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Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Josh Spuzzing Clark, and there's Chuck Zippy Zap Bryant. Okay,

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Speaker 1: there's just the two of us. Don't have to come

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Speaker 1: up with any more stupid electricity based names. Jerry Jerry, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: she's we don't not here. She just zipped off into

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Speaker 1: the ether absent who knows. Yeah, we should call Roll Chuck. Okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Josh here, Chuck present, Jerry Jerry, She's not here, dude.

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Speaker 1: I just had a shower today for the first time

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Speaker 1: in a few days because we didn't have water in

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Speaker 1: our house. No, And I put this on the Movie

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Speaker 1: Crushers page just to get some feedback. I was like,

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Speaker 1: would you rather not have power or water? And that

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Speaker 1: kind of figures into today's episode, and you know, of

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Speaker 1: the people are very sensible and said would much rather

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Speaker 1: not have power than water, But there were a handful

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Speaker 1: of psychopaths that said they'd rather be I guess just

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Speaker 1: buying dozens of gallons of water to to flush toilets

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Speaker 1: and wash hands and not bathe. At what point? At

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Speaker 1: what point though of going without water and maybe you

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Speaker 1: reach this point and you can tell me. Do you

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Speaker 1: get to where you're like, well, we're just gonna save

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Speaker 1: water and dig a dig a pit and be in

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Speaker 1: the van a latrine. Well, I mean we were letting

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Speaker 1: the yellow mellow, you know what I'm saying. Unfortunately, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know the brown you gotta flush down. You should

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Speaker 1: trademark that. And it really hits home how much water

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Speaker 1: a toilet uses when you have to fill it up

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Speaker 1: with those huge, like arrowhead five gallon jugs. And it's

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Speaker 1: just shameful. But you know, I was happy to take

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Speaker 1: that shower, I gotta tell you. Yeah. But you go

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Speaker 1: through three of those five gallon jugs before you realize

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Speaker 1: that you're accidentally stepping on the handle and they're just

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Speaker 1: going right down the drain. You're like, man, this is

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Speaker 1: not my week. But this isn't about water. It's about power,

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Speaker 1: which you know, it's a it's a really good question,

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Speaker 1: and I'm not surprised that the um you've got the

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Speaker 1: response that you got from it, because like we we

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Speaker 1: tend to think of, like, you know, electricity is you know,

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Speaker 1: a really nice modern luxury, and that is basically not

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Speaker 1: the case anymore for most of the climates in the

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Speaker 1: United States, electricity is an absolute necessity. It's not a luxury,

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Speaker 1: like you need it to survive in the modern world.

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Speaker 1: You could try to do the take Kazinsky thing, go

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Speaker 1: off grid. People do it successfully, But even then, if

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Speaker 1: you look into what they're doing, I would guess something

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Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of of those people are still using

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Speaker 1: something like solar power or wind power. They just aren't

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Speaker 1: connected to this grid that we're going to talk about today. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I should caveat the question I posted the movie

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Speaker 1: Crushers was whether aside like obviously, in the hot, hot

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Speaker 1: summer people can and do die from outages, and in

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Speaker 1: the winter they do as well. But it was you

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Speaker 1: know that wasn't the case here in Atlanta. All that

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Speaker 1: is cold today. Yeah it is very cold, but I

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Speaker 1: mean not deadly cold, but it gets deadly cold once

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Speaker 1: in a while here. Um, but even beyond like heating

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Speaker 1: and cooling just to stay alive, Like, electricity is so

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Speaker 1: interwoven with our lives that you know, you you're like, okay,

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Speaker 1: I can wash dishes by hand. You know it's not

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Speaker 1: my preference, but whatever, or um, you know, I can,

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Speaker 1: I can use the old gas powered lawnmar and so

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Speaker 1: the electric lawnmar But there's also like can you keep

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Speaker 1: up in school or at work without you know, electricity?

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Speaker 1: That like it's it's really just a it's a fundamental

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Speaker 1: necessity in my modern industrial life. And um, we get

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Speaker 1: this based on this huge, sprawling, rickety old black and

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Speaker 1: white cartoon donkey of an engineering marvel that we call

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Speaker 1: the electrical grid. It's crazy how held together with like

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Speaker 1: duct tape and bubblegum this thing is. But it's still

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Speaker 1: literally delivers the juice for us. Yeah, and it is

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Speaker 1: funny how we it's so like power and water you

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Speaker 1: know here in the United States is so ingrained. Is

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Speaker 1: just something we kind of take for granted that when

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Speaker 1: you don't have it, this is the only time you notice.

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Speaker 1: And like, the only fun thing about the past few

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Speaker 1: days was hearing Emily scream from another room because you know,

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Speaker 1: your instinct is, oh, I have grease on my fingers,

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Speaker 1: let me go watch it off, and just hearing her

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Speaker 1: like flick uh, you know, some faucet or something somewhere

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Speaker 1: in the house over the past three days and nothing

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Speaker 1: comes out because you just forget, say, when the powers

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Speaker 1: if you're constantly flicking a switch and going I hate life.

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Speaker 1: It's not there. Yeah. Well, but that's why you'll see

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Speaker 1: in a lot of different like power companies, UM names

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Speaker 1: the word reliability because that is key, Like you can't have,

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Speaker 1: you know, an electric company that's just kind of like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you work a lot of the time, you know, don't

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Speaker 1: we get credit for that. It's like, no, people want

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Speaker 1: you to work basically a hundred percent of the time.

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Speaker 1: You don't want to sign up for a company, and

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Speaker 1: it's called partial credit exactly you want. You want the

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Speaker 1: full credit one the real ambitious types that like with

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Speaker 1: their hands shoot up into the air at every question.

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Speaker 1: That's the kind of energy company you want. So should

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Speaker 1: we talk about this big, antiquated system. Yeah, so, like

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Speaker 1: I said, it is considered a modern marvel. And part

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Speaker 1: of the reason why it's considered a modern marvel is

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Speaker 1: just from its sheer enormous size. Yeah, I mean big time.

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Speaker 1: We're talking uh nineteen thousand generators and in this case

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Speaker 1: it is literally generating the power or like a coal

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Speaker 1: plant or a National natural gas plant or a wind

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Speaker 1: farm that kind of thing. Uh fifty five thousand substations,

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Speaker 1: transmission substations, and we'll we've talked about this before and

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Speaker 1: we'll get to it later. But this is when you're

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Speaker 1: stepping up and stepping down power to get it in

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Speaker 1: and out of your house. I guess not out of

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Speaker 1: your house. It only comes in. It depends if you

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Speaker 1: have a good solar rain. Like a power wants your stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's uh six miles of um transmission lines. It's a

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Speaker 1: six point three million miles of distribution lines. And these

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Speaker 1: are like the power poles, unless you're lucky enough to

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Speaker 1: have buried power lines. I know, it looks so much better.

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Speaker 1: They're doing that actually in our neighborhood finally, and they

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Speaker 1: approached us with a dollar figure to say, can we

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Speaker 1: put this huge, big green thing in your front yard?

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Speaker 1: And we said thank you, No, Um, try someone else. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you're you're like not these neighbors. We like them, but

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Speaker 1: three doors down they really sucks. So try that well,

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Speaker 1: I mean something. It doesn't have to go in our yards.

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Speaker 1: So I think they're just taking volunteers who want to

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Speaker 1: make a little scratch. But you can't, like plant bushes

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Speaker 1: in front of it or anything in our front yard

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Speaker 1: is very exposed. It would look really bad. Yeah, well

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about what those are, but they are seriously

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Speaker 1: dangerous too if you end up getting into one of those,

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Speaker 1: the one the things that kids play on all the time. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's crazy. Those are really really dangerous. Basically many power stations,

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Speaker 1: they're transformed. They just happen to be like on the

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Speaker 1: ground rather than up on a pole where everybody's used

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Speaker 1: to them. Yeah. I mean I felt kind of bad

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Speaker 1: at first because I thought, am I not doing my

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Speaker 1: part to make sure our neighborhood gets buried? But they

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Speaker 1: said that you know there, it doesn't have to go there,

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Speaker 1: and they can just that there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: people that are gonna want that, however much money it

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Speaker 1: was were. They like, okay, well, you know, we understand

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Speaker 1: your decision, but we noticed you have an empty lot

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Speaker 1: behind your and you keep walking. You know what's funny

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Speaker 1: we found out once we assume oimed that property that

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Speaker 1: we were squatting on, that two weeks later, Georgia Power

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Speaker 1: got in touch with them. So no, I know, that's

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Speaker 1: why I made that joke, but that was exactly what

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Speaker 1: was going to happen, right, Yeah, for that's not a joke,

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Speaker 1: I know, but I was joking about how close she came.

