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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
2024 Election Day Political Impacts on Energy, Rate Hikes, Tax Spikes, China's Coal Production, Joe Rogan Interviews Donald Trump
All right, we're back in the studio. Welcome to the new setup. Today we're just bouncing around in the best place we can be.
Speaker 2:Trying a different arrangement. Now I can look at you square in the eyes, that's right. I just wanted to see your face.
Speaker 1:We can play Battleship, that's right. That's actually what we're doing here. We don't see you right now.
Speaker 2:You just took out my destroyer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, don't see you right now. He just took out my destroyer. Yeah, yeah, I did. Welcome back guys. We're excited about today's episode. It's Halloween and we've got some spooky, spooky shit to talk about today.
Speaker 2:We've got lots of spooky news.
Speaker 1:Okay, I'm thinking I'd like to kick this off, dave, with a headline out of Massachusetts.
Speaker 1:I think we both saw the headline as we were discussing this before we came into the studio this morning. But this is an interesting example and I'll just kick it off with the headline Massachusetts rate payers to pay an extra 512 million for transmission line for Canadian hydropower. Now, as I went on to read more in depth on this project up there in Massachusetts, this is a $1 billion high voltage transmission line expansion project. It's all been approved. It's under construction. They've incurred additional delays and construction costs, adding an extra 512 million dollars to the cost of the project significant cost. Now this transmission line paves the way to power an extra million homes from this hydropower coming from canada. Okay, but what's interesting about it is that the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources and the Attorney General's office have signed an agreement here approving utilities, but they're looking to taxpayers to shoulder this additional $512 million dollar cost and so dropping that on the table. What's your, what's your knee, knee jerk to that taxpayer shouldering a half a billion dollar cost?
Speaker 2:infrastructure project that they will say, well, this is what we need. I think if I'm a taxpayer in that area, I'm not very happy right now. I'm saying, well, that's the cost of it, you should have maybe better planned for it, maybe there should be private investment that's taking care of this. Obviously, they're going to ask what they can ask for. But taxpayers, whether you're in a very low tax state or you're in a high tax state, I think taxpayers in general are like, okay, stop, stop. I mean, I think that's the reaction is. I think from a taxpayer point of view, I think from our point of view or kind of what we're seeing, this is just a taste of things to come.
Speaker 2:Yeah we're going to see this across the country. We're going to see utilities and groups and saying, okay, we need to do this with no clear pathway to maybe paying back. You know, I can understand when there's tax incentives tied to it to where, well, we're going to invest in this, but we're going to reap the rewards from this. This one felt more like we just, you know, we're just going to have you cover what we already have built, you know, under under construction. So I think it's going to be we're going to see a lot more of this.
Speaker 1:I agree. I think that's. I think that's why this caught my eye, because I just imagined the implications for us here in Utah, in Wyoming, anywhere else. We're talking about doing a project and battling the uphill climb of interconnection and political opposition and the possibilities of what regulation could actually do to stifle what really needs to happen within communities, Right Um well, there's that.
Speaker 2:There is that part of it where you also see the need. I mean, we see the need. We see we've talked about many times about a brittle grid, about needing, you know, a high voltage transmission lines. We've, we have to have these things. The question, I guess then becomes who pays for it? How does it get paid? How does it get financed?
Speaker 2:And we're going to see more and more of this as the pressure goes on to utilities to say, well, how come you don't have more, how come you don't have a better infrastructure in place.
Speaker 2:They're going to say, well, whatever they're going to say, they're going to come back and say, well, okay, that's fine, we can do this, but we're going to need to charge or up our rates to cover a billion dollars or two billion dollars, three billion dollars in infrastructure, and they're going to find a way to get their money back.
Speaker 2:And so people have to understand what's really going on right now and have to make some decisions Again. But I think there are some, shall we say, smarter or more forward-thinking states and municipalities that have understood how to play the game and how to use tax incentives, because they know they're going to get that back. They know it's going to come back into the public coffers and it's going to be able to cover. So we'll cover you for a while, but we know, because this project is going to bring in and tax revenue is going to come back in, which ultimately then covers the taxpayers, and so I think that's a smarter approach, a better approach, and I think you know the states and municipalities and counties that are doing that are you know they're, they're, they're, I think, going about it a better way. I don't know enough in this case how it's being handled.
Speaker 1:It seemed like it was just no, we need $500 million and we just need $500 million. Well, well, I think it's up for debate. I don't know that it's a resolved situation and you know, as you read further into this, there's a lot of good about this. I mean, bringing this hydropower is is good energy. Okay, that's the other side. So they're they're reducing a seriously large metric of carbon emissions by bringing new hydropower onto the grid. So that's a big positive. And they're alleging that that over the term of a 20-year PPA, there's a multi-billion dollar savings that taxpayers or consumers might benefit from. So it's still they have to go and make the case. They have to make the case, and there's so many moving parts to it.
