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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
COP29 Azerbaijan, UN Climate Change Talks Meltdown, Private Equity Doubling Down on Fossil Fuels Investments
The rapid rise of AI technology demands more than just talk—it's about action. Governments worldwide face the urgent task of rethinking infrastructure and regulatory frameworks to stay at the forefront of this technological revolution. Drawing parallels with past energy transitions, we highlight the need for proactive strategies, exploring the potential shift towards decentralized power systems. Our conversation underscores the pressing need for legislative updates to ensure global leadership in AI, empowering local decision-making while navigating complex regulatory landscapes.
In the evolving world of energy investments, AI is redefining the game, pushing demand to unprecedented levels. We explore the renewed focus on fossil fuels amid soaring energy needs and advocate for an inclusive approach that blends traditional and emerging energy sources like hydrogen and geothermal. From water usage in data centers to stakeholder collaboration on energy projects, we dive into real-world examples, reflecting on the challenges of sustainable practices and regional efforts. Join us as we explore innovative solutions to power the future responsibly.
And we're coming in hot today. Oh man, dave and I, it's so much fun to get in the studio with you, man. I mean it's like a 30-minute to an hour warm-up. Is it kind of like going to the gym?
Speaker 2:We joke. We probably should just start recording now, but it becomes a little bit animated. Maybe that's good. As a real Ron Relo, we get going on these topics and then I think we probably should record. We just forget to record, which is pretty, talking about different issues and because we're, you know we're in this space and so and, and, and so we're like everybody else, we're consuming this information, we're seeing this information, and we each come with our own experiences and opinions and go okay, what do you think? And it's always a great conversation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. We know you guys have been jonesing to get another Headlines episode, so here we are with some headlines. Dave, do you want to lead this one, because I've got a doozy.
Speaker 2:Well, why don't you lead? I've got so much there's just since we did one of these, there's been a lot of stuff in the last week or so. I mean just it's the amount of news coming out on a weekly basis in this space is it's mind blowing. I mean, you know, I use a couple of different programs to follow different, you know, attractive or news feeds and I use feedly. If anybody out there uses feedly, I really like it Feedly. Hey, if anybody's listening, you know we'll, we'll, yeah, you can sponsor us. Um, you know, and I've been tracking the number of articles in the space, right, so that that's kind of the thing, and it's exploded. Like we've gone from a few articles, like last year, a few, you know, maybe a few every day on data centers, to there are dozens now, dozens every day. Yeah, um, and on electric, you know the electric, anything electric, uh, energy, that that space, and then and then uh data centers and such, and so it's.
Speaker 2:It's a crazy space, so you should start out. You should start out with what you've got you see, that's an excellent fodder for for firewood.
Speaker 1:It's excellent fodder for thought here to have so much content deluging the market right now. I'm going to kick one off with BBC Climate Team. Okay, and they're covering the COP29, and I think it was in Azerbaijan. So the headline here, guys, is Fury at Climate Talks over Backsliding on Fossil Fuels. Yep, okay, and I'm just going to read a section of this to give the listeners context on what we're getting into here.
Speaker 1:A row is broken out of COP29 climate talks as leading countries set a draft deal, risking going back on a historic agreement to reduce the use of planet-warming fossil fuels. Standing still is retreat and the world will rightly judge us very harshly. If this is the outcome, says UK Energy Minister Ed Miliband, we can guess where Ed is at on this whole conversation. The UK, european Union, new Zealand and Ireland said the proposed agreement was unacceptable. Developing nations said they're unhappy that a pot of money has not been agreed to help them tackle climate change. Nearly 200 countries are meeting in Baku, azerbaijan, to try to decide on the next steps in tackling climate change. The row comes as the UN Secretary General, antonio Guterres, warned countries that failure is not an option. At the heart of the talks is a tradeoff between promises of more money from developed nations and global pledges to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Of course, we've got John Podesta right in the mix here. Us Climate Envoy says we're surprised that there's nothing that carries forward what we agreed last year in Dubai. We will have failed in our duty and the millions of people already feeling the effects of extreme weather, he added.
Speaker 1:Ok, so I'm going to, I'm going to pull out of the granular detail here of what's being provided. I'm going to just summarize it the way I'm seeing this. Okay, we have a large group, a large constituency, opposing another large constituency the other constituency is Saudi Arabia, china, india and Bolivia that are all saying, yeah, this was a possible solution. We never really agreed to this whole climate plan that you've all tried to pigeonhole us into. And what's happening is big countries are pulling back off of this and they're saying look, we've got exploding power demand and if we're going to meet these power demands, there's no way in hell we're going to meet it if we agree, if we stay on this track of this greenwashed renewable climate change reduction fallacy. That's really what I'm saying. This is how I'm saying it. What's your knee jerk to that, dave.
