WEBVTT - U.S. Energy: Same As It Ever Was? Not Even Close 0:00:00.600 --> 0:00:03.640 Hi, everyone. I have a confession. I think I got 0:00:03.680 --> 0:00:07.120 into all this energy and climate stuff to impress a girl. Actually, no, 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.920 I'm I'm sure I did. I was in grad school 0:00:09.960 --> 0:00:12.200 for molecular biology at the time, but looking for a change. 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:14.800 She was working in utilities in environment and told me 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:17.360 about all this stuff I never heard of, like offshore 0:00:17.440 --> 0:00:20.800 wind farms, or bioplastics, or taking c O two from 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:23.239 the air and pumping it into rocks. That one now 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.239 known as carbon capture and storage sounded particularly out there 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:28.360 to me. The more I looked into this stuff, the 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:32.000 more interested I got. So fast forward a few months, 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:34.360 I found myself interviewing for a job with New Energy 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.760 Finance or any F, a London based research and analytics 0:00:37.760 --> 0:00:40.479 startup whose u S operation was two guys working out 0:00:40.479 --> 0:00:43.400 of a tiny rented office in Alexander, Virginia. The person 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:46.440 interviewing me was Ethan Zindler, who happens to be today's guest. 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:49.360 So I got the job, and Ethan and I have 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:51.599 worked together for about thirteen years at what is now 0:00:51.600 --> 0:00:53.559 Bloomberg in e F or bn F, where he is 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:55.720 the head of America's Over this time, we've seen the 0:00:55.720 --> 0:00:58.520 industry go through a lot of changes. Just one example, 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:00.640 in two thousand seven, when I started it, there was 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:03.480 nineteen giga watts of wind and solar online in the US. 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:08.160 There were two fifty nine giga watts. Today. We'll get 0:01:08.200 --> 0:01:10.120 into the many changes that have happened in the US 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:12.080 over the past decade, and a report he and his 0:01:12.120 --> 0:01:14.920 team did in collaboration with the Business Council for Sustainable 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:18.399 Energy or the bc SE titled Sustainable Energy in America 0:01:18.440 --> 0:01:22.400 Factbook Good News. The report this week is available to everyone, 0:01:22.560 --> 0:01:24.840 not just Be Enough clients. You can get it at 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:27.880 bcs dot org. And before we get into it, a 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.520 reminder that benef does not provide investment or strategy advice, 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:31.840 and you can hear a full disclaimer at the end 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:34.360 of the show. If you like the show, please go 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:36.360 ahead and rate and review us on Apple podcast or 0:01:36.360 --> 0:01:39.480 wherever you listening. Oh and the girl, I think she 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.039 was impressed. I'm still not sure, but we're about to 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:45.479 celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary. I'm Mark Taylor, and you're 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:50.760 listening to switch on to Be Enough Podcast. Ethan, thanks 0:01:50.760 --> 0:01:53.040 for coming in, great to be here to start us off. 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:54.440 Can you just tell us a little bit about the 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:57.720 project itself. Sure, So the fact book is something we've 0:01:57.720 --> 0:02:00.639 now done for eight years in partnership with this Council 0:02:00.680 --> 0:02:04.080 for Sustainable Energy UH. The bc s E is a 0:02:04.120 --> 0:02:08.520 Washington based organization that is basically a coalition of energy 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:13.320 efficiency companies, renewable energy companies, at gas companies, and other 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:19.040 similar organizations that are focused on lower carbon power generation overall. 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:22.880 And the report, I should note, is free to everybody 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:26.519 and encourage people to download it at www dot b 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:29.760 CSC dot org or on our website at BNF dot com. 0:02:30.400 --> 0:02:33.079 It's not behind any kind of a payroll. So I 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.040 read this report, and I must admit when I went 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:37.760 into it, I thought it was gonna be pretty boring. 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:39.640 It's a fact book of what's happened in the US 0:02:39.720 --> 0:02:41.760 over the last ten years. I thought it was just 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:46.359 gonna say renewables have grown, Yippi great. But I was 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:49.120 quickly turned around. I started to make a note of 0:02:49.160 --> 0:02:50.800 all the many areas that are changed, and I can 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:53.000 put in a list of sixteen areas that have changed. 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:55.760 Can you talk a bit about what has changed and 0:02:55.760 --> 0:02:58.160 what has happened in the last ten years? Well, first, Mark, 0:02:58.240 --> 0:02:59.880 I mean I don't know when last time you came 0:02:59.880 --> 0:03:02.760 the United States. But like facts are kind of cool 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.120 now here, okay, um, and actually being yeah, so being 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.720 real factory is actually pretty sexy, so you know, I 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.360 would say, you know, okay, we you know. So the 0:03:13.400 --> 0:03:15.679 ambition of this report is to provide a great deal 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.360 of data and information about what is going on in 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:20.200 the US market. And one of the main reasons is 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:22.120 because we feel like that there is a lot of 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:26.000 misinformation or even disinformation out there, and that's the goal. 