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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
IPP Renewed, VMWare spikes rates over 1000% for Cloud Svcs, Nvidias Robotic AI for Data Canters
What if reimagining how we cool our data centers could transform the future of energy and infrastructure? Brace yourself as we uncover the revolutionary shift from traditional air cooling to the innovative world of liquid cooling technologies. With projections forecasting a market boom to $17-18 billion by 2032, we'll explore the game-changing implications for cloud computing, AI, and big data analytics. Discover the breakthrough potential of waterless dielectric fluid technology and its significance for regions grappling with water scarcity. Plus, we'll spotlight our cutting-edge collaboration with Schneider Electric, paving the way for state-of-the-art liquid immersion cooling.
Imagine a data center managed by a fleet of autonomous robots. NVIDIA's recent patent application could make this a reality, reshaping how we think about data center operations. We'll delve into the economic ripple effects, from job creation in construction to manufacturing opportunities, while also tackling the age-old AI vs. jobs debate. We'll share a thought-provoking narrative from TechSpot, examining a cloud service provider’s bold exit from VMware amidst rising costs, stirring up questions about Broadcom's pricing strategies.
Energy demands are skyrocketing, and with them, the pressure on data centers. We'll dissect this trend, looking at key markets like Northern Virginia and Silicon Valley, and explore the potential for data centers to become self-sufficient energy producers. Our conversation extends to Utah's Intermountain Power Plant, where political and environmental challenges intersect as it shifts from coal to cleaner energy sources. As we navigate these complex landscapes, we'll emphasize the importance of community engagement and invite you to join our dialogue online as we explore these vital developments together.
Welcome back energy innovators and infrastructure enthusiasts. See, I didn't choke on those words this time. No, that was smooth. Welcome everyone to another episode of the Frontier Line where we, as we say every time, we're exploring the stories of visionaries, cutting-edge infrastructure innovations shaping our everyday world. So we're going to cover some headlines on this episode, and there's so much going on in the world, we feel like again, we feel like updating and keeping you in the loop of the stuff we're saying is one of the best things we can provide to you. And so today I'm going to kick it off with an article.
Speaker 1:We talked last time on one of our last episodes about Schneider Electric and their partnership with NVIDIA regarding, you know, trying to solve some of this cooling market and how they're doing it, how it's solving it. So there was an interesting story out on Global Newswire about that whole market space, that whole market segment, which data center liquid cooling market. So US dollars by 2032, the expectation is just in liquid cooling alone, they're looking at somewhere around a 17, 18 billion dollar industry. Wow, just liquid cooling. That's exciting.
Speaker 1:Um, and obviously, as we've talked about, owing to the growing need for energy, inefficiencies and not inefficiency, efficiency and sustainability, um so, um, I'll, I'll read a little bit of what this article is saying. Uh, to kind of, uh, uh, flush out some of the details. Uh, this is a new report that came out. Nss insider report indicates that the data center liquid cooling market, uh was valued at 2.9 billion in 2023. By the way, oh boy, so to understand, holy smoke, gross serve, we're on here. Um, it is going to 5X by 2032. Wow, and I bet that's it's probably conservative Growing at a CAGR of 21.54% over the forecast period 2024 to 2032 in eight years.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. So the growing need for data centers, driven by the expansion of cloud computing, big data analytics and AI, is accelerating demand for advanced cooling technologies as the volume of data-intensive applications increases. Officially, managing the heat generated by data centers servers has become critical. Traditional air cooling methods are often insufficient Free energy requirements of modern data centers, making liquid cooling a more effective solution. Liquid cooling systems provide superior heat dissipation and reduce overall energy consumption, making them an attractive alternative. In addition, heightened regulatory pressures to reduce carbon emissions are encouraging companies to shift towards more sustainable cooling solutions.
Speaker 1:Liquid cooling technologies, particularly those using closed-loop water or refrigerant systems, offer a greener approach by lowering carbon footprints while meeting environmental sustainability goals. This is increasingly important as organizations seek to align with the environmental, social and governance, or ESG, standards, with liquid cooling helping to reduce energy consumption while keeping systems within optimal temperature ranges. I'll stop there because I think that's. I mean this goes on and on and on, because we've talked about it plenty. Yeah, just the first one I've seen specifically on this part of the market space. Again, I think that kind of mirrors what we're seeing in this whole space of like need for energy, need for data centers, need for all these things.