Speaker 2:Wow, my knee jerk. So explain for me how you're reading in there the greenwashed. I'm just trying to understand how you're taking that.
Speaker 1:So, when I read into what the agreements are about, it's zero use of fossil fuels. That's the premise. Okay, okay, all of these countries trying to come up with an agreement with the UN to get to a point of zero use of fossil fuels by a certain date, Like think of California, yeah, we're going to be zero fossil fuels by 2026. Oh wait, that's fucking next year. Never mind, never mind, we better back down. It sounded good, it sounded great. We're so altruistic. We better back out of that and do something real, because we can't power our communities. So this plays into the density of population and the direct corollary of power density. Renewables, as we've discussed at great detail, are not the most power-dense production modalities.
Speaker 2:They're not.
Speaker 1:It takes a lot of land, a lot of real estate to do that, not a power we can produce A lot of manufacturing A lot of facilities to be stood up that don't exist.
Speaker 1:Yes, so what we've got is we've got some countries just upset. Well, they're loud. They're loud. You know, the John Podestas of the world are very, very disappointed that countries are backing out of this climate change prevention plan because they're recognizing they can't do it even if they want to do it, because they're recognizing they can't do it even if they want to do it. And yet you've still got some of these politicians out there screaming and yelling and just with all the vitriol they can muster, we can't let down millions of people because climate change is coming and the temperature in the air and all the things.
Speaker 1:So it's the non-pragmatic, it's the frenetic attitude at the climate change summits that we were talking about and getting fired up before we walked into this video today. There's no room in this conversation for frenetic energy folks. To solve it requires calm, cool-headed, logic and pragmatism. Yeah, and recognizing that this is not partisan. This shouldn't even be politicized. So having idiots like John Podesta representing anyone, that's a problem. That's a baseline problem. We need more pragmatic people with logical thinking to step now. So that, so? So I think that that that helps me understand.
Speaker 2:Okay, yes, that that's where I'm coming from, that, that that's where the that's, that's the, uh, the launch point for the softball. Yes, okay, gotcha, uh, I, yeah, you and I have talked about this ad nauseum and I, you know, know, I come at this. You know transparency, you know I'm going to lead always, just based upon my, my upbringing and everything else, I'm going to lead towards science and a scientific method, meaning like, not science as science, but scientific method of like. Basically say, okay, what are some of the best, let's get to some of what's, what's underlying some of these things. I, I try have to to take the politics out of all these things like what are the, what are the scientists saying?
Speaker 2:And I think you know at at a base, you know, on a macro level, some people think, okay, well, we have these worldwide, systemic, let's say, problems that could result in all kinds of issues. You could, you know bigger hurricanes start hurricanes. You know water. You know more water in the atmosphere is going to lead to more. You know increased storm activity, more extreme. I get, I and I, I'm, I'm on the side and there are probably those listeners wouldn't agree with me, but where's that? That's the case. Okay, neat. Okay, that that's fine, but but there is so much cutting off your nose to spite your face going on and, having gone on that we now have two political camps that are just political camps. Yeah, it's like all the and I will say this all the smart people who are working in these businesses who might have like, look, I want to make this more sustainable. No one's listening to them, because this gets to be a football that everybody gets to throw back and forth about. Well, you're one side or the other. Well, we better come to a realization really quickly that there's no one side or the other.
Speaker 2:If you want power and you like your modern lifestyle and you want to see the advancement of society move forward, you want to see the US move forward, continue to compete, continue to be a leader in many areas in the world, then we have to have power to do it. We've got to have water to be able to support these communities. We do have to have clean water. We do have to have these things. Well, how do you get there? You can't get there by saying, oh, and to your point, wayne, I mean you said it, we've joked about it. It's like you can't just pull out of your ass these dates and go. They sound neat. Well, you know, we've got to set goals, like, yeah, there's goals and there's just stupid. There's just stupid Because now I don't take you seriously Anybody who's actually serious about it.
Speaker 2:We're talking about the smart people. We're talking about the scientists who are working in these industries. These are very serious, educated people who've done this for their lifetime. You and I know, at least loosely, one who worked for one of the big gas companies. He's got two PhDs. This is somebody who knows and understands this business, or at least that side of the business, and has an entirely different take on oil and gas. And it's refreshing to hear, because it's like oh well, this is just information, this isn't charged whatever. It's just information. This is how we need to be dealing with this.
