urgent need for federal regulations and improved security measures for power companies. We propose solutions like decentralized power systems and microgrids, advocating for a localized approach that prioritizes Utah's energy needs over external markets. Highlighting past incidents and the influence of lobbying, we call for transparency, real-time reporting, and proactive measures to secure the grid and safeguard the future of energy development in Utah.
Welcome back to the show guys. Dave, how are you today? I am well, wayne.
Speaker 2:Awesome Welcome to Frontier Line episode.
Speaker 1:Whatever Excited to be here. I think this is 19 or 20. We're pushing into the 20s here. Wanted to kick it off today with a really interesting announcement an exciting announcement here in Utah.
Speaker 1:In Utah, recently in Cedar City, utah, the governor and others hosted the One Utah Summit and so we had EDC Utah down there. Inland Port Authorities, governor's Office of Economic Development and Governor Cox made a really exciting announcement bringing to public attention Operation Gigawatt. Yes, and I'm so excited about Operation Gigawatt and what that means potentially for the state of Utah, what that does for our projects and the communities that we're in, absolutely, and the communities that we're in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. We've heard rumblings about this, obviously for a little bit, and what the plans were, so I'm finally glad to see it come out and get this thing out in the open and obviously from the governor's office on down to support this, to see the issues to see. You know, we've been talking about this, we will continue to talk about this, so this is great. I think it's going to be a great thing for the state of Utah. I can actually probably for the listeners I can read the release. If you're not familiar with this story, I'll kind of read it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that'd be great. I'll read a little bit yeah, then we can dive into the implications, we can dive in and see what they said.
Speaker 2:This is from them. So, in response to the looming energy crisis, today at the One Utah Summit, governor Spencer Cox shared Operation Gigawatt, an initiative to double Utah's power production over the next 10 years. Quote. Operation Gigawatt is critical to preserving our quality of life and ensuring strong economic growth. Utah Governor Spencer Cox said it puts Utah in a position to lead the country in energy development, secure our energy future and remain a net energy exporter while diversifying and expanding our energy resources.
Speaker 2:Utah, like much of the globe, is facing an energy crisis due to a growing population, energy-intensive industries like artificial intelligence, increased electrification of vehicles and the retirement of baseload capacity for reliable electricity. Operation Gigawatt is a cohesive strategy to tackle the gap between energy supply and demand, while protecting the state's natural resources Energy quote. Energy is the engine that drives our society forward. Cox said we need more energy at a time when our supply is decreasing. We will build upon Utah's any of the above energy policy with a more of the above approach, by doubling our energy generating capacity over the next 10 years.
Speaker 2:Utah has diverse energy resources and a long history of delivering energy abundance to residents. Quote we have an opportunity to lead the country in energy development, said Department of Natural Resources Executive Director Joel Ferry. This begins with investing in our current energy resources and responsibly pursuing new ones. Operation Gigawatt ensures that when Utahns flip the switch, the lights always come on. Operation Gigawatt will secure Utah's energy abundance through four key goals increasing transmission capacity, so more power can be placed on the grid and moved to where it's needed. Expanding and developing more energy production. This includes investing in what we currently have while developing new sustainable sources. Enhancing Utah's policies to enable clean, reliable energy like nuclear and geothermal. Investing in Utah innovation and research that aligns with our energy policies. Love it. I think we've probably you and I have probably talked about each one of those things multiple times in the last few months. Yes, we have.
Speaker 1:Yes, we have, so it's great to see. Well, it's interesting because we had a conversation just this week with another very well-heeled, reputable developer in the state and we mentioned high-level some of our plans, of our ambition to build a power plant and they were quick to say, oh no, no, you can't do that, that's illegal in Utah. There's no more power plants in Utah. And this is before the announcement.
Speaker 2:And I just said.
Speaker 1:I wonder what you don't know? Or if you know, are you just trying to kind of throw us a curveball? It was interesting. I just shrugged it off. Two, three hours later, my phone's blowing up with this announcement Operation Gigwap. This underscores what we're doing is on the right track. Now what's interesting? There's a few key interesting things about this.
