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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
President & CEO of Edison Electric Institute Drew Maloney Pleads with Congress for Regulatory Reform, California's Dumpster Fire Energy Policies, Gensler In the Headlines
Welcome back to the show guys. Dave, how are you today?
Speaker 2:Very good, good to be back, good to be with you, wayne, it feels like almost every show.
Speaker 1:I feel like I want to say we're coming in hot because it feels like almost every show, we are actually coming in hot with new headlines and crazy shit to talk about, and today is no exception. Like you know the planning that goes into these, these episodes. You guys and you, you're all friends out there and so we can be. We can be transparent and candid with you guys. Dave and I put a lot of homework into this. If you haven't already started to learn, you know over two, two, you know C seasons here we're coming up on I don't know. I think we're over 20 episodes on season two. We put a lot of homework into this stuff and it's so fun to sort through all of the information. There's so much information coming at us like a fire hose on a daily basis and Dave and I are sitting here this morning and we're just kind of going through a dozen or more headlines and Dave rips this one out and I'm like oh my God, let's lead with this.
Speaker 1:dave, I'm gonna let you kick it off, because this is this is a phenomenal, a phenomenal story to cover today.
Speaker 2:uh, you know, and this is a thank you, wayne and this is a big bill and so I'm gonna cover, I'm gonna talk about parts of it. I know there are probably parts that we will not get to because there are a lot of implications in this bill, but it it. So we'll just kind of start and go with it. This is California's bill AB 825, just passed this past Saturday, when we're recording this. Well, actually it was a data center law signed in 24. I think it finally finally ratified it and and did some things this last weekend. And basically what it does is it sets some standards for what California is going to do, both in the state, and then sets the stage for how they want to see an interconnected grid of. This is how states or these regional players sell power back and forth. So it sets the table for that. So far, I think it's a disaster in the making, so I think we'll dive into that as if California's legislative framework couldn't already be a disaster.
Speaker 1:Legislative framework couldn't already be a disaster that you have these myopic people that continue to just exaggerate the disaster.
Speaker 2:Continue.
Speaker 2:Uh, yes, so you know. It's so, abi. So it's so. It's the it's. It's part of the pathways, what they're called the pathways initiative. So it's designed to enable a voluntary west wide regional electricity market. Okay, um, sponsored by uh cody petri norris, senator josh becker, speaker robert rivas. It has support from environmental groups, business and consumer advocates, labor, etc.
Speaker 2:Uh, key provisions uh, authorizes a regional market organization. It allows, but does not mandate California's ISO, the independent system operator and transmission owners in California to participate in energy markets governed by an independent regional organization, subject to specified requirements. It preserves California's control over critical policymaking functions things like transmission planning, procurement, regulatory oversight, creates oversight and government safeguards annual legislative oversight. It enables extended day ahead market uh plus better regional coordination. So what is this? What that means is this is part of a push to move beyond purely imbalance. So, uh, for example, if it's super hot in utah and we need to pull some power from somewhere in the afternoon, you get these imbalances and that's what we talk about, and then so they got to pull that. So this is this is a market that would go ahead that day ahead to maybe predict some of that stuff. You take real time markets and moving more towards forward markets day ahead across States.
Speaker 2:So dispatch of energy is more efficient the idea of being cost effective and cleaner. The idea of cost effective and cleaner, the idea being also that pooling generation, storage demand over a larger footprint, you would reduce duplication, inefficiencies and grid stress. Their expected benefits, they say, are reduced costs for rate payers, reduced greenhouse gas emissions by enabling cleaner, more efficient dispatch across the broader western grid. Improve reliability, less risk of blackouts, better resilience since the region shares capacity, resources and flexibility. Some of the limitations already, kind of expected volunteer participation.
Speaker 2:There's going to be requirements before joining. There are governance, technical policy alignment and regulatory requirements and that's the sticking point I'm going to tell you. It's going to be a sticking point for Utah probably, and it should be. That must be satisfied before California or other entities can fully join or participate in certain parts of the regional market. And then California is going to retain policy control, even as it shares markets more broadly. So not awesome if you're not California. So you know they're saying it's important because it's going to move the West towards regionalization of electricity markets, which is seen by many and who decided that regionalization of electricity markets was a good idea in the first place?