Speaker 2:It's just, it's an interesting thing, it's very interesting and we're going to see it more and more and more and more because we know how um lacking our interconnects, right, our high voltage transmission lines, all of these major infrastructure items in power, we know what's not there. You know, we know at home, here in utah, there is a giant donut hole in central Utah where there are no transmission lines, even though they've been approved and it was like a decade ago I think they were approved there are no transmission lines in place yet, and so that constrains the ability to grow or do anything quickly. So we see that here. I mean we see, well, there's a need there. Well, okay, who pays for it? And you know anyway. So I mean, I, this is stuff that is just going to.
Speaker 2:It's going to become more and more, uh, part of our headlines as we, as we go forward, agreed, yeah, um, on that. This goes back to sort of this the underlying issue. This is the data center constraints, oh, pinching. So this is another headline. This is a headline to go on what you're saying here Data center constraints, pinches. Microsoft reports, soaring AI demand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been talking about it, yeah, so they get down in this article, they get down into the weeds and guess what? It comes back to Power. That's what's causing all kinds of constraints. So you've got companies with the size of Microsoft trying to solve this and running into issue after issue after issue and it all comes back to connectivity, grid power availability, I guess. Let's say I'll quote a little bit here.
Speaker 2:The speed at which demand for AI arrived is one such challenge. Nadella he's the CEO of Microsoft Explained, taking the opportunity to talk up Microsoft AI credentials. He mentioned that all the big products of the AI boom, including ShotGPT and Copilot, are running on Microsoft platforms. So he talks about that, giving them kudos, he goes. There is also the issue of power, which Nadella described as a short-term constraint. Some of the demand issues Microsoft has can be attributed to third-party issues, he said. In the long run, we do need effective power and we need DCs and some of these things are more long lead, but I feel pretty good that going into the second half of this fiscal year, some of the supply and demand will match up, he said. And then he goes on to say demand outstripping capacity isn't a problem restricted to Microsoft. According to research from CBRE earlier this year, there were 601 megawatts of data center uptake in 2023, compared to just 561 megawatts of new supply. Regional power limitations are also causing issues, with JLL's data center's global outlook report 2024 explaining that huge power demands are causing a scarcity of data center co-location supply. There are more than 1,000 data centers in operation globally as of August 2024, with hyperscale data centers booming and currently accounting for over 40% of the total data center capacity, so that I think that underscores that this is driving this issue, absolutely, absolutely, and it's not going away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the AI is growing, demand is growing. There are going to be efficiencies that come out of AI because of AI, but it is, it's. It's not something that and I think people are just figuring out how to run faster. So, under we're underscoring everything we keep talking about in the entire land of the landscape, of what's going on right now in the world and specifically in the us. Um, ai is going to drive 30 40 growth in power demand and everybody's trying to solve it right now. And this and it's also what it's doing is it's exposing decades of problems. Yep, yeah, well, we, you know you, when, you know when we've had, uh, terrible events in the economy, often say, well, it exposes a lot of underbelly of things that were maybe not going so well. Sure, this is one of those cases with growing demand, with, uh well, an amazing amount of demand. We're starting to see some of these existing problems that I don't think, generally speaking, most people were looking at and going, oh, it's, you know, we'll kick it down the road, or it's not an issue. Well, now it's an issue. We're seeing some of these problems come to come to bear, yeah, and, and coming into an election cycle to come to bear, yeah, and, and coming into an election cycle.
Speaker 2:There's, there's, there are lots of debates about how do we solve this?
Speaker 2:You know, right, do we go this way?
Speaker 2:Do we go that way?
Speaker 2:You know, is it an all you know, all above approach?
Speaker 2:Um, there's some interesting things coming out right now, and I think we're at a we're kind of at an inflection point, right, yeah, oh, oh, I mean, for all lots of reasons, a hundred percent, where we have to make some decisions and we have to understand what this all means, because it's going to impact everybody. Yeah, whether we want it or not. Yeah, whether you love AI or hate it or think it's going to be the end humanity. Yeah, yeah, you're going to have to make a decision about where you sit on this, because it will impact your life and it's not going to be hypothetical or something out there all the way to kind of know it really will. Yeah, it's going to come down to. It's going to come when your power is going out, when you can't charge your phones, when you're going oh my gosh, I got to deal with two. Oh, yeah, I got to deal with my power out for two hours a day. That stuff is going to become. We're going to see that more and more and more, and more.
Speaker 1:I'm eager to dive headlong into the political conversation deeper today, and particularly coming up on election week. You mentioned a publication before we walked into the studio today talking uh, I sound like an attorney that produced something about growth, One of the drill into that for a second because that was fascinating. Um, something about the answer to this whole situation is we need to stop growing.
