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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
Westinghouse Dominating the Headlines Globally, $22Billion MISO Transmission Nightmare, National Power Price Hikes
welcome back.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the show, guys good welcome back, good to see you. Good to see you, wayne, as always we have been, so everyone for joining us.
Speaker 1:Yes, thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you for all the support. By the way, I mean we we were starting to get some serious traction here with you know folks calling and emailing and and providing feedback and comments, and keep it coming. We love it. We're fine-tuning on a weekly and it's been so busy with the show, with so much to talk about, we haven't covered headlines in a minute. Part of the focus of the show is covering headlines in real time and you know, I think I had a set of headlines that was teed up for like three weeks ago and then we had some guest interviews come up and we had to take those, and so now I've had to refresh the headline situation because everything I was looking at is now three weeks old, so it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:And not as excuses really, but we also have sort of quote unquote day jobs. Yeah right, we love talking about this. This is the fun for us because we love doing this every day, but we're also being pulled in 52 different directions. But coming back to being able to talk about headlines is good because this is a space we live in. We live and breathe every day.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, Dave. We've kind of compared notes as we usually do. Do you want to kick this off with the first big headline?
Speaker 2:I will and I'm going to go with one in the nuclear space, considering that we've been talking about that a lot lately, both locally here in Utah, but obviously it's getting a lot of national attention and a lot of announcements, executive orders and some awarding of some funds to 10 companies, and so there's lots of stuff that's been happening in the space. This one is of particular interest to me and, I think, us, because it involved Westinghouse, a group that we're working with. So Westinghouse, as of yesterday, expanded the supply chain with six UK companies. So a little bit of it. So MOUs, support deployment of AP1000, ap300 technologies Very interesting, yeah, that's awesome. Yes, westinghouse. So they announced they'd signed MOUs with six British suppliers to support nuclear new build projects on AP1000, ap300 technologies in the UK and around the world.
Speaker 2:The agreements bolster Westinghouse's local supply chain to support UK's ambitious goal of increasing nuclear generation by up to 24 gigawatts by 2050.
Speaker 2:So they were signed with William Cook Cast Products, trillium Flow Technology, curtis Wright Controls, bockard UK and Bendel's Engineering and Sheffield Forge Masters.
Speaker 2:So these agreements provide these companies with the potential to supply key reactor components including valves, pumps, actuators, mechanical electrical piping and instrument MEPI modules, pressure vessels, tanks, heat exchangers and piping and cast and forged steel components.
Speaker 2:So a big deal in the space for Westinghouse, westinghouse being the 800-pound gorilla, being the gold standard in the nuclear industry, obviously expanding its footprint significantly because it, like the rest of us, sees what's coming and that not only do you have demand in Europe, obviously there's an appetite here in the US, including from companies like ours, to look at what's possible in the future. So a real, quick quote and then I'll move on from Dan Lippman, president of Westinghouse Energy Systems. He said these agreements mark a significant milestone in Westinghouse's commitment to the UK as a key partner in our global nuclear energy portfolio. Partnering with these suppliers drives real economic benefits by employing local trades and creating job-conuclear new build projects in the UK, as well as supporting projects in Europe and internationally, obviously the US being one of those big markets, if I could just add to that being one of those big markets.
Speaker 1:You know, if I could just add to that with regards to Westinghouse, our listeners know that Mike Zerlo leads our controls team at Sentinel-1 Power Complex. 45 years nuclear engineer, heck of a guy knows the nuclear space. I refer to him as the nuclear godfather. He doesn't love it because he's so humble.
Speaker 2:I like the call of the godfather, like I don't know if we mentioned it, but so, uh, we mentioned on a previous episode. Well, we had some meetings with, you know, locally, with the university, you know, university of utah and leadership university utah and the director over their uh, nuclear program and we mentioned mike's name and he was very aware of mike and so, you know, just bolstering like oh yeah, yeah, kind of an og in. So you know, just bolstering like oh yeah, yeah, kind of an OG in the space, you know, and so I think Mike gets that title, absolutely gets that title, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the reason I bring Mike up is because, as we've been going down the road, you know folks know about the AP-1000. You know people paying attention to the nuclear game. They understand the AP-1000. They recognize it's the only licensed reactor in the US, but they also recognize it's a water hog. It is a major water consumer and so that presents a challenge in a climate like Utah where we have water scarcity issues, especially in the Pavan Valley.