Speaker 1:Governor Cox is bringing nuclear to the conversation. Utah is not a nuclear producer, so to put Utah in that mix with Wyoming and Idaho makes a lot of good sense. Happy to see that he also brings up geothermal. Now, if you look at the geothermal map of the US and you break it down to the state of Utah and you look at I-15 as like the delineating line that bifurcates the state in half, the west side, the east side, pretty much the entire west side of the state of Utah has geothermal capacity, which is one of the reasons we're in Fillmore, utah, among other locations on the west side, potentially to be able to tap geothermal capacity. Now we have the Fervo Cape Station geothermal plant that they've already broken ground on that plant, I believe latest press releases suggesting that they are intent on developing enough geothermal there to produce over a gigawatt. That's exciting. That's 85 miles south of our site in Fillmore.
Speaker 1:What I don't love about that, though, is that 480 megawatts of Fervo's geothermal clean renewable energy has already been contracted and sold to California, and so I'm sitting here saying, man, utah can't get a leg up, can we? How do we not legislate? We look at the IPP and how it has sold 1.8 gigawatts to California for the last 35 years while we get the emissions from that. That's a huge black eye legislatively and to the communities in central Utah. Now we've got this new exciting geothermal, but it's all getting sent to California. So how does that support Utah communities? I mean, there's jobs there. It doesn't support utah communities directly.
Speaker 2:No, no, I mean it could on, obviously, on uh, taxes and certain things like that, depending upon how it's structured. Obviously, when you build the plan you're gonna or build these plants, you have hundreds to thousands of jobs immediately. But the question is and I think they would probably say, well, that's who was willing to buy it? But as we know, in space there are probably a lot of groups that'd be interested in buying it. But the first hurdle, which again needs some legislative help, the first hurdle is well, okay, how do I get? If I'm going to produce power in a certain location, how do I get power to my location? Maybe 100 miles away? Do I use the existing grid station? Maybe 100 miles away, do I use the existing grid?
Speaker 2:That comes with some challenges, some significant challenges where you have to not only build substations, but then that's also a conversation with maybe the larger utilities. You might be in a queue for a long period of time. They've got to get permitting, everybody's got to get permitting. It becomes really hard to say, well, I have power here, can I get it somewhere else? And I think you know they've hinted at that. I hinted at it directly, talked about that in the release Like we've got to help companies figure out how to get power to their locations, and maybe it's what they call behind the meter. So maybe it's a direct. It's a direct deal with, maybe a power producer.
Speaker 2:So if a geothermal plant is pushing out so much power, we could buy it. We just need to get it to our location, I just need to. That's a challenge. So it's solving some of those things.
Speaker 2:But you could have clients in the state of Utah, both communities and businesses, that say, well, look, if I could get the power, I'd absolutely set up shop here, I would absolutely build a data center here, I would absolutely build high-power manufacturing here. But I've got to be able to secure power and that becomes a very significant challenge for any group coming in. And so immediately, if I'm in the geothermal business, well, who's buying? Well, california, or whoever. But there's no guidance, or at least there hasn't as far as I can tell. As we know, there hasn't been the guidance from the top down where they're trying to get in the mix, saying wait a minute here, if you can produce it, let's see if we can help quicken some of these things, take away some of the red tape, maybe solve some of these so we could attract maybe again like data centers or any of these other high-power consumers that would come in, provided you could build it, yeah, yeah, and that then, to your point, keeps it back in Utah, right, and helps grow Utah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Look. Let's remind the audience that we have had numerous conversations with data center operators, high-power consumers who have approached us, who have said, hey, look, we just had a talk with Rocky Mountain Power and we mentioned that we might need 300 megawatts, and they pretty much laughed us out of the boardroom saying, yeah, that's cute and all, but within maybe five to seven years we might expand enough to get you that that's not available. Good luck, Good luck. And so they've approached us saying, hey, is there anything you can do about solving this power solution, this power problem that we're facing? And so what I like about this article and Governor Cox's own words here, is the and and and the more of. We've got to open our minds and be willing to look at all of the possibilities.