Speaker 2:Well, this is, this, is this, is that's exactly right. This is where it gets into. You know, there's, there's, there are the soundbites, what it sounds like, and then what it actually is going to do in reality. Yeah, so, and then it's going to create new market structures. So that's what it's attempting to do. Oh, and I should mention that it also includes it sets that California, the data centers in california, have to be have to operate on 100 renewable energy by 2030.
Speaker 2:Uh, that's awesome I, I don't even, I don't even know what to say about the physics? It's not. It's not possible, it's not going to happen.
Speaker 1:No base, no base. And you, yeah, and you better, and you better hope and pray to god that it's not possible, it's not going to happen. No base load, no base load. And you better hope and pray to God that groups like Westinghouse have a quantum leap in utility-scale storage overnight, like an overnight quantum leap, with maybe a trillion dollars of capacity to meet that demand, because there is no lithium, there is no flywheel. That's going to come close to what you're talking about that's right.
Speaker 2:So you know it sounds it's a really good catchy policy target uh but, let's break that down, shall we?
Speaker 2:yes, let's do that let's, let's break that down. So let's, let's first one intermittency and base load Okay. Wind and solar Variable okay. They're not dispatchable, okay. So without massive Long duration storage which is still, by the way, largely uncommercialized at scale you can't, and I repeat, you Cannot sustain 24 7 hyperscale data center load Without other means. It's impossible. No hyperscaler was going to do it. They can't do it. Okay. So you'll get stranded compute or forced curtailment period.
Speaker 1:And, on that note, if you're focusing on California-only data centers and this whole emissions protocol, that eliminates all the diesel backup gens, if it's, if it's if it has to be 100 percent renewables, you're not using diesel gen sets, like all of the majors are currently. So now what?
Speaker 2:right? Or is there an asterisk saying, oh well, you're good if this or you're good if this, or you don't know? Haven't dug into it that far, but on its surface it's just, it doesn't work. You don't have these things that exist, and by setting the deadline of 2030, if you've listened to us over the last two seasons, you know we've talked about how fragile our grid is. Part of the fragility is that we don't have the distribution capabilities. We don't have that infrastructure. It's neat to say, oh, we're all tied. Yes, we're tied. There are lines that are running and we have new lines being built, but they're not enough. They were never built for AI load, and so to be able to dispatch across an entire region right now with the current grid is it's nearly. I mean, I'd say it's impossible. Some would probably maybe disagree with me. You can move stuff around, but given how much we need to grow in the coming five or 10 years, the infrastructure doesn't exist and to say you can build this by 2030 or else is just a non-starter.
Speaker 1:Here's what it feels like to me, If I just if I just sum it up in my own layman's terms we're going to create stupid legislation to pigeonhole ourselves into renewables only within a totally unrealistic timeframe, and then we're going to convince all the surrounding states to support us when we fuck this whole thing up and we have rolling blackouts that affect our constituents regularly. We're going to pull from utah to back this up. We're going to pull from wyoming and idaho and their more resilient power generation modalities and resources. That's what this is a california self-serving. It's more californ. It's more of what the IPP has done in Utah.
Speaker 2:Exactly what the IPP has done.
Speaker 1:You take the water resources, you create all this new emissions in our state, you give us a pittance for jobs and you take all the energy. It's horse shit and it's not going to fly. I think this, dave. This is why our legislators and friends pardon the colorful language today. I'm usually not this fiery, but I just love California for this. I love it and I can hardly control my language when we get fired up here. But this is precisely why our legislators are so determined to help somehow some way establish sovereignty for Utah Energy sovereignty, so we don't continue to have the tail wagging the dog on power issues and these myopic politicians in California that have no clue what they're doing when it comes to energy.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more. How about that? And I appreciate the colorful language because it's it's called for. Ok, california, make the hard decisions. Yes, make the hard decisions. Yes, you want to grow. You need to do this. Guess what you are actually going to have to add some basal power and, even though your population make, make the case to the state of California as to why you need to do this. Because right now, what you're trying to do is you're trying to solve the problem in California using everybody else's power or excess power.
Speaker 2:Or if Utah builds out a really good base load power situation with gas, which we have, and these other kinds of things, and we happen to have some solar, you're saying, okay, well, we'll take that extra. We're like, no, no, that extra should be for growth here in Utah, you made the decision not to build the right infrastructure because it was politically expedient or whatever, instead of saying, look, we get it. There is a natural move to renewables. I think most people in this entire space, generally speaking, see the benefits eventually of renewables. However, we've got to get there and we've got to get to nuclear. We have to get to a robust geothermal and hydro and even solar. That is that is that is that is better. But you can't get there if you don't have certain things, because the grid can't handle it. You've got to have base, you've got to have basal power and you've got to have storage, and so you, you shut down the diablo canyon prematurely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, you bankrupted sonEdison unnecessarily.