Speaker 1:But what Mike has been sharing with me and this is a really good sign to get your headline you just shared about Westinghouse bringing on these new vendors, because Westinghouse is very focused on water efficiency. They understand that that original AP1000 technology and the way that was all designed is that is a weakness, that's an Achilles heel is how much water it needs, and so they've been working on engineering. You know improvements to it, to the design, to get that water consumption dramatically down. And Mike has shared a few ideas that you know behind the scenes are in motion and so you know hearing that and I would imagine maybe some of these companies are contributors to some of that new technology.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Okay. Well, we're talking about uk. I had one and I'm also I mean, we're both, like again, telepathically focused on nuclear. That's that's really on our front of our minds. I have this headline out of sustainability times and it says rolls royce's nuclear plan could light up three million us homes but put safety at risk, igniting explosive national controversy. And what's interesting here is Rolls-Royce now embarking on a pioneering initiative to establish the UK's first fleet of SMRs, promising to deliver significant strides in both sustainable energy and production. So Rolls-Roy royce, that is a new name in the smr and the nuclear game and not surprising. Um, I think it's exciting. I think rolls royce could bring a a legacy of technology, a legacy of advancement and and, uh, really uh, give everybody some interesting things to think about.
Speaker 2:Agreed. You know they've been huge in space, not only obviously for the known cars but their engines. It's an exciting addition into this market space, undoubtedly, yeah. So we'll see. Not that I want to verge away from nuclear, but I've got one. It is a close to the home thing here, but it does involve a group we've talked about a lot Fergo Energy. They just announced that they partnered up with Baker Hughes to develop 300 megawatts of geothermal power project at the Cape Station, utah, which we've talked about the energy profile down there, but this was specifically so. They've picked Baker Hughes to design, manufacture and deliver five 60-megawatt organic ranking cycle ORC units for phase two of its flagship Cape Station, interesting Near Milford, if anybody, if you're listeners of the show, that's where it is here in Utah. They're saying this collaboration cements Cape Station status as a world-class scalable model for clean round-the-clock power generation. Awesome.
Speaker 2:I'm so very excited to see that the guys at Fergo are doing so well and that they teamed up with them to do that article and this was in uh construct construction review. That I like is just just the recognition, uh about geothermal and geothermal but the possibilities of geothermal in utah which we've talked about endlessly and we're hoping to leverage at some point. Given our location uh, utah, they say, geothermal in utah, a burgeoning power hub they don't have any idea about what's coming. So Utah not only in the southwest region holds a vast geothermal potential, estimated over 10 gigawatts of untapped capacity. The mere 73 megawatts currently online is dwarfed by this figure. Furthermore, cape Station directly benefits from the DOE's Ford Research Hub nearby. They spent years validating the feasibility of EGS deployment in local geology.
Speaker 2:Meanwhile, licensing activity is accelerating. Blm has approved 22 geothermal drilling permits this year, doubling the pace from 2023, and is planning on applying a new 50,813 acre lease sale in April 2025 to April 2025. That must be wrong. Obviously we're past april 2025 to enable further exploration. So, uh, that would be inaccurate in this article, even though this is, uh, the dateline is today. So because obviously we've passed that. So I don't know what I ended up with. So, anyway, that's uh good to see that, uh, the announcement and the further progress just out of this there.
Speaker 1:So well, I think one of the takeaways I have from that is just underscoring the urgency. Right when we talk about headlines, I think I think the overarching idea that we're promoting is that it is an urgent and important situation. This whole, you know, operation Gigawatt plus plus, plus on a global scale. Everyone has their own Operation Gigawatt. Everyone you know agrees that. You know we've got to not only triple, quadruple, 10x power generation, but it's got to happen.
Speaker 1:Yesterday, and one of the other articles that I was reading that I thought was an incredible signal to that point was NextEra Energy Sparks National Debate with a plan to revive the Duane Arnold nuclear plant after the 2020 shutdown. And I actually hadn't heard of the Duane Arnold energy center in iowa before. So there's a new, a new project, um. It's poised for a potential revival as part of this broader national trend reconsidering, you know, the nuclear agenda and kind of taking those signals from, you know, the trump administration and and new incentives.