Speaker 2:It'll grow in lockstep because we've been really excited in our own conversations talking with Schneider Electric about designing our data centers, and liquid cooling has been on the front of our minds, like the cutting-edge liquid immersion cooling. Why? Well, because it's cool. But the underlying thing here that makes us so cool is when you could say a zero water consumption facility. Because we're dealing in rural America where water is sensitive. We've talked about this in many episodes and all of our Tier 1 through 4 data centers historically have really high water consumption.
Speaker 2:And you know we've picked on META a little bit here in Eagle Mountain, this, this huge facility using billions and billions of gallons of water a year. We've talked about some of the innovation there that they've kind of struck a deal with the city to take their waste water, their heat water and distribute that, you know, over a common area. That's that's unique, it's novel. But you know if, if the technology was there and if they would have spent the money to to have waterless or closed loop, you know, non-water systems, that that would be a much more sustainable, much more environmentally friendly, much more community friendly. Community solution right, unity-friendly solution, right. And we've been talking every day about the numbers, the amount of dollars of investment, billions upon billions upon billions, tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars going into this space, hundreds of billions of dollars going into this space, and we've been talking about how all these operators are hoping.
Speaker 2:However, um, this, this waterless dielectric, you know, fluids technology is cutting edge. It is truly revolutionary technology. We're excited to be designing with it, and so it's very exciting to read about this in the news. I see it mainstreaming it's it's mainstream. So it's very exciting to read about this in the news. I see it mainstreaming, it's mainstream. So a question of how many years will it take to mainstream that technology where the old air-cooled technology is no longer a thing?
Speaker 1:Right, I mean, you would understand if you can build everything in the Arctic, or you can build underwater, or you can build in Northern Canada or Canada even, or Northern parts, or you can build in you know northern Canada or Canada even, you know northern parts of Russia, or you know anywhere where it's cold all the time, or Iceland or Greenland, you would understand where. Okay, yeah, I guess that would work, but we only have so many of those opportunities, as you so rightly said. You know, as developers, we're looking to solve it where it makes sense, because it's not just a hey, we just need to throw up a data center somewhere. You have, you have land considerations and permitting and the community and you know access to access to energy or access to roads, or I mean all of these things come into play and you're the, the, the, the uh, where you can put places from. Flip these things gets smaller pretty quick.
Speaker 1:Oh, so this solving this part of it opens up a lot more spaces in communities, especially out here in the West, where water, depending upon the time of year, is at a premium and where you have small communities saying love you, but we only have so much water here and we can't afford to have you, even even if you have your own water to a certain rate. We, you know, we're worried. We're worried that somehow some someday down the road that it's going to hose us or it's going to make, it's going to, it's going to make a really bad situation for us. And so if you can assure a community and say like, look, we're not using, you know, we're going to use, you know, water like a, you know, a typical, I said, corporate client, but not not like excessively, yeah, um, the you know the other data center here in utah, um, that I know at the time caused all kinds of consternation, was the, the nsa data center. Yeah, because I think that was old tier three data center and, if I remember right, I want to say, like it's a big county folks that this is, this is sitting in and I, I wanted, I, I remember the number being like 30, yeah, 35. 35% of the total water usage for the entire County.
Speaker 1:Was this one building Three? Yeah, and, and I don't think you know, residents generally speaking understood at the time I'm sure some did, but I think in general didn't really understand how much water this facility was going to take. But here, here you have a case still going. Tier three data center yeah, probably time for an upgrade time. Oh, time to start looking at these other kinds of solutions? Oh, yeah, you know, in retrofitting.
Speaker 2:So well, I have my own, my own skepticism when I hear about some of the things we report on. I mean everything with a grain of salt. I hear about metis plans to do the $10 billion facility, four gigawatt capacity and lots of skepticism around that. Is that best for the community? Is that the best play, or is that more of? Is that hearkening back to the centralized, traditional power system? Because I truly 100% believe in this decentralized power programming that we're moving into the future, into, and I also feel like there's a lot of wisdom in decentralized data to match decentralized power. Lots of little things all over the place, spread out evenly all over the place. Seeing these huge, huge consumers with that kind of density in one location to me doesn't seem automatically good for a community yet to be determined.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean TBD.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't want to be overly negative, but I have my concerns about it.
