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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
Cuba Blackout Crisis, Decentralized Power Solutions, Next-Gen AI Data Centers, Utah's Energy Future with Rep. John Curtis
Can outdated power infrastructure put entire nations at risk? Join us as we tackle this urgent question by examining the recent blackout crisis in Cuba, which plunged half of the country into darkness, disrupting economies and essential services. We'll uncover the vulnerabilities of centralized power systems and draw parallels with challenges faced by utility companies like Rocky Mountain Power in Utah. This episode promises to highlight the crucial need for investment in decentralized power solutions to avert similar crises worldwide, stressing the importance of sustainable upgrades and policy interventions for energy security.
We also spotlight the sweeping economic potential of next-generation AI data centers in the US, poised to create thousands of jobs and bolster local economies. As we explore the concept of AI economic zones, the conversation shifts to how decentralized power solutions can provide municipalities with greater energy independence. Utah Representative John Curtis shares his pragmatic views on the necessity of diverse energy solutions, advocating for a collaborative, bipartisan approach that transcends political divides to ensure a clean, affordable future. Together, these discussions form a rallying cry for robust and inclusive energy strategies that champion innovation and reliability.
Welcome back to the studio, dave. Hello Wayne.
Speaker 2:Good day everybody. How are you feeling? I'm feeling great. Welcome to the Frontier Line, episode X.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to be here in Episode X. 20-something. So last episode we covered just one article. Like we took the whole let's cover the headlines of the month. A just one article. Yeah, like we took the whole, let's cover the headlines of the month. And, and and you actually read this entire article. Fascinating article, yes, and it was worthy of an entire episode because it covered all the points of. You know amazon, primarily the deficiencies of, of their hopes and dreams to develop 240, some odd data centers, and you know the, the implications of. You know scarcity of power, water, workforce, you know permitting issues, all the things right.
Speaker 2:Comprehensive article right, the ma gotten a hold of some internal documents and they were citing those. So it was really interesting. They really they kind of had a behind the scenes look. Obviously amazon had to say what it said, which is oh, we're good, but it really spelled out and laid out a good argument for, okay, here's the biggest, one of the biggest companies dealing with this and the challenges ahead, which means if they're dealing with it, everybody's dealing with it.
Speaker 1:Yep yep, that's right, and so I wanted to kick today's episode off with an article about another country recently that, I think, is an incredible insight for us to be paying attention to, so let me kick this one off. It's a good one.
Speaker 2:It's a good one, and I think it caught a lot of people's attention when it happened, for all the reasons, so I'm looking forward to hearing about this.
Speaker 1:So the headline, you guys, is Cuba's blackout crisis and the role of long-duration energy storage in decentralizing power. Okay, so, on October 18th Quite a mouthful, isn't it? Yeah, that is, that is. Yeah, that is. That is On October 18th, 2024, so just not even a month ago, cuba experienced a catastrophic power failure that left half the population, 10 million people, without power.
Speaker 1:And this article goes on to underscore the vulnerabilities of outdated power infrastructure strained by aging oil-fired plants, frequent breakdowns, fuel shortages, grid fragilities We've been talking about on the show this whole time. It talks about how Cuba's energy issues are not new. The country has suffered months of blackouts, which recently grew more severe, with infrastructure struggling to meet demand. What, what I felt deeply, deeply troubling about this article was that here we are in 2024. You have an entire country that that has been impacted in the ways that border along the, the documentary we talked about recently, the, the uh, what was it? Grid down, power up, by david tice on the sean ryan show, and kind of projecting what would happen to our country if we had a prolonged blackout. And so so this article Moral of the story not good, not good, not good. This article details how blackouts derail economies. They've covered how the power crisis in Cuba has caused disruptions to hospitality sector, where tourism is basically shut down. These hotels, they're blacked out, right, so it's crippled tourism. It's crippled, uh. They're major economic drivers like agriculture okay, um, spoiled crops, irrigation systems failing due to power cuts, power outs okay, um. The article cites years of underinvestment and poor maintenance, leaving the grid specifically in disrepair, forcing the government to divert public funds toward constant repairs rather than sustainable upgrades. Talks about how blackouts disrupt the food supplies, health care and essential services we covered that in an episode like what happens to hospitals, what happens to all of these essential services if we have blackouts that are lasting longer than a week? Okay, they're calling for decentralized solutions.