Speaker 2:Oh it was uh, give us some more detail. I need to go, and I was, I was reading. It was actually, it was actually an academic paper and they were talking about you know it was an academic paper trying to look at the you know, basically, global change, our impact, the accord, what we need to do as humanity, the worldwide, in order to stop what some scientists believe is an inevitability of you know, we can't turn back the clock. We can't turn these things are going to be worse, worse, worse. So they were talking about, well, what's going to be necessary? And so the thrust of the paper was well, we have to just stop growing. I mean it really was. They said we just have to Like, as a civilization, pretty much, I mean they were like we just have to stop all economic growth. That's the problem.
Speaker 2:The problem with a lot of this is that it's growth. Growth is pushing us, growth is causing us to have to do things. And you know I read that line. I'm like, okay, what, how do you? What are you talking about? That is the most I mean, I, I, I can, I can understand their argument, but I'm like, what part of reality do you live in? I mean, have you not looked back over the last. Just look at civilization, just pick the last 2,000 years and go. Well, the upsurge of everything, the evolution of humanity, is always. It's a result. Do all these things and the reason this person is being able to post this online is because at some point we were growing and we were pushing technological superiority or whatever it was. Yeah, and advancement, that's growth, absolutely. How do you stop?
Speaker 1:You don't. It's just If we throw all of the arguments of all of the parties up on a wall about how to solve things. Stopping growth is the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Yeah, no, the most myopic, uncreative, just unintelligent viewpoint. Yeah, I mean. How, how do you, how? I mean how do they propose stopping people from having children? For god's sake, I don't, I don't get it.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you just look at the popular, I mean it's just, it is a natural trend line. I mean I can understand in, I guess, theoretically, sure, but that's not reality, so stop it, wow, yeah. And I come back to a book and you and I have both enjoyed and read, and you know this, the, you know the cradle, the cradle notion. You know, when you talked about those things like it's not that, you know we get into this very restrictive, you know mentality. It's like, okay, this is a problem, straws are a problem, so we need to stop Right. Love of what they did in that book is they came back like it's a design problem. We want to grow and have these things. We should like that. It means that we're advancing right. If it's causing problems, it's a design problem. We didn't go back and fix that. It's not us. Just stop right.
Speaker 2:And we, we tend to, we tend to be in this, um tend to there's a there, there's there tends to be sometimes a sense of well, we have to restrict or stop doing something because we're doing too much of something. And instead of saying, well, is it what if we redesign something or did something differently or did this, Well then would we have to stop. Is it an issue anymore? And I think that was their whole idea. And in this case, it's like this isn't a we should just stop. That's just silly, yeah. What we need to do is we need to ask ourselves, well, how do we continue to do what we need to do as humanity? What? What do we need to do on even a local level and pushing our, our local communities together, making good steps forward and making smart decisions in design, design of how we do things Right? Sure, yeah, do we need to do things differently? Sure, yeah, do we do things differently? I think where everybody's starting, a lot of people are coming around the idea of like, yeah, I want clean air.
Speaker 2:I like clean air, I like clean water and I, you know, I like that. You know that there were things done years ago and I, you know, everybody understands that. There's probably lots of you know, industry and big businesses, and it's okay. They're about money and they're going to make decisions, oftentimes where it's going to be in the bottom line. That's perfectly fine. That's how industries grow.
Speaker 2:Do those decisions sometimes run counter to what's best for us? Maybe? I mean, we've had incidences you know like, yeah, maybe we probably shouldn't use that poison on vegetables. Perhaps, you know, because it's caused some problems. And so you see people going yeah, we don't want those things, but we also don't want to stop. So how do we keep growing and moving while, at the same time, not stopping? Yeah, and I think there's a tendency to want to just nope, you got to stop. And I think this paper was like I've never read something so stark. I was just surprised. I mean I'm like that's your conclusion. We just have to stop. We just need a whole just stop. Okay, everybody, just stop. We're stopping. We're stopping growing. We're not doing it. No more kids, no more economies, no more commerce, no, nothing. We just need to stop. We need to stop where we are. How do you do that?
Speaker 1:Who would want that? You would want that. Who would want that? I don't want that, that, that that doesn't give anyone an incentive to get up in the morning and create yeah, anything. That's a moving backwards. So we know we can only move forward or backwards.