Speaker 1:Of course, no one's intent on building a new coal-fired plant. It's all tempered with moving in the direction of green. I look at what's happening at the IPP and the positive thing about that is that Mitsubishi Power America has come in and they're converting that to a natural gas-fired turbine plant. It's not going to produce as much, but it's a lot cleaner and in the future, because it's a dual-fuel system, could convert to hydrogen at some point. Now that's what we're talking about, guys. What we're talking about is using natural gas technologies that could convert or could use multiple fuels. And look, if we really look at the carbon emissions of all the modalities coal-fired plants being the highest emitters of carbons Natural gas falls way below that, somewhere in the middle between nuclear and coal. So just a natural gas plant, like they're doing at the IPP, is a big step in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Natural gas happens to be yes, it's a fossil fuel. Yes, it's refined, but it's available. It's abundant. Okay, we have infrastructure to transmit it. So it makes a lot of sense to me that we ought to be using natural gas resources. To put, if Operation Gigawatt is intent on doubling that capacity, that means we're going from four gigawatts to eight gigawatts, and I don't see why we're not going to 10 gigawatts in the process. I think that's inevitable based on what I'm seeing. But that's exciting, I agree. And looking at all of the modalities, it's an opportunity for distinction as a state, the state of Utah, to set an example for other states on legislative efficiency, right thinking, right-minded thinking, and how we throw all the modalities at this while still moving toward a greener future.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not, nor, I think, will it ever be, a zero or one solution. It's not binary, it's not one or the other. And I, you know, and anybody who's listening who might go well, you know, we need, we need to get to green, we need to get the green faster. And if we, if we, if we, you know, if we don't do this, then then all the other effects. While I would agree, I personally would agree with that not moving the green faster, I would say you've got to transition. This isn't something you can just do overnight. And while you say that you have to think about what you're doing in your daily life, are you willing to sacrifice all these things? Because everything we're doing right now is dependent upon power. Whether we like that or not or whatever, it's dependent upon power. So if we want that, we have got to solve this. We've got to be able to have enough power and you don't just turn off one and start another. It doesn't happen like that, it just doesn't.
Speaker 2:And all the people we've talked to, at least in Mars, they're all trying to move to a more sustainable future, arguably. There's probably groups out there that could care less. There are probably people out there that could care less, say, oh, it's fine. I think most people in the middle probably say you know what? We probably, for all kinds of reasons, we need to move there and and we are. But we can't do it overnight. We've got to have the solutions in the middle to get us to the other side. So, yes, we can bring on solar at the same time, we can bring on all these things. But again, there are lies of the issue. There's not enough connectivity, there's not enough lines, you can't bring these things on fast enough. So you've got to have. You've either got to say like as a community or society no, sorry, we're done building, we're done competing, we're just going to be good with the power we have. That's not okay.
Speaker 1:That's not going to work. That will never work Just based on the equation of residential growth and demand, population growth and demand. That's never a possibility.
Speaker 2:We have to consider it. It's all of the above. And how do we solve this in the best way possible while moving society forward. We might not be able to make everybody happy. Possible while moving society forward. We might not be able to make everybody happy, but if you can get it, if you can get the power production up, reduce the emissions and eventually get to a point to where what we're shooting for in our own world, where we're saying no, we want carbon negative on our sites, that's our personal goal is to get to that point. For all kinds of reasons We'll get there. But we've got to have these other solutions and I think nuclear.
Speaker 2:Nuclear is going to be a challenge in Utah. The issue is not going to be the want. We've tried to do it there. There was talk a few. It's probably a decade ago now down in green river there was a move to try and get a plant down there. Um, it's going to be the people, it's going to be public opinion. It's going to be.
Speaker 2:You know, in order to do these things, you know, to do these studies and feasibility studies, you have to get the buy-in of the community and that's where you see nuclear stalling. A lot is that no group wants to come in, spend $50 million when you might spend $50 to $100 million just in the study process, going down the road and then at the end of that be told no, yeah, and so that's a challenge politically, socially. I mean that's the biggest. I think obstacle in nuclear is that it's. I think it should absolutely be on the table.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people agree that is the hurdle it's going to face and I don't think it's going to change in any communities unless these communities are already doing it. That said, some of the newer technologies coming online in nuclear, I think might be enough to hopefully convince other parts of the population to say you know what? They're safer now, they're better now. They're not using water or coolant. They're going to some of these other, maybe molten salt, or they're doing some of these other kinds of processes that aren't you know that maybe check some boxes for a lot of people. So we'll see, we'll see, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know. And then on the geothermal front, if we could just punch a hole in the ground anywhere and not be concerned with what's two miles under the surface, then we'd be putting geothermal everywhere. Green River probably not going to pencil for geothermal. You don't have enough heat at two-mile depth, you don't have a geothermal capacity in that brine, and so it's going to be geographically restrictive to just rely, attempt to rely, on geothermal. Geothermal is a great augmenter of things, and utah happens to be a prime candidate to be utilizing it, as we're proving with cape station okay, we said this.