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:29.640 But yes, there's lots of really I think, extremely interesting things. 0:03:29.680 --> 0:03:33.080 Because um, the report is usually it's an annual report. 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:36.600 It still is, but we very conveniently just came to 0:03:36.600 --> 0:03:38.960 the end of a decade, so we tried to cast 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:42.200 a little longer view back. And if you look at 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.480 how much has occurred in the United States in the 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.560 last ten years in the areas of what we call 0:03:47.600 --> 0:03:51.120 in this report sustainable energy, but also renewable energy, energy efficiency, 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:56.240 advanced transportation, all these things, it's pretty remarkable. Really, it's 0:03:56.280 --> 0:03:58.320 incredible how much is changing. You and I know because 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.080 you know, we were working together ten years ago in 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:04.000 Washington and there's a lot going on. But but you know, 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.720 the transformation that's taken place in the U s energy 0:04:06.760 --> 0:04:10.400 sector has been really, really quite dramatic. I remember when 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:12.720 I started at any F when we were back in 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.880 when we were startup, I met our CEO, our founder 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.680 at a at a meeting from a corp, the American 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:22.160 Council and Renewable Energy, I believe it's called, and it 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:24.840 was called their Phase two meeting UM, and I think 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:27.719 it was phase two of going from like experimental into 0:04:27.760 --> 0:04:31.200 like commercialization of renewable energy. I think what phase we 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:35.040 in now, I don't know, like we're definitely I mean, 0:04:35.600 --> 0:04:37.760 you know exactly. It was trying to go from like 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:39.680 you know, we're at the at the edges and the 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:43.680 kind of pilot scale, a demonstration scale, to entering the market, 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:46.360 and then that certainly happened during the decade, and then 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:50.000 we really entered another phase where we're seeing, you know 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.200 a lot of these things take place really driven for 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:57.000 economic reasons and the cost competitiveness, which is legitimate, and 0:04:57.040 --> 0:04:59.720 so you know, if you take something like solar, there 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:01.840 was us than a giga out of solar online in 0:05:01.880 --> 0:05:05.000 the United States a decade ago, where at seventy five 0:05:05.000 --> 0:05:07.840 giga watts. Now, UM, you know, the amount of wind 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:10.839 capacity has tripled over that period of time. Um. And 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:12.520 then on the flip side, if you look at how 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:15.760 much there's been decarbonization in terms of coal coming offline. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:17.359 You know, we used to get about half our power 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.400 from coal. Is probably about twenty four of our power 0:05:21.520 --> 0:05:24.320 came from coal. I think the thing that, for me 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.200 at least is interesting, And of course what makes it 0:05:26.240 --> 0:05:28.000 fun for us to work in this industry is that, 0:05:28.520 --> 0:05:31.080 you know, the traditional thought about energy as well. Okay, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:34.440 do changes do occur, but they take a long time, 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:37.720 and you gotta be patient, you gotta think in decades, etcetera. 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.240 I mean, this decade has proven that that is just 0:05:40.320 --> 0:05:42.440 not true. Things can just turn on a dime, very 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:45.200 very quickly. Yeah. I just as I've mentioned in the beginning, 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:46.880 I started to take notes of things that have changed. 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.479 And my first assumption was that, yeah, the world looks 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:51.400 roughly the same, or the US at least look roughly 0:05:51.400 --> 0:05:53.960 the same. But no, it's very different. I can't remember 0:05:53.960 --> 0:05:56.720 the last time I've used, you know, a filament light 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:02.359 bulb for example, or I take Uber everywhere, Um, yeah no, 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:05.760 and or you know, electric vehicles ten years ago. Basically 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:08.720 you couldn't buy one. There's about forty four choices for 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:12.200 American consumers to buy electric vehicles that's pure electrics. You 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.760 can buy plug in hybrid electric car if you if 0:06:14.760 --> 0:06:16.600 you really you want to your nerd out, you can 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.760 get like a fuel cell hydrogen car. There's those are unusual, 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.240 but it's possible many cars. I'll let you put some 0:06:22.279 --> 0:06:24.240 biofuels in the tank too, if that's what you want 0:06:24.240 --> 0:06:27.800 to do. So the number of choices for consumers when 0:06:27.800 --> 0:06:31.839 it comes to transportation is obviously dramatically expanded UM. But 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:33.160 one of