Speaker 1:Cuba's power failure is based on a centralized power system that relies heavily on imported fuels. Okay, so there's geopolitical risk and now strain that is also contributing to the failure, and I just can't help but think and make some correlations when I read something like this and I think about America. We need to acknowledge that our grids are, by and large, yous on the old codes, on old wire cloth. You know old panels that don't meet code, so you know this old technology. Our grids are built on this old technology in America, yes. And so I look at Cuba and I say, well, we understand what happened with Cuba and the whole boycott and the whole embargoes and the embargo, the whole, the embargoes that set Cuba back. It basically froze economic growth in, like the 1950s, right? So we visit Cuba now. It's like the cars, 1950s cars, all the things. It's like going back in time. So imagine America if we had widespread blackouts that stunted our economic growth to the extent that 50 years from now we're still stuck in 2024. That's a stark reminder of what could happen if serious and concerted efforts are not made, an investment made into all the issues we've been talking about.
Speaker 1:Right, we have Rocky Mountain Power here in Utah. It is a centralized power monopoly, an investor-owned monopoly Berkshire Hathaway monopoly, an investor-owned monopoly, berkshire Hathaway. And there are challenges here because, as the power demand grows, we, the people, are at risk of our rates doubling, tripling. We are at the risk of Rocky Mountain Power just choosing not to upgrade its grid, at the risk of Rocky Mountain Power just choosing not to upgrade its grid, not to provide adequate security to its grid assets or power production assets. We are at the risk of that monopoly choosing not to reinvest in our community and provide adequate power, scaling and production to meet the demand so that the state can grow economically. I'm throwing a lot at you here today, but this article in Cuba has got me all concerned.
Speaker 2:Well and you're not the only one, I think from a top down here in Utah, the governor recognizes that. I think that was part of Operation Gigawatt. I think there are those people here in Utah that recognize that. Okay, well, we have to do something because, to your point, what's coming and what could come and you know, these are worst-case scenarios, but is it a worst-case scenario to have power offline for a week or two, if something happened? Is that, you know, what do we get used to? And would it say, well, sorry, you know, we've got all this demand for this grid and it's, you know we didn't do this.
Speaker 2:Or, you know, blame the people who said, yeah, you sure you can come here, you can bring all this economic growth, like, well, wait a minute, were you holding up here in the bar? Were you building appropriately and building appropriately? And I think there's, you know, above my pay grade. There seems to be going on conversations at a very high level here in Utah saying, okay, we need you to build more or are quicker. And and from everything publicly that I've read, you know, rocky mountain powers come back and said well, you know, we can maybe by 2030, catch up demand or do something like well, that's, you know, that's six years, and everything we've said on this show has been that you know, we're talking, you know, 24 months, 48 months, 72 months.
Speaker 2:These are immediate problems and so will a group like will Rocky Mountain Power be able to be able to build enough power quick enough? Is the state, what's the state role going to be in that? Is the state, what's the state role going to be in that? Are they going to really lean on Rocky Mountain Power to solve some of these things and expand? And then what does that mean downstream for the end consumer and our rates?
Speaker 2:Yeah these are very interesting challenges. And then to your point, bringing it back to Cuba, how fragile are things here? Yeah, I have now, in two weeks time, experienced two power outages, surprisingly In Salt Lake County, uh-huh, yeah, surprisingly. Now it happens, it just surprised, I'm surprised. It's happened twice and each time for a couple three hours, not a big deal. I actually I'm, you know, gen X. I look forward to quiet. Yeah, I'm okay with not my phone and not my computer and I'll just go outside and drink from the hose, as it were. But if you're running a business, if you are doing work from home, two or three hours in the middle of a day hurts. If you're in a hospital having heart surgery, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and they got to go to backup generators. And you know, and it's got a backup generators, you've got to fire up, and I mean, all these things cause downstream. You have downstream impacts and you know, is that just? Is it? Is it just a taste of things to come, or is it just an, you know, aberration? And that happened to go out twice in the last couple of weeks, I don't know.