Speaker 1:Um, but this particular plant, the history of this plant is interesting because this is a 615 megawatt boiling water reactor and it was initially shut down in 2020 after 45 years of service, primarily due to economic decisions by its main customer, alliant Energy. But let's see, it was never fully dismantled. The reactor was defueled and the fuel was securely stored on site, but there was a bit in here about a storm damage. I was just oh. Yeah, the plant's closure was accelerated by, I think, five years earlier than planned by an unexpected derecho windstorm in August of 2020, which severely damaged the cooling towers. So that's kind of extra sketchy for me, like, okay, what goes into like repairing a damaged tower vintage like an old, old time reactor, and how desperate are we truly to go in and try and start, you know, doing repairs and start reviving old technology, versus just getting nurk to license the damn new technology and move forward in the 2025 vintage, like that to me, is a little perplexing.
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, and I don't know the answer to that. I this would be. We need to ask Mike and, like I, try to help us walk through that and why? Why don't you know? Help us understand that.
Speaker 1:And I imagine a a, you know, boiling water reactor. That's, you talk about the AP 1000 being a water hog. I'm just going to step into an assumption. I usually don't do that, but I can only imagine what the water consumption on a boiling water reactor would look like, with technology that's 45 years old, I bet it's grotesque.
Speaker 2:I'm going to research that Massive, I would imagine. I would imagine Well, and I diverged into geothermal, but I'll come back to nuclear. I probably should. I should have done this one first also. I'll keep going with this.
Speaker 2:So for me, uh, the group, uh, that uh, former governor rick perry is kind of leading up in texas, uh, they announced their collaboration with westinghouse for reactor licensing.
Speaker 2:Uh, this was actually a week and a half ago, so it's been again one of those things that we, you know, we're paying attention to but we haven't been able to talk about, which is great to see. I mean, this is very similar Group has a lot of very similar ideas about how to develop out, develop out power and infrastructure, and so I think, I think this is, this is going to be interesting to watch what, what Fermi, is doing down in Texas. But they, they announced that this, yeah, fermi, fermi, america, then the West Ham Electric Company, are collaborating to finalize the licensing and they want to do four AP1000 reactors at their Amarillo hyperscale campus in the US state of Texas. Wow, yeah, so, and so you've got you know, collaboration involves completing the combined operating licensing application, the COLA agreement, submitted to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission on June 17th, supporting the review process for approval. This came out though story about this in August. Just talking about they're marching down the path.
Speaker 1:Wow Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but a big commitment of four of those things. And that's if I'm going to do the math. I'm going to say that's four. That's about $70 billion give or take.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Just on that You're right Give or take. That's incredible. I hate to have hundreds of millions as a rounding error or a billion as a rounding error, but that's about how much we're talking here, just on the cost of those reactors alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Wow, wow, okay, uh, well, I, I just uh. I just looked up an estimated water use on that Dwayne Arnold plant. I'm curious roughly 7 million gallons per day when that's 2.6 billion gallons of water annually. So let's convert that to acre feet. Acre feet, yeah.
Speaker 2:That curve is converted to acre feet and see what we're dealing with. That is so much water, yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know that's look and you know. Standing up for AP1000s tells me you know they've got water. Standing up for AP1000s tells me they've got water. And so we're hoping and praying that Westinghouse has some really dramatic water efficiency solves in order to be deploying that kind of capacity.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. So did you see the conversion?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, it's actually not as bad as I thought. That's only 8,000 acre feet per year. Well, yeah, 21 acre feet per day. So okay, that's not 20. A lot of water in my mind, that's still a lot.
Speaker 1:Well, just to put it in perspective for you guys, for the listeners, looking at water modeling at Sentinel-1, 4.4 gigawatts of gas generation using today's next-gen combustion combined cycle turbines, combined with the Herzogs, the heat exchangers and the steam turbines 4.4 gigawatts we can produce for less than 2,000 acre feet of water. So that's kind of the 2025 standard in my mind. That's a very efficient water system. So 8,000 acre feet a year still, I mean that's four times the amount for a fraction of the capacity, a fraction of the nameplate capacity.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right. Well, again going with a theme here on nuclear. So also in Westinghouse News and we might have actually mentioned this in our conversations on an earlier episode, but we hadn't really talked in depth about this or at least just said, hey, here's what happened. Or at least just said hey, here's what happened. Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor, in fact, design was approved by the NRC for a new 40-year design certification. That's huge. Yes, and that was a couple weeks ago as well.