the points we also try and make in 0:06:33.200 --> 0:06:35.040 the report is that, you know, we call it the 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.000 quote unquote empowered consumer, where you look at all different 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.880 types of areas where consumers now have choices that they 0:06:41.960 --> 0:06:45.840 didn't have before. Transportation is just one of them. Homeowners 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:49.520 have different choices UM. Businesses have more choices even in 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:52.000 terms of what type of power to buy. Absolutely you 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:54.680 can you know and and how you want to buy it, 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:56.640 So you know, do you want to put a PV 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:58.680 system on your roof? Where do you want to sign 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.719 on to be part of a community solar deal where 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:03.359 you buy some of the solar that's produced locally or 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:05.279 do you want to just buy it through your utility 0:07:05.320 --> 0:07:07.520 by paying some kind of a green you know, premium 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.440 on that. And of course companies have the same opportunities 0:07:10.480 --> 0:07:13.120 as well, and they can sign direct contracts um with 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.600 large producers and we saw another another you know record 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:18.960 for corporate p p A s that were signed last 0:07:19.000 --> 0:07:22.200 year as well. So consumers have been very much empowered 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.320 in all of this. And I guess, you know, within 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:26.800 the Washington context, one of the things that I really 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.520 do try to emphasize in this report is guess what, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.400 it turns out that actually this is also cheaper. And 0:07:33.440 --> 0:07:37.000 that's something that I think there's still very often this 0:07:37.240 --> 0:07:40.920 sort of false economy perpetuated that like dirty energy is 0:07:40.960 --> 0:07:43.600 cheap energy, plain energy gotta pay a little bit more. 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:46.480 But that's just not true if you look at if 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.080 you look at how costs have come down in the US. 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.160 And to be clear, before anybody you know out there 0:07:51.160 --> 0:07:54.720 and podcast world, you know, complains and says that I'm oversimplifying. Yes, 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.120 that's not just because of renewables, that's because the gas too, 0:07:57.360 --> 0:07:59.840 definitely a gas is really cheap. It was the peak 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:02.560 fourteen dollars prove v to you, and now they can 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:05.360 barely get over to yeah. So yeah, and that, you know, 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.000 and low and holding by the way, like it doesn't 0:08:07.000 --> 0:08:09.120 look like it's going up anytime soon, especially since we 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.480 didn't really have much of a January in terms of weather, 0:08:11.560 --> 0:08:15.560 so the prices have been pretty flat. So going back again, 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:19.680 I remember every year, almost I guess every year we 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:21.920 in the office would get nervous that the PTC or 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.640 the production text credit was going to expire, and it 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:27.120 always seemed to, you know, keep on going. You had 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:28.960 a line in the in the report that said there 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:33.239 was a great confluence of technology, innovation, policy, and economies 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.760 of scale. Which of those three do you think at 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.600 the greatest impact. Well, definitely combination of all of them. 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:41.120 But it's a really good question. I mean, at one 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:44.280 point to make is that you know, the United States, 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:48.040 we don't do like long term policy planning like pretty 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.400 well at all. So ten years ago it wasn't like, 0:08:50.520 --> 0:08:52.800 you know, in Washington they sat down they said, we 0:08:52.840 --> 0:08:55.480 have a natural energy strategy. We're going to cut our 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:57.280 emissions by this and much. We're you know, going to 0:08:57.400 --> 0:08:59.680 take about half the call fleet offline. We're gonna do 0:08:59.679 --> 0:09:03.560 all these None of that happened. Um, yeah, there was 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.440 some federal legislation, and I could argue that the stimulus 0:09:07.440 --> 0:09:10.600 Bill it was passed at the end of the prior decade, 0:09:10.640 --> 0:09:13.000 made a huge impact, but it frankly wasn't its main 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:15.559 goal wasn't like to think long term about US energy 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.280 security and people rights, to get people working. So those 0:09:19.320 --> 0:09:22.240 things contributed, and I would say that the stimulus bill 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:26.160 plus the state level mandates for renewables kind of and 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:28.240 and by the way, state level mandates for energy efficiency 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:30.600 it should we pointed out to those really kind of 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.920 got some momentum going. And then economies of scale kick 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.880 kicked up, frankly because in part because the Chinese were like, Wow, 0:09:37.240 --> 0:09:40.160 the US, that's a big market, let's export there, and 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:42.680 so boom, suddenly you have a massive scale up of 