Speaker 2:I mean, we said this. We're like, you know, utah, we I mean we were looking at this last year going, you know, utah could end up becoming the leader in the entire west because of absolutely just because of, kind of how we're situated and you look at the geothermal possibilities, that alone, um, could and and it's, and especially seeing that it's not just a wish, it's being proven out. Oh yeah, fervo has been very successful in saying, yeah, this is a really good way to produce geothermal energy and you can do it on smaller footprints, and so I think we're going to see a lot of that. And what does that mean? It means a lot of power coming out of central Utah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And let's not forget that Utah still has historically been a pretty massive producer of shale oil and gas. I mean, we have the Uintah Basin, which is proven reserves of shale, and those shale oil and gas technologies continue to advance. And so, yes, utah is at that precipice now and now, with Governor Cox kind of leading this charge, I'm excited to get behind that. I want to shift gears with you.
Speaker 1:Dave, because since episode one, we talked about problems and we just scratched the surface up the mic and we're like we got to do an episode on grid fragility and like these volatilities or these vulnerabilities that we're seeing Now. If the listeners are fans of podcasts in general and everyone knows about Joe Rogan okay, we've been watching Joe Rogan for a long, long time. He's been number one in the world. I was so excited just two weeks ago to see the Sean Ryan Show surpass the Joe Rogan Show. It's the number one podcast in the world and it caused me to really start paying attention to the Sean Ryan Show. This guy is really an incredible host. Okay, is really an incredible host. Okay, and former Navy SEAL, former CIA operator, smart guy, authentic. He's our kind of guy. Okay, and what Sean has done I mean first of all, from a production-level perspective. I mean I thought you know we've got our audio sounding okay our studios whatever, we're just doing it where we can.
Speaker 1:I mean, he has it dialed. He made me feel like an elementary school kid because he's on such another level of quality of production that studio, the cameras, everything about his show. So hats off to Sean Ryan for taking over Joe Rogan number one podcast in the world love his content. So Sean has focused on military, retired military events lots of combat, war stories, lots of focus on wins and failures, lots of political conversations. He's really focused on bringing whistleblowers onto his show, which is riveting, riveting content, and there are a few interviews that he's done recently that overlap into what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:Dave, yes they do so. This is the pivot. This is the pivot. We're pivoting into what Sean Ryan's covered and we're going to go deep on this.
Speaker 1:He's interviewed Eric Prince, who's a former Blackwater guy. He's interviewed Scott Mann, who's a former retired Army Green Beret, and most recently, david Tice. David Tice and all three of these guys are talking about the vulnerabilities of our power grid. David Tice he's a producer and he actually produced a documentary called Grid Down, power Up. I strongly recommend that you go download it on YouTube. It's a one-hour documentary. It's a phenomenal piece narrated by Dennis Quaid. That's right. What I've learned has been shocking and eye-opening what they're talking about here. So they've identified these four vulnerabilities of the grid and I think we could probably even expand. You know, based on our research, when we talk about grid fragility, it's more than just these four. We'll start with these four and we can expand out from there and I'll just name them off and we can kind of dive into some of the details.
Speaker 1:One of these instances or these possibilities, is a natural solar flare or an EMP, electromagnetic pulse that the earth would receive from a solar flare. Now there was a significant instance of this, known as the Carrington event in 1859. This is before we had utility lines and a developed grid, but we had a telegraph grid at the time and when that solar flare. The Carrington incident hit the earth. It fried all of these telegraph lines that put people in the hospital, started fires. It was a really incredible event and scientists are predicting that it is inevitable that we will experience something like that in the near future.
Speaker 1:Now, the way that we've digitized ourself and we've become more heavily reliant on the grid, particularly in America, and more so than most third world countries I mean we look at Ukraine, for example much less developed digitization. You don't have households using laptops and cell phones the way that we do. There's not this integrative digitization with our thermostats and our cars and our home automation and all of the things that Americans have come to really depend on, which just creates a higher threat of vulnerability, being dependent on these grids. So natural solar flare hits us. We have an issue. That's one possibility.
Speaker 1:Another one they've identified is an EMP attack. I wasn't really clear on how that might be carried out until I've watched the documentary and listened to these interviews, but what I've learned is anyone could launch a nuclear warhead into the atmosphere and detonate it from about 20 miles above the Earth's surface and essentially mimic that solar flare and send an electromagnetic pulse, and this is not even having to be a well-placed nuke. You could send a nuke up anywhere over the US and it would be dramatic enough it could wipe out the entire grid. Okay, and we'll talk about it.