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Speaker 1: Oh goodness me. All right, so let's talk about the

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Speaker 1: nationwide network. Uh. And when we're talking about this, keep

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Speaker 1: in mind we're talking about the lower forty eight. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: Hawaii and Alaska have their own grids and systems. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: they were strangely left out of this, the poor poor DearS. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but we're thinking about them. But on the lower forty eight,

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Speaker 1: we have basically three big separate grids that are called

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Speaker 1: inter connections, and really it should just be two. There

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Speaker 1: should be the Eastern interconnection, which is basically everything west

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Speaker 1: of the Rockies or east of the Rockies, a lot

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Speaker 1: of the um Great Plain states up to the northeast,

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Speaker 1: the southeast all that's the Eastern connection. Then you've got

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Speaker 1: the Western interconnection, which is west of the Rockies, and

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Speaker 1: then you've got Texas. Those are the three inter connections

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Speaker 1: of the United States electrical grid. Yeah, here's my question,

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Speaker 1: is it is Texas literally no longer connected at all? No,

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Speaker 1: that's the big about the whole thing. They're connected to

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Speaker 1: God and everybody. They're connected to Mexico. Mexico saved there,

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Speaker 1: took us in two thousand eleven. They're connected to everybody.

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Speaker 1: They just somehow are being left out of the law.

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Speaker 1: It's ridiculous. No, but they are connected, like okay, yes,

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Speaker 1: because I was gonna say, is it the lower forty seven?

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Speaker 1: But technically they are connected, but they're just Texas is

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Speaker 1: gonna do Texas now? And there's even that's exactly right.

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Speaker 1: And then there's even parts of Texas, including El Paso

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Speaker 1: and some parts of the Panhandle, that are connected to

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Speaker 1: either the Eastern or the Western inter connection. But most

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Speaker 1: of Texas by far is its own interconnection, its own

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Speaker 1: separate grid. Yeah. Even know even more than that, I

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Speaker 1: would say it's probably closer like percent, like almost all

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Speaker 1: of it. Okay, all right, Well this is good though,

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Speaker 1: that we're interconnected. Uh. And there are a lot of

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Speaker 1: big benefits to that, chief of which is probably reliability

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Speaker 1: because when you have such an interconnected grid, um, you

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Speaker 1: can work together and there's a lot of backups and

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Speaker 1: redundancy is built in, so if there's a big demand

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Speaker 1: in one place, or if power goes down in one place,

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Speaker 1: you can reroute and have get some help from your neighbors.

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Speaker 1: Basically right, exactly, um. And that actually came about, as

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Speaker 1: we'll see from a little bit of deregulation, but also

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Speaker 1: it kind of developed from from power producers realizing like, well,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about that in a minute. There's also flexibility, right,

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Speaker 1: So if you have like a bunch of different sources.

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Speaker 1: So you've got a wind farm offshore in in Um, Florida,

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Speaker 1: and then you also have you're getting power from like

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Speaker 1: a damn in Georgia, and all of these are providing

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Speaker 1: power to the southeast, and you have all sorts of

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Speaker 1: coal fire power plates and nuclear power plates. You can

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Speaker 1: kind of put all these two gather into an energy portfolio,

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Speaker 1: and all of them are providing electricity to do the grid.

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Speaker 1: So the fact that it's like interconnected, it can accept

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Speaker 1: electrical um production from generators all over the place and

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Speaker 1: from different varieties and types. But as far as you're concerned,

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Speaker 1: it's all just it all just turns into electricity after

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Speaker 1: it's generated, right. Uh. And then the last advantage is affordability.

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Speaker 1: And this is kind of what you were hinting at.

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Speaker 1: You know, deregulations sort of has giveth in taken away

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Speaker 1: in some ways. Starting in the eighties, the grid was

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Speaker 1: open to wholesale competition and private power companies started investing

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Speaker 1: in certain efficiencies and that made that did really make

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Speaker 1: electricity affordable in the US. But it also when it

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Speaker 1: comes to like like insulating pipelines like Texas did not do. Um,

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Speaker 1: it makes companies more reticent to invest in money like

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Speaker 1: that because they're like, you know, why would we want

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Speaker 1: to unline our pockets? You know, envy. And so you

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Speaker 1: put all this stuff together. You put the power generation plants,

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Speaker 1: you put the transmission lines, you put the distribution networks

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Speaker 1: that all go into like people's homes and businesses and

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Speaker 1: end up as like an outlet or socket or something

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Speaker 1: like that, and that all together, all those components is

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Speaker 1: the electrical grid. And that's that's it. But uh so

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Speaker 1: let's take a break and um we'll come back and

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about the history of the grid.

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Speaker 1: How about that. Let's do it, okay, Chuck. Also, before

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Speaker 1: we talk about the history, I want to direct everybody

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Speaker 1: to what I think is one of our better science

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Speaker 1: based episodes, How Electricity Works. Yeah, it's a good one.

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Speaker 1: We cover some of this stuff in there. But um,

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Speaker 1: like we really got into electricity. It was electrifying. Bo

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Speaker 1: you've laughed. I know, I'm just laughing because you're my friend.

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Speaker 1: I can't punch you right now because you're in a

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Speaker 1: different place, that joke in the same room, right, you

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Speaker 1: learned from the last one. Uh so, And then then

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Speaker 1: we talked, like you said about part of this in electricity.

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Speaker 1: But our earliest power grids were built in the eighteen eighties,

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Speaker 1: and they were all very local and specific, and this

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Speaker 1: was a time and place when Edison and Tesla were

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Speaker 1: duking it out in a very public, sometimes a grotesque

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Speaker 1: way to prove that they're uh. In Edison's case, DC

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Speaker 1: system or Tesla is a c Alternating current system was

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Speaker 1: better and gruesome, meaning electrifying large animals. That s ob

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Speaker 1: You always got to say that, right, Oh yeah, he

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Speaker 1: should go down in history. That Yeah, he's a terrible

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Speaker 1: guy in that respect for sure. But Tesla went out,

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Speaker 1: um in large part due to a lot of financial

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Speaker 1: backing from George Westinghouse. Right, Um, but not just that,

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Speaker 1: Like direct current has better in some ways, but it

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Speaker 1: also has some serious disadvantages to alternating current, which was

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Speaker 1: the Tesla Westinghouse version. And um, we'll talk about exactly why,

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Speaker 1: but just you know, remember that alternating current is way

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Speaker 1: better for long distance transmission. So the fact that we

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Speaker 1: went with alternating current meant that we could create this huge,

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Speaker 1: extensive grid with hundreds of thousands or millions of miles

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Speaker 1: of transmission and distribution line. That's all thanks to Nicola

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Speaker 1: Tesla's alternating current. That's right. So really part of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century, there were about four thousand individual electric utilities

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Speaker 1: with all these tiny grids, and then World War Two

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Speaker 1: rolls around and there's a big spike in demand for

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Speaker 1: more power because it was just after World War Two.

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Speaker 1: There was a big boon, lots lots of new appliances

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Speaker 1: and fancy new things that needed power. And uh, the smaller,

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Speaker 1: little independent grids looked at each other and said, I

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Speaker 1: guess we gotta hold hands now and start working together

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Speaker 1: to to meet this demand. Yeah, there was this really

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Speaker 1: big push to electrify America that FDR took up pretty

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Speaker 1: early in his presidency, and he like took on these

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Speaker 1: really like powerful electric utilities and got a bunch of

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Speaker 1: black eyes as a result of it, but ended up

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Speaker 1: winning UM passing the Federal Power Act, of which basically

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Speaker 1: put a leash on the UM the holding companies that

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Speaker 1: there was like a handful of very large powerful holding

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Speaker 1: companies that basically ran and electricity in the United States UM,

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Speaker 1: and they weren't really innovating. They weren't doing much too

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Speaker 1: to electrify the US. So the federal government got involved

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Speaker 1: in UM basically took over and so we're gonna regulate

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Speaker 1: you guys from now on, and the United States became

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Speaker 1: UM very much electrified, like as a whole country. But

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Speaker 1: in return for this, it wasn't just the UM nanny

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Speaker 1: state taking away from the corporate state. They said, how

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Speaker 1: about this. We'll give you guys monopolies that we're gonna

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Speaker 1: keep a really close eye on, and we're gonna regulate strongly,

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Speaker 1: but you guys can make your costs back and a

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Speaker 1: reasonable profit. And so owning an electric company became UM.

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Speaker 1: It was like printing your own money, you know, like

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Speaker 1: you had so many customers that you were making gobs

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Speaker 1: of money. And every year your your growth, the growth

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Speaker 1: of the growth of the entire industry was about eight

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Speaker 1: percent each year. That's really good, and it was also

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Speaker 1: money in the bank. They knew that America was just

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Speaker 1: going to keep consuming and consuming and consuming, so they

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Speaker 1: would just build more and more power plants and they

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Speaker 1: were just going to sit back and collect eight percent

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Speaker 1: a year, and actually everybody was happy. There's a lot

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Speaker 1: of innovation and everything UM, but one of the things

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Speaker 1: that these different power monopolies learned early on is that

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Speaker 1: everyone expected power on demand twenty four hours a day.