Speaker 2:Unnecessarily.
Speaker 1:Over greed and self-service self-interest Right.
Speaker 2:Which, oh, by the way, in this bill, if I read this correctly, they've zeroed out the line where they were going to basically underwrite a program in California that's been widely successful and this is creating they've created a virtual power plant. So basically, this is you put solar on your roof, we're going to help subsidize, you know, solar and batteries so that you have battery storage and that at certain times when we need to balance the grid, when we need extra power, we'll call it on out of these batteries. Owners get solar, they get less expensive power and, in exchange, part of their battery capacity can get used. Well, it's been so successful. They've had almost a gigawatt being used helping get through some of these bumps, and they zeroed that program out.
Speaker 2:I don't understand why. I don't get it. It makes no sense. They've banned new gas, They've blocked nuclear SMRs or any talk of SMRs Gosh, While the whole time everything's exploding and they can't get power from other states fast enough. So then you've got their transmission issues right. They're like okay. So how are you going to build lines across the desert and mountains? Um, they're like okay. So how are you going to build lines across the desert and mountains? Yeah, last I checked it that that has been a politically toxic um discussion in california. Right, how are you going to do more?
Speaker 2:the environmentalists, they don't want whatever, whatever reason it is, how are you going to do that? How are you going to build more, more, even if you want to get this done? How are you going to do that? You're not, um, well, hydropower constrained by environmental lawsuits, yet they, they still treat it as if it's a well, we've got hydropower. No, you don't. Yeah, you, you you're mired in lawsuits with hydropower, and so you can't just say, oh, we have hydropower. You don't right, you don't, at least not, not, not as far as a growth curve is concerned. And then you haven't owned up, california this is me talking to you, california you haven't owned up to the fact that AI, evs, electrification, push loads far beyond what intermittent renewables can cover. Same state who said, no, no, we want all of our EVs to be like where do you think that power is coming?
Speaker 1:from. We laughed about this in season one. These, these same fools that are masquerading as politicians and policymakers in California fools is what they are. Uh, making these laws around the, the, the EV mandate by when did they say 2027? Or some something crazy? By when did they say 2027 or something crazy? And then they're forced to roll it all back when they flop hard, because it's impossible, they have to run themselves into a wall and hit the wall and fail because they don't have the foresight or the situational awareness to think things through for the future. It's really, it's quite a scary and sad thing for the state of California, you know. And and all the talk of recession, my God, can you imagine if California actually seceded and became its own island? I mean, it would be a third world country in months. It's barreling in that direction. But but based on that leadership, months is all it would be before it's third world. You know, we're sure they're trying to be Mexico, they're trying to be, they're trying to be Afghanistan is what they're trying.
Speaker 2:I might. I might disagree there, but I think I think they would. I think they would they would, they think they would go there. I mean, I just I think they would go there. I think they would be like, okay, you're the world's I mean here to your point, the recession. If you're the world's sixth largest economy, if they stop postponing the hard decisions, okay, and they actually, you know, they talk about 100% renewable, fine, but they won't build nuclear, they won't approve new gas, they won't push transmission through their own backyards.