Speaker 2:We cannot sit neutral and retraction um isn't happening, and then they will probably say, well, no, I just, we just want everybody to go into this, into these industries, and then solve this big one problem like so you want to force people, force people into one thing? Yeah, that never works out historically. Yeah, in fact, it's horrible historically when you try to get. You know it's good to have mission-driven kinds of things. It was great when the us, when we wanted to go to space, we were collectively the US was collectively behind this idea, that we were behind it. That's different. People still kept their day jobs and were doing all these things. It wasn't like humanity stopped and everybody was working on this one thing. Right, we've gotten there sometimes in war, where more people have come into a war effort, but those are that's not what, something we should be striving for. Yeah, you know, well, I don't want to tell somebody. Well, no, I'm sorry You've got to, I'm sorry You've got to go work on that project right there. That's, that's your role in society. Yeah, the hell with that.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just it. It. It also reminds me of this idea that that greater governance is good for communities. Yeah, bigger government is. That's not. That's not the way I see the world. As a capitalist, I see that we, the people, need to have more power, like the communities, humanity at large needs to be able to govern itself. The sovereignty of each of us individually is what's at stake and that's what's most important. And if allowed to governor, govern ourselves, or to the extent that we can govern ourselves, I think that's where real innovation, that's where that's where real solutions come from, rather than this over governance and this overbearing, because then all these agendas come into play and they stifle. They stifle that creative energy.
Speaker 2:Right, and I and I see, when you know, related into the energy industry, I see a couple of I mean you and I both see we see different approaches to that. Yeah, there, there has, there have been and there continue to be more top down approaches of forcing, a wanting to force a certain solution, not listening to the market, not understanding the market, not listening to the actual people who actually know what's going on. Yep, um again, you know it's been a while since I picked on California and and Mason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, but yeah, uh, you know, mandating, for example, like electric vehicles, is that really going to be the best solution? Because what if hydrogen? What if hydrogen proves out to be just a better solution, which right so far? I mean, we can talk about all the fear, all explosions, everything else, but it's proven out to be pretty good so far. Yeah, and it's putting out water and, yeah, there's there are some issues with it. But what if it does? What if it does end up proving? But you, you just pushed an entire state with the seventh largest economy in the world, yeah, into doing a thing that might not be the best pathway or the natural pathway, where the market because the market was going to prove out what was best, the market's certainly not the most flexible.
Speaker 1:It's certainly not the most flexible, it's certainly not the most creative.
Speaker 2:No, that's over governance and just personally, as an electric car driver, I'm like you're insane. I mean, the grid's not there. Yeah, I mean, if I had an inspection car.
Speaker 1:Well, even if it were, what if you live in North Dakota or South Dakota and it's freezing all the time and your tesla doesn't turn on? Which is an? Which is the?
Speaker 2:reality, which is kind of funny. Um, sorry, I I think that was I last winter like because you, there's a, there's a setting, just so you know, okay, and you can, you can condition your battery or your block or not block, but your battery before you go and charge, okay, because it actually warms it up. If you don't push that, it won't charge, oh, oh. So I think in some of those cases and I'm sure somebody might correct me, but back east they were going in probably not warming up their battery, oh yeah, and so then they're getting there and then they can't charge and then they run out and that's why they had, you know, six thousand pound blocks, basically metal locks. Yeah, you know, yeah, um, but there's some that's point being. There's some real problems. I mean, there's some real issues.
Speaker 2:Depending upon where you live in this, this country, and you do you get into these big square states. We don't have the grid, yeah, you know I still in any meaningful way. I mean, now we can, I can finally drive to maybe Southern Utah and not have to spend hours and hours and hours charging Battery. Lives are up, there are more chargers available, but for a while there you couldn't do it. It was a luxury and yeah, but the market demand is finally getting there. There's enough cars out there. Tesla and others. You know Tesla and others are meeting demand and putting in charging stations. That's the natural evolution of it. If you say sorry, you've got to like you've got to put this in place. Yeah, it's just so short-sighted.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let it grow incrementally and let it scale with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or incentivize it to grow.
Speaker 1:Let it scale with power production. Let us scale with the things that need to scale as the underpinnings of what makes it even possible in the first place.
Speaker 2:And that comes back to do you realize the grid? Do you realize your grid issues? Like, fundamentally, the power available in your market space, yeah, and what's not available? Right, and what I mean you, you, how much? How much gas natural gas do you use in California, by the way, piped in from everybody where else in the in the country? Um, how much you're just going to replace that overnight? You're just going to just go. Electricity, okay, where are you? Where's that electricity coming from? Yeah, where, yeah, yeah, where, I mean where and what, what? What lines are you putting in place to that's?