Speaker 2:Are there people in the world who don't? You know? Yes, is there an incentive, maybe to make more money and you know, and not maybe do some of these things, certainly Understandably? Is there also an opportunity on their side, business-wise, to do the smart things, what I would call the smarter things, the better modalities to do this? Yes, there's a lot of people interested in doing that because we see there's a financial incentive to do that down the road. There's a longer tail there. That, I think, is far more advantageous. But so often it gets stuck in this just stupid talk, yeah, and it doesn't progress anything that needs to happen. So we'll talk about.
Speaker 2:You know these goals. I mean I met with a group a couple weeks ago I won't mention them, who they are, and you know they were looking for somebody to come in an advisory role and be on a board seat and you know, on the surface I love their mission, but when I dove into what they were doing, I'm like they wanted to accomplish everything all at once, like you can't do that. That's not possible. I love that you have the goals, but you have competing goals on this thing. You can't do this one and do this one at the same time, because they don't work. They don't work in the real world. Yeah, they work in your imagination, but they don't work in the real world, where people have to do these things.
Speaker 2:Well, I think and coming back to energy, yes, it's there and you're in Oz and then shit sustainable power overnight. You can't do it, it's not possible. It's possible to bring these on in part, but I've said this on and I will continue to say this when it comes up, when it's relevant. There's a lot of power out there right now in the US sustainable. That's not even connected yet. Why you can't solve connected because connection's really hard, interconnects, connection to the. These are really challenging problems to solve and they don't happen overnight.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you got all these people building power, but no way to connect. It's like, well, okay, what kind of solution is that? Yeah, it's not, it's not part, which is well great. I'm glad you have 1.8 petawatts of renewable energy sitting out there. Who's using it? Yeah, no one. Yeah, no one. Zero. Yeah, so solve that problem. Yep, you know, solve the problems and get people power of the needle.
Speaker 2:Or, or, you know, you say in california, like you want to accomplish these goals. Are you really that green? Are you? Are you, um, engaging in this business of green credits and so great, you're relying on Utah to provide part of your power? We're getting the emissions. You're not right, we are. Or you're pulling in gas from any of these Western states. You're not drilling for gas in your own state, but it's having an impact. But you can say, oh, yeah, we're green. No, you're not. You have millions of residents that you have to provide power for. Yeah, you can't. You just, you just don't like say we're just going to go to say we're just going to do these things and solve it overnight. No, you have to realize what you have, what actually it needs to be, and then how you're going to get there and these are not overnight solutions. They sound great on paper, everybody looks likes likes to-rah behind them or against them, but it doesn't really solve the problems.
Speaker 1:Yeah 100%, dave, and one of the key buzzwords in our collective diatribe of the day is relevant today. You know you said a couple times relevant for today. So rewind five or ten years. Our nation's loping along. You could project growth yeah, 1.5 percent growth. Population density, you know, expanding by 1.52 percent annually, okay, power expanding according to that really low number, okay, but today that's not where we are. Today we're saying because of AI has to triple capacity in the next five years. That's an anomaly. Population growth is not going to triple in the next five years. No, but power is going to triple in the next five years. No, but power is. And that's why I think it's so important for our listeners to key in with us here on how dramatic the shift has been just this last year. Right, just relevant to today, not relevant five or 10 years ago.
Speaker 2:Totally different conversation, totally different. You bring up a very good point that the utilities were just looking at those things ago. Totally different conversation, totally different. You bring up a very good point. The utilities were just looking at those things and they were like oh yeah, we can handle that kind of growth. We know what our lead times are. Yes, there comes disruptions to the supply chain, but we'll deal with those. We can go to this and this thing has happened around them.
Speaker 2:Where the demand is so significant that, if we like this industry and we should as a country, I believe we're leading the world right now in AI and we can stay leading the world in AI there are those who probably don't want to lead the world in AI. I am not in that camp. I'm in the camp of we absolutely want to embrace this technology and then these abilities. Does it come with all kinds of things? Yes, it does, but but putting our heads in the sand is not the way to solve this. Engaging it, dealing with it, being able to support it, sustain it are those are the things that we're going to see all the benefits from. And you, we cannot have that without providing and building an infrastructure to support it. Period Well, and you can't, and you can't do it, otherwise, you just say we're just stopping.
Speaker 1:Yes, 100%. And I'll go back into history. Let's go back 10 years. I can remember political conversations around the energy transition and being renewable and all the things and those projections seemed attainable. Okay, you've got the John carys and the algors of the world who may have seemed smart in the 80s and 90s and this, this transition, could we could do this if we.