Speaker 2:I was thinking like on Ocean's 11, anybody who's been with Ocean's 11, they call it the pitch. That's how they took out Vegas. Like you know, in Ocean's Eleven anybody who's been with Ocean's Eleven they call it the pitch. That's how they took out Vegas. I mean, that's what it was supposed to be is an EMP, very localized EMP that would send out a pulse and just knock out power. Yeah, that's what they're talking about.
Speaker 1:Well, david Tice, you know, talks about in this documentary too, with Sean Ryan, that there are suitcase-sized EMPs. Yes, that there are suitcase-sized EMPs, so a terrorist could fly in on an airplane or sneak into the country. Our borders are wide open right now. We know there are terrorists with visas coming over our borders, so this is a very real threat a suitcase EMP.
Speaker 2:I think that's been there. I think that's been the concern for a long time. I know, going way back to the Olympics yeah, that's been there. I think that's been the concern for a long time. I know, going way back to the you know, our Olympics. Obviously it was the first national international event after September 11th. Because of what I was doing at the time, I knew that they flew the valley or they flew all of Utah and they mapped out like heat signatures and they were looking exactly for. They were looking for suitcase webization, so they're for the, the dirty bombs.
Speaker 2:Uh, a little bit of material enough to not only do like significant damage on a on a you know destructive, you know um way, but also on the electromagnetic way. It would have taken out a lot of stuff, but it's I, you know you ask anybody who will actually tell you in the military or in that kind of that. Echelon, this has been, I think, one of those. We're very happy it hasn't happened yet. I'm sure there are probably incidents that have probably come close that we'll never know about, but it's been a concern for decades and it's just. As we see stability challenged in the world, the availability of those materials go up, and so then you can have a lot of bad actors, maybe getting enough material, terrorist groups to fashion their own thing, and I think that's a concern. It's, I would argue, probably a growing concern if you ask anybody, and it's not going away be a growing concern, if you ask anybody, and it's not going away.
Speaker 1:Well, a startling statistic, in fact, that I've uncovered here is that the 9-11 attacks were carried out on a $500,000 budget. What we've now, which has been publicly confirmed by the administration, the Biden administration, is that in the last four years, this administration has accidentally sent the Taliban as little as 249 million, and we believe it's much more than that. That's about 480 times the capital that the 9-11 attacks needed. So do the math what's possible by putting that much capital in the hands of folks that want to harm us, and what are the likely ways they might carry that out? It's not that likely with our Second Amendment, folks like us, that anyone's going to attempt a full-on military invasion, but to consider an EMP attack or a cybersecurity attack.
Speaker 2:That's probably the most likely right now. Yeah, that's going on right now. I think we're under attack all the time. Any expert that's really in the cybersecurity space, they will tell you that we are constantly under attack Big businesses, small businesses, definitely obviously our government and then all of our infrastructure. Yeah, water, electricity this is something that we've been combating. They're continuing to combat. That's probably right now. If you're asking, that's the thing that I think probably keep people up at night because you can attack from far away.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. That's the thing. That's the thing. So, diving into how a cyber security attack could be carried out, russia russia successfully carried out such an attack against ukraine in 2015, where they used hackers to install malware into electrical transformers and other power grid assets and they were effectively able to shut down or disable hospitals, critical facilities, the grid in general, and caused a lot of death and chaos. A lot of death and chaos. Okay, that's a warm-up, but that's what's possible. So we recognize that. And then there was also an incident China's- done it.
Speaker 1:Well, China happens to be like. All of the theorists are really worried about China because China's provided these major transformers to our grid. These are like building-size transformers that could be embedded with malware. They could be embedded with sleeper cell technology that's been dormant, that could be flipped on at any time and they could take control of certain things.
Speaker 2:And let's just point out what's recently happened with the Mossad in Israel and implanting little explosive devices in pagers and in radios. Oh, wow, this isn't theoretical. That's what they did. That's, you know they, what was it? 3,000, 7,000 explosions all at once? Yeah, because they, however that occurred, you know they intercepted it and said, hey, we're going to use this to defend ourselves. And so embedding things and that was embedding something physical, yeah, but if you manufacture something, you embed it back to where you've been. All these things. That's the big concern. And a lot of this stuff we don't know. Yeah, and and and. From what the uh documentary pointed out is that you wouldn't need to take down many of these things in order to really uh create some level of chaos in uh in the country Right.