Speaker 2:That's the problem is that it sounds good, high level, and you start pulling it apart and, uh, and you go, this doesn't work, this isn't going to work, and that's, I guess. Back to the back to the um, what you said a few minutes ago, which is when you, when governments, politicians, tend to say we can solve it, and there's this just huge, you know, top down solution. Uh, I don't care what side you're on, yeah, you need to look under the covers and go yeah, uh, there's gonna be issues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this brings us to to two big things. I've been researching now for two weeks and a headline this morning was really great uh, as american votes, as america votes, these big energy projects hang in the balance. Okay, this was from Bloomberg this morning and Bloomberg is looking at the outcome of the US presidential election looming this week. Some quotes from both pundits, and it references three projects the CP2 LNG plant, which is the future of venture global L LNG liquid natural gas project in Louisiana. This project has been paused by the Biden administration. Even though a federal judge halted the moratorium imposed by the administration in July, the situation has been little changed. According to the article um, that particular, that particular project um is it would produce 20 million metric tons of liquid natural gas a year. Uh, that would produce greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to putting 1.8 million new gasoline fueled carsueled cars on the road. Okay, it also says that the project would export enough natural gas to replace 33 coal-fired power plants. Okay, enough to reduce approximately 140 million tons of greenhouse gas per year. So that's an interesting conversation weighing. Okay, if we toggle this switch here, then this one moves, and if we move this lever, then that lever moves. So it's not just as we've been saying, it's not just this black and white situation, not a vacuum, not a vacuum.
Speaker 1:Second project we're talking about is the Dakota Access Pipeline. Everyone's probably heard about this in the news and how this pipeline is a 1,200-mile pipeline. Everyone's probably heard about this in the news and how you know this pipeline is a 1200 mile pipeline. It's been operating since Trump's first year in office, still waiting for Army Corps of Engineers to redo environmental analysis. Now there's a lot of Native American tribe resistance to pipeline. There's been, you know, public outcry, there's been a whole bunch of things to prevent this pipeline from happening and, of course, trump had a certain attitude about pipelines, oil, oil and gas and the Biden administration has had an opposite view of it.
Speaker 1:The final and I'm going to tie this up here, but I just want to touch on the three projects the South coast wind project is an offshore wind project that, uh, that is really interesting. Um, it's a 2.4 gigawatt wind farm plan near Massachusetts and it's talking about how it's being especially at risk given a timeline. And it's talking about how it's being especially at risk given a timeline. This site is still expected to be in well, it's in environmental review and it's expected to clear the US approval with a decision before Biden leaves office. Okay, but the article is kind of saying here that you know, maybe, depending on how this election shakes out, maybe that project's in jeopardy. Okay, so if you actually read this article, you can tell which side of the aisle the author's on. Okay, it's not a very bipartisan article. I'm not going to get into that. I wanted to bring up some of the facts and just talk about the micro perspective. Okay, I don't know if you had an opportunity Hopefully the listeners had an opportunity to also chime into the three-hour interview that Joe Rogan did with President Trump.
Speaker 1:I listened to that earlier this week. I thought it was very informative. Love Joe Rogan. I mean, he is such a. He's a very what's the word? It's bipartisan, but he's very objective. He's very. He could see things either way if you present the right facts and the right things.
Speaker 2:He's also not afraid I mean he's not afraid to ask the hard questions on either side, 100%. So if one side, hey, ask the obvious question that everybody wants to ask, he is not afraid to do that and he's done that time and time again. And he listens to people. Yeah, he lets them speak. I mean that's been one of his hallmarks, the length of his programs. I mean it should.
Speaker 2:As opposed to giving people a few minutes, he wants to have an in-depth conversation. It's been one of my, one of the things I really have admired about him, because he's let interviews kind of play out and get into the depth where I could easily criticize and say you know, we're a world of sound bites and 30 seconds, 10 seconds, 10 seconds sound bites. You know, I it. He proved out that there is a demand to listen to long form Absolutely, interview Absolutely, that people want to hear what somebody has to say beyond the sound bites. Yeah, and I so I I've liked him for that for a long, long time and he's he's a great interviewer, he does it, he does a hell of a job?
Speaker 1:Yeah, he does. He's a great conversationalist and it it makes the, it makes listening and watching that interaction riveting. To me. It's very fascinating. Obviously, I've already cast my vote.
Speaker 1:I know where I'm at in this position, but from a from a political perspective, but from an energy perspective, it is not party line clear, okay. I mean the interview brings up many of the interesting things that this headline or this, this, this article I just shared from bloomberg brings up, and some of the opposition to that, for example. And I couldn't help but research this After I listened to that interview and I read this. I'm doing my own research and I'm trying to fact check everything and possibly fact check. I'm learning a lot in the process. Okay, one of the things that became apparent after the interview was this fact that these wind farms, although they're loved by the environmentalists over here, on this far extreme side of the environmental protection spectrum, the vibration and noise underwater is killing whales and dolphins and noise underwaters killing whales and dolphins, redirecting their breeding routes, redirecting their you know, the whole, the whole life cycle of this marine life. So you have to ask yourself at what cost are we willing to accept green energy, renewable energy, clean energy. What are we willing to give up in this race and this determination to make everything so green? And I'm looking between the lines and I'm saying well, wind farms have a long ways to go to figure this out, that that is a, that is a very expensive, maybe one of the most expensive ways to produce anything. So if this massachusetts project um, you know, faces delays, and maybe that's for good, maybe that maybe the the real environmental concerns it's, rather than focus just on emissions, we need to be looking at the marine biology and the environment impacts.