Speaker 1:Not surprising, but that's important.
Speaker 2:Not surprising. That's really important. It's incredibly important. So this is they say a valid AP 1000 design certification can play an important role in security and security. The separate site licenses uh, construction permits and operating license needs to build and operate these plants in the United States. So, uh, it basically further positions this reactor is the leading solution to meet the bold vision of the U SS to have 10 large-scale reactors under construction by 2030,. Dan Lippman, president of Westinghouse, says so again. Westinghouse making big moves, big, big moves, checking all the boxes, making sure they're going forward. Obviously, as Dan has said I mean, we've talked about it before their plans are to deploy 10 large-scale reactors, have them under construction by 2030. Four of them we just said okay in Texas and we know that there's a. We would love to look at that for our site as well, just because it is the functioning reactor and it is the available reactor and it's the one that can actually do the work right now, today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so, yeah. So listen, I mean I think that's really important, dave, what you're saying, because anyone who wants to contribute the voice of a naysayer and say, oh well, I don't know, man, it uses a lot of water and I don't know if that's going to look bad for the state or whatever lot of water and I don't know if that's going to look bad for the state or whatever I would just say check yourself and like, get in touch with the global, like what's actually happening. Ap1000 is a is. It's a dominant presence in the U S. It's going to be continued to roll out and if the state of Utah wants it, they should take it. But if they don't, there's other states that will, and you know to see four of them going into one site. You know, back east it's a big deal Like like why resist that? If we can solve the water situation, we should be embracing it and I think the state of Utah does embrace that generally.
Speaker 1:I think our legislators are absolutely open to it, absolutely open to it. You know, I was having a visit the other day with House Rep Carl Albrecht and Senator Darren Owens and we were talking about the AP1000. We're talking about the water issues. And you know, rep Albrecht, I think, knows more about nuclear than most legislators in the space and he shared a story about how his father back in the 80s worked down in Grand County on the uranium enrichment program and how he'd actually made a prediction that you know as nuclear was kind of being wound down in the US in the 80s, his father predicted that it would come back. He didn't know how long it would take, but he predicted that nuclear energy would come booming back. And Rep Albrecht has been really active and so has Senator Owens actually with open bill files, recent bill files, specifically kind of enhancing the legislative landscape around nuclear advancement in the state of Utah, landscape around nuclear advancement in the state of Utah. And you talk to these guys in legislation who have written bills, who are writing bills, and they get it.
Speaker 1:They understand that that AP-1000, what it represents is certainty, it's quantifiable metrics and if Utah is going to get out ahead of things you've got to be able to deploy with certainty. And if we're waiting around for the SMR and the micro reactor to happen, we could still be waiting eight years from now. We don't, there's no certainty, there's no guarantees NERC is going to do what has to be done and all the stars are going to align for those to be deployed. So from our perspective at Valley Forge and y'all have the right to argue or disagree but our programming plan is we're marching down the path with the AP1000. Our intent is to deploy that and if anything pops sooner, before we actually break ground and start constructing an AP1000, if, for example, mountains moved and we had access to some microreactors or SMRs earlier, then by God we'd shift gears and we'd go to that. I think Right. But for me and for the finance ability, the bank ability, I like leaning into predictability, leaning into the certainty of that.