Speaker 1:To me that was one of the most alarming facts. I think they said there's something like was it 50,000 major substations in the US, 50 or?
Speaker 2:5,000. But then if you took 10 of these transformers off, it would wipe the entire grid. You could disrupt the entire grid For a long-term period.
Speaker 1:And so this gets really alarming really fast, guys, because if we talk about power outage for a week and what happens after a week, we talk about how that affects you. We need electricity to run our water purification systems and distribute water. Just get water. Get to get water. Just to get water. Right. We're talking about grocery stores being. We saw this during COVID grocery stores were out of goods and three days, two days.
Speaker 2:So we just see that. You know, depending upon when this, when we air this episode, you know a hurricane just hit Florida. You watch and I've talked to anybody in Florida who's been through a number of these things About 72 hours the stores are wiped out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and then the gas supply is also gone. Folks got warning in Florida on the heels of the big storms and hurricane in North Carolina that we're dealing with right now. So folks are trying in mass to exit Florida before the storm hits. Well, guess what? I-45, the major freeways out of Tampa and the areas it was projected to hit. People are running out of gas on the freeway, sitting in a traffic jam and there's no gas available for 200 miles. If the power grid goes down nationally, guess what? Those electric pumps don't work. They take electricity to pump gas, so we're all demobilized. So water gone, demobilized heat. If it happened in the winter, like what russia did to ukraine, it happened in the dead of winter. So now people are freezing to death.
Speaker 1:The implications are rapid and vast, and this is not to mention the fourth modality that they've identified with Sean Ryan here, which is physical attacks on certain substations. Now, when we interviewed our own COO, randy Moore, he mentioned and kind of jokingly, yeah, take an AR-15, and we saw that happen. Someone took an AR-15 and shot up a transformer, caused a power outage. Well, the documentary talks about three major attacks in 2022, and one of them in 2013, but we're talking about major PG&E substations. We're talking about Duke Energy substations. These are massive grid assets and what's shocking is zero security. You have a chain link fence around that substation. There's no security guards, there's no cameras, there's nothing. The perpetrators on these attacks have not been caught. They just cut the fence, walk in, shoot up a transformer or three and boom gone in the dead of night. Okay, so serious failure on the backs of the power companies to provide adequate security to its own assets. Now, I also was shocked to understand that there is no federal requirement or regulation that mandates power companies provide security to secure their own assets.
Speaker 2:It's patchwork, it's guidance. There's no say you have to have a certain level, which, let's just say, imagine, if you will, in our airports that it could be. Each airport could do what it wants to do. Yeah, you know, as far as security, right, you know, and we can all we can, I'm sure we can all have our you know our horror TSA stories, but what happens is you could see how different areas would have different things and that could be problematic, and so you do get a sense that there needs to be some sort of guideline of like look, here are minimum requirements, and I think, in the case of California even though I think they did have a, obviously they caught it on camera, but it was they didn't have the kind of security you'd need to be able to react really quickly, and so all they do is have this dark video of all the shots being fired and then people running and getting away, and that was it.
Speaker 2:So, you know, these are all very real things. You know, I thought about this after I watched the documentaries, you know, after you were praying, as, as a tag, it did create it create some chaos, but they obviously bounced back. It wasn't as catastrophic as it could be and I think, I think we could. I can think of worst case scenarios and I think, you know, always like, okay, worst case scenario could be really bad. Best case scenario a little bit, you know, and I think he tends to probably fall somewhere in the middle, but we, I think, the more people that know about these things. It's just it's wise to be aware and we've talked about how fragile this is and we just talked about it in terms of the possibility of EMP or solar or just an aging infrastructure security. Well, you start to see how this is a really, really big issue and I might point out again for anybody listening, this documentary did an amazing job being right down the middle and they actually point out how much in Washington, this has been a very much a bipartisan issue. This isn't just one side or the other. This is both sides saying, yeah, this is a problem that we need to fix. That's a great point and legislation has been passed, but it ends up getting stymied. I will say what they attribute some of that to.