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.920 battery manufacturing and photobo take manufacturing in China to serve 0:09:46.960 --> 0:09:49.599 the US market. Prices not just the US market, but 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:52.960 others prices came down. So that's your economies of scale 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:55.320 kind of story. And then by you know, two thirds 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.199 of the way through the decade and towards the end, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:00.480 you have legitimate price competition. And so yeah, it's a 0:10:00.480 --> 0:10:02.559 combination of all things, but I think you could probably 0:10:02.600 --> 0:10:05.480 say the policy really did help spark stuff and then 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:07.959 you've got economies of scale and along the way it's 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:10.040 been technology innovation. But I do think it's worth, you know, 0:10:10.120 --> 0:10:12.319 noting that like you and I remember back in the 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.679 heyday where people are raising venture capital for all kinds 0:10:15.720 --> 0:10:19.600 of stuff, and that those days are long over and 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.160 there were innovations, but economies of scale are really what 0:10:22.360 --> 0:10:25.719 drove a lot of the progress that we've seen at 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:27.360 our summit over the past couple of days. I heard 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:29.840 venture capital for quote unquote clean tech is back up. 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:32.480 Is that right? There's definitely some renewed interest and I think, 0:10:32.600 --> 0:10:36.880 you know, but vcs have so many scars from money 0:10:36.960 --> 0:10:39.559 loss the first time around. The Usually the first criteria 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.280 is like, Okay, can we invest in this uh in 0:10:42.320 --> 0:10:45.840 a way that won't you know, in two years require 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:48.560 this company and us to try and raise like a 0:10:48.600 --> 0:10:50.880 half a billion dollars for them to go demonstrate the 0:10:50.920 --> 0:10:54.199 technology out in the desert someone. So if it's something 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:57.360 that's simpler than there, and you know, and it's more 0:10:57.360 --> 0:11:01.600 plug play or or or software oriented, and I think 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.920 they're more there. I'm smiling because it just reminds you 0:11:03.920 --> 0:11:05.600 of the areas that I used to cover as an analyst, 0:11:05.640 --> 0:11:08.079 you know, geothermal and carbon capture and stores, which were 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.400 big projects that in a lot of cases cost tens 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.920 to hundreds of millions of dollars to test. Can you 0:11:13.960 --> 0:11:15.880 talk about some of the things that didn't pan out 0:11:15.880 --> 0:11:19.240 over the decade. It's a really good question. And um, 0:11:19.280 --> 0:11:21.520 as you know ten years ago, we as a firm 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:25.920 at Bloombergunna F we're interested in all the potential new technologies, 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.280 and we frankly from a sort of resources perspective, we're 0:11:28.280 --> 0:11:31.000 spending as much time probably thinking about bio fuels as 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:34.840 we were about geothermal and ccs and all these other things. 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.600 There was certainly no guarantee it was. It wasn't clear 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:40.480 then that you would have a couple of technologies on 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.960 the renewable side be the biggest ones that would emerge. 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:45.599 It also wasn't clear at all about how important the 0:11:45.640 --> 0:11:47.600 fracking revolution was going to be in the fact that 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:50.800 we boost our natural gas production by in ten years. 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.360 So there were a lot of things that weren't clear. 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.640 And I would say, though, yeah, I mean like geo 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.320 thermal has not gone in the way I think people 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:00.760 might have liked and steady um Eile Fuels had a 0:12:00.800 --> 0:12:04.960 moment where basically they built enough capacity to serve ten 0:12:05.040 --> 0:12:07.640 percent of the gasoline market and so they could replace 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.760 what was an additive called mtb UM and the policy 0:12:11.840 --> 0:12:14.760 driven policy driven, and then since then not so much 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:16.920 interesting stuff. I'm sure you know a few things around 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:19.120 the edges, but not nearly as much. So, yeah, that 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:21.400 hasn't panned out. And then of course, um CCS is 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.200 one of those things where you know, I think CCS 0:12:24.280 --> 0:12:26.240 is sort of having a moment again and seems to 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:30.079 be and it's because it's it's actually, frankly largely because 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.240 the federal government has put in place a pretty generous 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.360 tax credit, which I think a lot of the folks 0:12:34.360 --> 0:12:36.800 in the industry are hoping we'll drive some real scale it. 0:12:36.840 --> 0:12:40.400 But yes, CCS maybe one of the classic technologies that 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.320 required billions of dollars of investment and people just weren't 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.160 willing to kind of take the plunge on it. In 0:12:46.240 --> 0:12:50.040 twenty nineteen, we saw basically a form of all of 0:12:50.080 --> 0:12:53.600 these things. All these dynamic changes happen in some shape 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.880 or another. Can you just catch some the major changes 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:58.880 just last year. Sure, So you know, and I'm gonna 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:00.400 