.jpg)
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
The GRID- US Transmission & Distribution, Then and NOW
Welcome back to the show. Friends of the Frontier Line. We've got a special guest, a return guest to the show this morning. We've got Mr Brady Jenkins and some big news that we're going to roll out for you, you listeners that are so actively and eagerly engaged with us. We just brought Brady into the fold, so to speak. Brady is our now. He is officially well. He's the founder of GCP Energy. Kick him butt over there. He's also accepted a C-suite position. He's become the chief electrical engineer for Invictus Sovereign. We're frigging excited about that. He is a stud and knows a lot about a lot about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2:So a lot of stuff, a lot of stuff, especially today's topic.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, that's investors, municipalities of all sorts and vendors, and we're having so many conversations and one of the common denominators in all these conversations is electrification and transmission, power generation and power transmission right, and so there's so many myths about it and it's such a broad and vast and longstanding history of the US grid and how it got built, and why are we, in 2025, having all these problems that you read about in the headlines right now? And Dave and I have been covering this, you know, for a couple of years. You guys have been listening to this, but we thought today would be an insightful opportunity to give you a comprehensive uh, we're going to focus the whole episode today on just us transmission, like the grid, and I wanted to kick this off with just a little bit of history of where it all started. You may have heard about the War of the Currents. We're going to go all the way back to 1882 with Thomas Edison.
Speaker 2:Well, as you said, we talked about it on our spotlight episode of Westinghouse, because it obviously ties in.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right If you were listening.
Speaker 2:We covered this then a little bit, but we've got to go into this because it's in the headlines every day, so sorry.
Speaker 1:Wayne, that's right.
Speaker 2:We've talked about this before and it's a great topic.
Speaker 1:Yes, so in 1882, thomas Edison actually built the Pearl Street Station in New York City and that was the world's first central power plant. I didn't realize that until I was kind of putting the episode content together for today. I didn't realize that was the first in the world. I was thinking that was the first in the US, but the world's first central power plant, guys. So that has huge historical implication here. And that was generating direct current dc electricity, was we? We know that that's what edison invented there and the. The objective with the pearl street station was to electrify 59 customers in a one square mile area of manhattan. Okay, and so that marked the birth of like the first rudimentary grid, though it was limited to, you know, really short distances due to the inefficiencies of DC in transmission. So, kicking that off, dave, you really led into that when we were talking about Westinghouse, did you want to add anything?
Speaker 1:We're going to walk the listeners through the history all the way up to 2025.
Speaker 2:And how we got here today, because how we got here today is important to understand and, again, we can't underscore enough, which is why we're focusing an entire episode on this is. We talk about this like everybody knows this, and it's important for you to have that information to understand. So when we're talking about the grid, we're talking about fragility, we're talking about all these things, you at least have an episode to refer to or you get a chance to say oh okay, I understand how we got to today and why all of these things are going on around me, and hopefully it helps you understand a little bit better. So you know, after the birth of the centralized generation you know that was the AC revolution, that, right into that, nikola Tesla, george Westinghouse we talked about it before on a previous episode alternating current ended up triumphing over DC.
Speaker 2:Ultimately it was called the War of Currents and enabling long-distance transmission. And then, by the early 1900s, hydropower projects like Niagara Falls were tied into regional grid. So that was kind of that, you know, starting in New York and then the regional grid, and then we have everything that followed from there. But that's the. I'll add that, since we talked about it before.
Speaker 1:That's right. That's right. And government regulation really started to emerge early to address the monopolistic practices to protect consumers. In 1907, new York established the first state public service commission to oversee electric companies and set rates, and by 1914, we had 43 states that followed suit, creating regulatory commissions modeled after Wisconsin and New York's approaches, and these bodies definitely ensured the reliability and affordability, standardizing the patchwork of private utilities.
Speaker 1:Um, brady, I'm gonna. I'm gonna introduce a new entity. Well, it's not new, it's one of the oldest, but it's new maybe to the listeners here and that's the tennessee valley authority. Because in in in the early 20th century and you got all these large-scale projects like hydroelectric dams, like Dave mentioned, at Niagara Falls Hoover Dam I grew up around Hoover Dam. It was a very cool project but what was happening was you're seeing these electrification centers and major MSAs, but you're getting all the rural and farmlands kind of being left out of this whole thing. And in 1933, the Tennessee Valley Authority was actually created to bring electricity to rural areas, electrifying farms and communities that were being overlooked at the time. Brady, can you weigh in on what you know about the Tennessee Valley Authority, because they're a big deal.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and they're still a big deal. But it really opened up the pathway for transmission. Really we talked about kind of the switch of why it went from DC to AC and now people talk about DC again and transmission and we can talk about why that happened and why that makes sense and why it didn't make sense back in the day. But really TVA really opened the door to start really interconnecting our national grid. It was the first move where they thought well, now with this AC system we can transmit longer distances and typically, you know, under 400 miles you've got an AC transmission system. Right now we have 345 and 500.
Speaker 3:And this was all after the boom after World War II, the big co-op boom and rural electric society started popping up all over. We have right here in Utah we have a bunch right and munis came to the table, a lot of electric munis the same way Right and and munis came to the table, a lot of electric munis the same way. So in similar fashion. It's just it was a good electric utility that saw who was being left out, that wanted to be a good steward, that came up with a plan, a transmission plan to interconnect all these rural communities and give them the same benefit.
Speaker 3:You know, wayne, there's still about one.4 billion people that are not connected to the grid today Wow, and there's a lot of isolation out there, and so there's still a lot of TPAs that need to step up to the plate to figure out how we can provide this resource that should be everyone's right to have, and we talked about that a lot about you know the importance of energy and what it should actually cost to the citizen and all those things, but you know, what they did was just pave the way, just show them the way, and it was, it was and it worked for a lot of years. We're getting to the point where this whole grid infrastructure is about to be turned on its head and has to go a new direction. So you know, kind of the old guard is changing a little bit. It's exciting, but also there's a big responsibility shift and, if done right, it'll be great for the country.
Speaker 1:It's interesting to consider that.
Speaker 1:You know, as these first kind of generation assets and early grids were emerging in the US, that they weren't regulated, like when you think of it as that's truly capitalistic, like privately held stuff.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't until, like you mentioned, brady, you know, after World War II, the post-war boom and the federal government stepping in and actually mandating utility interconnections in the 1940s, and then in in we had this huge event in 1965 called the Northeast blackout and that affected 30 million people and it exposed vulnerabilities and led to the creation of the North American electrical reliability corporation, otherwise endearingly known as NERC. And we talk about NERC all the time because that's still the governing body. So it makes a lot of sense why you would want government oversight to regulate. You know for this I mean 30 million people without power and depending on how long that power you know they're without it. You know days make difference on that and we've, dave and I talked about you know last last season on the show what would happen if we, if we, didn't have power for like a week, and then what would happen if we didn't have power for a month, and it's, it's staggering what would happen to this nation or any any electrified nation.