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Speaker 1: If somebody wanted to plug their vacuum cleaner in at

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Speaker 1: three am, they better have power. There wasn't like downtime

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Speaker 1: that these guys could factor in. And as we'll see,

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Speaker 1: there was no storage capacity. That's something that we need

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Speaker 1: to get that we don't have, which means that power

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Speaker 1: has to be generated constantly and you also have to

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Speaker 1: have backup power. Was really really expensive to build a

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Speaker 1: backup power station, and so these early UM companies figured

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Speaker 1: out that they could buy power from other rival companies

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Speaker 1: that had some surplus right then, cheaper than it would

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Speaker 1: be for them to generate it or to build a

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Speaker 1: backup generating plant. And in this way, the early independent

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Speaker 1: grid started to connect to one another to kind of

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Speaker 1: buy and sell power as needed, and this kind of

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Speaker 1: wholesale power market developed, and that's where the grid started

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Speaker 1: to connect together, right And we should also point out

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Speaker 1: that in nineteen thirty five, with the passing of the

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Speaker 1: Federal Power Act. That's when Texas said, nah, ye said,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna do our own thing. We're gonna make our

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Speaker 1: own power, we're gonna keep our own power, and we're

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Speaker 1: gonna have our own our own body to oversee it.

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Speaker 1: Called the URCOTT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Millions

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Speaker 1: of listeners just WoT boo uh. They created that in

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy and they manage about of the grid in Texas.

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Speaker 1: And um, we use a lot of power in this country. UM,

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Speaker 1: I think the US consumed there's a couple of years ago,

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Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen three point nine trillion kill a lot hours,

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Speaker 1: which is about thirteen thousand kill a lott hours per human.

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Speaker 1: And you'd think, like, that's got to be the most

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Speaker 1: in the world. There's about a dozen countries ahead of US,

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Speaker 1: but those are countries where it can get really really

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Speaker 1: cold or really really hot, not places like the United States,

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Speaker 1: where comparatively to other places like US, we use a

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Speaker 1: lot more per person. Yeah, so thirteen thousand kilowatt hours

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Speaker 1: per person, It sounds like a lot, and it is

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Speaker 1: a lot. But in Iceland they use fifty three thousand

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Speaker 1: kilowatt hours per person on average, they gotta heat those

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Speaker 1: soundests and that crazy. But for for in their defense,

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Speaker 1: they're making most of the electricity from geo thermal, so

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Speaker 1: who cares? Use as much electricity as you want. And

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Speaker 1: then we I know some of our other listeners don't

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Speaker 1: just live in the US, so Canada actually beats the

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Speaker 1: United States and per capita consumption, they use fifteen points

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Speaker 1: six thousand killed watt hours. Australia is um better at

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Speaker 1: it than we are. They use ten thousand. New Zealand's

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Speaker 1: nine thousand kill watt hours. And then for our three

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Speaker 1: German listeners seven thousand kilwatt hours. And then in the UK,

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Speaker 1: I think it's about five thousand kilwater yeah, exactly. Volcomb

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Speaker 1: the end, What was that Cabaret? I think, Okay, yeah

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Speaker 1: it is Cabaret. I think it's like the opening of it.

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Speaker 1: I just know Cabaret from Ship's Creek right same here.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm gonna watch it before but uh but yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's where I've seen most of Cabaret from that episode

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Speaker 1: of Ship's Creek. Yeah, Emily and I were both are like,

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Speaker 1: we need to see Cabaret though, Now dude, I started watching, Um,

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Speaker 1: what we do in the Shadows again from the TV Yes,

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Speaker 1: it's so. It's one of the best comedies ever put

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Speaker 1: on television. Yeah, and it's sort of a rare case

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Speaker 1: of taking a movie changing the cast up for television

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Speaker 1: and it's just as good. Yeah, the movie was great.

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Speaker 1: The TV show was great. I I have to I

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Speaker 1: haven't seen all of the movie, but from what I

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Speaker 1: saw the movie, I prefer the TV show. I love him.

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Speaker 1: I think for good six months after the TV show,

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Speaker 1: we would walk around the house saying these iffing gay

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Speaker 1: that like every dude, every single character. And that's just

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Speaker 1: so it's just great. Thank you people who made what

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Speaker 1: we do in the shows. Than uh, it is wonderful.

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Speaker 1: So as far as what we use that power for

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Speaker 1: here in the States, uh, and I guess this is

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Speaker 1: lower forty eight. Who knows what they're doing in Alaska, Hawaii,

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Speaker 1: but thirty eight percent of that power consumption is residential

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Speaker 1: people like you and I and or you and me.

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Speaker 1: And the bulk of that is that is is heating

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Speaker 1: and cooling our homes and making hot water or washing dishes,

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Speaker 1: and then the rest is you know, running appliances, charging

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Speaker 1: your laptop, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, The other

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Speaker 1: sixty one point five percent is non residential stuff commercial

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Speaker 1: things like office buildings, and then industrial, which is mostly

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Speaker 1: um used for running motors or because America loves its lathes.

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Speaker 1: I thought of that earlier, and I was like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've I've seen pictures of lathe accidents before. So I

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Speaker 1: spent a good twenty minutes looking at lathe accident photos.

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Speaker 1: I do not recommend, but I didn't see that coming

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Speaker 1: up when I started researching this. I used a lathe

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Speaker 1: back in industrial arts in high school. Dude, once I

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Speaker 1: found out how dangerous those things were, I would never

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Speaker 1: go near near one. That's you have all your baseball

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Speaker 1: bats made by someone else. Now, yeah, I subout that

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Speaker 1: part of my life. So the good the good news

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Speaker 1: is with energy efficiencies, they've really come a long way

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Speaker 1: over the past couple of decades, the whole Energy Star

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Speaker 1: program and just appliances being made much more efficiently than

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Speaker 1: they used to be. Um, it's only going to increase

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Speaker 1: I think the demand by one percent a year from

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Speaker 1: now to which is good, but that's still thirty increase,

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Speaker 1: which is a lot. But it's astounding that as we

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Speaker 1: keep consuming more and more electricity and we do, um,

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Speaker 1: we we use a lot. They figured out, like these

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Speaker 1: Americans are nuts, They're just gonna keep consuming and consuming.

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Speaker 1: We better figure out how to make our stuff more

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Speaker 1: energy efficient. And that they've managed to offset all but

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Speaker 1: one percent of that growth per year, because I can

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Speaker 1: only imagine if we were still working with you know,

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Speaker 1: nineteen thirties style blenders and vacuum cleaners. Good lord, we'd

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Speaker 1: be suck in the cold directly out of the earth,

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Speaker 1: like straight into your vacuum cleaner. Would be so used,

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Speaker 1: so wasteful. Yeah, And I imagine that they are always

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Speaker 1: working on this, Like I I assume the goal is

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Speaker 1: to have the negative number there, don't you think from

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Speaker 1: your lips to God's ear, chuck, Like, wouldn't that be great?

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Speaker 1: If they're like it's going to go down by two

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Speaker 1: or three percent per year? I mean that would that

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Speaker 1: would be great? That's actually hopefully We're gonna talk a

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Speaker 1: lot about how to fix the grid, and one of

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Speaker 1: the suggestions is to create the smart grid, and one

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Speaker 1: of the big components of it is to basically allow

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Speaker 1: you and me, we or I and you to see

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Speaker 1: how much electricity we use through interfaces that are similar

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Speaker 1: to like online banking, like we would we would be

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Speaker 1: and we would be aware in managing our electricity use

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Speaker 1: with that level of like minute interface, right, and that

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Speaker 1: by doing that we would start to consume less would

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Speaker 1: be certainly less waste wasteful. So it's possible that we

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Speaker 1: might go down compared to levels. Who knows would be great,

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Speaker 1: It would be wonderful. Uh. One of the big changes

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Speaker 1: about I think like basically all of the cold, nuclear

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Speaker 1: and renewable resources we have in this country are consumed,

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Speaker 1: most of it for creating energy, and I think about

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Speaker 1: a third of natural gas. But natural gas is been

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Speaker 1: a big boon. Um. We did an episode on fracking

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Speaker 1: and say what you want about it, but there is

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Speaker 1: a lot more natural gas now. Um, it has lowered

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Speaker 1: the cost gas. Fire generators are cheaper to build, they

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Speaker 1: burn cleaner than cold do by half, They're more nimble,

427
00:25:14,440 --> 00:25:19,080
Speaker 1: they can respond quicker to big increases in demand. So

428
00:25:19,119 --> 00:25:23,800
Speaker 1: it's gone up I think from nineteen from twelve percent

429
00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: of our energy mix to Yeah, and we should probably

430
00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:31,240
Speaker 1: just safe a full disclosure. Um, we are deeply underwritten

431
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,320
Speaker 1: as a podcast by both Enron and x On, So

432
00:25:36,320 --> 00:25:42,000
Speaker 1: just heads up on that one. Tops. Yes, um so uh,

433
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,280
Speaker 1: when you do generate electricity, you're not actually you don't

434
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:50,000
Speaker 1: create energy, where electricity is an energy carrier, right, which

435
00:25:50,040 --> 00:25:52,680
Speaker 1: is why it's like it all turns into the same

436
00:25:52,720 --> 00:25:56,160
Speaker 1: thing from all these different sources. Um. But the people

437
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:59,879
Speaker 1: who run the grid have figured out, like there's specific

438
00:26:00,040 --> 00:26:02,600
Speaker 1: kinds of generation plants you want to run, and there's

439
00:26:02,640 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: basically three of them. One is baseload, which is your average,

440
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 1: say usually coal fire power plant that's running almost all

441
00:26:09,600 --> 00:26:12,560
Speaker 1: the time, and that provides the vast majority of the

442
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: electricity that's being consumed at any given point. Then there's

443
00:26:16,280 --> 00:26:19,880
Speaker 1: load following plants, which a're um at this time natural

444
00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:23,520
Speaker 1: gas power plants, but they may overtake gas or coal

445
00:26:23,560 --> 00:26:25,720
Speaker 1: in the United States at some point. Those are a

446
00:26:25,720 --> 00:26:30,280
Speaker 1: little more, um, a little less frequently run. If you're like,

447
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna need some more some more juice

448
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 1: because it's Christmas time and everybody's got their lights up,

449
00:26:35,200 --> 00:26:38,199
Speaker 1: you might spark up the old load load following plants.