Speaker 2:If they did that, you talk about reset. I mean, then you're, then you're talking about building abundance, then you're talking about setting the foundation Like we are here in Utah for a more robust economy. Because you're preparing for the future, because you're making hard decisions You're right, they're not popular decisions, I get it. However, you got to do this. This is what true leadership. Leadership is doing what's right by the community, by the state, in the face of overwhelming opposition, because you know, because you can see the whole chessboard, that that's what has to happen in order to keep, keep ahead and if you want, to yeah, if you want, if you want, if you want california to be able to compete in the future, it's got to have the power bar none, period, end of story.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's just just the way it is. And how do you solve that? You're not so you're. You're trying to solve this by making it everyone else's, all the other states, problems. Yeah, and that's what? So it doesn't have to be your problem anymore. You're like okay, well now, now we're going to control this. Yeah, we're going to control, basically, this coalition. We're going to have all the say. We're going to make every, all these other smaller states do what we want to do, and then we don't have to solve the problem. Yeah, and then we get to do it under the umbrella, like, oh see, we're renewable bullshit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you, you guys, you guys talked, I mean they talked green. For a long time. They've been taking, they haven't, you know, they've been taking 1.8 gigawatts from the coal-fired plant in California for a long time. They're powering, they're getting. The energy they're getting is not all renewable, it's not green. They're getting whatever they can get. That's right, because guess what? The demands require it. And so do you want to stay ahead? Do you want to move into the future, move the state in the future, or do you just want to continue to slide backwards? Because that's what's happening? There you go. There's my soapbox.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for that, and thank you for that, and maybe that's a good transition to the next headline, because it was hot. Are we done with this yet? No, hey, we could talk about this all day long. And Are we done with this yet? No, hey, we could talk about this all day long. And I hope you guys in California are listening to this and you're taking notes and guess what? Guess what? Who am I? I'm nobody. It's just a humble opinion. So you know, not for nothing. You know, who are we to tell you what to do? We're just little old hillbillies in Utah, and what do we know?
Speaker 2:What do we know? Well, I'm going to let him say we know a couple of things and we, you know we do. Actually, I'm going to say, yeah, but you're right, we, you know we might not be. Yeah, yeah, what do we know out here? Well, I know that you, I've been watching the, the slow moving cluster uh that was the ev market and all of the talk about the ev market.
Speaker 2:Uh, and again, I say that as a test loader okay, I love my car. Yeah, I do, yeah, um, I get it, however, to say you're going to mandate it and you understand, it's just like, like just the availability of, I mean just you start to understand how silly that actually was and what the infrastructure that was going to take. No one thought it through. Yeah, no one even even thought like, hey, you know, is this even possible? No, it wasn't. So, again, this is what I see. This is just a continuation of that kind of thinking of like it's magical being thinking it's like, oh, we're just going to wish it into existence. And then it's like, well, yeah, you actually have physics and you actually have energy and you actually have things at play here. Where, again, two words baseload power, yeah, okay, and baseload being one word, I'm assuming.
Speaker 2:I see it split, so maybe it's three words, but my point being it's that you have to solve that. Yeah, solve that, yeah, you have to solve that. And your unwillingness to solve that and hamstring pg&e and your other providers from building any new, any new uh capacity. It's, it's a problem of your own making and I don't think it should be the solution. It doesn't. It shouldn't be utah's problem to solve. Yeah, it shouldn't be nevada or wyoming or new mexico or arizona or oregon or washington. It shouldn't be the other states that has to come in and solve your problem for you. Figure out how to solve your own problems at home.
Speaker 1:Well, and I guess that's the perfect segue to express my gratitude for Utah legislators. We do this almost every show. You know Governor Cox and our entire legislative body bipartisan demanding rocky mountain power divorce itself from pacific core. So we're not sucked into all that shit that they want to promote on the west coast and have us constantly solving their problems. Our legislators understand it. They've built the framework. They're saying look, we're developing utah's energy sovereignty. We're going to be, we're going to be building power in Utah and transmission in Utah for Utah, so Utah can grow and let's figure out how to breaker ourselves off of everyone around us so that we're not just providing a giant backup battery to California and their utopian fantasies. So I really am proud of our legislators. I feel a sense of security knowing that our legislators are doing their best to protect Utahns from that.
Speaker 2:We want to move in a certain direction, but we can't get there overnight and to come out and say, oh no, we're setting the hugest target ever and we're going to get there. Okay, they're more like okay, how do we actually get there? How do we actually support private industry or public utility? How do we help create the ecosystem that will allow this to work, allow the free market to do what the free market does and solve these problems in meaningful ways, so that we can solve problems for today and tomorrow and for the next 20 years? Understanding where all of this is going I mean, that's the other thing of this whole.
Speaker 2:California thing is like have you not paid attention to how much, how many data centers are going to need to be built? How many? How much power is going to have to be built? I mean, I would imagine California, of all the places, is like well, yeah, we're, you know Silicon Valley. Well, like, this is where all these companies are. It's my granted, they can have a data center anywhere. But you know, I, it, it, just it, just a I don't know. I I think a lack of political will in california, they to do with right, but there you go and I I finally found, by the way, I finally found the story.