Speaker 1:The other interesting thing that came out of the interview was emissions from China, and we talked about this a little bit before we walked into the studio this morning. But it's incredible to me to understand that, while we and it seems like most of the world are doing our best to produce these green, these clean, renewable energy modalities, china over here in 2023, 2024, has built 70 new coal-fired power plants. In the US, we've built zero in the last two. Now, why does that matter? Who's right or wrong? And I'm I'm here with an objective approach, saying you know what? China probably understands something that, or maybe they have a little more clarity about the facts than some of our myopic legislators in the us that are kind of trying to force this renewable situation to happen so fast, because you brought up when I mentioned this, you brought up the fact that China's also bringing tons of renewables on. I mean they're leaning you know, in solar hydro.
Speaker 1:They're doing it all. Yeah, they're doing it all. That's one of the things that's really important for our listeners to understand. Now I dug deeper into the emissions implications okay of Chinese coal-fired plants. Now I was in Beijing in 2008. And one of the things that stuck out the most to me was when I landed in the airport in Beijing and we were walking out of the airport with all the glass windows, the sky was red. It blotted the sun out. If I thought we were on Mars is what it felt like we're on planet Mars because it was. I'd never seen a dark, red sky environment like that. It was pollution and I was. I didn't even understand what it was. I didn't realize immediately, like you know when, unless you see that, you don't recognize what real pollution, air pollution, looks like, because here in utah, we live in this bowl, here in the mountain west, here in salt lake in salt lake county, and we know what it's like, what it, when it builds up, it's it's.
Speaker 2:We also know what beautiful sunsets are. Yeah, but it's often when we there's a there's a trade-off. Absolutely, when we had fires and big smoke, they were beautiful, but it's also like, well, that's because there's all this stuff in the air, you know. So there's a doubt. There's obviously the other side of that.
Speaker 1:Well, what, what's? What's so interesting to me is studying the, the China relationship to energy and the us's relationship to that, and our global um buy-in on the energy conversation. You gotta understand, we all need to understand, that chinese air pollution, depending on weather cycles, can reach the us within five to eight days. Okay, it just floats right over the ocean, over hawaii jet stream, jet stream, right into the us. So, regardless of all of the, the, the things that california attempts to do to prohibit combustion engines and do this and all this other nonsense, uh, and I say nonsense because of the timing of it. I'm not saying it's nonsensical theoretically, right, but I'm saying it's nonsensical theoretically. But I'm saying it's nonsensical to try and just stop it all today, because for every hundred thousand cars you're taking off the road, you're still getting all the emissions for China and you can't. What are you going to do to stop that? So, until the, the, all of the major players globally buy into this energy transition and can start an energy perspective it's so bipartisan it is going to require we say this over and over again all of the above and more of mentality. All of the above and more of mentality.
Speaker 1:So, as it relates to coal. That's clean coal technologies. You don't just shutter these plants, you convert them right. You do what you can to clean this stuff up. We, we sound like a broken record, I'm sure, on the show, but this is the message. Yeah, you can't just go vote party lines and expect government's going to fix this on either side, on either side. Neither side is going to fix this in the way it needs to be fixed. So this requires movement from the left and the right to come and meet and and unite on the energy, which is a very rare word right now very rare and and I I think more than ever it requires party lines united to have more private buy-in and participation.
Speaker 1:There has to be more reliance on the private sector to capitalize, finance, build, expand all of this power, production and infrastructure. This is not something we can rely on government to do for us and I think most people are not understanding that completely. I think most people kind of feel like the state of Utah is kind of synonymous with Rocky Mountain power and you just have your power bills and you have your state infrastructure and it's all just kind of handled. And that is so far from the truth and I think this. So these are interesting things surfacing, you know. To bring this into this realization more clear, Agreed, totally agree.