Speaker 2:But we've been saying and I think we're in unison and I don't think we're saying anything that's out of turn this is probably going to happen a lot more often because we're not going to be able to meet the demand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just, pure and simple. Even if you know, as we, even if we convert out of light bulbs and LEDs that pull less power, well, we've added, but we've added more demand and it's filled right back up. The sand has come right back in and filled everything back up, and now you have the real need of some major infrastructure demands, like data centers, like high-end manufacturing, and then also, I don't know, we all like to be cooled in the summer. Yeah, we all like to. We all like it, sir, you know, or you know, to be 72, 74, 60, 70, 68, whatever. And so in the summers we know that takes an incredible amount of power. We know, and you know, fortunately, the winners we've, you know, a lot, of, a lot of furnaces, and so it's not as much, but definitely in the winters, or definitely summers, we have that. We know that, we've experienced it.
Speaker 1:This is not anything that's going away, and it appears that the infrastructure isn't keeping up, not even to touch on the oldness of it. You're right, and I think there's going to be plenty of our listeners who say well, that's Cuba. I mean, cuba is another country, that's not America. And if you go further into this article, there's more. We're not talking about Cuba being an isolated case globally. And to bring this closer to home, this article underscores the 2021 Texas blackout, leaving 4.5 million homes without power, and, according to the report by University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute, this failure resulted in 57 deaths across 25 Texas counties and over 195 billion in property damage in property damage. So that's in the US, guys.
Speaker 1:Cuba's just an example of what's coming, but we're already seeing it 4.5 million homes in Texas. That's a serious issue. Now, just recently, it also goes on to talk about these back-to-back hurricanes Irma and Maria 2017, puerto Rico, causing obviously serious power outages, but then frequent outages continuing for years afterward. While they try to mend and repair these old, fragile grids, now we're dealing with back-to-back hurricanes here in the US, in North Carolina, still under rescue, and Florida now. So, guys, this is real and so obviously, as developers, we're looking at this and saying what can we do? What can we possibly do to just avoid that?
Speaker 2:What can we do better? How can we build out our developments and our businesses so that we are, first of all, contributing to solutions and then being mindful of how the challenges that are out there, and then stepping around those landmines as best we can? We are, we will be, are will be part of this solution on a very small scale and kind of our neck of the woods, but nonetheless we, you know, that's why we're talking about this, because we see it. We're seeing it from our vantage point, which is why we're saying this is a, this is an issue. That's why we're talking about the frontier line. We're talking about all of the all this innovation, but at the end of the day, we day, we're giving everybody our perspective and we're seeing the problems from our seats and sharing, saying, okay, this is a problem, Whether or not politicians or power companies or whoever it might be, are talking about this. We're going to talk about this because it impacts us and everyone else and we're trying to you know, we're trying to help solve this.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean this is what we see it, as. It's our problem and it's everybody's problem. Yeah, and if we're going to stay ahead of the curve technologically in the US, especially on AI specifically, we have to figure out how to solve these things. You know, and there will be those out there that disagree with me, but we want to. We need to be able to stay ahead on the AI curve. That is absolutely paramount and critical.
Speaker 2:You can go back and check this in 10 years, 15 years. If we stay ahead of that game, we do better as a country period end of story. No question about it. Call it the I hate to say this the new arms race, whatever. Yeah, it is a constant competition out there and we've got to stay at, and it's an industry right now that we are squarely in charge of. It's US companies primarily that are really leading this charge, and we can stay there, if not, unless we get tripped up by power is really what it comes down to. Power and infrastructure, and so solving that is absolutely critical to everything we do, absolutely.