Speaker 1:If we link our now ai's here, that whole damn conversation is in the paper shredder and these guys look like dinosaur idiots because they keep talking about shit that was relevant 20 years ago. This is part of the problem. How how do we not get quote-unquote leaders or authorities in the political venues globally to just recognize what a dramatic shift we're in right now? It it's like countries and the big battleship trying to move that slow movement to reality. Where we need to be nimble and we need to be in a pivot on a dime, because that's what AI has brought us. It's a pivot on a dime requirement. Right now, that's what's being required Widespread, sweeping, legislative, regulatory reduction and augmentation in order for us to adequately address this right right and that that is.
Speaker 2:That is what is going to have to happen. It is fundamental. It is not something that's going to limp along. Yeah, I, I don't see it, we don't see it, I, I, it can't. The hand is forced at this point it is, and so you know, as I mean, this is where we could probably not government as is government. Government will be, you know they'll be, they'll be reactive, not proactive. You know government's very good at reacting, yeah, but not being proactive. Generally speaking, I would say there are probably people in all those government agencies. If you interviewed them or you talk to them, you know one-on-one, they'd probably say, oh, we need to do this, we need to do this, we need to do this.
Speaker 1:But we can't.
Speaker 2:And you know, again, it comes down to these institutions you know, inherently are challenging. Yeah, you know, we know this, with big companies. Big companies are very slow. Once they become a big company, they're very slow to adopt new change Because it's just hard, it's hard to implement that across, you know, thousands and thousands of employees or whatever they are, and so we have a government that's giant and so there's not going to be a switch.
Speaker 2:So what do you do? What they should be doing is saying, I mean, if I'm them, I'm saying on the federal level, like, okay, we can't possibly solve this top down, we need to enable or support the states, even all the way down to municipalities, in ways that we haven't done before. Allow them to make decisions on the ground, where they are, for their communities, under the auspices of, like, maybe here's our overarching goal, yeah, and to start removing some of the things. Interestingly, I mean, we a little bit saw this, you know, under the Biden administration, regarding electrical transmission lines. Yeah, they recognized that there is a huge problem, yeah, and that states weren't moving fast enough, right, which is usually it's the opposite, right, and they're saying we got to have more high power transmission lines, yeah, so you, we got to have more high power transmission lines, yeah, um, so you guys got to get out of the way or something's got to happen here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I don't think anything's happened, but that that's an interesting solution. Yeah, then you talk about, and then I can talk about that section and say, well, okay, transmission lines, is that sustaining big transmission lines over long, long areas, is that the best solution? Right, if we talk about decentralized power, right, it might not be right. We might, we, we probably do need to do some high. Well, I mean, we do need to do. There's no question.
Speaker 2:We have to do that, but, how you know, it might be a. Yes, we need to doing this. Yeah, because you have all the rules and things, FERC and everything, all these guidelines in place, and it just doesn't move fast. And so, again, we're at a critical time where everyone, that is, anyone in this space, is trying to solve that. Yeah, how do I get power, how do I get water? And if I can't get it from my local utility, how do I build it? Yeah, yeah, because we're going to have to have it and it's not a mirage.
Speaker 2:This isn't just a, you know, an industry that's like, okay, it's just being pumped up, pumped up, pumped up, and it's not going to materialize. No, no, no really is going. I mean, the smart people, yeah, the ones that can either get knocked or not. All the best statisticians, everyone is in agreement. Um, they're just, they're in a disagreement about how much, yeah, and it's not like how much, like, oh, a half or the. It's like is it two, two times the power, three times the power, five times the power? But it's a lot of power, right? I think we cannot support right now. Yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So to that point and you've referred to the smart people and I like that I'm going to key into that, because article put out by Hard Energy today headline supports what you're saying here Energy sector sees dramatic increase in private equity funding subtitle. In a 10-day period, private equity firms announced almost $20 billion in energy funding Is an end in sight for the fossil fuel capital drought. So you read through the article. What you recognize is institutional capital has bought into this political climate reduction problem and they've divested their fossil fuel holdings Significant Billions and billions in favor of these renewable modalities. Institutional capital, the big money guys. Now the backpedaling is happening. They're like oh my gosh, we've divested, turns out we can't meet the goals.
Speaker 1:This is all pre-AI. Now AI has changed the game. And so what's happening? Shift of power, private equity plowing into oil and gas investments, not renewables. There's still plenty of renewable investment happening, but they're doubling down on fossil fuel investment. Why? Because there's safe bet on reasonable returns. Yeah, the smarter minds are recognizing the pragmatism of how much demand is really necessary and what it's going to take to actually meet some of these demands. That's a fascinating article.