look down at my cheat sheet a little bit here 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:04.200 because I can't remember every single fact that but there, yeah, 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:05.680 certainly were have been. And I would think the one 0:13:05.720 --> 0:13:07.800 point I would make about twenty nineteen was that, you know, 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:10.840 we've now done this fact report for eight years, and again, 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:13.440 like I said, we we do it in Washington, we 0:13:13.640 --> 0:13:16.080 release it in Washington. We want people to understand what 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:19.520 the facts are. And there is a larger narrative about 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.920 decarbonization and transformation and empowerment of consumers. But every year 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:27.200 there's like different things that like kind of are slightly 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.600 off trend. You know, something doesn't exactly happen within that 0:13:30.720 --> 0:13:32.840 grander scheme of sort of larger trends. It was seeming 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:35.040 to kind of have to explain it. Last year was 0:13:35.080 --> 0:13:38.400 interesting though, because basically almost everything happened on trend. So 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.280 basically we saw, you know, on the whole side, we 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:45.000 saw thirteen percent less coal generation from the year prior, 0:13:45.000 --> 0:13:47.920 so a pretty steep decline. UM. We saw US power 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.240 sector emissions again decline. UM, we saw total US greenhouse 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.720 gas emissions decline just a little bit year on year 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:59.559 as well. We saw increasing competitiveness for energy storage projects 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.560 paired a solar. We saw wind go past hydro in 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:07.360 terms of total generation as a contributor. We saw increasing 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.280 energy productivity. And this is something we try and highlight 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:14.200 every year in the report, which is very very simple metric, 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.079 which is just like how much does the U. S. 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:19.560 Economy grow and how much does our primary energy consumption grow? 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.560 And the answer is pretty often the economy grows and 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.480 primary energy consumption stays the same or goes down. And 0:14:26.480 --> 0:14:29.440 in fact, basically the GDP grew at a much greater 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:32.000 rate over the course of a decade than it did 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.440 than energy consumption did. And last year energy consumption actually 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.680 ticked down a little bit. So there's five of ten 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:39.720 last five of the ten last year started to finish, 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.880 but just ten last years energy consumption has gone down 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:47.080 year on year, But in each of the last ten 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.160 years the U. S. Economy has grown. Can can you 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:50.640 explain that a bit? Does that mean we're just getting 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.320 more efficient? Yeah? How this sort of the good news 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:57.080 and I'm making I'm make an air quote. Um, but 0:14:57.280 --> 0:14:59.560 the good news is that you know, Americans in the 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:03.440 American economy is unbelievably profligate in terms of how much 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.800 energy we consume per person, we use a ton, I mean, 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:11.000 more than anybody in the world. So yeah, by a 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.120 long shot. So what that means is that, you know, 0:15:13.200 --> 0:15:15.520 not only they're low hanging fruit. There's like, you know, 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.280 I don't you know, a massive harvest of watermelons. All 0:15:18.280 --> 0:15:22.480 every ground scooped up for the for the energy efficiency sector. 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.880 And so in many ways, we're still just getting started 0:15:25.920 --> 0:15:28.200 on all of this. So you know, for instance, in 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.560 the last decade, we've put you know, there's about a 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:33.560 billion LED bulbs that have been installed, and that's sort 0:15:33.560 --> 0:15:35.840 of light bulbs are easy because people can kind of 0:15:35.840 --> 0:15:38.760 get their heads around and understand that compared to none 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:41.680 a year ago, and that's cutting energy consumption massively. But 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.560 we're still only replaced about half the light bulbs in 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:47.960 the US. There's all kinds of opportunities going forward, only 0:15:48.120 --> 0:15:49.960 pace half only about half. And I can't remember the 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:52.120 last time I've seen a filament bulb in a store. 0:15:52.520 --> 0:15:56.520 I mean, still there's you know, people have the bulbs 0:15:56.600 --> 0:15:58.640 last a long time, they have them on the shelves 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:00.640 for years, and you know they're old bulbs, you know, 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.120 And I still have a few old ones in my 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.360 house kicking around someplace. So you know that that change 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:06.840 is going to take time. But it's not just that 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:12.560 it's furnaces, it's washers and dryers, it's cable television boxes. Yeah, 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.240 some people still watch cable TV, and um, you know, 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:18.640 all all those kinds of things that are being swapped out. 