Speaker 1:No, I think it's been one of our considerations. I mean, you have to be practical about it and I look at sometimes and we see this a lot pick a community in the United States. You'll have a business come in and they're certainly absolutely contributing to the economy, but they're temporary and they're going to go away and then you're going to have a certain amount of permanent jobs left. That's changing, that's even evolving in this space. You know it's going from. Are you going to need hundreds? Are you going to need 50? And, depending upon the community you're talking to we've talked to a few of them they might not. You know, hundreds might not be the thing they want. I mean, I know the thing you're talking about meta-referencing. I mean they're talking about thousands of jobs and college, campus and all these things. And the question is is that even going to be needed when this is all said and done? And that's going to lead me into the story I'm going to share with you because, again, as fast as this industry is changing, this is a really interesting article about this very thing and how possibly data centers and the need to operate data centers like they're being run right now, might change pretty damn quickly. So this is out of the Daily Upside, written by Nat Rubio-Licht, and the story, the headline is NVIDIA may take humans out of the data center equation Wow. So we talked about NVIDIA. That didn't take long, right? So you know the article about, or the talk about, meta in. You know, in this giant, giant data center, you know one mile long, huge campus where they're talking about, you know, employing so many people. I mean, we get it on on infrastructure and you've got a system to certain things. But some of that's always been on the inside of these data centers and if that goes away, well then those promises of jobs are not there. So you have to be aware of that and we are going okay, what's really going to be the impact in that community? So I'll read you a little bit about this.
Speaker 1:So NVIDIA is putting robots to work. The company just filed a patent application for intelligent components of a data center, which details a system to use autonomous machines to manage and operate data center server racks and components. As the size of data centers and the complexity of their layouts increases, inspecting and repairing computing equipment in this manner becomes more difficult for technicians. That was a quote NVIDIA said in the filing. Nvidia's tech relies on robots to manage the movement and positioning of server racks. A central monitoring system oversees operations, issuing commands to the robots to reconfigure the racks based on whatever the data center needs at any given moment to function efficiently. The central monitoring system also watches and adjusts the data center's cooling systems in real time.
Speaker 1:Wow, all the things we talked about with NVIDIA and what they're doing with Schneider. The arrangement could make it easier to scale and adjust data centers based on factors like environmental conditions, computational demand or maintenance needs, without having to involve human technicians, which also changes I'm going to stop here and changes considerably where you might consider putting a data center Absolutely Right. Absolutely, I mean when we're looking, and we've looked at locations for all of our things and we're looking at workforce. Yeah, that's a consideration, big one, a huge one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like well, can we pull this off? And it has to be. Well, if you don't have to have and again, this might, you know, just the cost of this might be, you know, and only the very few high-end, tier five, yeah, very few high-end tier five, tier four plus data centers, and so it might not be something you see readily, but if you say, okay, well, if I wanted to put a data center over here, and we wanted to and we could reasonably automate it, well then all of a sudden you might not need that, you might not need 50 or a hundred people that technically you know some technical expertise to be able to operate that data center. And that changes where you can put data centers. Oh, to be able to operate that data center and that changes where you can put data centers, oh absolutely Overnight, absolutely, and that's a big deal.
Speaker 2:Because right now we see these huge clusters in Virginia. You know data center alley in Virginia. We see Phoenix as a major cluster where these data center campuses have clustered like that around power and water, historically, and population, you know available labor force. If we're eliminating water from the equation, we can do onsite power in the equation and we're reducing or eliminating workforce, holy cow, the possibilities are much more in alignment with our programming. Absolutely, in rural communities, potentially off grid. But if we're on the grid, maybe we're grid resilience partners contributing to the grid, but whatever we're not consuming. Um, to me that actually seems like it could be a better benefit, right? Uh, a more beneficial thing to the community.
Speaker 1:I think you know in in the grand scheme of like how, how you would program a whole area. I mean, having not to deal with some of that would actually be a lot easier. Yeah, and take some load off. And you know, before you know, we get all freaked out about AI replacing all of this. Right, you know, even in this article they, you know, the next part actually of this article is talking about wait before you think. You know. Worst case here Before you think, your worst case here. If there were. You know, NVIDIA is noted in this. If there are problems that robots can't solve, a technician is summoned via an alert and a message and alarm to manually investigate reason for failure. So you're still going to need lots of people in these things. You're still going to need people on the ground, you know, especially in, you know, if we're talking about some of the energy infrastructure, those are the other.