450
00:26:38,440 --> 00:26:42,040
Speaker 1: And then lastly there's one called peaker plants, like a

451
00:26:42,160 --> 00:26:45,959
Speaker 1: peak like a peak capacity where when you start this up,

452
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:50,000
Speaker 1: you're basically like burning diamonds. It's so expensive to run

453
00:26:50,040 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 1: these things, and that means that this the demand has

454
00:26:53,040 --> 00:26:55,919
Speaker 1: gone crazy and the prices are going sky high. So

455
00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:01,160
Speaker 1: turn up the peaker plant because we need that extra capacity. Yeah,

456
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: and just quickly to tick through where we get the

457
00:27:03,520 --> 00:27:06,680
Speaker 1: rest of these the rest of the fuel sources, I

458
00:27:06,720 --> 00:27:10,760
Speaker 1: said natural gas ist coal is twenty three, nuclear is twenty,

459
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 1: wind is seven, hydro electric is seven, biomass is two,

460
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:19,960
Speaker 1: pent solar one eight percent, which is still pretty low.

461
00:27:20,000 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: Considering how many people have gotten on that train. I

462
00:27:22,000 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 1: would say it's objectively shameful. Yeah, that would be nice

463
00:27:25,840 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 1: to see that number go up. But um, there are

464
00:27:28,440 --> 00:27:33,200
Speaker 1: a hundred and forty five million households and businesses connected

465
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,159
Speaker 1: to this grid in the US. And the reason it

466
00:27:36,200 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: all works, and we talked about this, it's still just

467
00:27:39,119 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: amazing to me how it all works. We talked about

468
00:27:41,760 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 1: it in electricity, but the ability to send electricity over

469
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: long distances and step it up and step it down

470
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:54,600
Speaker 1: to make it power your coffee machine is a modern miracle.

471
00:27:54,720 --> 00:27:57,200
Speaker 1: It's amazing, right, And that's one of the big advantages

472
00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:00,679
Speaker 1: of alternating current electricity is I guess you can do

473
00:28:00,760 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: it with DC, but it's way more difficult and way

474
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: more expensive. So for all intents and purposes, it's a

475
00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:09,520
Speaker 1: c that you can step up and step down. And

476
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,479
Speaker 1: when when you do that, you do that because current,

477
00:28:12,560 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: which is the flow of electrons like down the line

478
00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:24,080
Speaker 1: UM is inversely proportionate to what's called voltage rights it is.

479
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:26,840
Speaker 1: Voltage is kind of like the pressure you put on

480
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: a line, like the pressure of the flow where the

481
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:33,200
Speaker 1: where the current is the actual flow, right, And if

482
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:38,520
Speaker 1: you have a very high current of electricity, you unfortunately

483
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: get a lot of resistance on the transmission lines. And

484
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: when you have a lot of resistance, you lose a

485
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: lot of electricity to heat. But fortunately for power generators, UM,

486
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: if you up the voltage right up the pressure that

487
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:57,760
Speaker 1: you're putting on the line, it actually decreases the current.

488
00:28:58,000 --> 00:29:00,360
Speaker 1: And if you decrease the current, then you d crease

489
00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:03,080
Speaker 1: the energy loss. So they figured out that if they

490
00:29:03,120 --> 00:29:05,239
Speaker 1: can take you know, when they generate the stuff at

491
00:29:05,480 --> 00:29:08,360
Speaker 1: power plants, it's like two thousand volts, maybe up to

492
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:11,719
Speaker 1: twenty thousand volts, but then they step up the voltage

493
00:29:12,080 --> 00:29:15,560
Speaker 1: to hundreds of thousands of volts. I think some transmission

494
00:29:15,640 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 1: lines are able to take about seven hundred and fifty

495
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,280
Speaker 1: thousand volts, which is amazing. It is like if you

496
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:27,040
Speaker 1: get shocked by like an electrical socket in your house

497
00:29:27,400 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: that's a hundred and twenty volts. This is seven hundred

498
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:34,120
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand volts um. The current goes down so

499
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:37,680
Speaker 1: dramatically that you lose almost none of the electricity over

500
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:41,600
Speaker 1: very very long distances of transmission. So that's really a

501
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 1: huge benefit of alternating current that you can step them

502
00:29:44,880 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: up and then when you get towards neighborhoods and stuff,

503
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: step them back down. Yeah. I think they lose about

504
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: six percent of electricity generated in the United States, which

505
00:29:56,600 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 1: you know, that's a fairly low number, but I think

506
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 1: they're all he's trying to make that better. Yeah, because

507
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,120
Speaker 1: I mean, let's see somewhere else whereas that number there's

508
00:30:05,160 --> 00:30:10,640
Speaker 1: a um we we do something like thirty five, no,

509
00:30:10,840 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: four and a half trillion kill a watt hours are

510
00:30:15,640 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 1: generated in the United States. So six lost. That's an

511
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 1: astounding amount of electricity that's lost. Any improvement on that

512
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,920
Speaker 1: would be huge. Yeah, that'd be great. Um So in

513
00:30:26,960 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: your house, like you said, you have here in the States,

514
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:31,920
Speaker 1: we have a hundred and twenty volts, So you have

515
00:30:32,000 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: these substations that step it down to about twelve thousand.

516
00:30:36,200 --> 00:30:39,080
Speaker 1: Then it goes to your power lines, and then those

517
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: you know, those gray um sort of cylindrical cans at

518
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:47,440
Speaker 1: the top of the things. Those are very important. They

519
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,760
Speaker 1: step it down even further to about two forty. Then

520
00:30:50,760 --> 00:30:52,400
Speaker 1: by the time you get into your house is down

521
00:30:52,400 --> 00:30:55,360
Speaker 1: to one and you're was about to say you're cooking

522
00:30:55,400 --> 00:30:59,840
Speaker 1: with gas, but you're not. You're cooking with electricity. Yes,

523
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,760
Speaker 1: those gray can transformers are the same thing as that

524
00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:06,120
Speaker 1: green death box that they wanted to put in your

525
00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: front yard, except the green death box it's called the

526
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: pack frontyard mount transformer. That's for underground power lines. The

527
00:31:13,480 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: gray cans are for overheadlines. But they do the same thing.

528
00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,600
Speaker 1: They step it down to a much less deadly and

529
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: much more usable um voltage of electricity. Yeah, we have

530
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,280
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Atlanta just has a lot

531
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 1: of outage this period because we have a it's a

532
00:31:29,440 --> 00:31:31,680
Speaker 1: city in a forest, and we have a ton of trees,

533
00:31:32,280 --> 00:31:34,640
Speaker 1: a ton of really old trees. Like most of the

534
00:31:35,120 --> 00:31:38,240
Speaker 1: not most, but a lot of the old oak trees

535
00:31:38,240 --> 00:31:41,440
Speaker 1: in Atlanta are coming down, or at the very least

536
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 1: large limbs are coming down, and uh, it's it's a problem.

537
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: So my neighborhood especially, we have a lot of blackouts.

538
00:31:47,560 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: So hopefully this this burying the lines project will work

539
00:31:51,400 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 1: out pretty well. Yeah. The tree thing, it's it's important.

540
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:56,560
Speaker 1: It's like kind of part of that whole reliability thing

541
00:31:56,680 --> 00:32:00,480
Speaker 1: is we'll see is keeping trees trimmed away from power lines. Yeah,

542
00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:02,760
Speaker 1: which is why a power company might knock on your

543
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:06,000
Speaker 1: door one day and say, Hi, we need to to

544
00:32:06,040 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 1: cut a lot of your tree back, and you have

545
00:32:08,840 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 1: to say yes. Well, yeah, they might not even say that.

546
00:32:11,840 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: Then we might just show up and start cutting your

547
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: tree and be like, what are you going to do

548
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: about it? And I'm just like, that was uncalled for.

549
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:25,080
Speaker 1: Should we take another break before you get in another

550
00:32:25,120 --> 00:32:28,000
Speaker 1: fight with a power person? Yeah, they started at chuck.