Speaker 2:I love everything you said. I, you know, I, I think. Well, personal feeling is that governments, whether it's a federal or local, operate best when they look at it almost like they, they, they take the role of like setting the rules and the random being referees, yeah, like they set the game and let the game play out. Like, and Like they set the game and let the game play out and they help keep everything in the lines. And there's an argument there. Those lines get blurred depending upon. You know, you could talk about donations and influence and all kinds of things and how that changes and maybe skews the rules of the game against one group over another, maybe unfairly, group over another, maybe unfairly. Yeah, um, point being is that you know if they can say, okay, here, here, roughly, we all come together, here are our goals, set the thing and let's figure out how we incentivize, how we incentivize or disincentivize certain kinds of things to fit within the ideas of what we have and we think are best for whatever it is Not, not, not a, we have all the solutions, but we are going to help create a environment to where the solutions can take hold. And I, you know, I, I think that's, I don't know, I think that's, it's a balance of not being heavy-handed, not being too much government, but enough right, and there's no easy answer. And and in the energy, what we're saying, and I think what we've seen, what we've learned, is you need we're going to need Paul, we need politicians to kind of set the, set the bar and say, okay, here's where we got to go. Yeah, uh, okay, okay, you guys aren't playing nice, okay, no, no, okay, you guys are too entrenched. We got to get you down the road and understanding that they're elected to hopefully look out for all of our interests and say you citizens might not have the time to spend understanding. You're busy time to spend to really understand these issues. That's why you've elected us, that's why we're here, we're in the mix, we are trying to make the best decisions we can for our communities and for our state or our counties or whatever it is.
Speaker 2:And energy especially is one of those issues where I would love to see the partisanness of it stripped away as much as possible. Absolutely, because everyone is going to be affected and everybody should have a and I say everybody has an interest in what happens. Absolutely, it's not going to. It's not going to not impact. It's going to impact everyone Absolutely. And again, you might.
Speaker 2:You might be that person who says, well, I don't want to see AI grow and that's, we just need to get rid of AI. And then this is the the power can keep up. Okay, that's a, you can have that opinion, that's fine. Yeah, we have to look at the whole, but we have to okay, yours is one. We have to look at the other side and have to start looking at all these things. You might not like it.
Speaker 2:That's where you have to kind of put your words and say okay, but what are we doing so that I know that I can do my life and go about my life? So I can watch TV when I want to watch TV, I can charge when I want to charge, I can turn on a light when I want to turn on a light. These are things that I've gotten used to, so I want to be able to do that. So that's where it comes back to. You need to think, you need to stop, and I would encourage people I've tried to do it myself to look past the politics and get to. What do we really need to do if we want to continue advancing, then this is. This comes back to that.
Speaker 2:When we started out, it was like, yeah, I kind of believe that advancing and rolling things along is probably a good thing, right, um, and not stopping cold and saying, I don't know, we're not going to grow anymore. I don't think that's reasonable. I think we we are, we're going to continue to grow. It's on us to figure out how to best do it. Yeah, that's us, that's on our shoulders. There might not be an answer, so we've got to go figure out how to do this and we're going to get parts of it wrong. But not doing anything is not a solution, right, we've done that long enough on some of these issues. We know we can look back and go.
Speaker 2:You know, we know, in our communities, when something gets ignored for a long time and all of a sudden it's like, well, why don't we deal with it? Well, because there was no interest to get it solved when it could have been solved cheaper, you know, and more reasonably. I see, I mean, you see this with infrastructure projects. It's like communities cities are famous for kicking down, especially, like you know, sewer, yeah, I mean the most basic infrastructure item, right, yeah? And yeah, we have aging pipes, we don't want to deal with it yeah, the next administration because they know it's going to be expensive, it's going to be disruptive and and no administration wants to have to deal with it. But eventually it's going to fall on somebody's head where you have got to deal with it. Yeah, and you know, I live in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2:You know, a few years ago we had a major flood because one of the old water pipes distribution pipes up on Foothill Boulevard broke. Yeah, flooded a bunch of homes. Yeah, they came out and said we've got aging infrastructure. This stuff was raided for like 60 years and it's been in the ground a lot, far longer than that. Yeah, and so they've gone about replacing these infrastructure items.
Speaker 2:Has it been a pain in the ass for anybody driving Salt Lake City? Hell, yeah, it's been a pain in the ass. It feels like we're always in construction. Yeah, it feels like we're always in construction. Do I think they do it poorly and they hurt businesses unfairly? Yes, I think there could be better ways that. You know you do these infrastructure projects.
Speaker 2:That said, they have to be done. Yeah, are they more expensive now than they could have been a decade ago? Yeah, absolutely this go. We're there, folks, we're there with energy. Yeah, it's going to be expensive now, it's going to be more expensive in the future and we've got to start dealing with some of these issues A hundred percent, cross the board. A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:All of the above vote for we've got to look at everything and every possibility, and if you're on the side of like, no, it's all gotta be clean, well, I'd like to see out there supporting nuclear, because so far, I mean, yes, it has a, it has a really bad negative side, but they've made huge advancements in the in the last four decades and that's going to be super clean, yeah, and so I hope you're out there supporting it, because that's ultimately, you don't. You know, as you mentioned, wayne, there are problems with wind, there are problems with solar. You could look at all of these modalities and each one of them has its unique problems. I could argue that oil and gas is probably, you know, if you look at it, probably the most detrimental broadly, probably the most detrimental broadly, but that doesn't mean it's not, but that doesn't mean like, for example, you know, wind in a ocean setting doesn't have some very localized, really significant impacts.