Speaker 3:You didn't have any power. Yeah, look at texas, look at ercot. See the lives that were lost, the the crops. I mean you're affecting pumps, you're affecting water supply, you're affecting chemical uh processes. So there's a lot more that happens during an outage. And so, to raise that up to the NERC level, you know it was kind of like some of the what else do we do if our local authorities aren't paying attention? If our IOUs or whoever our load serving entity is, you know, why aren't they more reliable? Why aren't they? You know, looking at this and making sure we do have this, and there's a reasons why you know looking at this and making sure we do have this. And there's a reasons why you know, and if you look at the history of our grid, and before regulation, even during some regulation, why certain things are ignored, you know certain expenditures get paid one way, but some reliability things were being, you know, ignored a little bit. So, um, that's right. Hence, here we come, the nurk standards, right?
Speaker 2:so right, you well, you mentioned something and I think it's probably worth noting. So you know, going back again to the 30s, you know the federal power act, 1935, and then everything that happened out of that path, work of regional grids uh, not a single natural one came. We have three main interconnections that still are in existence today, so eastern, western and urquhart, which is texas. Is that that's correct?
Speaker 3:right, right, brady the regional entities foreigners yeah, so well.
Speaker 2:So you've got three main interconnections in the grid right interconnections right interconnections. So eastern, western and, and urquhart, those are the. So when we talk about those things, those are the three main sections of the country, correct?
Speaker 3:Yes, that is true and each section and it kind of breaks down a little bit more where you can get into the regional section. So CERC and some of the and like WECC and these other regional entities that kind of do a lot of the auditing practices for NERC, that have a tighter look at it. But as far as the interconnection, yeah, those are the ruling bodies for those interconnects and it all trickles down to the other regionals. But yeah, it's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, just to help understand how you know, we talk about these things like you've got three big sections in the country really. So when we talk about a grid, we actually have three kind of giant connected sections and then all the stuff in those. Just to help kind of illuminate that and those sections. I mean going all the way back. I mean this was really and we've talked about this this was designed for steady, predictable, low growth, centered on coal, gas, hydro, but never where we are today, right, but also all of this stuff up until you know. Then we come up until the Northeast blackout in 2003. And when we, you know, came up, you know when NERC became ERO, I guess in 2006, right, that was the, that's the electric reliability organization. So then we've everything's fine, and then we had the 2003 blackout and that got everybody's attention again, correct? Yeah?
Speaker 2:I mean yeah exactly okay, and then and then, so we then we went and so now, so they oversee, as far as I can tell, they oversee six, uh, with region, with FERC, oversee six regional entities in the united states. So WECC, that's CERC okay, and so out here in the the United States. So WEC CERC Okay, and so out here in the West we deal with.
Speaker 3:WEC, that's right. Okay, yeah, you can name them all actually if you have them there because they are important. Cerc is in the Southeast. You know ERCOT's in Texas and that's kind of an island they really do. Wec is the largest geographically, I think, still because they go up into Canada and all the way down. So that's where Utah sits, and understanding how they actually interpret the standards themselves are kind of how you're going to get audited. So understanding each one of those regions is pretty important.
Speaker 2:So you've got WEC, mro, which is basically the central part of the country, cerc, which is the southeast, essentially mostly RF, which is, you've got, you know, illinois, michigan I believe, and then MPCC, which is New York and the northeast, and then Texas is its own, for the most part is its own RE. So those are the big sections under the country. That's what our grid sort of functions as. So these organizations sort of oversee each of these parts.
Speaker 3:That's correct right as far as the compliance portion, and they also do a lot of the control, compliance and things like that for operators operating the grid.
Speaker 1:So if I could zoom this back out to a little more macro we're going to be zooming in and out on micro, macro guys, but but just just so you understand, most of the modern grid was built in the 60s and 70s. High voltage transmission lines, you know, expanding through these three major interconnections was all happening for the most part in those in those decades, and deregulation in the 1990s introduced this whole wholesale competition through two different ways through independent system operators known as ISOs, and also regional transmission organizations, so RTOs, and allowing open access to transmission lines and kind of fostering this whole market-based electricity trading. And now we've got these ever-advancing technological advancements like smart grid sensors, automation, digital controls, working on improving efficiency in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and our grid today spans over 200 miles of high-volt and serves more than a hundred million customers. 200,000, right, 200,000. 200,000.
Speaker 1:What did I say? 200. Oh, yeah, 200,000 miles. Yes, that's what I meant to say. 200,000 miles of high voltage line. And those range on capacity 345, 500 kV. 765 are what are known as the. What is it, brady? It's the extra high voltage, ultra high voltage, ultra high voltage, okay, uhv, okay.
Speaker 3:So that's the 765 and above. But also the HDDC was also big between the 70s and 90s. That's where that technology kind of shifted for longer transmission over 400 miles. We started looking at the DC systems as well a little bit, can you?
Speaker 1:can you drill into that in a little bit more depth, brady? You know, give the listeners the perspective on. You know what's the difference between AC and DC. How does that work?
Speaker 2:And we can even use it. Electrical 101 for everybody you guys got it.
Speaker 1:Well, we have an interesting example right here in Utah with the IPP and they actually implement both of those line types and it's for different reasons. So go ahead and drill into that for us, brady.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I'm just going to take us back. Let's go back to the 1890s and kind of look at those technologies, because they both existed at the time. Both were understood to kind of play in their own, to their own kind of silo. There they both had different functions.
Speaker 3:If we break down just the AC-DC difference on a physics level, dc doesn't have a frequency. If we know what frequency is, it's a movement of oscillating properties. So like for us, an energy AC has oscillating on and off switch. Just think of that right. So that creates a frequency. In the United States we have 60 hertz. That means you get 60 cycles per second. That's just an oscillation of those two properties. In Europe you have 50 hertz. These are all AC systems and you hear about DC systems a lot in Europe. So it's like, well, that's not a DC 50 hertz system, it's an AC frequency working on a DC system which there's no frequency.