Speaker 1:We're talking about seeing headlines that are bleeding into the trillion dollar conversation. Open AI is evaluating potential partnerships with industry partners and private investors to raise funding to construct a new generation of AI specific data center campuses. Each new facility would be several times larger than the biggest data centers in the USA today no surprise, allowing in the process unprecedented amounts of data at speeds currently unimaginable. So again and this also talks about Sam Altman wanting to build five gigawatt data centers five gigawatt data centers, each of which would draw five billion watts of electrical power simultaneously at various locations in the US okay, we found that constructing and operating a single 5 gigawatt data center would create or support about 40,000 jobs Wow, I haven't seen that number Ranging from construction maintenance positions to jobs in restaurants, retail, other industries that would serve the new workers and contribute between $17 billion and $20 billion to a state's GDP.
Speaker 1:One of these facilities? Wow, okay, that's a staggering number. It is staggering In Texas. Their analysis um designs building multiple one gigawatt facilities in different states. Um, it's just, it talks about federal and local governments creating ai economic zones. Okay, so, um, that's interesting what it's it interesting?
Speaker 1:It's really fascinating. It doesn't talk.
Speaker 2:You probably ought to talk about opportunity zones. We haven't talked about that for a while, but that's what that reminds me of is. It's probably a different version of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I imagine so, if federal opportunity zones happen to be an underlying geographical taxation advantage. So you know, if you're in a federally designated opportunity zone developing a business or developing land for real estate development, there are some serious tax advantages, like you know eliminating capital gains tax If you buy, develop, invest in, hold something for longer than 10 years. So if we were to see something like an AI development zone, like a federal opportunity zone, then you see these huge, huge tax benefits and I think that's one way that the feds could direct.
Speaker 2:It's not like you need to come up with capital. I mean everybody's writing checks, as fast as you can write them. It's not like you need to come up with capital, because I mean everybody's writing checks as fast as you can write them. But this could incentivize some really streamlined kind of investment and very targeted activity Well, and it could actually govern where this is getting done.
Speaker 2:Right, saying okay, well, we're going to strategically kind of locate these things because we understand again the grid this, that and the other and this is why we're going to incentivize to come into these areas. That's right, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I hadn't heard that. Yeah, and we're going to be talking about data center demand and power. Every episode, guys, it's just going to happen.
Speaker 2:That's just what we're doing. You know, buckle in. Yeah, I heard Cuban. I'm like, oh so, does that mean the rum and cigars? That's a Havana Club rum. Is that terrible? That's what I thought. So you know what is it going to do, but in all seriousness, it's a. You know, you think about how it just I mean, you could have one thing like that happen and how much impact for the period of time that's going to have across the board.
Speaker 1:When you could make a statement like it will impact the GDP of a state or a nation. We're talking about security. We're talking about power security, energy security, but we're also talking about economic security and physical security. These are really far-reaching implications, like losing power, not having power, pace with demand, is it?
Speaker 2:it's, it's alarming yeah, what do you think? Well, let me ask you this question. So and we've talked about a little bit decentralization of power so if cuba, you know, would have approached it more like, hey, we're gonna have parts of this, I don't know they would have done that just because of their structure. But does this make the case in kind of a sideways way, if you will, that decentralized and maybe looking at kinds of decentralized solutions, even though you could argue that our grid currently is sort of decentralized into these major utilities, but under the major utilities it's not very decentralized. You don't have a lot of independence from that provider because of existing infrastructure and lines, and so there's not a lot of flexibility.