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:20.280 And and to be clear, you know, you get you 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:22.080 can pas themselves on the back is this is some 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:25.160 sort of great, you know, decarbonization effort, But in many 0:16:25.160 --> 0:16:28.400 cases it's business owners and and and homeowners just trying 0:16:28.400 --> 0:16:31.960 to cut their monthly costs. And along those lines, you know, 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:36.400 we found that over the decade, the percentage that homeowners 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.240 are spending on energy is like the lowest it's been 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:41.160 in like forty year years, and they seem to be 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:43.480 the biggest winners in the past decade, Is that right? Yeah? 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:47.520 I mean consumer you know, consumer retail retail electricity prices 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.440 have definitely not fallen as much as wholesale power prices, 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.600 but they will continue to fall, especially as US utilities 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:56.040 are supposed to pass through the value of a tax 0:16:56.120 --> 0:16:59.680 cut that the Trump administration gave it last year. Um, 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.760 and that will continue. And but generally speaking, yet consumers 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:06.040 pay less. We know we have some of the least costly. Um. 0:17:06.080 --> 0:17:09.280 You know, energy in the entire world on multiple levels 0:17:09.480 --> 0:17:13.720 is cheap natural gas now plentiful oil production in the US, 0:17:13.800 --> 0:17:17.080 and gasoline prices that aren't high, and then electricity prices 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:19.800 that have been driven down by cheap gas prices. So 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:22.960 let's flip it a bit. Costs of all technologies have 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.679 decreased over the past decade, right, and companies used to 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:29.560 do okay by getting relatively high terraces for their electricity 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:33.679 or hydrocarbons. Who is winning now in this current market. 0:17:33.760 --> 0:17:35.959 So that's a really good question and definitely something that 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:40.600 we probably hear more from clients these days, which is like, 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.400 how do I make a buck? Yeah? Exactly, Um, And 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:45.800 that's not a you know, that's not a crazy it's 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.720 not a crazy question because you know, with this sort 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.240 of real lentless pushed down on power prices, particularly in 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.040 the electricity sector, it's hard for folks to make money. 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.479 In many cases. We are definitely seeing new models in 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.320 terms of how energy get sold. But I do think 0:18:01.359 --> 0:18:03.520 it's not a it's not a sort of I can't 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:06.040 sort of blow that question off. I think that one 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.240 of the things that in the medium to long term 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:09.880 in the US that's going to have to be thought 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.439 about is how can you restructure power markets in a 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.800 way so that people do get compensated. Because it's it's 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:18.720 all well and good that we're in this period of 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:23.480 sort of steep power price decline, but eventually, if you 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:27.199 want to continue to see people, you know, participating in 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:29.479 terms of building new projects and stuff, then you're going 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:30.960 to need to make sure that they can earn a 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.960 rate of return so they can keep investing. All that said, 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:37.400 a small asterisk guy put on that is that I 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:41.080 think in the US, traditionally, when especially when you think 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:44.080 about renewable development and even you know, power and even 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:47.439 a fossil fuel development, we have this great tradition of 0:18:47.520 --> 0:18:50.919 independent power producers, the sort of um, you know, the 0:18:50.920 --> 0:18:55.119 cliche wind farm cowboys. You know, these independent firms that 0:18:55.119 --> 0:18:57.880 were going out, yeah exactly, and you know, signing deals 0:18:57.920 --> 0:19:02.480 and whatever. Those guys are usually backed by private equity money, 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:06.120 and those investors expect pretty high rates of return on 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.040 the projects. Those guys in particular are facing you know, 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:12.720 some real headwinds at the moment, but that doesn't mean 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:15.320 that you can't have a big utility who wants to 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:17.800 earn a much lower rate of return come in and develop. 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:19.679 And that's what we're definitely starting to see, not just 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.000 with like domestic utilities like the southerns and the Dukes 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:26.120 and the others, but also international players like a Knell 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:28.119 and some of the others who are coming over and 0:19:28.160 --> 0:19:30.240