Speaker 2:Fascinating. Yeah, they're going well. Of course, we would want to put our money where there's going to be demand. Well, as we've talked about many times, this is an all of the above solution, so it's everything. You have to throw everything at this to solve it.
Speaker 2:We believe, I mean we think that's a good, healthy mix, absolutely, and there are ways to become, if you will, greener. So we can go from gas to eventual hydrogen. We can go from, maybe, where geothermal isn't currently considered a baseload power or have the capacity to do that, to where I think it's going to happen in a couple years, where you're going to see it being recognized, depending upon what kind of a product it is. That, no, this could actually support base load power.
Speaker 2:Well, everybody should be jumping for joy a hundred percent for that kind of sort of anybody on the on the say, like you know, again, anybody who's wanted to address some climate stuff should be all all in on that. Yeah. So how do how? Yeah, all in on that, and that's going to happen. So, as soon as as that happens, that also changes the market. It's like well, now, if you can have a reliable power that is fully sustainable, great Net zero, zero carbon emission. As I've said, that's a lot less infrastructure cost over time. I mean you talk about maintaining pipes and this those are expensive endeavors.
Speaker 2:Sure, you know over-recruit, I mean. So there's a want and a need and a demand to go there. It's just you've got to do it smartly. You've got to do it again. Pragmatic is the word of the day. It's going to be our word of the day. You can't just ignore what's right in front of you.
Speaker 2:In order to get, if you're one of those listeners who wants to see us move from where we are to maybe a green and more sustainable where we're using less fossil fuels, which are one-time fuels right, they're one-time things, these are one-time products. We understand that. And you want to get to something that we can get into this cradle-to-cradle thing and the upcycling. Well, okay, in order to get there, we've got to use some of these other things to get there. You're going to say cynically well, yeah, but then you're never going to move there. Well, yeah, you will, because the money is going to follow. Yes, it will, it's going to make more money. Yes, maybe you can. But everybody understands the I think most people in the industry understand actually the money, the upside of renewables okay. So if, if you have a I mean if you just look at geothermal if you have a small footprint and you can bring out of the earth through some piping yeah which is no more piping really than just doing a typical oil rig.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, right. And you have some infrastructure up top, fracking nomenclature. Yes, same infrastructure up top that they're already spending and it's going to produce, say, 750 megawatts in perpetuity and you just have to kind of maintain that very small footprint.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of incentive in the industry, oh yeah, to say, well, let's do that, because in order to pull gas out to frack, to buy all the raw material, all the stuff that goes into it, and then have to refine it, well, that's expensive If we could just take stuff out of the earth. That's what I'm saying. The business part of this is actually the better business, and so it will come. It will come.
Speaker 1:I totally agree, totally agree. I need a naysayers, yes, and I could rapid fire on on appendages to that headline, but I'm very interested to know what you what your research brought up for the day for the day.
Speaker 2:Well, you know it's, it's interesting, just some, I mean just the stuff that, just how this space is. You know it's the same issues that we're seeing. So this one on Tulsa planned data center water usage projected to max out at a billion gallons a year in Tulsa. So we've talked a lot about non-water solutions. Here's an issue in Tulsa and let me quickly bring up the, you know so, planned data center water usage projected to max out at a billion gallons a year. Does it say who's developing this? Yes, that's interesting. A data center plan for East Tulsa is projected to need a maximum of one billion gallons of water a year once fully operational, putting it among the city's top 10 water customers, according to the city's water and sewer department.
Speaker 2:So you know, without getting into that, there you go and you've got local pushback. Yeah, this is what they're doing. You know I'd asked the question. Have they looked at, you know, some of these other alternative methods? They might have decided that it was. You know this is the least expensive method, but you know, I don't know, it's hard to say. But this is. We've talked a lot about water. Water is it's water. Water is a huge thing and I mean we understand that and I think maybe we're a little bit more mindful not that Oklahoma's, you know, not like it's Oregon and green.
Speaker 2:But out west, I think, just because of kind of growing up out west, I think we, I would like to think we might be a bit more sensitive to water. I think so Needs, yeah, even though you know we, you know, because of the physics of it, cause we have our mountains and so we store at a high elevation, we don't have to have a lot of infrastructure, so we have really relatively low cost water. You know, having droughts is a thing. I mean, I've had droughts a lot and so you're mindful of that. Oh yeah, and so I think it's going to be interesting to see where this ends up. Will they get completely stopped in the tracks?