Speaker 2:So it's it's adjacent to this and that's that one where they zeroed out this funding. So it was 12, it was so they were facing. So this was they gutted the demand side, grid support and distributed electric electricity backup assets programs, and that was the one that had provided almost a gigawatt of power. And I'm reading this going okay, you guys are renewables, you, you want renewables, but you just gutted the program. That's actually renewables. Like what in the hell are you thinking like of all the things I thought they would save? That would be one of them. Like this act, it's okay, it's solar on people's homes, it's it's batteries and their things. It makes a lot of sense. Why? Sounds political to me? Sounds like totally and and it's like so that's political sounds corrupt to me it does.
Speaker 2:Does it sounds really corrupt? Because if you can't even support your own renewable initiatives that are actually working, then you want to talk about renewables at large. I'm missing something. Apparently Somebody needs to educate me. Because you're right, wayne, it sounds dirty, it just sounds dirty, period, that's all. So there you go, there you go. That's all. So there you go, there you go, that's our okay, moving on.
Speaker 1:Gensler made news recently. Gensler did make news and that was a really exciting headline. You know we love Gensler. We've highlighted them. We've had Sean Reichert out to Salt Lake with his team and you know Sean was on the show in season one. You know, amazing, amazing, leader in critical facilities and master planning. And does you know urban design and development of communities and spaces that are in the I'm not going to say cities of the future, although you know we did touch on the fact that gensler, you, you know the UK office at Gensler was awarded a contract to do design work on Neom the line. But this new headline this week, this was an exciting one, Dave. What do we got?
Speaker 2:It was really exciting. And it was exciting for me, I think, for us, on a couple of reasons. One, it's great to see what Gensler is doing. One, it's great to see what Gensler is doing. Two, you know we've talked about the need, especially here in Utah being an arid, dry, high desert kind of region where we're building, the need for water conservation or smart water management is absolutely critical. And so when you start to conceive of that and building, you know greenery or building things to sustain in the future in an, in an uh, in an arid or a desert kind of climate, you need groups that have deep expertise and are willing to do that and uh, this underscores that. And and then? So, gensler, the headline is gensler is designing a forested district as a beacon for the rebirth of Baghdad. So, and the visuals that they've released are stunning, it's a, it's a, it's a visually, it is a design. So it will be set within an exclusive forest with 1 million trees.
Speaker 2:Wow, named Baghdad Sustainable Forest, the master plan is conceptualized by the studio as an Ecological and urban district per Iraq's Capital city, encompassing a 10 million Square meter forested site. Wow. So, 1 million, give or take, 1 million yards square Yards, a square Feet. Yes, gensler. So, according to Genslerhdad, sustainable forest replaces a former military campsite that has been holding more than 45 million tons of waste.
Speaker 2:Is being created for the developer, uh m can it? I believe? Uh. It will include landmark towers alongside residential, retail and commercial spaces surrounded by parks, green corridors and 1. Landmark towers will feature in the developments. Baghdad, and I quote Baghdad's sustainable forest, reimagines over 10 million square meters of neglected land as a new ecological and urban district, with forests, parks and green corridors forming the backbone of its design, said Gensler's global director of cities, ian Mulcahy. Wow, the vision is to restore the land, create thriving mixed-use villages and position Baghdad as both a catalyst for local regeneration and a global model for urban resilience. He told the Zine, the project will become a beacon for the rebirth of one of the most ancient cities in the world, added senior associate Glenn Wilson. The development will be planted again with more than one million trees, and then they're looking at about a million and a half square meters of retail and commercial infrastructure to serve as hubs for education, leisure and business.
Speaker 1:Wow, so I was just doing the math here on. You know what is how many square meters in an acre, like what are we talking about? From an acreage perspective we're talking about a million square meters is 247 acres, so that gives you a sense of the scope. That's. That's a big, big area to be planting all of those trees, and and then you you stated 1.5 million square meters. So you know you're pushing over 300 acres of development and forest. That's incredible.
Speaker 2:Yes, and so you know when, when we read this, we're very excited to have the opportunity to work with an amazing group of people and company who are doing projects and have been engaged on projects like this. These are the people at at the cutting edge of doing the best kinds of master planning and design on earth, on earth, on earth, and you know, we get to bring that intelligence, that wisdom, that expertise to Utah and to help you know, see our vision and bring our vision into reality and working with them to obviously leverage all of this.
Speaker 2:This just you know, formidable expertise on how you do this and how you do this right.