551
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:30,800
Speaker 1: All right, we'll take a break and we'll come back

552
00:32:30,840 --> 00:32:33,400
Speaker 1: and talk about all this gobble you cook a little

553
00:32:33,400 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 1: bit more, alrighty. So you mentioned earlier the monopoly situation

554
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 1: that was broken up, um largely because of the energy

555
00:33:11,400 --> 00:33:14,760
Speaker 1: crisis of the nineteen seventies, and we said, hey, let's

556
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 1: open it up. Let's get the market going and get

557
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 1: some competitive pricing happening, and everyone did that, not everyone

558
00:33:23,600 --> 00:33:25,280
Speaker 1: in the Southeast. We still have a lot of the big,

559
00:33:25,320 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: big utility companies, but um, they still needed some sort

560
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 1: of oversight. And there are a lot of different ways

561
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: that these things are regulated. If you look at a

562
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,680
Speaker 1: state level, you're going to be regulated by a public

563
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: utility commission or a public service commission. And then when

564
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: you start horse trading in Alabama says to Georgia, hey,

565
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:49,920
Speaker 1: we need some power, and you're like, wait, I'm getting

566
00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:52,360
Speaker 1: some power from Tennessee right now. Hold on the other line,

567
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: that's got to be regulated too. So the Federal Energy

568
00:33:55,600 --> 00:34:03,680
Speaker 1: Regulatory Commission oversees those transactions. Yes, FVRC. So they're supposed

569
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: to it. As we'll see, they they fall down on

570
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:09,120
Speaker 1: the job kind of frequently in huge catastrophic things happen

571
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 1: when they do. Um. But yeah, So when they started

572
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: to be regulated, especially in the set or deregulated in

573
00:34:15,960 --> 00:34:20,640
Speaker 1: the seventies, strangely enough, it was Jimmy Carter's administration who

574
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: opened up competition. You would think that would have been

575
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 1: a squarely a Ronald Reagan kind of thing, but Carter

576
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: did it to encourage conservation um of energy and to

577
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,040
Speaker 1: create that competition to see who could who could deliver

578
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: this this stuff and kind of innovate more. Um, just

579
00:34:37,160 --> 00:34:40,239
Speaker 1: basically shake up the stodgy old energy companies. But the

580
00:34:40,239 --> 00:34:42,359
Speaker 1: problem is is, remember I said, like it was money

581
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:44,840
Speaker 1: in the bank, you could just kick back and expect

582
00:34:44,880 --> 00:34:47,680
Speaker 1: eight percent growth year over year every single year, and

583
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,800
Speaker 1: people are just gonna keep using electricity. All of a sudden,

584
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:54,799
Speaker 1: there's a totally new mindset in America, which was whoa, whoa,

585
00:34:54,800 --> 00:34:57,919
Speaker 1: we're using way too much electricity and energy we need

586
00:34:57,960 --> 00:35:01,399
Speaker 1: to conserve. And now all the power companies started kind

587
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:03,840
Speaker 1: of losing money. And when they started to lose money,

588
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:08,600
Speaker 1: they stopped doing important things like cutting down trees um

589
00:35:08,719 --> 00:35:12,640
Speaker 1: or cutting down off tree limbs, or servicing their lines

590
00:35:12,680 --> 00:35:16,920
Speaker 1: as much like all the stuff that made them more reliable. UM,

591
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:21,200
Speaker 1: just stopped happening quite as frequently, and so you started

592
00:35:21,239 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: to see things like enormous, massive blackouts that you know,

593
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 1: affected millions of people for days, where you didn't really

594
00:35:29,040 --> 00:35:31,160
Speaker 1: see that that often before. I think the first one

595
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: ever was in nineteen five, but um, the really big

596
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: ones started coming more frequently around about two thousand. I

597
00:35:39,680 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: think that was kind of kicked off by the California

598
00:35:42,280 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: energy crisis, and then you know we were talking about

599
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: the regulatory bodies, UM those were just for the public

600
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,879
Speaker 1: utilities themselves. Then you have these transmission networks and they

601
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 1: have to be managed as well, and UM, I think

602
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:57,799
Speaker 1: for stepped in and said, we need some sort of

603
00:35:57,840 --> 00:36:01,879
Speaker 1: independent management and oversight here, uh, because basically we've got

604
00:36:01,880 --> 00:36:04,920
Speaker 1: to make sure that everyone has equal access to this grid.

605
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:08,800
Speaker 1: And so these interconnections that we talked about, those three interconnections,

606
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: they're divided about divided up into more than a dozen

607
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: independent nonprofits UM that are called regional transmission organizations or

608
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:21,680
Speaker 1: independent system operators. And I think the idea there is

609
00:36:21,719 --> 00:36:24,000
Speaker 1: they're just they're not in it for the money. They're

610
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:25,840
Speaker 1: there to kind of really just make sure everyone is

611
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: being treated fairly and doing the right thing, right, that

612
00:36:28,880 --> 00:36:31,600
Speaker 1: everybody has access to the grid that's supposed to get

613
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:33,959
Speaker 1: access to the grid. But also it's a they're also

614
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: the modern incarnation of those power pools where like UM,

615
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: like utilities would would buy and sell power to one

616
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:44,399
Speaker 1: another as needed. These are the groups that kind of

617
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:49,400
Speaker 1: oversee those transactions. Right. So you mentioned the grid failing

618
00:36:49,400 --> 00:36:52,759
Speaker 1: in California. I was there at the time, and I

619
00:36:52,800 --> 00:36:56,840
Speaker 1: remember in I remember these rolling blackouts California in the

620
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:01,080
Speaker 1: late nineties and early two thousands, early odts, UM had

621
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: to institute these emergency rolling blackouts. Uh. And I remember

622
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:07,920
Speaker 1: when I was living there a couple of times it

623
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: was all over the news. You know, it was a big,

624
00:37:09,280 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: big news. And I remember a couple of times like

625
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: you know, losing power because they just had to. Yeah,

626
00:37:15,719 --> 00:37:19,560
Speaker 1: so there was UM. I guess California and and Ron

627
00:37:19,600 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 1: actually makes an appearance every time there was a huge,

628
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: colossal blackout. You could trace that its origins back a

629
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 1: couple of years to Enron lobbying to get somebody d

630
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:32,920
Speaker 1: to get things deregulated, get a wholesale market built up,

631
00:37:33,080 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: and they managed to do that in California. UM and

632
00:37:36,400 --> 00:37:40,880
Speaker 1: California found itself in this weird position where the really

633
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:45,360
Speaker 1: big utility companies like PG and E UM or Southern

634
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:52,399
Speaker 1: California Edison UM were they they were capped at how

635
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: much they could charge retail for energy for electricity. But

636
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:03,240
Speaker 1: at the same time, in this new wholesale market UM

637
00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:07,920
Speaker 1: they had to buy electricity and it wasn't being regulated.

638
00:38:07,960 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: Member I said that Birk sometimes falls down in the job. Well,

639
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:13,799
Speaker 1: they weren't regulating this wholesale market in California like they

640
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:16,280
Speaker 1: were supposed to, And so one day in the summer

641
00:38:16,840 --> 00:38:19,439
Speaker 1: uh one month, I should say, starting in June of

642
00:38:19,440 --> 00:38:23,240
Speaker 1: of two thousand, the wholesale prices went through the roof.

643
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:26,360
Speaker 1: It went from about thirty bucks the year before to

644
00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:30,400
Speaker 1: three seventy five bucks a megawatt hour in two thousand

645
00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:33,480
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, PG and is having to

646
00:38:33,520 --> 00:38:35,600
Speaker 1: pay through the nose for this energy, but they can't

647
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: pass the cost along to their customers, and yet they're

648
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:44,360
Speaker 1: also legally obligated to continue to to provide electricity to

649
00:38:44,400 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: their customers. So they found themselves in this impossible situation.

650
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 1: Some people still today say that they turned off the

651
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: power because they didn't have the supply. Um, but they

652
00:38:55,239 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 1: they swear that they did not do that and that

653
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,399
Speaker 1: they just ran out a supply because they can get

654
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:03,440
Speaker 1: it any longer. Well. Yeah, And as a result, p

655
00:39:03,600 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 1: G and E in UH Southern Cali Edison, they were

656
00:39:07,840 --> 00:39:10,560
Speaker 1: financially strapped. So they were in a situation where they

657
00:39:10,600 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: had independent energy suppliers in surrounding states that were like,

658
00:39:15,360 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: and I know you guys are in trouble, but I

659
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:19,279
Speaker 1: don't want to see my stuff because I don't know

660
00:39:19,280 --> 00:39:22,400
Speaker 1: that I'm gonna get paid back now. So California was

661
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 1: in a bind in the early ots and um, there

662
00:39:26,560 --> 00:39:28,840
Speaker 1: were also technical problems and stuff. I think there was

663
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,560
Speaker 1: uh low water levels in the Pacific Northwest, which was

664
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:34,879
Speaker 1: huge because California at the time, I don't know if

665
00:39:34,880 --> 00:39:37,680
Speaker 1: there is it's different now. They were not self sufficient

666
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: energy wise. They depended on the surplus of other states. Yeah,

667
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:44,960
Speaker 1: so you know, if there was low water levels in

668
00:39:44,960 --> 00:39:49,600
Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest, that's less electricity being sent south. And

669
00:39:49,640 --> 00:39:53,319
Speaker 1: they also basically had these high voltage power lines from

670
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:57,399
Speaker 1: southern California to northern California and they were crashing, they

671
00:39:57,400 --> 00:40:00,320
Speaker 1: were failing because they were just over a burden base basically.