Speaker 1:Well, it seems like that could be one of the ways that local authorities could pace and regulate approvals If they have such a water problem, why are you giving a permit with that type of consumption? Why don't you mandate? Why don't you say we'll give you an approval but you've got to use X percentage of fully immersible cooling or whatever and reduce that water by 50%. There's things municipalities can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have control over your municipality. You can do what you want to do. That's right. And so if you want to say, look, yeah, that's fine, we want you here, but we don't want a billion gallons, yeah. So what it's going to need to be is you're going to need to show us a growth plan and how you're going to get there.
Speaker 1:Engineer, that to half and we'll give you an approval Right and we'll permit that and you can build it.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that the smart money is going to say well, it's going to cost us more, but it's not going to cost you more Up front, of course, but is it better than not doing the project at all Exactly? And so you know? Do you just pencil that out over a certain period of time? Yeah, that's where cities or municipalities could come in with tax incentives. They're like well, because we know we love the job base, we love this.
Speaker 1:We love what you're doing, but we don't want the negative impacts. So how can we help, how can we make it work for you? And there are always solutions, right, a more favorable reception to whatever they're planning at a more cost-effective way. But but that's where I think, nationally, we've got to really start to look at embracing a higher standard overall, a higher standard of energy efficiency, higher standard of emissions, lower remission, reduced emissions, higher standard of water efficiency, higher standard of emissions, lower, reduced emissions, higher standard of water reclamation or reduced consumption, like all of these things feel like, given the tidal wave of power production coming at us, these are measures that should be embraced nationally, in all municipalities, so we don't just, you know, push operators here or there based on, you know, getting a better, a more flexible or relaxed standard.
Speaker 2:Well, on that to your point. Here we go. And here is a great another example of this. So here you go. I'll read this. So this is out of Maryland. Prince George's data center bill met with strong opposition. Opponents say data center developers should not be able to quickly push through massive developments. So there's again. You have the county there, prince George's county, really massively pushing back, yeah, with probably no guidance. So Prince George's county council tabled legislation that would streamline the approval process for new data centers in the county, after receiving strong opposition from residents and conservation advocates. And you know these are massive developments. And so you, you see obviously people pushing back, but my guess is probably we'll just go somewhere else. Yeah, let's go somewhere else, probably, and as opposed to, is there any way we can work through this and tabling this and pushing this off again? You know, hey this will be.
Speaker 1:You know, we, we can't do this quickly, which we've heard a lot. That's oh yeah, yeah, well, we gotta wait for you. Well, it table it okay. Okay, do you think that's going to produce the result that you want as a municipality, or is that going to just make someone go somewhere else?
Speaker 2:yeah, or you just don't want to have to deal with politics of in the fall, whatever it is, you don't want to actually deal with the issue. Yeah, either. Either dismiss it, learn more, but don't want to actually deal with the issue, either dismiss it, learn more, but don't just engage it. Figure it out. Figure it out and I think you just said this this is where maybe some federal guidance actually does do a role, like here's how to look at these things. Sure, and consider these things, and this is what you should. Anyway, I'm just seeing more of these stories where we have demand, we have people wanting to solve these things, and now we're starting to see a lot of pushback, depending upon the community.
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's natural, considering this frenetic energy, to hurry up and solve the demand. We've got a tidal wave of power demand coming at us. Let's hurry up and resolve this Now. All of a sudden, everyone's a data center developer, right, okay? Um, standards who's willing to embrace the standards that are going to be sustainable and actually benefit a community, versus damaging a community like we've got in virginia with emissions that are like in excess of anything in the country because of a high concentration of data centers and power and all the things that's being done in Virginia for the data center alley there, yeah, okay. As we contemplate our own state and the possibility of being a major major power producer nationally, yes, and attracting major major data center concentration to the state of Utah, mm-hmm. It seems axiomatic to me that we ought to be thinking about laying the groundwork of these standards.
Speaker 2:Start with standards as a developer, step into regulation, even though it might cost more up front, that's yeah, and so your experience because you have a lot of experience how would you, you know, in the past, maybe your projects? Did you have times when you like ran into that and say, hey, you know what, let's figure this out this way. Like where you were okay with, like, okay, I'm okay with these whatever they are, but let's work through this. Do you see, like a comparison to stuff you've done in the past of like how this needs to go and roll out and how to be done well? Like a comparison of stuff you've done in the past to like how this needs to go and roll out and how it can be done well?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you know I've talked a little bit about Resorb Project and Moab and wanting to put solar on that. I wanted to have a photovoltaic system that could take a certain percentage of the power off, stress off the grid right and power common areas and things that you know. It would have been novel. I don't think we could have put enough solar on the site because of the acreage. We didn't have to power the entire thing, but it would have. I think it would have moved the needle. We modeled it. We had a major solar company you know here in town that fully modeled it, but it was an extra $7 million. So we had two forces against us. We had a lender who, who wouldn't buy it, and we had a municipality who wouldn't let us bond it. So the stakeholders just kind of forced the hand against better judgment, you know to to bring a higher standard. So that's a, that's a central example, interesting, yeah uh, that's that is interesting.