Speaker 1:You know and Vedian reached out. Vedian Mishra is one of the one of the team leads at Gensler for Valley Forge and he reached out just a couple weeks ago requesting permission to share some of the renderings that Gensler's done on Valley Forge data center campus. I think that he was referring to a project in the Middle East also. So you know, obviously we're happy to share that, we're happy to see, like you say, gensler I mean it's one thing to say the largest architecture firm in the world. It's a whole nother thing to just illuminate what that really means when you're talking about projects like the line and in Baghdad and the Middle East and all the biggest projects in the US, the authority in architectural design, master planning, you know, platinum, gold, silver, leed certifications, net zero designs, urban efficiencies I mean they're just an incredible group of people. We're so, so happy to be working with Gensler. So, gensler, keep it up out there. We'd love seeing the headlines.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. One other uh that caught my attention, um, and and this has been we see some of this discussion going on, obviously. Well, obviously, if you listen to us, we've talked a lot about nuclear and the future of nuclear, uh, not only here in utah, but in the world, and where things are. Uh, the energy secretary, uh, chris wright, uh, actually had some interesting comments uh, this week. Uh and this is a story that I pulled out of bloomberg news uh, fusion energy could deliver power in eight years. Doe chief says wow, um, and I go on harnessing fusion energy for electricity is possible in the next decade.
Speaker 2:Us Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Bloomberg Television quote I believe we will know the commercial pathway to fusion during the Trump administration end. Quote, echoing comments he's made previously. And then quote commercial electricity from fusion energy could be as fast as eight years, and I'd be very surprised if it's more than 15. Wow, and for everybody out there, fusion energy energy which powers the sun and the stars has potential to produce abundant carbon-free electricity, but efforts to harness it have produced have proved elusive. Uh.
Speaker 2:Research at the us department of energy's lawrence livermore national laboratory announced in 2022 they were able to produce a fusion reaction that generated more energy than it consumed for the first time ever. Wow, the technology has drawn billions in investments from backers, including Bezos, jeff Bezos, bill Gates, peter Thiel. In recent years, it's also started to win support from sovereign wealth funds, national development banks and venture capitalists a sign that the industry is starting to look more seriously at the concept. Banks and venture capitalists a sign that the industry is starting to look more seriously at the concept. And then another quote from Wright says the pace of innovation is faster than ever before. It's coming and it's exciting.
Speaker 1:That's really exciting.
Speaker 2:Wow, as we talk about SMRs and microreactors and their modalities, fusion is obviously a different animal. Utah's a very I don't think sorted is the right word, but it has. Utah's a really interesting thing with fusion because we announced years ago Ponds and Fleischman announced that they discovered ColdFusion, or discovered that ColdFusion worked and was a big worldwide thing and it ended up being kind of egg on the face of the university. But there are some rumblings. There have been rumblings over the last couple, three, four, five years that maybe some of their work actually paved the way and made some inroads into some of the stuff. They were just maybe perhaps ahead of time. At the time no independent scientific team could reproduce their results, which is why you know they were concerned like yeah, we, we created this and no one else could recreate it, and so they were like, okay, that's neat, you can't be recreated. So just again, as we're talking about nuclear, it is, I think, going to become more and more part of the conversation working with on a daily basis understand.
Speaker 1:One of the things that makes Valley Forge so unique is we've got enough land, water and power to actually promote and accommodate the full life cycle of the nuclear spectrum. We're talking about, you know, fuels enrichment. We're talking about fuels fabrication components, manufacturing reactor manufacturing fuels disposition. We've got MOUs Fabrication Components, Manufacturing Reactor Manufacturing Fuels Disposition. We've got MOUs from multiple companies wanting to set up shop, put factories and facilities on Valley Forge, and we're very excited about that. And that's one of the fun things about being kind of agnostic to the technologies is we can cheer for all of them, we can really get behind all of them and whoever the innovators are that come out popping out with successful technologies and licensing in the future, we're here to accommodate that. So I love hearing that. I would love to have, five or seven or 10 years from now, have a nuclear fusion developer standing up some prototype at Valley Forge and know that we've got a spot for that. Would that be awesome, Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely, um uh. Another one that I think is we, you know, again, we talk about transmission a lot. We actually talked a little bit about transmission to start this out, yeah, um. So another headline um, the EEI, which is edison electric institute, uh, which represents america's investor-owned electric companies, uh is calling on congress to streamline permitting for the 1.1 trillion dollar grid investment. Wow, uh so, uh, it's calling on congress to overhaul federal permitting laws, warning that outdated regulations are slowing the nation's ability to meet growing energy demands and modernize the grid. I am so glad somebody is listening to our show.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's right. That's absolutely right, guys. I mean I don't know if we've actually talked in detail about the Sentinel North and ancillaries to our Sentinel 765 transmission project at Valley Forge, but that hits home. That's hitting the nail on the head for what we were talking about. In Utah we're designing and working with Quanta Services to actually build out the first 765 backbone in the West. Doesn't exist in any of the states in the West. Utah has a chance to lead that. Actually, we did talk about this when we had Brady Jenkins on the show with us. We talked about 765, but I love, just like you said, hearing that they're listening to the show and this is happening on a federal level, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I joke, they are leading the charge. There's lots of really smart people in this industry, and I'll go on. This is just yesterday. By the way, they delivered this letter yesterday to congressional leadership.