Speaker 2:That's right, totally agree. Yeah, we've talked a lot about nuclear. We've talked a lot of well, that's almost all about nuclear and geothermal and one of the other, I think, overarching themes I'm seeing in the last couple, three weeks in headlines, and there's not one specific one. We can talk about a couple of them, but when you and I talked about this in various aspects, the growing outcry from different communities around the US regarding energy and data centers projects yeah, energy and data centers projects yeah, and, and, to varying degrees, some all the way from embracing them to out now just saying Nope, we don't want them here, and winning, yeah, and you know, you and I have talked about the complexity of that a lot. I mean, we, obviously we internally, we talk about this a lot, because you can't just come in and do a couple of these pieces and say, hey, thanks, thanks very much, we're going to move on. You have to have a I mean really to do this the right way. You've got to have a comprehensive solution so that it is and it does actually benefit the community. It's it, yeah, and and not just extract wealth and resources but actually contributes back to the, the community and also helps financially, not not, you know, not completely unsettled, but actually helps put money back and hopefully put money back in the pockets of people and but at the same time brings better. So you're seeing this and I'm seeing it headline after headline after headline after headline. You know all the way from like Fargo, where they have a massive debate going on, another place in Virginia where the community is actually currently celebrating because they defeated it, and the developers saying we're backing out, and so there's a lot of angst out there, and against the backdrop of energy prices, and so, as we talk about headlines, that's a lot of stuff going on right now and there's a lot of, as I think, and hopefully something we can help clarify there's a lot of misinformation but there's a lot of accurate information.
Speaker 2:I would say, yes, there is a reason for consumers to be. I would say, yes, there is a reason for consumers to be concerned about the spike in energy prices. But understand, a lot of that is tied to, broadly speaking, because most projects have been relying on the existing grid of which we talk about isn't built. They haven't been keeping up all of those things and those costs in order to build new production. New energy is expensive and that does get passed along to consumers, and so they are right to be wary, whereas what we see in our side, and why we're excited about the independent side of things, is that there's actually an opportunity to not only do what we want to do with private financing without having to distribute the costs to every consumer or ratepayer, but we see a whole different model, one that actually could produce lower energy costs in the future for consumers, for the household consumer, and actually have that be successful.
Speaker 2:But given the current structure of everything in the US, it doesn't seem feasible in most of these areas that are relying on an existing grid or an existing utility provider, to provide them 200, 300, 400 megawatts. So I would say that in general, I mean we can go into headlines, but that's what I'm seeing and I just think it's interesting to talk about because it's where we are right now and we're seeing the conversations. We watch them too. We're as concerned as everyone else. You've got to do this the right way by the communities of where you do this. Yeah, you have to do this with the community first in mind, the state in mind. What are you doing for the state? How are you building this out so that it supports the people and the state. Not just the profitability of this, but actually how does this work best for?
Speaker 1:everyone and the trajectory we're on of states having their own power generation that can sustain themselves. Energy sovereignty within each state is becoming a more valuable proposition these days. Because we're really getting into issues and I'm going to bring an article that perfectly drives the nail in the coffin on this point and when we talk about interstate transmission and we've spent over the years a hundred years and who knows how much money like developing this national grid that just so we can push electrons all over the grid, right. But what's happening to the pricing conversation is, is some of those many, maybe most of these interstate grid projects are unable to serve each jurisdiction equally. Over in North Dakota and you're trying to provide power to Ohio or something like that you have multi-jurisdictional legislation and initiatives and needs, so let's just talk about this.
Speaker 1:North Dakota. This is a great case in point and you know Rocky Mountain Power happens to be in the same boat. We've talked about Rocky Mountain Power divorcing from Pacific Corps. We've talked about Rocky Mountain Power divorcing from Pacific Corps. Pacific Corps serves the West. It's Washington, oregon, california, utah and others. Utah legislators are demanding Rocky Mountain Power divorce itself from Pacific Corps because of forcing Utah to accept higher rates on account of a few things, $30 billion of litigation. In Oregon, a West Coast, we call it a myopic commitment to renewables at the expense of coal-fired, you know, like the all of the above. And so there's, there's these, these ideological, there's ideological dissonance amongst the states and when we're all interconnected and depending on each other, that's a real problem.
Speaker 1:So in North Dakota regulators join a complaint against grid operator for egregious transmission planning, transmission planning in new plan, in planning new transmission infrastructure. The complaint alleges MISO used flawed metrics that would cause North Dakotans to pay higher energy costs to finance other states clean energy goals, as I was just explaining here the problem with Pacific Corps. So I just want to share the first paragraph or two coming out of Bismarck. Want to share the first paragraph or two Coming out of Bismarck.