Speaker 3:Now, the reason why you know back in the day, the reason why we went AC for transmission, is because the way that you know Edison and how his company was looking at things, they were looking at almost like modular design right at that point. So they were taking these DC generators and motors and building these systems. But it was like block for block and so and the problem was is the we didn't have the right electronics to actually make up the difference of making that make sense onto a system and transmitting it and working with the transformers. And the great thing with the AC system is we had step-up transformers that we could step up the voltage, send it out on a line and it was great. But AC also has its limitations. Through losses in an AC system because of capacitance and resonant losses, you lose some of your capacity. So what we find is what's so great with DC and the electronics and the conductors we have and the things that we do today is DC has a lot less losses.
Speaker 3:Great for anything over, you know, around the 400-mile mark is what we like to say, because AC still has a great place losses. Great for anything over, you know, around the 400 mile mark is what we like to say. Um, because ac still has a great place in transmission. Obviously, and most of our systems, our interconnects, are going to be at ac, the the 138, 230, 345, 500 you might start seeing that switch from 500 because those are much longer miles.
Speaker 3:So some of these new proposed lines for the 765, you're going to see a lot of them and I think it's a really responsible move for utilities and others to look at because of what it gives you and as we step up that voltage, the losses of current and the losses of capacity lessen, so it ends up being a very efficient system. Capacity, you know, lessened, so it ends up being a very efficient system. But essentially that's that's why we just had to catch up with the technology, just like we're looking at today with smrs and and hydrogen. It's all great tech. We know on paper how this stuff can work, but it's just getting the other components to catch up so that it doesn't cost so much. But also it's an efficient system that can be deployed at a higher rate, you know, and that's the goal for any of this stuff and making it reliable. So I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure. So to just sum up, a few takeaways from your explanation there it sounds like you know explanation there it sounds like you know. If we're talking about high voltage lines 345 or 500 KV lines, ac is. There's probably more AC out there than not and that's probably limited to grids that are inside of a state or maybe not even interstate, because if you're running through states or multi-state lines then those are probably better served with a high voltage dc system.
Speaker 1:yes, that's right, okay, do you happen to know off the top of your head, dave, you might know this off the top of your head. Do we know of that 200 000 plus miles of high voltage line out there? How much of that's high voltage dc and how much is ac?
Speaker 2:I do not know that off the top of my head, but maybe Brady.
Speaker 3:It's 95% of our systems AC.
Speaker 1:Okay, see, so that's important to understand when you're, when you're talking about high voltage DC, you're talking about a very, very specific long haul application, interstate application and and those are large lines.
Speaker 2:so that 190, yeah, 190 000, right then to that. I mean, there's the map.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I will, I will say this, though, about dc and a lot of the new lines being proposed at 500 kb and above. Um, most of these projects that are being bid out for some of these larger transmission projects are over 500 miles. Um, it's very interesting to see that's how they're bidding most of these large transmission. They're in sections of 500. Interesting. That kind of tells me they may be leaning towards more of a dc system on some of these, on the, and that's why they're doing it in those blocks. Um, that's my overall view of why they're. They're putting out those uh bids that way, but um, it makes sense as well.
Speaker 1:So it's it's it's reliable, so let's love so, brady, you mentioned frequency and appreciated your explanation on frequency. What can you explain to us what happens when we're introducing new technologies like renewables, like wind and solar, because they're trying to push that capacity over the same grid, sharing that grid with other power generation resources? How does that mix things up and how do we kind of manage that?
Speaker 3:You know that's a great question because those are always ever-changing topics and issues and solutions that are always needing to be made. And I would go back to the 40s and 50s at Bell Labs, you know, when semiconductors and thyristors were being invented and kind of refined for power and on these larger scales they were able to figure out how to do kind of these inversions with the DCAC systems and how to intermix, which gives us on a good path to where we are today, when we have these large solar projects that are coming onto the grid, or wind or geothermal or whatever the system is. Yeah, there has to be an integration of these two systems. And how do you deal with that? When we first had solar, it caused and still causes a lot of issues for us in that transference there and that's why there is an actual NERC standard that covers just that inversion, because it's so important that that portion of that connected grid is reliable as well. And they're finding that at first it was doing a lot, a lot of damage to the power factor.
Speaker 3:You know where you have a lead and lag of current and voltage is going this way and that it's hard on transformers. It's all hard on things. You mentioned frequency but again, a lot of solar that's starting on a dc system. There's no frequency there. The problem is is that inversion from a non-frequency to a frequency to an AC oscillating system? How do you do that clean?
Speaker 3:And a lot of it has to do with our power electronics and our metering, a lot of it with the semiconductors and thyristors to be able to step up, step down all these different voltages and handle it at a higher rate. I mean they used to do this on a bigger scale back in the day with really large fire registers in the 50s and 60s to be able to handle those step-up, step-down movements to those transformers. So it does cause a lot of issues. So, like new technology, every time it's hard to bring it into a system. Like you know our industry and there's reasons why it gets pushed. Either legislation is pushing the industry to move a lot of compliance, things like that or technology, but you need the compliance and the regulation to catch up so the technology can come in um it doesn't technology doesn't blast its way in and then all of a sudden it's there.
Speaker 3:there's usually a mitigating factor of taking that on and then actually being responsible with it, because technology is good, we just have to know how to efficiently deploy it at the right time.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:All right, that could be a good segue into. I think into maybe some of the core things and you kind of hinted at it. I think into maybe some of the core things and you kind of hinted at it. We're having 500 mile runs, you know basically the 800 pound gorilla or the you know the thing in the room, and that is our core choke points in the U? S right now. And it all it all comes back to transmission for for one of them, and why building lines and why building new transmissions hard and why it's been hard and why it remains hard. Is that a fair place to go with this at this point?
Speaker 3:100% yeah, I mean, that's another issue. Throughout the history of the grid, you know, if we look at our supply chain and we look at how these things are being built, in America we had Westinghouse and GE for 40, 50 years. In Europe you had ABB and Siemens, same amount of time, the intermix, you know, as there was acquirements and different things that made these companies larger, but they were the real standouts, the ones that were supplying the chain, and this is when we had a lot of domestic manufacturing in the US and we could really sustain our grid. Wayne mentioned deregulation when that came in, same thing opened up the market, free market, open market, a lot of new players but still you only end up with four or five major players in the US when it's all said and done.