Speaker 2:There's going to be construction. I mean, there's always going to be construction humans, right? So you've got estimates of around 6,000 jobs, of construction jobs to build one of these facilities, For a construction term that could be 18 to 24, 28 months, depending on the size. That's still significant job impact in the community.
Speaker 1:And then, yeah, not to mention all of the ancillaries of supporting maintenance on a power station, power plant, and having power fall on revenue and then everything else that we know is like okay, once you have power and you've reasonably sold power, well, then you can attract some different kinds of perhaps manufacturing Absolutely, and then you know that manufacturing becomes more critical or that kind of manufacturing is more reliant on typically on people and labor.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think this is an interesting thing. Interesting thing that she notes in this article is that she believed the patent application added to the broader IP push from NVIDIA, seemingly seeking to cement its place as a thought leader in the data center architecture. Interesting, which is, you know, is an interesting take. The server farm poses AI development continues at rapid clip. This one combines the company's AI and automation expertise with its data center strength, creating a beautiful quote, beautiful merging of robotics and intelligence for the purpose of efficiency. Wow, said Morgan, is optimization. It's optimization across all of the dimensions of the data center. Wow, wow.
Speaker 2:Wow. It's next article that I wanted to bring up, dave, was from TechSpot, by Cal Jeffrey. I'm going to give you the headline here, and I wanted to read some of this because we've been focusing a lot on the positives all the exciting numbers and the expansion and this is so amazing and we're breaking records every day. But I wanted to bring one of the more negative articles to our listeners' awareness, and we've touched on something similar, but this one, this one was really a standout. So the headline was another cloud provider bails on VMware after receiving a 900% price hike. Are these sound pricing decisions or is Broadcom gouging its customers? So I'm going to read here a couple paragraphs. This was riveting.
Speaker 2:Another cloud service provider just left VMware for an open source competitor over its outrageous price hikes. The firm was a sizable client with tens of thousands of virtual machines. While it still runs a few VMware machines, most of the migration is complete, leaving Broadcom with another big hole in its customer base. Private server provider Beaks Group, headquartered in the UK, offers virtual and physical servers to companies in the financial sector. The register notes that the firm has over 20 data centers supporting 20,000 plus virtual machines and about 3,000 bare metal servers. They recently migrated its VMs provided by VMware to open source provider OpenNebula, leaving just a handful of virtual servers that proved more problematic to move. Recently, at&t filed a breach of contract lawsuit saying that Broadcom refused to honor VMware's existing licensing agreement. Instead, broadcom wanted to switch the telecom with over 75,000 VMs to a licensing subscription that cost 1,050% more 1,050% more, of course. At&t said we'll see you in court. This is a very interesting thing. I'm predicting that VMware is out of business within the next few months 9,000% price hike Sounds like pharma.
Speaker 1:Yes, maybe they're looking at pharma going. Oh, you know, they can do it, we can do it too 100%.
Speaker 2:I mean we talked about PJM up in the Michigan area. You know running these price spikes on power, but there's so many categories in the energy infrastructure equation. You've got power, you've got transmission, you've got all the infrastructure, all the off-takers and everything in between. All these nuanced businesses that support the data center operations and this being one of them is shocking to see. How does a CEO sit there and say, yeah, let's increase our contract by a thousand percent to a company like AT&T or any of these guys, without thinking they're going to be in court? This is going to be publicized. These guys are price gouging. There's no ethical mooring left. These guys are warmongers. That's what I see coming. Warmongers. Price, you know. Price gouging capitalists that's, that's what's coming.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, it's. That's why I bring it up. It's like it reminds me of the EpiPen. Yes, you know when they, when they when, all that happened and you know the amount and this is something that saved people's lives and you know. And in healthcare you can even argue there's might, there actually might be a more of a moral imperative of, like, make these things more, uh, you know, more available and not, but it's, it's going on everywhere and it says it's going to be interesting. I mean, again, I guess they think the market's there. I, I don't know, I I it's, I don't know, but we're going to see it right. Yeah, I mean so, I didn't. It's interesting, I didn't realize you were going to go with that. But the next article I have actually we did not plan on this actually goes right into that a little bit differently, though, this is more on the consumer side, okay, not necessarily a good story, but a hey, what's going to happen. But also this, I think, opens up a very layered conversation If we want to dive into that, possibly, uh, possibly, about the landscape of how this is all taking shape with utilities and such. So the the um article is in F and prime uh, the cost of electricity expected to skyrocket due to data center demand, and this is a written by Greg Zimmerman, senior contributing editor.