Speaker 2:So the documentary points out about how much lobbying effort has gone into Washington from the utilities, because the utilities see this as well. They can answer how they want. They make the claim. The utilities see this as just you know. It's going to cost them a lot of money in order to upgrade and obviously you know they don't want to have to spend. What they don't have to spend, I think, is kind of the issue.
Speaker 2:We'll be happy to talk to anybody in the utilities and say here, explain, talk to us about this, walk us through. You know what do you? You know anybody listening who, what do you? You know anybody listening who you're connected to utility wants to talk about it. We'd love to interview you, we'd love to hear what you have to say about this. Educate us about that side of it. But what it comes down to is you have people on both sides of the aisle saying we have to fix this. Yeah, I mean everybody back there. I mean we know how Washington it is. We haven't had a lot of agreement back there and so you know when, when, all when. It's unanimous or damn near unanimous, that it's probably an issue, that that is like. It goes well beyond any sort of party. It's like no, yeah, this is something we have to do for the security of our country yeah, um, you know, our, our friend randy sent a.
Speaker 1:He texted me an article this morning 8 000 without power because of a raccoon Raccoon shoot-alike. That was here in Salt.
Speaker 2:Lake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this happens all the time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a raccoon went up on a transformer Fried raccoon, unfortunately, and not so great for the and I don't know how long they were without power, but it was. I don't know if they were able to reroute, but that just shows how and that's a raccoon, yeah, yeah, well, the documentary also talks about the fact that there were something like 600 or 700 physical attacks on power assets in the last five or six years.
Speaker 1:Like this stuff happens. This isn't being reported in the news, you guys?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not, and it might be the case of where it doesn't make the news because the news doesn't hear about it, because the power company is trying to keep that quiet. I just don't want to talk about it. Oh yeah, I will say from my personal experience there were things that happened here in Salt Lake City at, let say, you know places, um, that we would ask the questions and ask questions, ask questions, and unless somebody from the inside gave us the information we'd heard, that maybe something happened and it wasn't what was being told to us. It wasn't. What was it that I'm telling you. Folks, that does happen, you know, you rely on them.
Speaker 2:It, unless it is a and this is where I'm wondering is you know, they go back. And now they go back into the files and this maybe publicly available information, like they have to report it a certain period of time, and they go back and say, oh yeah, we had an incident, but it's way past. And so now you're looking backwards and saying, oh, the last three years we've had this many, but no one's going to go. Do that story Real time. You're probably not hearing about it. And I think that was actually one of the things they talked about is the one in California is that I got the impression and I don't know for sure that it was downplayed. It was almost like no one knew at the time the severity of what had happened, and it came out later that they were sort of downplaying it and it was actually a lot more severe than it was being reported at the time.
Speaker 1:I'm sure that there will be certain folks listening to the show that are going to have a knee-jerk reaction to what we're saying and say well, you guys are just complaining about all these problems and you're talking about all this doomsday awareness, but what are you doing to solve or bring solutions? And so I want to address that for a little bit. With regards to solar flares and EMP attacks, there is technology that has already been implemented in certain states of the US that is like lightning rod technology for a lightning strike.
Speaker 2:The whole community in Texas, wasn't it? Like a whole community, yes, like a whole group, like a whole community is protected. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we have real-life working examples of technology that's not that awful expensive to overlay onto an existing power infrastructure, production, transmission substations, to fortify against the EMP or the solar flare Physical security attacks seem like a no-brainer to me. And so how hard is it to actually put cameras and security guards on critical infrastructure like a substation, right, okay, especially if it's conditioning a certain amount of megawatts or gigawatts. That seems intuitive to me.
Speaker 2:To do that Right. I think AI is going to help some of that, because I know there are AI companies in that space where you've got and it's been around for a while, where you've got cameras that can provide security and they can actually respond almost immediately security and they can actually respond almost immediately. So they will, through their AI, recognize a body moving and doing something it's not supposed to and then alert physical security to get out there. So using some of these technologies is certainly going to help, but you're right, I mean you've got to have the security.
Speaker 1:Yeah, addressing the cyber attack. I mean, if all it would take was to disable or take down nine critical substations, to me that is the biggest argument for decentralized power I've ever heard. That, to me, is unacceptable. Nine substations wipes out the entire country with catastrophic effect. Decentralizing our power, on the other hand, and producing microgrids around that, means that we can fortify our communities and we're not tying everything to one massive grid with all this vulnerability. You'd have to have 100,000 coordinated attacks all at the same time to affect the same amount of chaos and damage if we were fully decentralized.