672
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,000
Speaker 1: So they said, we got to do these rolling blackouts,

673
00:40:03,480 --> 00:40:06,799
Speaker 1: and I think the biggest one was March two thousand one,

674
00:40:06,880 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 1: affected about one point five million customers. Yeah, and like

675
00:40:09,719 --> 00:40:14,560
Speaker 1: you said that, they these independent energy producers wouldn't sell

676
00:40:14,600 --> 00:40:16,759
Speaker 1: them electricity because they didn't think they were going to

677
00:40:16,840 --> 00:40:19,160
Speaker 1: get paid back. The whole thing finally ended when the

678
00:40:19,200 --> 00:40:23,840
Speaker 1: governor had the water Board, the State water Board, go

679
00:40:24,080 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: buy energy or electricity on behalf of them because the

680
00:40:28,560 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 1: state was you know, the state had a good enough

681
00:40:31,360 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: credit to buy electricity, but their two biggest electricity utilities

682
00:40:35,960 --> 00:40:41,760
Speaker 1: didn't have good enough credit. And that crazy. Yeah Great Davis,

683
00:40:41,800 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 1: I was like, was that the Governator? No? I think

684
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 1: he was just after Great Davis, wasn't he? And then

685
00:40:48,160 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: I saw it was Arnold Schwarzenegger, actually the governor for

686
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:55,440
Speaker 1: California for years. It was, I mean that was after

687
00:40:56,160 --> 00:41:01,959
Speaker 1: I left. Uh, just yeah, it was just after I left. Yeah,

688
00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:05,359
Speaker 1: he was. He was Cheeze two thousand at the same

689
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 1: time that Jesse the Body Venture was the governor of Minnesota.

690
00:41:10,920 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: No way, man, all we needed was Carl Weathers is

691
00:41:14,560 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: the governor of Georgia. And um, Piper, No, no, I'm

692
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: doing Predator here. Okay, I missed that. I can't remember

693
00:41:24,640 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: the guy who played Billy or maybe just the Predator.

694
00:41:28,760 --> 00:41:36,200
Speaker 1: Sure the Predator was president, don't you know. Uh, I

695
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:37,920
Speaker 1: haven't seen that movie in so long. I bet your

696
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:39,960
Speaker 1: Predator holds up. Yeah, I saw in the last few

697
00:41:40,040 --> 00:41:43,359
Speaker 1: years and it does. Yeah, don't check that out. Uh,

698
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:45,400
Speaker 1: there was a big blackout in the Northeast. I remember

699
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,120
Speaker 1: this one as well. In two thousand three, Uh, this

700
00:41:48,200 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 1: was big time. This was fifty million people uh in

701
00:41:51,640 --> 00:41:53,960
Speaker 1: the US and even parts of Canada lost power for

702
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: a couple of days, in some case eleven deaths. And

703
00:41:57,160 --> 00:42:00,359
Speaker 1: this one, like it was like a movie or something.

704
00:42:00,400 --> 00:42:04,400
Speaker 1: How how this one started? Yeah, the there was Remember

705
00:42:04,440 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: I said that tree cutting kind of fell to the

706
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:08,919
Speaker 1: wayside a little bit when they stopped making as much money.

707
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 1: Well that's what happened here. It was really really hot

708
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:13,640
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of demand, and those lines

709
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 1: were just blazing so much so that they actually started

710
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:21,560
Speaker 1: to sag, like the the atomic composition of the metal

711
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 1: was put under that much stress, and they sagged into

712
00:42:24,880 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: a tree brim, a tree branch and arct which is

713
00:42:28,200 --> 00:42:31,800
Speaker 1: basically like lightning is produced. Right. There was a teenager

714
00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: in Ohio who noticed that, um, his outlets were smoking

715
00:42:36,760 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: throughout his house, and it just so happened that there

716
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:43,799
Speaker 1: was a tree cutting crew outside of his house on

717
00:42:43,840 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: the other side of the street, and he ran out

718
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,200
Speaker 1: to tell him and they basically told him to get lost.

719
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,520
Speaker 1: And hours and hours went by. Uh. And there was

720
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,440
Speaker 1: a bunch of cascading power feelers, which normally would have

721
00:42:55,480 --> 00:42:58,680
Speaker 1: been caught, right, but there was some human error involved. Yeah,

722
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: this was sort of the movie art. I mean, it

723
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: might as well have been like a rat chewing on

724
00:43:02,280 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: a wire or something that was. There's monitoring software that,

725
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:08,440
Speaker 1: like you said, it's usually like, hey, emergency, something's going on.

726
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,320
Speaker 1: But the software was being glitchy. And so a technician

727
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:16,240
Speaker 1: with I guess like mustard stains on his shirt, turns

728
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:18,399
Speaker 1: it off, tries to fix it, and forgets to turn

729
00:43:18,440 --> 00:43:23,279
Speaker 1: it back on. That's crazy. And so because the power

730
00:43:23,320 --> 00:43:26,640
Speaker 1: grid is especially interconnected up in the northeast, this power

731
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:30,759
Speaker 1: outage in Ohio meant that there was um power outages

732
00:43:31,080 --> 00:43:34,399
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. And I think, did you say

733
00:43:34,440 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 1: eleven people died? Eleven people died? Um? So you know

734
00:43:39,360 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 1: the you the federal regulators stepped in and it was like,

735
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:46,319
Speaker 1: we need a catchy new slogan to improve this, and

736
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 1: so how about the three T s trimming training and tools.

737
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: And everyone rolled their eyes said, whatever, Boomer, We'll we'll

738
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: get on those three T s. Sweet turn the volume

739
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 1: up on which a Tall Lineman, which is the only

740
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:06,280
Speaker 1: song they ever listened to. The fourth tea was too sweet. Nice.

741
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: Uh So, now Texas, we're in Texas, We're not literally

742
00:44:10,160 --> 00:44:14,080
Speaker 1: in Texas. But uh, we're in Texas now in spirit

743
00:44:14,160 --> 00:44:18,560
Speaker 1: because very recently a big freak winter stormhead as everyone knows,

744
00:44:19,239 --> 00:44:21,840
Speaker 1: and everyone needed a lot more heat than they usually

745
00:44:21,840 --> 00:44:24,000
Speaker 1: do at this time of year in Texas. I think

746
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: they usually require about sixty seven thousand megawatts a day

747
00:44:26,880 --> 00:44:30,759
Speaker 1: in the winter, yeah, compared to eighty six thousand megawatts

748
00:44:30,760 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: in the summer. And all of this makes sense. We're

749
00:44:33,160 --> 00:44:35,960
Speaker 1: not saying like you're wrong Texas for not, you know,

750
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: being ready for this weird freak storm. I mean that

751
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: was the cause of it. But you also have to

752
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: take into consideration that, uh, like we said, some of

753
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:47,839
Speaker 1: those lines weren't insulated like they should have been because

754
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 1: of money and wind and solar is not gonna work

755
00:44:51,160 --> 00:44:52,840
Speaker 1: as well in the winter anyway, And I think those

756
00:44:53,160 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: wind farms weren't winter rised as well, right, Yes, some

757
00:44:56,080 --> 00:45:01,080
Speaker 1: of them did. Apparently a surprising number. UM kept spinning UM,

758
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:05,719
Speaker 1: but the big problem was the gas pipelines freezing over.

759
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:10,520
Speaker 1: So instead of the UM planned for sixty seven thousand

760
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:16,560
Speaker 1: megawatts of power, they ended up with UM thirty one

761
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 1: thousand because of those failures in the actual system, So

762
00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:23,839
Speaker 1: they had thirty thousand megawatts. They needed a lot more

763
00:45:23,880 --> 00:45:26,920
Speaker 1: than that. Uh, they probably needed about fifty thousand more

764
00:45:26,960 --> 00:45:29,280
Speaker 1: megawatts than they had. And so all of a sudden,

765
00:45:29,719 --> 00:45:34,080
Speaker 1: power just started going out in Texas. Supposedly isn't connected anything.

766
00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:38,200
Speaker 1: So Texas went dark and everybody started to get very

767
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:43,240
Speaker 1: cold and couldn't cook and couldn't um, couldn't boil water,

768
00:45:43,719 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 1: couldn't take showers, to basically live in a very They

769
00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: lived in a very dangerous situation because this is sub

770
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: freezing temperatures and these areas are not set up for

771
00:45:53,160 --> 00:45:55,920
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. Yeah, And if you want to

772
00:45:55,960 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: get your feathers ruffled and get a little riled up,

773
00:45:59,360 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: to read this New York Times article about the exorbitant

774
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,799
Speaker 1: UM power bills that some of these people got that

775
00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,200
Speaker 1: we're able to stay online. There's a sixty three year

776
00:46:09,200 --> 00:46:12,480
Speaker 1: old Army vet who had to pay sixteen thousand dollars

777
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: for his monthly bill, which wiped out his entire savings UM.

778
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 1: A lot of people were reportedly UM, including this guy.