Speaker 2:Once you get down, you can look at it as our grid is certainly decentralized in terms of like it's not just one group for the most part controlling everything, of like it's not just one group for the most part controlling everything. But does this just go further to the idea of like? Well, we need to be open to local municipalities and grids saying, yeah, we want to do, if we have an opportunity to, you know, power production on a local level and not have to rely on a larger grid. We might not be subject to, you know, fluctuations in some of these demands that might take maybe a major utility provider offline or might break something and then have that kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:Well, I am a huge proponent of decentralization and I think Cuba, if you look at Cuba or you look at Texas, is a deregulated energy state. I don't know why I bring it up, yeah, yeah. So I'm not necessarily saying that deregulation is a solution, but having legal structures and having local, state and federal all collaborating together to that one objective, which is power security, it's not necessarily grid security, which is power security. It's not necessarily grid security, it's power security. And I feel like you know, if we look at the map and we look at the states that are regulated or non-regulated, they don't all agree, they don't all think the same. But if there was a more uniform play, a decentralized, uniform way of communities powering themselves, what we're talking about is power independence. That's what I'm a proponent of, is power independence. And so making sure that our state and local lawmakers can continue to evolve the fabric of, of the law and legislation to support in grid independence, that's really what it is. It's it. You know, it's not like the state of utah is making all that money from rocky mountain power, no, being the monopoly, uh. And so I also.
Speaker 1:I also feel like it would be really great you a big incentive if local small communities could actually benefit financially from power production in their community. That's really a novel idea. We have 15 electrical co-ops in the state of Utah, yeah. But imagine if every city, every incorporated city, just like they have their own sewer system, what if they had their own power production within the city? That could dramatically. Now you could be focused on microgrids, smart microgrids. You certainly wouldn't be having communities like this, 25 counties all going down at the same time. You'd never have that right. You might have one city, have an issue and everything around it would be independent. I don't see, I don't see what's wrong with that ambition for the future.
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting why I ask. So I mean, I, you know, I, I think we're going to see a lot, a lot of those conversations going forward about how you know I, I think we're going to see a lot, a lot of those conversations going forward about how you know, okay, we've done it this way for a long time. Is it the best way and are there other ways to consider this? And then I think, as you said, you know some of these other possible incentives coming into play about, you know, maybe directing monies at certain kinds of projects and doing that monies at certain kinds of projects and doing that, what impact will those things?
Speaker 1:eventually have on that larger conversation. We'll see. Yeah, and it's interesting because I'm not saying I don't think any of us are saying every city needs to have a five gigawatt production. You know small cities might only use five megawatts, right, and I don't need 10 megawatts, so you could easily do that with a solar array, utility scale solar array and power the whole city. So there's a lot of options.
Speaker 2:Like you could be pretty selective about actually using renewables and battery storage to actually accomplish that right so and then, and then that larger conversation of like, okay, if you have access, what is what happens to that? And are the utilities going to play? Are they going to want to sell back? Are they not going to give you that? That's, that just becomes a, because if you can do that, and then there's a market and you and there's a, there's a profit margin that's available at a city level. Let's just say, well then, that would incentivize them to be able to sell it and also sell it into the larger, if you will, the grid, which then solves the other issues. But it allows that local city to capitalize Right. So, especially as we're going to probably see towns that might be, even though geothermal can probably be done in a lot of different locations, depending upon the technology you're going to see maybe small channels going, you know what we could do this, we sit on this or we here's, you know, you know here's, we own this land. Why not, like, you know, why not go into a? You know, do a joint venture, uh, uh, private, you know public partnership with a company to maybe do this and then, and it's then, it's a revenue. Not only that will it solve our long-term issues for power needs, but maybe it's a revenue, uh, revenue opportunity for us as a municipality. Um, the uh. So I, there's a again and I, you know, we know this is a. It's very Utah-centric.
Speaker 2:We were going to talk a lot about Utah. Just because we're in Utah, we're developing here. We know that what we're saying here has implications outside the state and we also know that we're in a very interesting position as a state, geographically, where we're located, what's going on within our borders, what we're trying to do and kind of the solutions as a state we're providing and how we're supplying power or providing power to other surrounding states, and just the innovation going on here. And so I bring, I kind of say that and talk about so there's some local politics. It's kind of it's interesting, obviously we're coming up. Local politics it's kind of it's it's interesting, Obviously we're coming up. But, depending on when this airs, we're coming up on an election. In case you hadn't heard, yeah, In case you're almost dead and haven't heard, that there's, there's there's an election going on and are getting inundated with ads and everything else.