Speaker 1:Uh, the explosion of artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency mining and other computing-intensive processes have fueled a building boom for data centers, but they've also fueled a massive spike in energy demand, which is in turn, leading to higher energy prices for many facilities across the country. One study estimates that data centers could be responsible for a 70% increase in the cost of electricity over the next 10 years. One hyperscale data center as a point of reference can use as much electricity as 40,000 homes. The reason why electricity is becoming more expensive is self-evident. In Illinois, for example, rates are expected to climb because utilities like ComEd must invest now to ensure there is enough electricity to cover demand. Now to ensure there is enough electricity to cover demand. As more data centers are coming online, that demand is inching up and the cost to increase production is being passed on to facilities and residential customers. Next year, residential customers are expected to see an increase there of $10 per month, so not a little amount of money. The five largest data center markets Northern Virginia, dallas-fort Worth, chicago, phoenix and Silicon Valley are expected, naturally, to be most impacted by rising costs For facility managers. This trend highlights again the importance of energy efficiency at their facilities. As the cost of energy rises, so too does the return on investment of energy efficiency measures.
Speaker 1:I read this and I take it I don't know perhaps the way I'm going to take it which is I don't know perhaps the way I'm going to take it which is well, you know, a lot of the projects going on right now aren't don't want to rely on utilities. Yeah, they don't want, I mean you, they want utilities and maybe utilities as a possible backup, which I understand that does create a need and to be able to have that, that demand available. But some of them are saying, no, we're going to produce power and we're going to. You know, we're going to produce power and we're going to distribute to our own facilities. We don't need to touch the grid. We also see this, you know, and this is like okay, did the utility industry plant this kind of an article, like what was the data center? Because there's, I think, this growing natural sort of thing that the utilities are.
Speaker 1:Generally speaking, they're not going to want to take responsibility for this. They want to blame price increases on something, and there are probably those who could make a good argument as to why they need to build infrastructure, and I think I could say, well, they're just other customers, you should be building infrastructure and this should be spread out. And they're saying, well, we have to build a lot and that's fair. But again, I think it's. I think the devil's in the details in this. You know, I don't think cost increases to consumers are necessarily a thing If you have energy producers who are producing power for a specific operation.
Speaker 1:So if it's a BYOP situation, where you bring your own power data center or you have power and you have a data center and the data center is being powered off the local power and it has no, and maybe there's not an interconnect, maybe they're not pushing back every day, maybe they're completely, you know, a microgrid or they're, you know, independent unto themselves, that's not going to affect cost. And also, again, maybe there's an opportunity also for utilities to start better working with private companies to solve this problem, instead of saying, oh, we've got to go solve it on our own. Well, why not partner up with the developers as, look, we're willing to do power on site and we're willing to share the cost and do this provided we get what we need, which is maybe we need a backup, but we'll shoulder the burden of the cost Because financially it's going to work out to our advantage. Just to have this, because the market is lucrative. On the other side, it's a very interesting nuanced world, but it's a fear a lot of people have.
Speaker 2:Well, what's really interesting about that, dave, is, I can imagine number one the downfall of traditional utilities as we know it. I think it'll be obsolete in a decade. One prediction, however are we doing our end-year predictions right now? No, I don't think that prediction will do. End-year prediction All right, but I can't help it when we're talking about this. But I agree with you, you know compelling utilities to kind of morph into this new role and responsibility, with the private sector to meet, you know, changing demands.