Speaker 2:Here's speaking of which. So this is good. You like the huge gas plant? All of you've seen this Eye to Power Mystery $5 billion Louisiana data center Whoa, jeez, yeah. So even in our numbers, and what we're seeing? That's a big number, jeez.
Speaker 2:In rural Northeast Louisiana, known for its rice, sweet potato farms and poverty, an as yetyet-to-be-named company has agreed to build a new data center with an investment of at least $5 billion. Development is being called a godsend and a game-changer for the region, where one in five people lives in poverty. Wow, next to the site off Interstate 20 in the Holly Ridge electric utility entergy plans to build a 1500 megawatt natural gas plant to power the data center, the uh, the data center, the power. 1.5 gigawatts, 1.4 folks. Yes, yeah, that's, that's a, it's a, that's a significant, yeah. Site will be built on a 1400 acre site called franklin farms owned by the. According to filings with the Louisiana Public Service Commission, energy would spend $3.2 billion on the plant. A related 754-megawatt gas plant to be built in South Louisiana and transition plant Using a natural gas plant Okay, good.
Speaker 2:Over the past several months, concern has arisen that the construction of fossil-fueled power plants to provide power to the proliferation of US data centers will slow progress on the nation's climate change goals. And then the quote from Energy is Energy is proposing to add huge amounts of greenhouse gases not from Energy greenhouse gas emissions with proposals to mitigate those emissions in the future with largely unproven technologies, said Whit Cox, regulatory director of the Southern Renewable Energy Association, which has filed an intervening Energy's request. And Louisiana Utility Consumer Group questions whether the cost of the new plants will be passed upon or passed on to residential customers, which we've seen that come up a couple of times. Details about the data center are cloaked in secrecy and non-disclosure agreements, but Energy Louisiana has filed hundreds of pages of redacted documents with state regulators about its dealings with the unnamed company. In its filings, the Energy says the data center will employ three to five hundred people with an average salary of eighty two thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 1:That's really low. Actually it is, that's really low.
Speaker 2:I think that's going to be a point of failure. Yeah, utility calls the development a game changer. It will bring in historic investment. The region utilities asking.
Speaker 2:Louisianaisiana public service commission to approve construction, uh, where the primary will be within 10 months, by the way. So this is a high like they've got this on a trajectory. Um so wow, and you know stuff, had you know. And then they go on to talk about skyrocketing demand, which obviously we this is what we do we talk about that, wow, and you've got to solve it. And so there are, you know, barring huge regulatory shifts, there are only a few ways to solve this right now in any meaningful way.
Speaker 2:There really are, and that's the irony of it. If you, if you want, say, to embrace super green, well then we better get off our asses as far as nuclear is, because oh yeah, oh yeah, quick and and the us people population needs to, needs to get really comfortable with nuclear. Yeah, faster, oh yeah, because that has been the holdup in a lot of these communities. You know, these developers, prospective utilities, spend tens of millions of dollars just to do studies, only at the end of it to say sorry, the community doesn't want it, so it. This is where you have a balance of leadership local leadership, national leadership. If we really want to get there and we're like and, and and. If you're the one, if we're one of the people like, I don't like the idea of gas, okay, well, do you? Do you like the idea of having power and continuing to grow? Well, I, I don't want your AI. Well, it's not going anywhere. That's the pragma. It's not going anywhere, it's going to just get more. So you've got to come to embrace that. And if you still want to charge your phone and all these networks and all this, yeah, this is what we need to do as a country.
Speaker 2:Well, the only way to get there is if massive shifts happen at a regulatory level. Yeah, to maybe, you know, maybe actually let in some of these greener energies? Yeah, because right now that's the problem. Yeah, I think you'd see we would, we would be considering, you know, if we could, some of these smaller versions of you know, and we will smrs, the small nuclear reactors, but there is no meaningful way to bring those online in under six to 10 years. Yeah, period, yeah, it's just, you just can't do it. Yeah, and so that has to change. Okay, well, then you talk about some of these other things. Um, okay, geothermal, I know that that has to go through regular, all kinds of regulatory things.