Speaker 3:A lot of acquisitions, just the way things shake out, which is not a bad thing because to have, you know, got four or five vendors or six to choose from on your project. The problem is is we're growing so fast and some of these companies either aren't, their supply chains aren't growing with them, the companies aren't growing with them, supply chains backing further and further back. So you see the most critical components of a system transformers, dead tank breakers, cable, t-line hardware, insulators, arresters these are the things that are so critical. But these lead times and most of our big players are so far out that, to plan your projects, it becomes so critical to keep these on schedule because these lead times are all over the place, but the the overwhelming problem is is some of them are three, four, five, six years out. Um, so planning your projects and getting these hyperscale projects completed becomes a real tricky issue.
Speaker 3:And then you got to look at, you know, all your suppliers on these things. It's like all boots on the ground. Everybody's got to play, but now we have such a limited supply. Like what? What do we do now? You know, we know we got tariffs, we got all these things against us. And how do we lighten? How do we make these projects even happen nowadays, right? So I think that's our biggest concern and I think that leads into a lot of these things is you know how do we do what everybody's asking us to do? We got to you know we got to build, build more power, but we also need the material and the manpower to do it.
Speaker 2:So and then and then the next step beyond that, beyond a very significant supply chain challenge, is a regulatory environment that hasn't necessarily been friendly, and I'm gonna say, you know, quote unquote friendly to getting some of these projects done, where you know, a big project could take a decade or more and we are under the, you know, as a country we've talked about it a lot, wayne we're under the gun. Well, the country is under the gun right now to build, build as much generation as it can and then also, at the same time, solve some of these other, you know, existential problems with the grid. But it all comes back in my mind and I don't know if, wayne, I don't know if you agree, brady, agree it all comes back to, well, regulation. Oftentimes, and given kind of how it works, you've got state primacy, meaning Yep, the feds want to.
Speaker 2:You know, we have a say, we want, we have a national idea that we want to accomplish, yep, and private land, and so there's service, yeah, all kinds of categories there, all kinds, and so it all comes back to this choke point of of regulation. Um, and not to not to put you on the spot, brady, I don't put you on the spot. Anyway, you know, are we over regulated in general and and and are you happy with sort of some of this thawing out of regulation that's happening and saying like, look, you know, we've got to move on this and we, you know, if we're going to accomplish anything and try and hit these objectives from like a national, from a national perspective, from a state perspective, we need help in this process. Yeah, what are you? What are you? I?
Speaker 2:mean you've been steeped in this. You see the advantages of regulations, you see the disadvantages. That's why I think you are, you know, you're probably the best to speak to this, yeah.
Speaker 3:Are we regulated to death? Yes, you know. Do we stand in our own way? Yes, am I sick of it? Yes, but regulation is there for a reason. You know I was early on as a compliance officer for NERC for a local utility in 2006 or 2005,. Actually all the way about 2012. So I was part of writing a lot of these standards and you know you do have a passion for resilience and reliability of the grid, so you understand where the standards are coming from. Just holding people accountable for like hey, why did that relay fail? Because you weren't testing it for a decade and you had no idea that you had some issues on it, whatever it was, so just holding some accountability for testing and maintenance of the grid, I think there's such great thought and points to having regulation.
Speaker 3:But to the point where it hinders the work and the projects and maybe makes people take a second take, I don't think that's okay. I mean we have to progress this grid. So take, for instance and I know it's not a popular topic but take China, for instance. They have one utility, state grids, the largest utility in the world, and I've done a lot of work in China and around the world. But they do big stuff. They do up to 1,000 kV power poles and transmission systems. Not only that, they build ginormous substations, switch stations that take that 1,000 kV conductor and take it underground under rivers and lakes, and incredible infrastructure. Ok, and you're thinking, wow, china can do some big things. But what makes that work is they have a synergy between the utility company that's owned by the government, so they're cutting a lot of red tape. They're making things happen on a very hyper scale. But they have they can, only they, they pretty much control their own destiny. Okay, now, that'll never happen here. We have thousands of utilities in America, so it's not like we're going to have all the same thoughts about this, but some of the red tape can be cut down.
Speaker 3:Some of the things the regulation permitting processes in my opinion need to be rethought and just really see what's going on here. Our old grid will not stand up to what needs to be built now. So let's kind of just think of it in two different worlds. A whole new grid has to be built for this new hyperscale world, and really it should be the best of all worlds, best technology, the best way to build a grid, the longer it's going to last. And we got to think big but to, to, to show up kind of in the same way China did at that level.
Speaker 3:We do need some help from our legislators. We need some regulating help. We need to be able to have this door open so that we can we can build these systems the way they need to be built, because, you know, permitting and regulation also costs money. It just holds these projects up. You'd have a lot of money that's invested and a lot of interest in making sure these projects stay on time, that they go quickly, and we just need help on both sides. That's why it's such a private and public venture and to be on the same page when we try to do that. Everybody wants to do the same thing. We just need to be able to be on the same page and get this stuff done the most efficient and responsible way possible.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that answer. I mean, I think one of the most extreme examples I've heard is in the nuclear space, where permitting could take a long time and part part of the reason that it hasn't progressed and it hit a stalemate for I mean, there's all kinds of reasons for that is one of the things is it was you know, a company or a private investment group might spend 100 to 200 million dollars just doing studies, that's you know, and with no guarantee at the end of that whether they're going to get permitted or not, and that's a lot of capital put out on a whim.
Speaker 3:And it shouldn't be on those investors to have to split that bill. You know, if you've got legislatures holding that up and costing money and all those things because that costs a lot of money, as we know, to do some of these feasibility studies and all it is is to check out if your areas fit for us to spend more money in your state, you know. So help us out if you want us to be here Really, help us to understand what your needs are, because we're putting our best foot forward. Like everybody, we're trying to build a better grid when it comes to nuclear. You know we have the best opportunity now. There's probably best public, you know.
Speaker 3:I would say most people are for nuclear right here, more than ever before. Right there's, there's a lot of interest, a lot of positivity towards it. Still a lot of ways to go on some of it, but I think it's got people thinking like, well, why haven't we be doing it? We'll look at the last 20 nuclear projects that were asked through the US government and why they got turned down. So a lot of it's right at the beginning. It's the permitting, you know, it's the regulation, it's the cost, but it's not just the cost of the material and what it takes. It's time and it's also a lot of integration with our public leaders as well, and we just need that correspondence to go as well as we can If we all want the same thing. We really need to work together and figure those out, or we won't get any of these projects built that everybody wants to do.