Speaker 2:What's interesting to me, and what's standing out in all of this, is that money doesn't solve all the problems and it's not all one size fits all. It's not a black and white equation. All of the variables are different and nuanced. It's almost like as nuanced as we are as humans, like like the nomenclature of a project is going to have its own unique pieces and elements, and that's exciting to me, because what that means to me is that we're never going to get to this point where Google figures out this perfect solution and then it's cookie cutters and that's the only way it gets done. That'll never happen. What's going to happen is there's going to be so many nuances geographically, politically, capital-wise, labor force-wise, technology-wise, all the things that play into making the nomenclature of a project that it keeps it exciting, it keeps it nuanced nomenclature of project that it keeps it exciting, it keeps it nuanced, yeah, um, do you think?
Speaker 1:well, so it's, you know, it's playing out a little bit. Here is one thing I wanted to talk about, and it's playing out here in utah again, not to make it so isolated, utah because I think these, this is, these are, these are issues that I think each state, especially some states out West, are facing. Like each has our own version of wrangling with this issue, right, um, I think of the IPP stuff and like, kind of what's, you know, it's a nuance, it's, it's, there's some, there's a lot of nuance to that solution of like, what are what, what's going to have, what's the future of IPP in Utah? What does it mean? Yeah, um, and how it's going to have applicability to the, to the large problem, like to you, to your point, as nuanced as we are as individuals, each situation is slightly different. Like there's an idea, like, hey, we got to solve it this way, but there are some local considerations you have to take into account and you have to work with what you, what you have.
Speaker 1:So, um, the one thing I wanted to, so I so in the news also was the ip. I mean there was an update locally. Ksl did a story. So for everybody that's listening to us locally, you know, ksl uh uh did what's. What is utah's plan for the intermountain power agencies?
Speaker 1:coal-fired units oh yeah, it's not that one yeah yeah, it's been a topic of conversation, a huge topic of conversation here in utah. Yeah, uh, for a while. Uh, ipp a huge topic of conversation here in Utah For a while. Ipp Intermountain Power Agencies is a plant here in Utah and it's been supplying power to Southern California for about 40 years. It's expected to be shuttered because it's a coal-fired plant and there are all kinds of movements behind the scenes to save it. Continue it. Utah's in the middle of this. There's a lot of wrangling going on and so they get a. You know, just last week they did an update on kind of where everything stands. There's a lot of prior to the legislative session in January here in Utah starting in January. You know we have a lot of you know not off session bills and things and conversations and meetings going on. So I think that came out of that. So you know they.
Speaker 1:I could probably read this. It's a lengthier thing. I don't know if we. How much time do we have? Not about 10 minutes. I think this is. I mean this, this is kind of like, you know, I if I can jump in real quick and then if it gets boring, and if it gets boring, I will. I mean I've read it. It wasn't boring to me, but if, maybe, if I'm feeling like it's boring again, I'll stop. Fair enough, so it starts at Cody Stewart Warren. This was by Amy O'Donoghue, the D News. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, desert News. Yeah, I'm with Amy Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cody Stewart Warren, members of Utah legislature's Public Utilities, energy and Technology Interim Committee, recently about the complexities and challenges of Utah or a third party taking ownership and control of the soon-to-be retired coal units of the Delta Power Plant. Quote. This is not easy. I mean this is a complex, nuanced, difficult, challenging situation. There aren't any easy answers here. End quote, said Stuart, chairman of the Decommissioned Asset Disposition Authority. And so I just want to be blunt about all that, that this is another one of these issues that will take some time to figure out and hopefully the information we provide you will help you assist in doing that. End quote. Another quote, or maybe a word is missing.
Speaker 1:The IPP, the Intermountain Power Agency, which owns the Intermountain Power Plant in Millard County, is shuttering its two coal-fired units next year after a mandate passed by California prohibited the use of coal to meet its energy needs. About 98% of the power generated at the 1,900-megawatt plant goes to California. There is a coalition of some municipalities that also takes some of the power. The plant is switching to natural gas with a 30% blend of hydrogen as part of its IPP renewed transformation. It is slated to deliver a much smaller amount of power 840 megawatts to Southern Transmission Systems serving Southern California, los Angeles Power and Water. The largest purchaser of power from the plant is the operator what the new administration might bring, but the fact that the plant sits in Utah has rights to Utah. Water operates as a political subdivision of the state and has been in several fights with Miller County over the years over tax payments rates.