Speaker 1:Is that letter included? Is that something we have access to?
Speaker 2:I will look and see if I can find it. I'll give you the synopsis of the letter. Awesome Quote current sitting and permitting processes and the protracted litigation they often entail can stop projects in their tracks or add years to deployment timelines, saddling customers with needless costs and slowing economic growth we actually talked about that on the episode with Brady is some of the choke points.
Speaker 1:Is these environmental groups filing these frivolous lawsuits I call it slap action suits to do nothing more than hinder the progress and cause developers to incur unnecessary delays and financial expenditures?
Speaker 2:Right, and noting that the nation's electric companies plan to invest $1.1 trillion in energy infrastructure over the next five years. Maloney is the CEO. It's Drew Maloney, ceo of EEI, just so you know who I'm talking about. Maloney argued that these investments are critical to providing reliable, affordable power to more than 250 million customers and to maintaining America's global competitiveness in areas such as artificial intelligence Quote. Rapid deployment of new energy infrastructure, including generation, transmission and pipelines, is the linchpin to providing more energy to our customers, meeting growing energy demand and winning the AI race, wrote Maloney. Congress must act now to streamline outdated permitting processes. At the same time, congress must pass legislation that would streamline reviews under the NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act and Clean Water Act to ensure these laws are no longer used to stall forward progress. He wrote.
Speaker 1:Thank you, mr Maloney, thank you, thank you, thank you forward progress.
Speaker 2:He wrote. Thank you, mr maloney, thank you, thank you, thank you. Specifically, ee I supports the bipartisan standardizing, permitting and expediting economic development act, also known as the speed act, hr 4776, introduced july 25th by us reps bruce westerman, uh, republican out of arkansas, uh and jared golden, democrat out of ma, to accelerate NEPA reviews and limit legal challenges. The bill currently is under consideration by the US House Natural Resources Committee. I am yay, go bipartisanship.
Speaker 2:Additionally, eei called on Congress to bolster and extend nationwide permitting under Section 404 of the CWA and to speed up and focus state water quality certifications under Section 401 of the CWA on direct discharges and to establish appropriate timelines for state action. Finally, the organization urged leaders in Congress to right-size the scope of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act to both ensure historic preservation and the ability to grow and deploy new infrastructure. According to Maloney's letter, updating the federal permitting system can help and end needless litigation, ensure reliability at the lowest cost and fuel economic growth. Quote electric companies are focused on building new generation transmission projects quickly and without unnecessary delays and costs. And then he said you know? He added permitting reform will unleash America's electric companies, improve reliability and help deliver relief for customers in all 50 states.
Speaker 1:We couldn't agree with that more. I mean that that is so timely, it's so urgent, it's so critical in nature and I'm so grateful to hear that that we've got folks in those places making those moves because it's so urgent, it's so critical in nature and I'm so grateful to hear that that we've got folks in those places making those moves because it's you know, it feels like, when you put it in the context of where we sit today and we recognize that we're in this race with china, it's almost as if those environmental uh groups that are out there filing the litigation historically, it's almost like they want us to lose. It's almost like they want us to lose. It's almost like they want us to be slaves to China. It's like there's no recognition that if we don't lead this, we become slaves to China, and AI really is illuminating that weakness.