Speaker 1:I think, as you're touching on the integration concept, the logic behind that, brady, it's important for the listeners to understand that A you're dealing with multiple regulatory bodies, depending on location, and if we're talking about transmission in multiple states, that gets super complicated. But when we're talking about permitting on local, state, federal levels with multiple cooks in the kitchen and also legislation on state and federal levels, that still have some gaps in it, and one of the gaps that I'm seeing in this research is activist groups just filing lawsuits because of endangered species, the spotted owl or the turtles or this. There's a whole list of things in the history of this where activist groups have actually stalled and killed projects. I mean, these delays could be five years of litigation delay, 10 years of litigation delays, and it feels like if we're moving into a more integrative, supportive legislative environment, then maybe we should be considering legislation that could kind of head that off at the pass and preclude those types of kind of slap actions. No-transcript key points to focus in on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, you're exactly right and that's what you'll see with energy. If we see I think that's on top of all our minds how long will this popularity of nuclear and build outs and data centers, how long will this last? And will it go back the other way when we we hit renewable, we get these things right. And I just think, when you have the momentum and things are lining up, yes, your politicians need to see that and protect that. If that's, if it's an alignment, if that's what we feel is is right for our areas. And I feel like, once you get the ball rolling and, as you see, these projects are not easy to get done there's, there's so much that goes into it, so many it's investment, so many people that are involved with these things. When you get to that level and for something to stop it, because you know, for whatever reason and I'm sensitive to our own natural resources and the things that we have to be responsible for, for our own land, of course but also to hinder projects and stop these projects, as the momentum is going and what the future means. So you have to have the end in sight. The future means, so you have to have the end in sight and once you get the ball rolling, there needs to be either legislation or these contracts have to be so set so that things like that can't interfere with the scheduling, the process, you know, and as these things come up in real time, you deal with them but it doesn't hinder the project because there's too much on the line that implications for a lot of things and it doesn't just end in the energy business. So, um, you know, especially when we talk residential and new things that are creating, you know agriculture and things that are created, part of these projects, it's it's very important that everybody understands the end goal in mind and that you know there's always going to be hiccups, there's always going to be disagreements, but once you get onto that real next level and the project has started and that momentum is going, it really should feel untouchable, because our investors, the people that are really invested in putting that type of money and capital, and also the time that's being sent to this, large corporations involved, but the ones that need to be involved in doing infrastructure right. We can't stop progress, and so this is something that I feel like it's a critical infrastructure in the future of what we are. We always say how critical energy is right now for the state of Utah and for our own country, now for the state of Utah and for our own country, united States.
Speaker 3:So with that thought is, we can't hinder this progress, and China does very well, if not hindering their progress in their own way. You know, I've got to know them quite well they do not stand in their own way when they have a project that goes. We need to have that same mentality and it's the same way with our own trading, our own infrastructure as manufacturing, with our own creating, our own infrastructure as manufacturing, our own labor, our own engineers really keeping things in house. It all means the same thing but we have to support each other in that, you know, both sides of the aisle need to support If we really want to create more jobs and better housing and better cost of living, all these things.
Speaker 3:And we're talking about really changing what power means.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think our goal at Invictus and doing Valley Forge is very much for the citizen. We're trying to provide a business model where, inside the fence guys, if you're in our project, we want our goal is to make sure you're not paying a dime for your utility bill. We've got that covered because our off-takers that are still in Utah are flipping that bill for you. So if they see a data center, maybe it's not such a bad thing, because they know, hey, I got free power Because this data center is paying pretty good prices for that kilowatt and it's allowing us to stay in this community and I think that's the future of energy. I'm going to be honest, wayne, I think in the next 10 years our utility owners, those ones that have the load service and all the people that are handling these loads, are going to look different, and I hope that is in the in the positivity, in the range we're heading in allowing the citizen to have energy-free power, power bill and then allow these off-takers, these big load suckers, really to take on that responsibility.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the future. And we've talked about the implications of data centers and AI and that spike in demand that the DOE and everyone else in the world recognizes, and we've made a prediction on the show that within, I'm saying five years, I personally believe that within five years we'll see this shift where two-thirds of generation and maybe even transmission will be privately built out and privately maintained and operated, because utility companies that operate on fixed rates for everyone are not able to build margin in $20 billion of new generation and transmission to accommodate that. Two gigawatt or five or bigger. You know five gigawatt, these multiple gigawatt utility scale loads to one consumer. It's just not. It's not the way it's getting done. Utilities don't have the resources to accommodate that.
Speaker 1:But the private sector is coming in really hard right now. We're one of them as an independent power producer. Easy for us to go raise that capital. It's easy to be able to build those pro forma. These are 40-year pro formas and so you know these are long. You know generational cash flowing assets. Private equity has come in in an unprecedented way. You know. Know our capital markets led by, you know, the blackstones and carlisles and vanguards of the world. They get it right and and they're coming in and they're backing, you know, groups like us and and other, you know, independent power producers. Um, because they see the need and and they see that you know it's got to be more of what you're talking about, more of us all working together. Yeah, and you can't replace the utilities because if we just focus on utah alone, you've got, you know you've got the monopoly that has the all the distribution right, and so you've got to you've got to develop an integrative system.
Speaker 1:Now let's, let's, let's, shift gears on to 765 KV, shall we Sure? Because 765 KV it's a neat, it's a fun thing to talk about. There's only about 2,800 miles total in the US of that. That's the highest operational capacity in the US. You mentioned China's got 1,000 kV. We're not there. 765 is as high as we go in the US. We also recognize that that small percentage is primarily in the Midwest and the East. There's none of that in the West. Yet Now, with the Sentinel-1 power complex and the correlating Sentinel transmission lines, it's all 765 KV. And we're determined and we've got really strong local, state, federal support mounting for this. But we're committed to having Utah lead the West with the first 765 KV backbone. Can you just touch on the top few reasons why that is so significant for Utah and the region?
Speaker 3:I will. Yeah, and it's kind of interesting to think about. I think if most people look at a transmission system in Utah, you're mostly going to see two systems 138 kV, 345 mostly, there's a little 500, but people mostly won't run into it too much. But 138 kV, that's the typical Most of your immunities, that's what they run on their loops and you see that pretty nominal around Utah. So if you took the equivalent, you know a 765 kV double circuit can move around 7,000 to 8,000 megawatts. So that's the equivalent of dozens of 138 kV lines or multiple 500 circuits as well.
Speaker 3:So it's kind of the crown jewel of the, the ac system. We're looking at ac because our, our routes are are quite short in transmission terms, in 80 miles. You know increments. So yeah, so we're all we're looking at ac and it's uh and the analysis and the footprint really makes a lot of sense and having a 765 kv backbone we're going to call it eventually, hopefully running north and south throughout uh, central utah uh really gives such a and really it is. It's a strong backbone to utah uh and we will be looked at as an energy central uh hub because there's no 765 kV in the West currently. So we're looking at the first line in the West, and I do feel like Utah will be very popular for just this reason, for the capacity that 765 gives you and the losses that you just don't have with 765. On those, losses.