Speaker 1:On lawmakers, which we can attest to, we've heard a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot off the record. There are a lot of very frustrated people. In the legislative session earlier this year, lawmakers moved to preserve the operation of the coal-fired power units due to a power grid that is increasingly strained. The authority which Stewart leads was created with an eye to examining the feasibility, including benefits and pitfalls, of continuing the operation of those coal-fired units. While retaining the units is a huge undertaking amid a regulatory crackdown on carbon emissions, stewart said there is room for optimism with the incoming Trump administration. I do think quote I do think the playing field has changed dramatically in terms of maybe there are some enhanced flexibilities that we were not expecting a few months ago that may be available now. So that may change a little bit in terms of what the state could look to going forward, and this is speculation on my part, but based on some potential enhanced flexibilities the new administration might be willing to grant to the state of Utah. End quote. He said yeah, so big question. Stewart said, in the exploratory phase of the mountain, the IPA board has been helpful in providing information. The state also tapped resources law firm Jeff Walker to do analysis.
Speaker 1:So there, I'm just going to stop there. There, this is just further. It's, you know, some would say, inside baseball politics, but it's not. There are a lot of interested parties that, okay, what does this mean? You have groups in Utah that don't want coal anymore. You have, you know, a few of them. You have a lot of groups saying we need everything we can take because the power demand is there. We need to look to the future and, wayne, as you pointed out multiple times over our podcast, you know, um, this power is being produced here. We get the emissions, california gets the power, so why don't we change that?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, and what does that take in order to change it? What does it take for local companies, groups, populations to be able to benefit from this power? If we're going to continue to produce coal, we decided, you know what, we need coal for a little while longer, we should probably benefit. That's been your point all along. We should probably benefit from the stuff that we're already. It's already been going for 40 years and we're dealing with the toxins and they're getting the power and then claiming this is where I will get, and then claiming, oh, we are absolutely clean.
Speaker 1:I mean, even though they have mandates and they are not. And even though they have mandated this, they're still using plenty. They're just using it from all the other states.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true, and let's not forget that in episode three or four, when we began this earlier this year, we covered coal and CCTs clean coal technologies. Yeah, year we covered coal and ccts clean coal technologies. Yeah, clean coal technologies have continued to advance non-stop in this whole conversation. It just that's not being covered in the media. Okay, and so so the fact is, we can take old coal technology plants, we can convert them, we can clean them, green them up, clean them up with new technologies without fully shuttering a billion multi-billion dollar plant seems a little more pragmatic than california's approach just slicing off your nose to spite your face because you want to be renewable tomorrow yeah, but then, but then not being able to solve it and having to go everywhere else and saying, how are we going to solve this?
Speaker 1:That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm encouraged. And then getting in the way of solar in California, by the way yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so I'm encouraged that our local legislators, our state legislators, seem to be moving this in the right direction. Yeah, I know it hasn't been without opposition, but it feels like it's moving in the right direction, that there are some provisions that have been put on the table to help clean it up and let it continue. Operations, maybe even change hands, change management, all of those things seem reasonable. But to be able to maintain an asset, improve an asset, more importantly, bring the power back to Utah yeah, that seems really good for Utah. So I'd like, you know, I I like sharing the, the play by play, and we do get the play by play on legislate, you know, on the Hill, uh, in real time, like the day it's happening. So, uh, it's fun to watch the articles drop. It is later.
Speaker 1:It is, and, and even though this is, uh again, very specific to uh, it's fun to watch the articles drop.
Speaker 1:It is later it is and even though this is uh again, very specific to uh you know, Utah, and if you're listening and you're not in Utah, chances are wherever you live, there are debates and arguments going on about this very thing, because everyone and I mean everyone, every state, every municipality, is looking at this and going. Even if we're normally going on the normal growth trajectory and we don't have the data center conversation actively going on or these high demands for power going on, chances are it's going to come in some form or fashion. So, again, it continues to be interesting to watch and to see how this is all developing. We obviously are right in the thick of it.