Speaker 2:Behind the headlines and it's actually a headline, but behind the the headlines and it's actually a headline, but behind the headlines there's some interesting stuff going on here in utah. Uh, utah is obviously, if, if you don't know utah, utah is a red state, um, a very, very, very red state, very conservative, um, historically. And so this is why this is kind of interesting, because, not, you don't see, necessarily, even though I think we know a lot of people you know fall along this line, uh, that conservativism and, and you know, looking at maybe some of the environmental, um, environmental stances don't necessarily align, that that's not a thing that normally aligns. But one of our congressmen, john Curtis, who's a free election, he's actually formed a coalition of across the aisles well, some across the aisles, but definitely in Washington of conservatives who are also interested in solving some of these bigger issues, everything we're talking about. And so one of the local entities, ksl TV station radio, did a story on him, focusing on kind of what he's talking about. And why I bring it up is because it just mirrors everything that we have brought up in talking about this and talking about the needs.
Speaker 2:You know, all of these solutions have to be an all of the above kind of approach. You yes, you can very easily say, well, we need to get rid of that industry, but that doesn't solve short-term problems. You can say, yeah, we want to move towards this direction, but you've got to be able, as we've talked about, you've got to be able to. Where are you going to get your power from if you just turn off? Let's just say, if you, immediately, if you close down a coal plant, uh, here in Utah, and you lose 1.8 gigawatts, yeah, um, and you're Southern California and you've bought, you've bought that power in for four decades and all of a sudden you need to replace that hole, well, you just can't, you just don't spin up sustainable solutions. Yeah, they just you know they're there and they're coming online, but they're not there, uh, especially when you're talking about transmission and all kinds of things. And so I think he recognizes, I think he's pragmatic, and so I'll read part of this article, just because I think they did a good overview and it's why I think this is an issue You're seeing now all sides going. Okay, it's been a political football, but let's get beyond that game and let's talk about, because this is impacting all of us and we have to solve this, and it's got to be. It's got to be everybody talking as best we can, and I think that's what he's trying to do.
Speaker 2:So Curtis was speaking from the stage at Utah Valley University's Reagan Theater on Friday as part of the third annual conservative climate summit, an event he convened and described as a frank discussion free from the shame and judgment he has said are way too prevalent in the mainstream climate movement. Several hundred attendees gathered. Curtis has been uncharacteristically outspoken on the climate as a Republican and founded the Conservative Climate Caucus to give conservatives a seat at the discussion table. He still supports the use of fossil fuels as a way to reach his goal of affordable, reliable and clean energy. Curtis believes each of the major energy sources has an Achilles heel. He says fossil fuels aren't clean enough, nuclear energy is too expensive and renewables such as wind and solar lack storage capabilities to make them fully reliable. But he thinks the market is pushing towards improvements on each front and he believes all forms of energy will be needed going forward.
Speaker 2:I'm going to stop there. I think that it's what we've come to learn discover. Maybe we knew part of it before. That is very evident to us. It has to be. Even though you might have personal interests, say, oh, we need to, maybe move to one side or the other. Maybe it's real, maybe it's not.
Speaker 2:The general consensus is we have to look at everything. If we're going to solve energy as we need it, as this exponential growth is happening, we have to have it all on the table. Does that mean there has to be a reliance on one versus the other? Not necessarily. It means that you have to have it all on the table. Does that mean there has to be reliance on one versus the other? Not necessarily. It means that you have to have some to get you to the other. And we've talked about incentives. We've talked about that. Both industries both of you talk about renewables and you talk about oil and gas Oil and gas has had their own incentives. So the whole industry, across the board, has incentives.
Speaker 2:It's what is the most reasonable and what do we really want to do?