Speaker 1:to quantify the loss differential for the listeners, we're talking about the 345 and 500 kV lines that have an average transmission loss of power, pushing electrons across those lines, losing up to 10% of that power in the transmission. Whereas you step it up to a 765 kV you can reduce that by 90% or more. You can get those transmission losses down under a percent around a half a percent. So that is a dramatic improvement when you're modeling the financials on transmission loss. So that's one of the major reasons why 765 makes so much sense and there's a few others we're going to touch on here, brady yep well, fun fact because you know 765 sounds relatively new.
Speaker 3:I mean, other parts of the world have been up to a thousand kv, but do you guys happen to know when the first 765 kv line was set in the us?
Speaker 2:by chance, no, that's a great question within the last I'm gonna say within the last 10 years. How about that?
Speaker 3:you would maybe think that right right, 1969, what whoa? I didn't know that. So 1969 aep back in ohio area, ohio, indiana, put um, but the first 765 kv system, they they saw it back then because of the boom in nuclear and coal. Oh, oh yeah, and so, and it was just far concentrated from other load centers, right, so they were just thinking like transmission wise, keeping that away from all other loads. But we're going to need a really resilient system to take on these nuke plants and large coal fire finds. And that was the reason why they thought that. They also found out that it's very expensive to get on these things. So you don't see them a lot because they are. I mean, it's more material, larger right-of-ways, usually around 200 foot right-of-ways, so takes up some real estate. But yeah, there's about three or 4,000 miles of it in Utah or in in the Midwest, mostly right now. I think AEP first energy is, and then PGM.
Speaker 1:Pgm has Brady, I want to make just a disclaimer or maybe just a clarification for the listeners, because you just made a statement saying how expensive 765 is. But the context of that is really important to understand. Sure, putting one 765 kV line in actually requires less land to push the same amount of electrons across three lanes of 345 or 500. So there's a comparison. It's either one 765 up against and it's correlating capacity up against the same capacity over the lower capable lines. So less land on the right-of-way, fewer parallel lines. It also reduces capital by 20% to 40% per megawatt mile compared to multiple lower voltage lines. So it could be that it models a little more, a little front end heavy.
Speaker 1:But when you're talking about that capacity and you're pushing, you know, multiple gigawatts, then you end up in the long run saving quite a bit of money by just moving into this. And listen, we haven't really had that kind of demand. You touched on the nuclear and the coal boom. Now we've got and Dave and I say this all the time it's like look, the grid was never built for AI and these big loads, these hyper loads. So historically the 345, 500 kVs were just fine. Now we're talking about these extraordinary multiple gigawatt loads and the correlating spikes, valleys and peaks in those loads and you've got to have something much heavier duty, a more hardened asset to move that.
Speaker 3:I would clarify when I said it was expensive, it was expensive at the time because we weren't doing 765. Yeah, so the investment was on almost one offs right. Brand new towers, yeah, oh yeah, and build. You know, we had the still back then, but we were building these brand new big lattice 765 towers, new design, new builds. This all costs money. They're conductor. 765 towers, new design, new builds this all costs money. Better conductor 765 conductor. So all these things you know. But now you touched on it perfectly, wayne. More people are talking 765. There's more lines been announced in the last couple months of 765 than ever in the history and we know local manufacturers here, even in Utah, are focusing on 765 and creating steel plant for steel poles monopoles. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. We just talked to one this week.
Speaker 3:Man that tells you things are lightening up. The build won't be near like what we thought or they were. But you're right, the long-term investment on a 765 does not compare. If you look at the reliability of a 500, even the reliability of a 765 is almost like you're talking two different languages right.
Speaker 1:So just touching on reliability here for a second, brady, you know, one metric is the frequency of outages, and operators show that 765 KV lines actually experience outages almost six times less frequently than 345 lines. And there's another factor, which is the thermal and overload resistance. So with the 765, you got up to six conductors per phase. 765 KV lines are virtually free of thermal overload risk, even under extreme conditions, allowing them to handle the surges from events like renewable intermittency or demand spikes with AI defense loads, things like that.
Speaker 1:So, when we talk about hardening and modernizing our grid and you really get down to brass tacks on the operational and the financial metrics that go into play, 765 is the only way to go and we'll go out on a limb here and say I wonder how long it will take for the us to get up to a thousand thousand kv. You know, following the footsteps of china I had that very cross-examined brady.
Speaker 2:Uh, I think last week we started talking about that like so when, when do we actually start talking about a thousand?
Speaker 2:and I, you know it's interesting because I'm thinking about gateway uh, south, that was just completed. What last year? Yeah, yeah, I mean that's 500 and it's. I'm not going to say it's obsolete by any means, it's needed, but it took a long time to build, yeah, and now we have it, it's coming on. It just came online, at least between, I think, the wyoming to to Utah section.
Speaker 2:Right, brady, am I getting that right? That's right, yeah, yeah, but that's. I'm not going to say it's outdated, but it's. You know, by the time this gets done, it's not dissimilar from, I guess, highways. Like you know, we expand highways and by the time construction tends to get done, it's like, well, it's already filled up with cars, you're already at max capacity, you should have built it even more. And so I think that that was kind of our conversation, like, okay, you know, when do you start looking to even a thousand and and start looking at, uh, at that, and it's? It's a fascinating conversation to have with brady on the side yeah I won't go into it now because it's a whole.
Speaker 2:It's a whole conversation in its own.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, well really the only things. I think that people uh, the only reason 500 really in my mind beats out 765 and gateway south and west was a good example of that. Yeah, it was like the ride there was weird right away fights and then just not in my backyard, type fights, and then just thinking the cost towers that upfront cost was actually going to mean something. But what we find in a lot of the new analysis with the new materials being used is we can use longer spans, so you're eliminating towers, yeah, and people need to really look at what the new tech is out there and how strong we can make these towers, especially with the new composites and some of these things hollow core type bracelet and how strong we can make these towers, especially with the new composites of some of these things hollow core type bracelet type posts, things like that. There's a lot of new things that can be analyzed. And you put all those things in with the new hybrid conductors, man, there's just a lot of new things and it also, to me, hardens the grid more because those products typically have a longer lifespan. They're usually fire-retardant. There's a lot of things that are hardening the grid.