Speaker 1:The North Dakota Public Service Commission has joined a handful of states in filing a complaint to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, ferc, against the Mid-Continent Independent System Operator, regional grid operator known as MISO. That serves much of the Midwest. The complaint filed on July 30th this year claims under MISO's $22 billion transmission plan called Tranche 2.1 were planned using skewed metrics that would cause state residents to unjustly pay higher energy costs to the benefit of other states, namely their renewable energy goals, objectives North Dakota does not share. Okay, this is a national situation. It's unfolding in real time. Our legislators in Utah are saying how do we seize our energy sovereignty? How can we breaker ourselves off of this interstate grid so that we can avoid some of this stuff? And so these are serious questions that everyone's trying to answer right now serious questions that everyone's trying to answer right now.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I mean, I don't remember exactly where it was from, but to dovetail into what you're saying, I thought it was intriguing. They took it, whoever it was, and hopefully I can find it they did a deep look at Oregon and Washington because they made all these commitments to do renewable. Well, okay, they're lagging. They're like lagging behind the entire country, including states that you wouldn't think were renewable renewable centric. So, like in iowa, maybe they were kicking their butt and bringing renewable online faster yeah so here, they wanted to do this.
Speaker 2:They wanted to bring renewable online and they've been for all kinds of reasons, some of it being interconnect and utility, some of the existing things up there. They've had all kinds of problems. So, to underscore your point, they wanted to do these things and yet they are actually the worst in the country at performing and actually getting some of these things done. So not only might there be an ideological difference on how to do this, but they're not even doing as well as some of the other states that you wouldn't necessarily think were kind of renewable-centric states. They're doing a better job getting renewable online faster where renewable makes sense for them, where you in iowa, texas, where you have, you need wind, you need some of these things in order to power power. Well, I mean, yeah, exactly, there are, there are good reasons to have and they're absolutely good solutions in their space, but they're doing a better job and so it was.
Speaker 2:It was interesting. Look at the some some would say catastrophic failure of solving this and then, if you, in a minute, you come and you come back into why it impacts, why all that kind of decision making at a state level impacts utilities like pacific core and then ultimately, like rocky mountain, rocky mountain, who's just trying to do these things and doesn't want to be saddled with the cost. Doesn't want the Utah payer to be saddled with a cost of having to deal with liabilities because they didn't do certain things at the parent company level. It's a mess. Yeah, it's a mess.
Speaker 1:Well, and then you know, I guess part of the good news for this, dave, is that, as legislators and policymakers grapple for answers and solutions, I think the good news is is that, as we shift into the privatization and the uncoupling of this whole centralized grid situation situation, as we move into a more decentralized mentality and a sincere interest in seizing energy sovereignty, new solutions are available, new solutions are cropping up.
Speaker 1:One major solution that we've presented and that we've designed into the Valley Forge project is energy storage. If you've got a major generation resource and you couple it with major utility scale energy storage, you can solve a lot of these problems around transmission. Yes, like having the backup capacity, and that helps us not be dependent on LA Power and Light and some of these other companies that Utah's been hogtied to for decades, and so that's a technological advancement. That it's not cheap but I mean $22 billion on a new transmission project. That's not cheap either. And finding the silver linings in this is that everyone's feeling enough road rash, so to speak, that everyone's open to solutions like new things, open to doing things that could enhance the grid, that could enhance our sovereignty, that could just do it in a different way that's never been done before. That's important.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, and I actually it's interesting, interesting all of these things and connection everything else. So I found the article and and actually what you're saying, this is great. I mean, this is just to talk and get into the weeds of some of these really meaty issues. Uh, it was actually from a few months ago, so this is actually. It was done by the oregon opb, the oregon public broadcasting association, and said the headline was how the pacific northwest dream of green energy fell apart. Oh, there you go. So Oregon and Washington, and so this is all related to what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:Oregon and Washington passed aggressive goals to decarbonize their power supply, but left it to Bonneville Power Administration, which is the federal administration, to build the transmission lines needed for wind and solar. The agency hasn't delivered. So you know it's promised. Trump has issued executive orders, so I'll kind of skim through this here. He's issued executive orders. During his and this is back in February, his first week in office Oregon Kotech said that the governor had been leading the way for years on courageous state policies about climate change, along with neighboring Washington, oregon. It's going to take all of us, but blah, blah, blah, blah. And then this is where the article picks up, but the reality is not nearly as inspiring as Kotech made it sound.