Speaker 1:I mean maybe not more to get probably more than gas, because it's an unknown. In many ways Fervel may have changed that. You could see some federal expedited streamlined processes permitting regulatory processes because of the Cape Station, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it's nice to you know, sit here and think about these things. But if you really do want those things and you don't want gas, well then I'm assuming you're writing and talking to your local representatives about nuclear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, it feels like we probably ought to work on some kind of a coalition Kind of feels like it doesn't it With the focus of enrolling all of the most powerful, influential stakeholders in the states we're in to effectively roll out very, very high-level outreach, community outreach, educational programming around AI and around nuclear right and then around some of these bridge gateway technologies, because it feels like if the general population really understood what we're seeing here, you know, it feels like. I mean, I think most of the people you walk into the grocery store, most people in America, are pretty, fairly logical. I don't think we have a I don't think we're a nation.
Speaker 2:You get 10 people in a room and you have a conversation seven you know you're going to come seven. Eight of those people are going to come to an agreement. They just are. They just are. That's my experience.
Speaker 1:So so information like really really take the deep dive and take the spend the time, spend the time, spend the money and build that outreach strategically to address what we're talking about.
Speaker 2:That seems like a that seems like a good thing we should be considering, dave, I think it does. I think I think it does. I think we need to bring all the stakeholders together and we need to get away from myopia and short-sighted thinking and law and we need to have an engagement in long-term, big picture infrastructure kind of thinking. Yeah, you know, um, I, I, you know people are passionate on both sides and I love passion. I really do. I love we're committed. But at some point in time you also say, well, how do we get? How do we get? How do we move things forward? Yeah, and you know, I know sometimes a collaboration or working with another side ends up being kind of dirty. But it that really does where, where it's where some of this stuff happens, like, well, okay, how do we, how do you find? Can you find the win-wins to where it works for communities and understanding that, yeah, we've got to do this in order to move forward. I mean, you know, if you're 20-something and you're living in an America, you're living in an America that is a result of a lot of innovation and big development that took place well before you. Oh, yeah, and the reason.
Speaker 2:Now you might say, well, yeah, we're fucked, but you know, a 20-year-old might say, yeah, we're screwed. We, you know, yeah, thank you, you've left it, whatever. They might say that. But say, okay, fair. But also look at where we are. Yeah, we didn't get here because we didn't have leadership and vision. We got here because people said this is where we're going, we got to get there and that that can be a dirty project.
Speaker 2:But that's what I think is lacking. I think there's no cohesive at least as far as I've seen. It's either one side or the other and there's no cohesive Like this is good for all of us, or at least most of us, let's say most of us. This is good for most of us communities and support and sustain and we engage in this and we compete and we, you know, we, we participate in this, this international competition on AI and infrastructure, because we don't want to lose or cede ground to the country we are. There's a reason, you know, we can argue about that, but there's a reason that we are and have been and, in my opinion, still still remain to be, the greatest nation on earth.
Speaker 2:It's an experiment and we've done this, we've tried it, we've solved so many big problems, but we just, it seems like we're just caught on this broken record of we can't get out of like our own way, and it pisses me off, we just can't get out of our own way to move these things forward again, because we're just caught constantly arguing with one another as opposed to okay, I don't agree with you, you don't agree with me, but how do we get that done together? Right, don't see that anymore. Yeah so, and I, and unfortunately, I think in utah, frankly, well, I think it's on back, you think I think in utah, I, I see a lot. You know, I've, in my conversations, I've seen a lot of willingness to like actually engage those things and say, well, okay, I might want this, I might not agree to this, but how do we get to those those things?
Speaker 1:yeah, so yeah well to your point on that coalition yeah, as always, I appreciate your, your opinions, thought likewise, who are a thought leader in this space, and there's that hopefully, our, our friends of the show, are enjoying this as much as I am. With that, I think we're out. Are we done? We are, we're done.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Did you want to make any last comments? No, I think we hit the nail on the head. I mean, I've got a handful of other articles that just underscore the shifts in the capital markets, the shifts with the new Trump regime, you know, toward the fossil fuel focus and maybe easing up on the renewable incentivization. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays. Yeah, I don't actually know how this is going to play around. Yeah, I don't either. I don't either. But that's my final thought. I'm excited to be in the space. We're sitting in, in the seat, in this position, right in the middle, in the eye of the storm, is what it feels like we're in On the frontier, on the frontier line, on the frontier line. Yeah, absolutely yeah.
Speaker 2:Thanks everyone, Until next time.