Speaker 1:We have our opinions on how this is probably better handled or best handled and maybe good solutions, but there are a lot of different voices at the table, and that is one thing that is for sure. And there are a lot of different voices at the table, and that is that is one thing that is for sure. And there are a lot of different ideas about how to solve this. Yeah, and it's on both sides, I mean, and and you know you might there's extreme on both sides that probably are probably not reasonable. They're not the pragmatic approach that we tend to fall to of like, well, how, how do we find the best of both worlds and continue to go forward and then solve what we need to solve. And so well, we'll see what happens with this legislative session.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Also on a national level. Yeah, and that is going to be interesting to watch because that's going to have implications in the nuclear sector. I mean, there's going to be everybody's kind of watching to see, okay, what's going to happen with natural gas, LNG gas, what's going to happen in that space, what, okay, what's going to happen with natural gas, LNG gas, what's going to happen in that space? I mean the larger, you know, if you will, the electron sector, creating electrons, you know that's energy, that entire space. What is going to take place, you know, post-inauguration? And I think everybody right now is speculating and positioning and I guess I don't think we're going to really know until we really know.
Speaker 2:And that is it'd be a few weeks down the road. That's true, and I I this. This brings up another thing. Maybe there's a final thought I want you to chime in on, but there was another article that I read over the holiday and I and just from memory, the headline was, utah legislators pressure Rocky mountain power to divorce itself from Pacific Corp. Yes, that's a good headline, right, it's a great headline and it was a great article and it was really great to see.
Speaker 2:Because, guys, what's happening here is we have Pacific Corp, this big electrical consortium. It's primarily west coast. California. Washington, oregon has totally different initiatives when it comes to renewables, sustainable clean energy, whatever, and the fact that utah is kind of in the mix with pacific core has been problematic. Utah has initiatives that have been underscored by governor cox recently in operation gigawawatt, that really are more in alignment with Wyoming and Idaho, maybe Arizona in that mix or Nevada in that mix. But our legislation here in Utah is calling for a divorce or a division of these entities because Rocky Mountain Power has failed or is failing to meet the demands and failing to be in alignment with what the state's legislators are wanting, the direction we want to take the state. Yeah, this is very bluntly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, we've lost billions of dollars of opportunities. Yes, because we don't have the amount of power generation needed. Yeah, you've cost the state billions of dollars already. We can't continue on that path. I mean, I think that is their message to you has been like fix it or do something that gets us down that path, because this is not sustainable. Because this is not sustainable and, as a state, if we're going to continue to remain competitive or be competitive or maybe rise to the top, we have got to make some change. We have to make changes and changes come at. We have to have more power and you have to help us solve that.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think Governor Cox's commitment to expand and put Utah center stage on the nuclear conversation also signals a major departure away from Pacificific core's initiatives. Okay, because I I'm not clear that pacific core has a nuclear uh, nuclear openness I don't think so.
Speaker 1:I don't think I mean I think pge, I mean, even though pge operates a facility, I don't think there are there's there. There's not the temperament in either California on the coast, and it's not just exclusive to the coastlines. I mean nuclear, as we've said, it can be a very volatile issue and it doesn't matter whether it's in Utah or Iowa or California. There are lots of groups of people who don't want to see it. The question is, is it really? Is it? Are we, are we, you know? Is it? Is it about education? And are we really dealing with the same kinds of technology that we have these horror stories from?
Speaker 1:Or we've seen these and, and most, most, uh, you know, people who are really know the space say no, we, we. It's an entirely different space today than it was 40 years ago. Absolutely, it's far safer. We've, we've, we, we've learned. Yeah, it's not perfectly safe, but also, if you are hell-bent on green and you believe that's the case, you should be one of the biggest. So, some of the new, you know, uh, small nuclear reactors, they're really designing them to be very, uh, uh, very minimalistic in impact as far as that, you know, as far as the cooling on the water because they come up with different materials, all kinds of things.
Speaker 2:So it truly is a green energy it's a major signal toward the path of deregulation yes, or soft deregulation, it'd be an exciting thing. It's a major signal toward the path of deregulation yes or soft deregulation, it'd be an exciting thing. It's a signal toward decentralized power, which we've been talking about all along. So I'm very welcoming of the heavy line, very welcoming of this challenge that's been tendered on the Hill and it's something for us to keep our eyes open and watch, because, you know, representatives from Rocky Mountain Power are suggesting this could take 18, 20 months to resolve. It's going to be an ongoing conversation so hopefully friends out there listening will stay tuned for more on that. We're going to be covering that in real time and with that we're on the top of the hour.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. If you have something to say to us, add to us. Want to reach out, please do follow us on the web, follow us. Subscribe to our podcast, please, please, no, we love the support. So far, you know. And then I guess, until next time, you know, I guess we'll, we'll.