Speaker 2:For all their progressive claims, oregon and Washington trail nearly all other states in adding new sources of renewable energy. Iowa, a Republican-led state with roughly the same population usable volume of wind as Oregon, has built enough wind farms to generate three times as much wind power. Holy moly, that's surprising. What the North looks back is a bottleneck Oregon and Washington leaders paid little attention to when they set out to go 100% green, and then this was an act within an investigation by a Republican Oregon PB. The region lacks the wiring to deliver new sources of renewable energy to people's homes, and little has been done to change that. Northwest leaders left it to the federal agency known as the Bonneville Power Administration to arrange badly needed upgrades to an electrical grid that's nearly a century old in places. Bonneville, under a setup that is unique to the Northwest, owns most of the power lines needed to carry green power from Regents, sunny and Windy High Desert to its major population centers. Bonneville has no state or local representation within its federally appointed bureaucracy and, by statute, operates as a self-funded business. The agency decides which energy projects can hook up based on whether its infrastructure can handle the extra load and it decides how quickly that infrastructure gets expanded. Its glacial pace has delayed wind and solar projects under Democratic and Republican presidents alike. Of the 469 renewable projects that applied to connect to Bonneville's grid since 2015, only one one reached approval.
Speaker 2:So going, I think, underscoring like the complexity of this, but it rather what it really does for me. Um, and we've talked about this a lot and we will continue to trumpet the successes of utah, uh, the utah establishment, as far as you know the Utah establishment, as far as you know the political establishment, they have done everything they can to remove all of these obstacles, to remove and actually make it possible, and are starting to you know, attack, unless the right word the challenges of like yes, we need new transmission In order to solve any of this, you have to have transmission, and because we know, because transmission projects typically take 10 to 15 years and that's just too damn slow to get some some things done, and so I love the fact that Utah is like recognize the whole, like looked at the entire playing field and said where's our big problems? Let's fix those things so that it will allow private industry, existing utilities, all of these things to come together to succeed, to make this really the best place to live, to do business, to build new power generation and all those things, and just underscores it. And I just think it was interesting that here you have a part of the country that has been so hell bent on solving a problem and didn't actually solve the problem and didn't like realize like well, okay, that's, that's neat, we want all these things, but you've got to solve transmission.
Speaker 2:And I would imagine, knowing that, I'm sure it was like okay, we're going to get delayed here, and didn't do anything from the state level to push that forward. I mean there are two large states. They could have gone to the federal government at any time Any administration said, look, help us out here, help. And any time any administration said, look, help us out here, help us deal with this because we need to solve this. And obviously they didn't do that, at least as far as it's been reported. So here we have all these problems and you have states like in the middle, like Iowa, just doing a better job solving, saying, oh well, I'm actually.
Speaker 1:I'm actually. I have my fingers on my throat, I'm just checking my pulse because my blood pressure is really high at the moment. Throat, I'm just checking my pulse because my blood pressure is really high at the moment and I look at the Washington, oregon and I'm going to just throw California in there because they deserve it. But those three states and the catastrophic result of decades of policymakers drinking the John Kerry, al Gore Kool-Aid and then trying to force these initiatives without a plan and too fast and too soon, and without the backups and lacking the pragmatism, I mean, do you have empathy for those states? I don't. I don't. Zero empathy. You?
Speaker 2:want me to spike the blood pressure even more? Yes, okay, let me give you some numbers. I don't, I don't Zero. You want me to spike the blood pressure even more? Yes, okay, let me give you some numbers. Buy the numbers. Oh, I love it. We're talking about renewable energy, folks. We're not talking about coal. We're not talking about gas. We're talking about renewable sources. Who's doing a better job actually getting these things online? Kansas 452% growth. Nebraska 411% growth. By the way, this is when you talk about growth you're talking about economic and renewable oh, renewable growth Okay.