Speaker 3:There's a lot of things that mean different things to other people, but how long does that stuff last? How long is those warranties? What's the guarantee on those poles? And that's what we're missing a lot from OEMs these days is those warranties are shrinking. As their lead times rise, their warranties are shrinking along with as their leap times rise, their warranties go away, and so that partnership or that feeling that your oem has your back is worrisome. We need to read, we need to rethink these things. When we rebuild a brand new, beautiful transmission system, we need to rethink, like, if we're going to do this, how's it going to last? And we're going to say a 765 is much stronger and resilient than a 500 KV, but still you've got to use the best components. You've got to really do it in a big way, because you can't, there's a lot of cost savings in it after time, right, and so there's a lot of things that you've got to consider. And what's responsible for, you know, for your state or or utility, or you know?
Speaker 2:what country really so right? Well, one of the things you just hit on I mean out west and you know they're not in my backyard the nimbyism and things like you, I mean the west is particularly hard to do transmission for all kinds of reasons. Right, I mean that you've got the east, but you've got the west has its own. I mean there's a reason that we don't have perhaps the transmission that everybody would like to have is that you know, so we have, you know, lots of federal land. You got multi. You know agency federal permits. You've got layered wildlife protections. You've got planning cost allocated. You got so many things that are really unique out the west. That takes a long time to do these things. Do you know? I don't know off top of my head, how long did? How long did that gateway project take when they proposed to win a game on Blank last year?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was over 15 years. But look at Greenlink currently, if you follow Nevada Energy and look, they've done with Greenlink very similar I don't know how long, maybe similar 10, 15 years I could be wrong about those but a long time. And even to the point where they start a project, what happens in between that project and then anyway, there's a lot of messes going on with some of these transmission. A lot of it has to do with the planning and really having a good plan of execution and sticking to that plan. But also knowing that you know there's a responsibility here and even though things cost more upfront to harden the grid, it's your responsibility to do that because it says your customers are going to be online for longer. You're going to save that hospital from tripping off and and possibly having a critical moment with their, their backups. You know you can. You don't have to do that Right.
Speaker 3:So I mean you just really want to put your best foot forward in all these and when you're going out to build these new systems and you'll see less of it as we do with some of these IOUs, they weren't built for this new grid and I just want to touch on that, for a second, is the old guard still has a place, like you said, wayne, and what they did is they did what the, the industry and what we allowed to happen throughout these years. It did fail us in the early 2000s, late 90s, a lot of different outages. We're trying to mitigate those factors, but after we bring on this new load, it's not. Happiness has very little to do with the old guard, to tell you the truth, as we find most of the main utilities large utilities in our country are not giving up the amount of load or capacity that these data centers are asking for, right, that's right, there's capacity and there's redundancy.
Speaker 1:There's a totally new. So we talk about doing things that have never been done before and this entire grid distribution, transmission, generation system. It's got to be birthed out of that mindset of doing something that's never been done before or demands that have never been there before. And I think a critical piece of this is energy storage. We haven't had technology to really do that well on a utility scale and in the last few years you start to see lithium and you'll start to see flywheel and some of the not on utility scale but smaller scale storage systems. Now we're very excited about Westinghouse with their big long duration energy storage system. You bolt a two gigawatt storage capacity onto a traditional gas plant and if you're interconnected you really help level that grid up. There's a headline just the other day here in Utah, in Midvale, the big IHC flagship hospital lost power. And of course they have on-site generators, but you wouldn't be losing power if you had storage systems that were a direct corollary to all the new generation getting built out.
Speaker 3:Well, wait, I'll say that about that particular hospital though, because I helped commission that at the beginning and I knew this was coming because we talked about this too, I was on the utility side. Go ahead, brady. Perfect, real-world explanation. Yeah, I was on the utility side of that. So it was up to the hospital side to have that disconnect and that switching service over to their generation weren't flawless, right? Well, the first outage they had that did not switch over. So all that equipment, all that electronic MRI machines, all the respirators- all the things.
Speaker 3:If they're not on backup batteries locally, they're going out. It was a problem. So that's what I mean, and just understanding those systems on the high side and the low side of these loads is imperative. But being a good steward on the high side, making sure those systems are solid, that's their job. Right, you know the hospital's the low side, but you want to be as reliable as you can on the high side and make sure you know especially those critical facilities are taken care of.
Speaker 2:I know we're coming, I know we got thank you, I know we're coming up on time, wayne. But I want to ask one kind of one more question, because we've you've mentioned it a lot and I'd love to hear, kind of your, when we say the word uh, what in your mind, brady? Uh, you kind of think about this because it's sort of a sort of a final thought, because again and we're going to use this a lot you hear hardening the grid. There's in my mind, there's an obvious like okay, well, does that mean new lines, new, this news? What do you, when you, when you say when, brady, like okay, your, your, your grids are right, if you are given the role of hardening the grid, what does that really mean in your mind from your, your vantage point?
Speaker 3:it's a great question and I think if I had like a magic wand, I could probably create some picture of this and I would say, first of all, standardizing on standards when it comes to equipment, understanding your supply chain very well and you build your systems out you should be really looking at standardizing on your entire system. So if something goes down, it's a plug and play type situation. That doesn't mean sticking with one vendor, but we do have to have the same mindset with all of our vendors that we're trying to go in the same direction. So having all this proprietary silos where they can't talk to each other, it doesn't make any sense. It has to be universal. So, having your supply chain wrapped up, understanding what redundancy means to a system, no matter how much technology changes and what amazing protection devices we come up with, always in any circuit and any engineer will probably tell you redundancy is always going to play key. And any engineer will probably tell you redundancy is always going to play key and your spare parts and backup components always play a part. So having that wrapped up first of all is great. And then, understanding you know protocols of okay, what does it mean to harden the grid? Well, certain materials have a better lifespan have, have a longer warranty on them, have a better lifespan, have a longer warranty on them, have a better backing from an OEM that will stick by that product. Making sure those OEMs are not going anywhere.
Speaker 3:Right, there's a lot of things that people are doing that I think are good as well. They've got to take on responsibility of almost becoming an OEM themselves, adopting standards allowing themselves. So if a supply chain drops, you need to have three or four vendors, or five or six, so nothing gets skipped. Another thing is and the scarier part for the risk and the upfront cost is making sure you have all those spare parts in the queue and that you do have your place in line when it comes to making sure your inventory is full, making sure you have all those reliable parts. You know a lot of it comes down to material, a lot of it comes down to labor and a lot of, you know, comes down to good management and all those things have to work. But also, we have a lot of interconnects. We have a lot of different players in America. We don't have one state grid, so that standardization has to carry through all these borders. I mean you've got to cross from utility to utility. Everybody has to get on the same page and if we're really talking about outages and getting rid of these things, well, the standards are good, you know from the DOE and from NERC and FERC and all those guys. But also you know we also have to be good stewards in making sure the equipment we install is the best and that we're doing good to our customers by putting the stuff that's going to last and that we have good partners that when this stuff goes down it's going to get taken care of.