Speaker 2:And you know, at the end of the day, what is the what's the best solution, the cleanest solution, the most affordable solution, and I think right now, given the reality of of the way, the landscape, the power landscape in america you have to have everything as a possibility on the table, absolutely yeah. So it's interesting to see what he's doing. He goes on to talk about you know how he's fighting the good fight. He doesn't have, you know, necessarily great conversations on his side of the aisle all the time, but he's winning over people. He's saying we've got to get past this notion that it's zero or one, it's not a binary problem, and it's going to take people coming to the middle, as most things happen, to say, okay, how do we move this down the road in a reasonable way? Does that mean that, say, the left gets what they want right out of the gate? Probably not. Does it mean the right, you know, getting? Probably not. It means that we move towards a certain goal, whatever that might be, anyway, and doing it together.
Speaker 1:So I, I, I like the fact that he's pragmatic, he's a realist. I think he's absolutely speaking the truth. He's pragmatic, he's a realist. I think he's absolutely speaking the truth. He's absolutely on point. We're 100% aligned with that mentality of it's, all the modalities and more of it. Governor Cox has echoed that, that same sentiment.
Speaker 2:We need to get him on. I'd love to interview him and talk to him about some of the issues we're seeing. I mean, I think it could be a very productive conversation and hear what he has to say. What are the challenges? What does he see from a federal level about when we talk about these multi-state things and line transmission and what's happening on a federal level?
Speaker 1:We started this whole episode with Cuba. What if Utah actually experienced a power outage that lasted a week, the whole state? What would that do to anyone on the fence? Outage that lasted a week, the whole state? What would that do to anyone on the fence that says that's not true?
Speaker 1:Right, you'd be singing a different tune overnight and you'd be agreeing with what John Curtis is saying. You'd say where's my power? Where's my power? Whatever we have to do. This is why we see big companies trying to resurrect nuclear facilities. This is why we see big companies trying to bring coal-fired plants back into operation. Because they shuttered it. They realized, oh shit, we can't. We can't do that. This isn't going to work. Five, ten years later we've got to turn it back on and there's this yo-yo effect on the oil and gas and coal industries. That's really interesting. It's really interesting and so it's dangerous.
Speaker 1:I think the reason why we have so many debates is because we haven't had a week-long power outage. It's not a crisis in the headline just yet. It's going to take the people experiencing the crisis for more people to get on board with the all the above and not be so worried about climate change. We're not worried about climate change if we can't turn our house on right, if we can't drive to work, because work, there's no power. At work Right, everything changes based on an inability to provide that fundamental baseline of power.
Speaker 2:Right, Um, from. From most purposes we, we don't even think about power, yeah, we we plug it, we plug in our computer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we plug in our computer, we plug in our phones, we have our wifi in our houses. You know, we turn on the microwave whenever we want all of those things and we just kind of we do, we take it for granted and and and that's okay. I mean, that's okay. It's kind of how most people live. That's how I've lived for a long, long time. It's like you just don't think about those things. You think that there is a group always out there always saying, okay, well, we're going to, you know, we're building, we're doing out the we're, we're building out the appropriate infrastructure, we're doing all these things. We're going to, we're always, we're always going to stay ahead of demand. That's the, that's been my and and for the bulk of my life. That's been true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, they, they've been able to stay ahead of demand.
Speaker 2:And and and we've been able to just that and they've been able to do that. It's different folks. It's where we're. It's not like that anymore. It's if we're about to be not anymore like that, because, as we've talked about multiple times and we'll continue to talk about the demand for, by the way, we're not gonna just turn that off. There's plenty of demand, trust me. Even if you say, well, yeah, generative AI, well, chances are. My guess is you've probably used AI for something, or ML, even the old version of machine learning. We're using our computers all the time. We don't think about this. I brought it up again. There was a story out if you use AI, if you've used AI once to write a letter or write an email, you used basically a liter of water. If, if, the, if it was being processed in.