Speaker 2:Perhaps, and part of me would say is I don't know that they actually do know. I don't think that's a consideration, and that's where I think they do what they do because they want to protect. That's where I think political leadership needs to step in and say okay, we hear you, we see you, but here's what we need to do right now, because we're looking at a bigger picture that, while we may agree or disagree or appreciate certain lines of argument, we have a bigger issue right now, and the issue is is that if we don't do this, we will, we put ourselves in an incredibly, actually, we weaken ourselves as a country incredibly, yeah, and and that could mean a lot of bad things for years and decades to come. And so this is one of those things where I, this is where, again, this is sponsored on a bipartisan level. This is where there are people on both sides of the aisle see the importance of doing this, say we need common sense, reforms, we need to get down this road, we appreciate on both sides where both sides can, or whatever side it might be that is stopping this, and you're right, as you know, in this, in this regard, oftentimes, in these, these things, sometimes it's the States themselves, because the States, you know, they're fighting transmission, and it could be for a host of reasons. Sometimes it's it's the environmental groups who are saying no, you know, you're, you're crossing all this land. Sometimes it's historical preservation, yeah, and our combination, all these things. And that's where, again, you need bipartisan political leadership to say yes, and while we see your need for this, this is the bigger issue of the day.
Speaker 2:The bigger issue of the day is that we need energy dominance. We need to, we need to build energy. Why? Because energy equals not only growth and manufacturing and in all of these high-end industries, it also means that we can stay ahead or continue to stay ahead in the ai race which is heating up, and some would go so far as to say whoever wins ai is the next. You know there's a dominating world force for the. For the foreseeable future. That might not matter to you, but I would argue that you should consider it. And it should matter to you because the things you enjoy right now, um, the, you know, the ability to even, you know to roll up, to start up a business, to do all the things that we do could be wildly impacted by a shift in world power, and so there is a.
Speaker 2:There's a much larger issue at play and I think again, I think the the federal politicians you know, I would think a lot of them understand what's at, what's at risk here, and so this is the time to say look, we can do this smartly, we can do this in existing right-of-ways, we can expand things where we know we can go.
Speaker 2:There are ways to solve this that have minimum impact and maximum benefit to us, preserving and building a grid of the future, and I think those things can be done, and so it's great to see that this is getting pushed Again and coming back here I'm bringing it close to home, into Utah, I think, and you and I, wayne, have talked about this endlessly and we'll continue to talk about it.
Speaker 2:I think our leadership understands those issues of tomorrow and they have, especially in this infrastructure, space and energy and understanding what we need as a state to do in order to compete in the future both of the other 49 states, but also as a country and how not only not just like competing against the states, but how we can work in unison to actually do things well and setting up the right infrastructure. I think the thing that started this whole podcast out today. For me was we just get really, I mean, I get kind of, like you know, worked up when I'm like, okay, we've solved the problem and now you want to come in and fix your problem when you should have solved it 10 years ago. Yeah, you want us to pick up your pieces because you didn't listen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you didn't see the bigger issues. Yeah, and, and so that's. That's what I would call on people to do is to see. The bigger issue of play here is that there is a, there is a, there's a race and again, we talked about it on a previous episode, when we talked about 47G, we talked about aerospace, we talked about space in general and the space race that is going on, whether most people know it or not, right now.
Speaker 2:There are all kinds of things happening on a global scale right now that many people may not in their daily lives, be very aware of, but they are happening nonetheless. And if we want to stay ahead of that, they are happening nonetheless. And you know, if we want to stay ahead of that, which you know we have in the past, you know, going back to the, you know, for decades we've, you know America's wanted to lead out on and we've led, and we've led the world in a lot of ways If we want to reclaim that or stay at you know where we may have slipped or stay at the, you know, in a leadership, in a pole position, say, an AI. We have to do these things. We have to. We have to solve energy, we have to solve this, this infrastructure stuff, so and it all is related and that that's going to play into aerospace and space and the space race and this all gets this all gets tied together and all comes back to energy. I'm telling you, I mean, it all comes back to energy.
Speaker 1:We have to have the energy to do these things. 100%, 100%. I couldn't have said it better, dave, and thank you for contributing these headlines today and working with me on all this homework. I hope you guys had as much fun listening to us as we had fun putting it down for you, because today was awesome.
Speaker 2:It was good we might've gotten worked up a little bit today.
Speaker 1:I like to be worked up.
Speaker 2:It's not a bad thing.
Speaker 1:Well, we're at the top of the hour, guys, so we're going to wrap it up. We'll hope you'll join us on the next episode.
Speaker 2:Until next time on the frontier line.