779
00:46:21,880 --> 00:46:26,239
Speaker 1: Customers of a company called Gritty g R I D

780
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:29,880
Speaker 1: T Y. I mean, you have to laugh at a

781
00:46:29,960 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: name like that, but they provide electricity at wholesale prices,

782
00:46:34,680 --> 00:46:36,960
Speaker 1: and the deal with Gritty is it really quickly changes

783
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,560
Speaker 1: based on supply and demand. So they sell it to

784
00:46:39,600 --> 00:46:42,919
Speaker 1: the customers as, hey, we're gonna pass this wholesale price

785
00:46:42,960 --> 00:46:47,840
Speaker 1: directly to you for a low monthly fee, and the

786
00:46:47,920 --> 00:46:51,400
Speaker 1: rate's gonna fluctuate, but it's really no big deal because

787
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:56,200
Speaker 1: it fluctuates just sort of reasonably. Um. They saw this

788
00:46:56,320 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 1: huge jump coming, apparently, and they encouraged their customer. There's

789
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,759
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand people to switch to another provider when

790
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: the storm came, which is just not that easy to do,

791
00:47:07,840 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 1: and a lot of it is through an app A

792
00:47:09,520 --> 00:47:11,839
Speaker 1: lot of people were like literally connected to their bank,

793
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,800
Speaker 1: so people would literally watch eight ten, twelve thou dollars

794
00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:18,120
Speaker 1: drained out of their bank account before their very eyes

795
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:21,480
Speaker 1: and they can't do anything about it. And uh. The

796
00:47:21,680 --> 00:47:26,080
Speaker 1: architect of the Texas energy grid, his name is where

797
00:47:26,160 --> 00:47:29,480
Speaker 1: is it here? William Hogan? He said, you know what

798
00:47:29,680 --> 00:47:32,560
Speaker 1: this thing is? Uh, it worked exactly like it was

799
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:36,040
Speaker 1: supposed to because high prices reflected the market performing as

800
00:47:36,080 --> 00:47:39,319
Speaker 1: it was designed. And um, he said, as you get

801
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:41,799
Speaker 1: closer and closer to the bare minimum, these prices get

802
00:47:41,880 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: higher and higher, which is what you want is that

803
00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:48,520
Speaker 1: guys nicknamed Milton Friedman. I mean, how heartless. But yes,

804
00:47:48,640 --> 00:47:52,320
Speaker 1: it's true in fact, but it's pretty heartless way to

805
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:54,880
Speaker 1: look at it, you know. Yeah, And I think Governor

806
00:47:54,920 --> 00:47:57,080
Speaker 1: Abbott has stepped in and said, like, wait a minute,

807
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: but we can't people can't be going broke paying for

808
00:48:00,840 --> 00:48:02,800
Speaker 1: like three and four years worth of energy in a

809
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:05,800
Speaker 1: single month. Well, that's the opposite of what the the

810
00:48:06,520 --> 00:48:09,560
Speaker 1: George W. Bush said when he was governor of Texas

811
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 1: passed a bill that said you have to pay whatever

812
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:17,640
Speaker 1: the energy company charges you as a consumer. Yeah. So

813
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what they're gonna do if they can

814
00:48:19,680 --> 00:48:24,759
Speaker 1: retroactively reimburse some of these people, but it's, um, I

815
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,640
Speaker 1: don't know, that's horrifying, man sixteen grand I know, especially

816
00:48:28,719 --> 00:48:31,279
Speaker 1: when it's taken direct like this isn't even like a

817
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:33,920
Speaker 1: well hold on, hold on, I'm not gonna pay this yet.

818
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:35,839
Speaker 1: I want to talk to but it's like that's gone

819
00:48:35,880 --> 00:48:37,399
Speaker 1: now I have to go try to get it back.

820
00:48:38,080 --> 00:48:41,520
Speaker 1: Good luck. Yeah, that's terrible stuff. So sorry Texas that

821
00:48:41,640 --> 00:48:44,120
Speaker 1: that happened. But the other thing about it, Chuck two,

822
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:46,960
Speaker 1: is like, you know, yeah, they weren't prepared for it.

823
00:48:47,440 --> 00:48:50,360
Speaker 1: And it was a freak winter storm that just doesn't happen.

824
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 1: But a lot of people are saying, hey, welcome to

825
00:48:53,280 --> 00:48:55,480
Speaker 1: the age of climate change. This is not just a

826
00:48:55,560 --> 00:48:59,000
Speaker 1: freak storm anymore. This stuff is actually going to keep happening.

827
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:03,439
Speaker 1: And Texas had virtually the same thing happened in two

828
00:49:03,520 --> 00:49:07,120
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, and there was a there was a panel

829
00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:09,760
Speaker 1: um that was created to figure out how to prevent

830
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:13,160
Speaker 1: that from happening again. They gave er out a whole

831
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:16,719
Speaker 1: list of things to do, including like winterization, like insulating

832
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 1: their pipes Orcott didn't do it and it happened again.

833
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,000
Speaker 1: So I think Texas as patients with Urcott not listening

834
00:49:24,040 --> 00:49:26,000
Speaker 1: to that kind of stuff has probably reached an end.

835
00:49:27,080 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: So how do we fix this stuff? You mentioned, uh,

836
00:49:29,640 --> 00:49:33,080
Speaker 1: the smart grid, I think about I mean, just our

837
00:49:33,160 --> 00:49:36,080
Speaker 1: infrastructure in this country is in bad shape period. Seventy

838
00:49:36,480 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 1: of large power transformers and transmission lines are at least

839
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,040
Speaker 1: twenty five years old, sixty percent of circuit breakers or

840
00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:47,080
Speaker 1: thirty years old. And uh, you mentioned the smart grid,

841
00:49:47,160 --> 00:49:49,640
Speaker 1: and I think that's they're starting to do some of it,

842
00:49:49,680 --> 00:49:52,080
Speaker 1: but that's the solution going forward, right, Yeah, I mean,

843
00:49:52,200 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: like it doesn't matter where you are UM on the

844
00:49:55,640 --> 00:49:57,440
Speaker 1: on the left or the right or in the middle,

845
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,160
Speaker 1: everyone is like, yes, smart grid, smart grid. We the

846
00:50:00,239 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: smart grid, and that's basically like the grid we have now,

847
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:07,600
Speaker 1: but just slowly, piecemeal, UM improved little by little to

848
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:13,600
Speaker 1: add way more UM back and forth communication between the generators,

849
00:50:13,640 --> 00:50:17,480
Speaker 1: the transmitters, the distributors and the end user. UM that

850
00:50:17,800 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 1: there's and there's a lot more automated sensing built into

851
00:50:21,880 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: this system, which makes the whole thing a lot more clever,

852
00:50:25,200 --> 00:50:28,720
Speaker 1: and UM makes like rerouting around problems a lot easier.

853
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:31,120
Speaker 1: But also one of the big things is making you

854
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:34,759
Speaker 1: and me and I and we UM a lot more

855
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:41,359
Speaker 1: savvy about the energy that we consume from moment to moment. Yeah,

856
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:43,239
Speaker 1: I mean there's that. And I also feel like the

857
00:50:43,280 --> 00:50:45,239
Speaker 1: smart grid, most of it kind of falls under the

858
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:53,040
Speaker 1: banner of real time micro observance, whereas what we have

859
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:57,600
Speaker 1: now is very sluggish, very old fashioned. I mean it

860
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:01,320
Speaker 1: can be. It's like the difference between you know, digital

861
00:51:01,360 --> 00:51:05,839
Speaker 1: smartphone technology and like the old like crank phones from

862
00:51:05,840 --> 00:51:08,480
Speaker 1: the old days. Basically, Yeah, if there's a power outage,

863
00:51:08,560 --> 00:51:11,239
Speaker 1: the way that the electrical generators find out about it

864
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:14,600
Speaker 1: is there's a series of towers where bonfires are lit

865
00:51:14,760 --> 00:51:18,080
Speaker 1: from mountain to mountain and they finally see one that's

866
00:51:18,120 --> 00:51:20,160
Speaker 1: close enough, lit close enough, and they start to like

867
00:51:20,360 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 1: ramp up production. That's how it happens. Now it's amazing,

868
00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:27,640
Speaker 1: But there's also so I mean, you've got things like

869
00:51:27,880 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: UM feed er switches that basically go around a problem area.

870
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:33,440
Speaker 1: If you've got it down transmission line, it can just

871
00:51:33,520 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 1: go around it and then you know it doesn't black

872
00:51:35,640 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: everybody out. UM uh smart meters so you kind of

873
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 1: see how much energy you're using and then also how

874
00:51:42,640 --> 00:51:44,480
Speaker 1: much the price of energy is, so you can actually

875
00:51:44,520 --> 00:51:46,359
Speaker 1: save money if you want to kind of get into

876
00:51:46,440 --> 00:51:49,840
Speaker 1: it in that granular level. And then also um, just

877
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:56,400
Speaker 1: making sure that um that there's storage. That's the big challenge.

878
00:51:56,480 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: We talked about that in our renewable energy episode Bill

879
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:03,160
Speaker 1: Gates Store. It don't have anywhere to put access, so

880
00:52:03,239 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 1: we shuffle it around the grid. But if we have

881
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:09,520
Speaker 1: storage places strategically put around the United States, that would

882
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:14,120
Speaker 1: change absolutely everything. Yeah, as well as getting more direct use,

883
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:17,160
Speaker 1: which is solar UM. I actually have a little solar

884
00:52:17,200 --> 00:52:21,760
Speaker 1: project going. I'm very excited about, uh not for my house,

885
00:52:21,880 --> 00:52:24,680
Speaker 1: but I know you know this. We have some We

886
00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 1: have some acreage in North Georgia on a river that uh,

887
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,879
Speaker 1: no house or anything. It's just land, just a van.