Speaker 3:You know most munis in Utah have it down in a really great way. They don't like outages lasting over an hour and the reason why they're able to do that is they're pretty responsible with their budgets. They make sure that there's backups. They've got mobile transformers. They've got places to get generators, turbines kind of use their markets pretty good. But they're also vulnerable because they've got an interconnect of a big daddy over there that also controls their taps. So they do what they can.
Speaker 3:But they also have the manpower to cover their territories and you'll see a big difference between like a big IOU and what territories they cover with the type of linemen and technicians they have, compared to a smaller territory with a smaller group of people, but square footage wise, they got it covered. So there's a lot of things that need to be considered on when a utility comes up, what's the responsibility per manpower, how many guys they need in that square footage of the space, how much material we need to back up everything if it goes down. And then in the future, you know what can we guarantee our customers, how long this system will stay in place. And you look at material, you look at, you know, at a lot of different devices that help you get there. But standardization to me is making sure everybody's on the same page. Something goes down. We got backups, you know, important.
Speaker 1:I appreciate that answer. You heard it here.
Speaker 2:Brady Jenkins for GridZar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and listen, we are over an hour, guys, but I don't care. This is such good information, it's worth just letting it flow. And you just brought up another question. I think we've got to answer and we'll make this the final thought. Sure, talking about energy sovereignty or energy independence, this is a big thing being tossed about by legislators. In Utah we're experiencing a very strong appetite to seize upon energy sovereignty from other states that we're interconnected to. So here's the question when we consider the grid and we also stand right beside that thought process, we stand beside the logic of decentralized generation assets having energy sovereignty by standing up its own high-level generation and transmission systems that maybe could even break her away from, you know, interconnected inter-regional transmission that's right.
Speaker 3:Well, you could answer that question and it's funny, you could ask texas what they think of having their sovereignty. Even though they've had outages and I wouldn't say they have the best grid in the world they're still not looking to get a give away that island of theirs, right? So you look at that and you're like, does that make sense? And I used to think, you know, I used to look at the united states as a collective like and it should all be one. We should all be connected. I was always upset with texas. Why don't you want to be connected right? Coordinate this right?
Speaker 3:You look at the. I mean, you can look at the map like a big circuit and you can see the hot spots, you can see the different population growth and you see Utah, and Utah is such a special place to all of us. I mean, we're all homegrown Utah, so we have a bias, I guess. But we have a very interesting geographic area. We have many natural resources.
Speaker 3:To me, utah is a perfect example of a self-sustaining state, even though we have water problems and we have our own issues, different things that other states kind of have issues with as well. I feel like what we have here we need to hold on to as best we can. We, you know we're good stewards here. We love the outdoors, we love our natural resources. We you know we're we're good stewards here. We love the outdoors, we, we love our natural resources. We love technology here as well, and we also support a lot of industry and agriculture and a lot of different things, and I think for the most part, utahns really feel like you know to to live in Utah. What does that really mean and for what? Sovereignty to me means is we kind of control our own land, we control our own destiny, we control our energy. For years, we've been giving away our water and our energy.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So the biggest producers, our largest power plant? That is not. You know that energy doesn't stay in Utah. 80% of it typically goes to California, and then our water very similar with a lot of the water rights we gave away in the 20s and 30s. So you know. So to think about our future and think about Utah, think about this new grid, think about this new venture, that this is our opportunity to become not just a completely energy sovereign type state, but to be a leader on how to do it correctly, because every state should fill this, just like every community should be fighting for a zero power bill, like how do I get on?
Speaker 3:that plan right like how do I why not?
Speaker 3:Because if these data centers are are looking to, you know, use this much load at these prices, well then we can negotiate much lower rates for our citizens, and I think Utah has a chance to do that, and it's going to be a new model and, yes, rocky Mountain Power is not going to like it very much, but it is the new way we need to shift this energy industry and to serve the customer and then allow, you know, allow these data centers in these large loads to flip the bill essentially.
Speaker 3:Then allow these data centers and these large loads to flip the bill essentially, because that's what they want, and for me, it's a win-win as we build these things out, and having that win-win for the community as well, that it has to feel like they also have some ownership in this and they have a say yeah, we'll take that data center, but I better see that power bill go down.
Speaker 3:You know what's the trade-off here, you know. So I think that has to be in consideration and I think developers like ourselves and and these ones that are building these large power plants, we need to think about that as well, which we do, you know, and luckily, that's the first of all on our top of our minds is to make sure we're serving the community appropriately. But, wayne, I mean this is as Utah, as a full community. This is our chance to really come out as a leader but also make ourselves a little bit of an island and protect our resources, protect our energy. You know we're not looking to take this energy out anywhere but Utah, you know we want to serve this state take this energy out anywhere but Utah.
Speaker 1:We want to serve this state, a state having the ability to control power and control water. Those are the essentials for growth. If Utah's got housing initiatives, it's got economic growth initiatives, then it's got to be able to control its own destiny with power and water. That's a huge corollary that I think we've connected, you know, with our legislators, and, and, and they, I, they, they really do get it, and it's an exciting transitional time. Well, listen, thank you, brady, for joining us today. This was an awesome conversation and we hope you guys will join us on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Until next time on the frontier line.
Speaker 4:Thanks everyone okay, guys, just a quick footnote for clarification. Um, midway through the episode, brady's uh gave a statistic of roughly 1.4 billion people not connected to the grid and wanted to clarify that that he wasn't intending to state that that was people without electricity. If you do the research, there's only about 660 million people globally that don't have access to electricity. Most of that's in sub-Saharan Africa. In the US, we're doing a great job. We're 100% electrified.
Speaker 4:However, there's fewer than a hundred thousand americans that that lack consistent access to electricity, and that's primarily on native american reservations and remote areas. That number is going down each year. Approximately 85 million americans, however, experience at least one power outage annually, with real-time numbers fluctuating based on weather and grid conditions. Um and so that's about one in four households. Guys, we're still. We could still do better when it comes to the grid, when it comes to hardening and modernizing the grid. 85 million americans experiencing power outages is still unacceptable and it's only going to continue to compound, as we are detailing in these episodes. So that's, that's just for clarity. Thanks for listening.