Speaker 2:Right. So for this article, just giving you the top 10 of who actually better bring in renewables online. Okay, so I'll just so it goes from. So the top 10 go from 452% down to about 185%. So I'll just read them in order of like the most of the so Kansas, nebraska, new Mexico, rhode Island, texas, oklahoma, utah, iowa, illinois, indiana, missouri, north Dakota, colorado, nevada, ohio, florida, that's I mean, that's 15. Wow, those are all. So those are the states right now. Now, they're not all. They're all red states, but they're, but there's a lot of, there's a lot of red in there, predominantly. Yeah, and and so that, what does that tell you? That tells you the good policy and smart policy about business and how you do these things is actually leading to better results and getting renewables online, yeah, which we agree, is a good thing.
Speaker 1:It's a good thing to augment the energy mix, and if you couple it with storage, it makes so much good sense. It's just you can't put all the eggs in that basket.
Speaker 2:No California to your number is at 30. Okay, so of the worst states to get renewables online, they've actually Washington, louisiana, maine, oregon, new Hampshire, arkansas, idaho, tennessee, connecticut, alabama, Montana, new York, various things. These are the states that have seen terrible renewable growth. Some of that's probably geography, some of it's not, but you just look at this and you're like I, I see a pattern in this, and that is is that the States that that worked with businesses and private industry better to make these things happen actually got renewable online faster. That's what I see. Yeah, I, but that's you know, and I'm sure there are different ways to look at this the numbers don't lie.
Speaker 1:The numbers don't lie.
Speaker 2:No, you know, and it's sort of like, if you want renewable success, then maybe you're your own worst enemy, maybe your state's its own worst enemy in getting some of these things online, because, again, I wouldn't expect. I mean, kansas obviously is good for winning things, but I wouldn't expect Kansas to be leading the pack.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, and again. I also I expect Kansas. Kansas, because I haven't paid much attention to what the legislative environment is in Kansas.
Speaker 2:I don't know yeah and I know California's a giant economy and so to move the needle in that giant economy probably harder to do than a state the size of Kansas. But still no, I think they're the opposite.
Speaker 1:I mean the California legislator killed SunEdison. And we covered that last year california could have less nation and solar and it killed it with stupid policies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they killed him because they threw it. It was. It was a dumb move. I mean, here's a, here's a, a state that is, you think, would be all about solar and given the amount of I don't sun in california, sunny california, you would think that you would do everything you could do stand up that industry. Yet they gave way. Actually, it is argued by some of the utilities who didn't like it.
Speaker 1:Look, and if you have the largest economy in the nation, like California has historically, that's changing. But if you've got that, how are you not leveraging that industry? How are you not leveraging industry to subsidize storage and generation and all the things? How does that even work? Like is it just a free-for-all of business to just make all the money and not help the community? That seems like what the policy is doing. It does Well. That's why companies like Elon Musk are taking it out of California to Texas.
Speaker 2:That's right. It's because of that nonsense. Well, and Texas is fifth on this list that I just said. So Texas, obviously a large state, obviously a huge economy, big economy and growing. They grew 320% in renewal.
Speaker 1:And they're going to go up with Stargate and have all the stuff going on in Texas. I mean, texas is exploding, utah is about to explode. You all know what's happening in Utah.
Speaker 2:Yes, as we said, you need smart policy, you need all of those things. You also need an all-of-the-above approach, because not one thing is going to get it done. Yeah, not right now. In order to build this grid out and build the infrastructure needed, we've got to be able to leverage all of our natural resources in a way that's smart and reasonable and quick. No-transcript your mouth is. Then why aren't you doing it? Why aren't you get? Okay, you believe in renewable washington oregon? Great, then how come you haven't solved that problem? Yeah, I don't care. Okay, bonneville will then figure out a way to work, or work with the feds, to figure out how to, how to, how to deal with Bonneville. To say Bonneville, get off your asses and figure this out. Totally, I didn't, I don't. Maybe this has happened behind the scenes, but they obviously didn't solve it. They didn't solve the one big thing that could have helped them. Actually. Oh, you know, maybe make good on some of these renewable promises. And so there you go. There's, there's my soapbox.
Speaker 1:Hey, listen guys, we're. We're always coming with fire and truth and integrity. You can expect that from the frontier line and Dave and I are delivering it. We hope you got as much out of as we did today. It was nice to get all this off my chest.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, okay, good, we'll go back to doing what we do.
Speaker 1:And we are at the end of the hour here, so thanks for joining us, guys.