Speaker 1:Well, and then he's wind farm. That's reading about the killing millions of birds, million birds, population eagles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, millions of birds like big bird Right and then and I'm not even going to get into the then down the road environmental impacts of some of the materials that are going in. Is that no one's really solved on how to deal with this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's crazy about that is you see legislators stopping certain projects of land development over some plant that you can't touch or some desert. You know, creature, creature, and yet you've got major bird populations, major migratory migratory birds, major mammal populations in the ocean, dying because of, yeah, like because of these, yeah, renewable projects if you are concerned about the um, the habitat of some of these populations, you should be concerned about it across the board.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even if it's your favorite kind of energy. Exactly, and that's the point, exactly, that's the point. Learn about this stuff, because every what I've learned and didn't know and do know now is that every one of these things comes with costs. Yep, and you have to ask yourself what are you willing to sacrifice? What is the cost, what's the risk? Yeah, and to ask yourself what? What are you willing to sacrifice? What is the cost, what's the risk? Yeah, and where we come back to there are some, yeah, I have some favorite energies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think they're the least impactful, yeah, most promising, um, cleanest, and I'd like to see that's what I would like to see is eventually gravitate and, by the way, probably it's inadvertently electricity, but it's not, it's not uh, it's not being, it's not solved, it's not, uh, it's not being, it's not solved, it's not being solved the way in, in all these other places where I think they're not embracing, like, for example, nuclear.
Speaker 2:Nuclear is a really good solution, especially with what they've done. I think geothermal is another one that's proving out to be amazing, and I think all these other hydro, if you can do it, um, yeah, if you can do those things, yeah, if you can do those things. I love natural gas a lot. Natural gas is a great transition. Yeah, it's in abundance, it's inexpensive, which we're all mindful of, and so we might have to have that for a while while we transition to some of these other things, or we might not want it, because we want to be able to have that in our we want to be able to have all these resources at our disposal as a country, flexibility, how we can look at natural gas and all of that infrastructure, all that pipeline infrastructure and these plants and these power production modalities that can seamlessly switch over to hydrogen when hydrogen is right, relevant right and and and the thing right.
Speaker 1:So that is like, if you're talking about something with foresight, yeah, we have infrastructure in place, yes, yes, and cost effective and with foresight. And instead of LIG.
Speaker 2:Now we have maybe hydrogen in the future, right? Yeah, well, you know, if they can solve that and solve it well, well then, wow, we have infrastructure, right, and we now have a material that is far less impactful. I think everybody would get behind that. Yeah, I hope so too. The irony, and I will ask how are we doing on this? We're up, so final thought. Well, it's an interesting final thought, you've got it.
Speaker 2:I'm going to pick on Salt Lake City. Yeah, what I saw for years as a resident there is that, you know, there was a push to get people out of cars. It never sat well with me. I'm like we're in a commuter state. Yeah, we got to move around.
Speaker 2:And the same people saying this oftentimes may, were like well, how do you get your three kids around to all their practices? Yeah, well, you drive in your car, right, because it's not, you can't do it any other way. But you want, theoretically, you want, you know, ideally everybody out of their cars. Or you want to have I'm, you know, I get the walking communities, I get all that, but you want to make it so hard to drive around that people want to just naturally get out. And the argument I always heard is like, well, it's, it's, it's emissions, it's emissions. It was always emissions, always emissions, emissions. It was like, well, there, it's emissions, emissions and bad air. Okay, I'm buying it. I have an electric car now. Yeah, yeah, problem solved, right, oh, no, no, no, no, no, now I need you out of cars still. Yeah, so it was never really about emissions, right, it was just you didn't like cars, right, okay, that's okay, yeah, but is it reasonable, as a as a resident, you know, to try and make it as difficult as possible and like that's where I get into. What are people really wanting or not wanting at the end of the day?
Speaker 2:And to your point, I mean, I can see this is why I thought about it is I could see where we get to hydrogen, yeah, and it was oh, no, it's still not good, yeah, still not good enough. Yeah, it might not be good enough, but it's going to be a lot better than what we had. Yeah, and that's progress. That's the whole point. Let's keep that moving along and let's consider and keep everything on the table as long as possible and let's get rid of, yeah, what doesn't work for us anymore, fine, yeah. When it doesn't work for us, fine, yeah, so we have it. Sits there. It's a possible resource for us. That's kind of where this whole energy conversation comes back to me, and that's why you and I talk about it a lot, which is all of the above. Let's talk about all the solutions, put everything on the table pros and cons and let's figure out how to solve this. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'd love that final thought. Thanks for sharing that. Thanks, Wayne. Hopefully you all enjoyed today.