Speaker 1:So we, as we talk to utah legislators and folks in decision-making positions, it's our hope and intent that as we develop our parks with the intent of producing power on site and decentralized and, you know, having microgrids, that we could be a beacon and example for some of these solutions. Next level security that doesn't exist currently. Next level technologies to protect against some of these EMP potentialities. Legislating policy that's Utah first policy. It really rubs me wrong and I'm a capitalist. Legislating policy that's Utah-first policy. Okay, it really rubs me wrong and I'm a capitalist.
Speaker 2:I am a serial entrepreneur capitalist.
Speaker 1:It pisses me off to know that the IPP and Cape Station are selling all this power to California because they'll pay three times the going rate in Utah. And I'm going to become a very strong advocate within the state of Utah to say look, we'll produce power, we'll do everything we can to help Utah grow. Let's keep the power in Utah, let's keep it in the family, let's produce power in our communities, decentralized power, and let's offer it at the reasonable market rates that support our communities.
Speaker 2:Right, it doesn't seem that hard to me well, I, I, you know, I was just thinking, as you said, that you know there's this. You know, in kind of like the personal psychology space, you know, I, they'll often tell you, you know you can't give what you don't have. So you know you have to have your cup, your cup has got to be full and whatever you have extra, that's what you give to people. And it seems like that actually would apply to power. Let's take care of what we need Great If we have access, after that, fantastic.
Speaker 2:But let's take care of our demands, our expected growth, first and to make sure that we have a pathway of reasonable energy prices and keeping energy costs low for people. If we can produce geothermal power in abundance, which we know we can, there's no reason why Utah couldn't enjoy all of Utah couldn't enjoy some really low power rates and we can all say this is a very green kind of a thing. Then, as we bring on industries and everything else, we take care of our growth. And then on the extra and I understand these decisions have to be made years out, but it's that extra, sure then let's go to the open market and sell what we have extra but not what we don't have. Yeah, and that's kind of where we are right now is that there's a lot of demand in Utah for extra power? Yeah, and you can't get it Right Because it's not earmarked for Utah or Utahns.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I'm born and raised and I want to see my local community, my state, do well. And it's not that I don't want other states to not do well, it's we need to take care of our stuff here first and if we have extra and we can produce and we know we have expectation of having great Sell it off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I mean it feels like with all the information that we have public information, being responsible warranties on what we install, for example. I mean there's so many measures that could be applied to producing power and transmitting power or hardening the grid that are not being applied. I'm just hopeful that, as we develop our plans out in Utah and other states, we can be an example that will influence others to kind of get on this bandwagon of a higher standard of accountability.
Speaker 2:And I would say, you know, as we develop in other states, I think we have the same intentionality In other states. We want that to stay in that state and in that community, wherever we are in that community. That's important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely in that community, wherever we are in that community. That's important to support and fortify those regions where we are. It does sound like. It's like oh, the sky is falling. It's not, it's not. But there are really significant challenges out there that we need to address and that's really, if you take anything away from today, it's like look, I don't care what it is. If you don't think the chances, if you think the chances of, say, a solar flare hitting us is minimal, well, by the way, it's getting hit by one today for the record as we speak.
Speaker 2:That's why we get to go all see the Northern Lights. It makes for a great show, but it also causes significant problems. If you just realize that this is going to happen, or what can we be doing and what can you be doing, it's like, look, this is actually an issue. It's an issue you should know about, it's an issue you should be aware of, and I think we're going to keep pushing for what we can do in our world. And it was a hell of a, you're right, it was a hell of a documentary.
Speaker 1:And, I think, the final thought, back to the documentary. Go watch the documentary and then strongly consider having some supplies on hand for the inevitability of one of these things happening. And having an extended power outage, like looking out for our own families, like having a solar power generator, for example, is a great idea. It's something that every household could have, having food and water on hand that could help us weather a week or two weeks.
Speaker 1:That's all I really think we're talking about here, but let's be smart about it, guys. So that's my final thought. We appreciate your contribution, dave. Thank you Likewise.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's been a fun conversation.
Speaker 1:I've needed it. You've done good to keep me under control to temper the energy.
Speaker 2:I don't know about temper.
Speaker 1:You're such a calm, logical host. I love it and I appreciate you. So thank you guys for listening. Thanks everyone. We hope you're enjoying it. So catch us on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Until next time.