888
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:37,000
Speaker 1: There may be a van one day, but it's just

889
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:38,759
Speaker 1: as I call it that. We call it the camp.

890
00:52:38,800 --> 00:52:40,840
Speaker 1: It's friends and family camp. And I'm I'm trying to

891
00:52:40,880 --> 00:52:44,320
Speaker 1: style it out like a legit like state park campground.

892
00:52:45,400 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: And as of right now, as of like three days ago,

893
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:50,720
Speaker 1: I'm having a pavilion built. It's gonna have three solar

894
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:53,480
Speaker 1: panels on it and a little battery array, so I'm

895
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: gonna be able to power like a big giant ceiling

896
00:52:57,520 --> 00:53:00,800
Speaker 1: fan under the pavilion and like four odd outlets and

897
00:53:01,800 --> 00:53:04,200
Speaker 1: like a coffee maker. Nothing huge, but he said, the

898
00:53:04,239 --> 00:53:06,399
Speaker 1: guy said, will be enough for three or four days

899
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:09,439
Speaker 1: of full power and then like a day to juice

900
00:53:09,440 --> 00:53:11,399
Speaker 1: it up. And we're never there for more than three

901
00:53:11,480 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 1: days anyway, So I'm technically gonna have a little off

902
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:18,800
Speaker 1: grid campground. Soon you have me a coffee maker, and

903
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:22,600
Speaker 1: I should mention you've got me a very nice birthday

904
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:25,319
Speaker 1: gift that is going to live at that camp. I'm

905
00:53:25,400 --> 00:53:26,960
Speaker 1: so glad you like it. Man. I saw and I

906
00:53:27,080 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: was like, I know exactly where this will go, and

907
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: it went exactly where I thought it would get. What

908
00:53:32,120 --> 00:53:33,440
Speaker 1: is the exact name of it. I don't have the

909
00:53:33,480 --> 00:53:36,240
Speaker 1: box in front of me. Oh man. It's a kindling

910
00:53:37,080 --> 00:53:40,560
Speaker 1: splitter basically. Yeah, it's like a log splitter, but but

911
00:53:40,680 --> 00:53:43,080
Speaker 1: it splits it into kindling. So the coolest thing about

912
00:53:43,120 --> 00:53:46,040
Speaker 1: it all is the story behind it. Is this like

913
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,640
Speaker 1: twelve year old girl invented it in New Zealand and

914
00:53:50,880 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: for the last like seven years. Now she's in her

915
00:53:52,760 --> 00:53:54,680
Speaker 1: early twenties. I think she was like thirteen years old

916
00:53:54,719 --> 00:53:57,880
Speaker 1: at the time. It's like a legit company and this

917
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:00,680
Speaker 1: thing you like screw it onto a log and then

918
00:54:00,760 --> 00:54:02,160
Speaker 1: you put another log in it and hit it with

919
00:54:02,200 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: a heavy hammer. You even got me the heavy hammer. Yeah. Yeah,

920
00:54:04,560 --> 00:54:07,320
Speaker 1: you can't not get the hammer. It splits it into kindling.

921
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:09,920
Speaker 1: I'm just so excited. Yeah, rather than like bringing an

922
00:54:10,000 --> 00:54:12,520
Speaker 1: axe down onto a log, the ax is coming up

923
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:16,360
Speaker 1: from the bottom. Yes, And it's very much safer. And

924
00:54:16,480 --> 00:54:18,960
Speaker 1: I even looked at a YouTube video and a review

925
00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:21,120
Speaker 1: and everyone was like, these things are great. So it's

926
00:54:21,160 --> 00:54:25,000
Speaker 1: safer than an axe. I can't wait to I can't

927
00:54:25,040 --> 00:54:27,960
Speaker 1: wait to use that very thoughtful gift. Well, happy birthday again, man,

928
00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,680
Speaker 1: I'm glad. And six bottles of champagne. Yeah, did you

929
00:54:30,800 --> 00:54:33,520
Speaker 1: drink it all in a weekend as suggested? Not yet,

930
00:54:33,600 --> 00:54:35,480
Speaker 1: but spring break is next week and we're gonna we're

931
00:54:35,520 --> 00:54:40,160
Speaker 1: gonna get into that champagne. We'll enjoy very sweet gifts.

932
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:43,279
Speaker 1: Is that is that it did? We stopped talking about electricity?

933
00:54:43,360 --> 00:54:45,759
Speaker 1: I think, didn't we? I thought you meant like, are

934
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,080
Speaker 1: those all the gifts? I gave you? A right? You

935
00:54:48,120 --> 00:54:50,719
Speaker 1: didn't get the other eight gifts, the half case of

936
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:53,520
Speaker 1: champagne and the log split it and the hammer, the

937
00:54:53,600 --> 00:54:56,640
Speaker 1: three pound sledge. That's right. Well, if you want to

938
00:54:56,719 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: know more about Chuck's three pound sledge, you can email him.

939
00:55:00,239 --> 00:55:01,759
Speaker 1: But also, in the meantime, if you want to know

940
00:55:01,880 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 1: more about the electrical grid, you can just start reading

941
00:55:04,719 --> 00:55:10,759
Speaker 1: about it. It's an extraordinarily complicated, complex, modern marvel of engineering.

942
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: That's pretty engrossing stuff. So go to town. And in

943
00:55:14,000 --> 00:55:15,920
Speaker 1: the meantime, I said go to town, which means it's

944
00:55:15,960 --> 00:55:21,320
Speaker 1: time for a listener made. I'm gonna call this titanic

945
00:55:21,360 --> 00:55:23,360
Speaker 1: follow up from a friend in Ireland. This is this

946
00:55:23,480 --> 00:55:25,920
Speaker 1: is a fun one. Hey, guys, been listening for a

947
00:55:25,960 --> 00:55:29,239
Speaker 1: few years and now I currently work in Belfast port

948
00:55:29,320 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: where RMS Titanic was built. The Titanic Museum was built

949
00:55:34,320 --> 00:55:36,400
Speaker 1: in Belfast and the building is in the shape of

950
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:39,200
Speaker 1: a star representing white star lines. At each point of

951
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:42,920
Speaker 1: the star is the actual size of titanics hull at

952
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:46,719
Speaker 1: st high standing underneath. It really gives you a feel

953
00:55:46,719 --> 00:55:49,279
Speaker 1: for its size and makes you feel very small in

954
00:55:49,360 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: a good way. Also, slip ways for Titanic are filled

955
00:55:53,080 --> 00:55:55,560
Speaker 1: in for you to walk over and etched with an

956
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:59,120
Speaker 1: outline of Titanic and its sister ship Olympic to scale. Yeah,

957
00:55:59,160 --> 00:56:02,640
Speaker 1: it's very cool, including the actual locations of the lifeboats

958
00:56:02,680 --> 00:56:05,080
Speaker 1: and funnels. Again, it's very cool to walk down. You

959
00:56:05,120 --> 00:56:06,920
Speaker 1: can check out. You can check it out on Google

960
00:56:06,960 --> 00:56:10,719
Speaker 1: Earth just search Titanic Belfast, check out the satellite view.

961
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 1: Keep up the great work. And that is Kyle in Belfast,

962
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:17,799
Speaker 1: Northern Ireland, and he has a nice little ps joke.

963
00:56:18,480 --> 00:56:20,760
Speaker 1: He says, there's a very overused joke here in Belfast

964
00:56:20,840 --> 00:56:23,759
Speaker 1: when people ask us why we celebrate something that sank,

965
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:27,080
Speaker 1: which is this It was fine when it left here.

966
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:33,600
Speaker 1: That's great, that's that trademark Belfasts humor. I was gonna

967
00:56:33,640 --> 00:56:35,560
Speaker 1: do it in Irish accent, but I got stage fright.

968
00:56:35,680 --> 00:56:37,719
Speaker 1: Oh come on, let's hear it again. I don't know what.

969
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 1: I don't even know what. It was fine, It was

970
00:56:39,600 --> 00:56:41,919
Speaker 1: fine when it left here. Oh that was great? Man?

971
00:56:43,280 --> 00:56:45,120
Speaker 1: Was that just transferred to me to my youth when

972
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:48,040
Speaker 1: I was eating a bowl of lucky charms? Or hey

973
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:53,239
Speaker 1: mane it was fine when it left here? Very nuts. Well,

974
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:55,960
Speaker 1: let's see Chuck is at it? That's gotta be it?

975
00:56:56,000 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 1: Who it? Sammy Davis Jr. Thank you, Sammy Davis, to

976
00:57:00,080 --> 00:57:03,839
Speaker 1: you for the letter. That was Kyle Kyle. That's right, Uh,

977
00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:07,440
Speaker 1: Kyle from Belfast. We appreciate you. Uh. And if you

978
00:57:07,520 --> 00:57:10,520
Speaker 1: want to be appreciated like Kyle, you can send us

979
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:13,120
Speaker 1: a good email like Kyle did. Wrap it up, spank

980
00:57:13,200 --> 00:57:15,239
Speaker 1: it on the bottom, and ship it out to see

981
00:57:15,640 --> 00:57:22,280
Speaker 1: to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you

982
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:24,760
Speaker 1: Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For

983
00:57:24,880 --> 00:57:27,840
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,

984
00:57:28,080 --> 00:57:30,960
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.