Speaker 2:Oregon if that and that came from Oregon. So there are re. So, if you like doing that, there are real uh, there are real costs to doing that, and so if we want to continue to advance and do all these things, we actually have to solve this and do those things and recognize that. Okay, well, yeah, I want I, you know I am I'm personally squirreling the camp of yeah, I think, you know, I think we could do a hugely better job on the environment, and it is a big issue. But if we can't get from here to there and we can't function well, that doesn't help at all either. So we've it's, it's an and and we've got.
Speaker 1:We've got to figure out how to do both things let's not also forget that, that the us leads the world globally in many, many categories. But when we talk about global climate change, we can play our part as America. But it doesn't mean China is going to play the same game. It doesn't mean all of the Asian countries are going to play the same game. It doesn't mean any of the Middle East. So in order for global climate change to have real efficacy, like in all of these renewable, sustainable measures, it takes global buy-in and we can only do so much. So that's another case for why we don't just abandon all of these fossil fuel resources, because none of those countries are. They're accelerating those right now.
Speaker 2:So, again, as responsible citizens of the planet, not just americans developing clean coal technologies, greening up, yeah, existing modalities that's important too, and we've heard that so often and and there are a lot of people, a lot of people that come out of oil and gas, that are that talk and use the phrase greening up, that are actively trying to get down that road. Why? From a competitive point of view, if they're the company that develops something that is absolutely fantastic and they can own that base, well, what does that mean for them as a company? I mean they stand to be incredibly profitable for years and years and years and years to come. And so there is also a race to perfect some of that other greening up technology. I mean, hydrogen has been talked about. Now some of them have put a lot of money in and they're pulling out, but there's a lot of movement in that space. Why? Because there's a market there, they realize there's a market there, movement in that space. Why? Because there's a market there, they realize there's a market there, there's demand, there's a real demand there, and if they can own that space, well, they're just as incentivized. You can say, well, they just want money. Well, yeah, they're incentivized by profitability. And if they can get there with a better product, then the larger market says, yeah, we'll take that over coal or even greener coal, and we'll do that, sure.
Speaker 2:So there are competitive forces. They are also working there. Do they want to? You know, we could argue that they've probably done some things in the past. Do they want to slow up innovation? Yeah, maybe For their competitive advantage? Yes, and that's where you hope politicians and people hold them to account. You hope, and that's where you hope politicians and people are, you know, hold them to account. You hope, and uh, and that you know that innovation happens on the edges and it comes around and eventually you innovate around them. You know, and then that's happened plenty. That's happened plenty in tech. It's happened plenty.
Speaker 2:And when? When companies become lazy lazy is probably not the right word but when they just comfortable comfortable, and you know, you can see them when they get outpaced, they just they stop innovating. Yeah, they get comfortable. And companies come in and take their market share. Yeah, that's just, that's the free market at work, or a freer market at work. And so I see that here and I mean you're seeing Utah as a it's interesting, it's a test bed of like, okay, well, we want to do all these things. Perhaps, you know, we want to explore. I mean, I've seen more conversation around renewables in the last two years here than I would have ever imagined. Yeah, you know, you agree, I mean for sure. And we could actually Utah ends up, you know what if Utah ends up becoming truly like one of the renewable capitals of the world? Why? Because we're trying to do renewables renewables, capitals of the world. Why? Because we're trying to do renewal, we're trying to do them smart and we happen to be one of the startup capitals of the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we do. So it seems to make sense, right? Yeah, trying to innovate, trying to trying to do things better and make some money on it yeah, so, I love it. Well, that's, that's really good food.
Speaker 1:Everyone's enjoyed the content.
Speaker 2:Are we seriously already at 45 minutes? We're there. We're there, absolutely. When you said that I'm like wait, are we done?
Speaker 1:Well, until the next episode, we're never done.
Speaker 2:We're never quite done. We always have something to say. Thanks for joining us guys. Thanks everyone, until next time on the Frontier Line.
