WEBVTT - How the Electrical Grid Works 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to stuff you should know, a production of I 0:00:04.360 --> 0:00:13.360 Heart Radio. Hey you, and welcome to the podcast. I'm 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:20.919 Josh Spuzzing Clark, and there's Chuck Zippy Zap Bryant. Okay, 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:23.040 there's just the two of us. Don't have to come 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:29.280 up with any more stupid electricity based names. Jerry Jerry, Yeah, 0:00:29.360 --> 0:00:33.560 she's we don't not here. She just zipped off into 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:40.080 the ether absent who knows. Yeah, we should call Roll Chuck. Okay, yeah, 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:51.800 Josh here, Chuck present, Jerry Jerry, She's not here, dude. 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:53.519 I just had a shower today for the first time 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:55.240 in a few days because we didn't have water in 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:59.280 our house. No, And I put this on the Movie 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:01.200 Crushers page just to get some feedback. I was like, 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.560 would you rather not have power or water? And that 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.679 kind of figures into today's episode, and you know, of 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:09.960 the people are very sensible and said would much rather 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.400 not have power than water, But there were a handful 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:17.600 of psychopaths that said they'd rather be I guess just 0:01:18.200 --> 0:01:23.040 buying dozens of gallons of water to to flush toilets 0:01:23.080 --> 0:01:28.000 and wash hands and not bathe. At what point? At 0:01:28.040 --> 0:01:30.920 what point though of going without water and maybe you 0:01:30.959 --> 0:01:33.440 reach this point and you can tell me. Do you 0:01:33.480 --> 0:01:35.399 get to where you're like, well, we're just gonna save 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.039 water and dig a dig a pit and be in 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:42.160 the van a latrine. Well, I mean we were letting 0:01:42.160 --> 0:01:45.960 the yellow mellow, you know what I'm saying. Unfortunately, uh, 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:51.279 you know the brown you gotta flush down. You should 0:01:51.360 --> 0:01:54.920 trademark that. And it really hits home how much water 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:57.160 a toilet uses when you have to fill it up 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:03.080 with those huge, like arrowhead five gallon jugs. And it's 0:02:03.120 --> 0:02:05.720 just shameful. But you know, I was happy to take 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:07.800 that shower, I gotta tell you. Yeah. But you go 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:10.200 through three of those five gallon jugs before you realize 0:02:10.240 --> 0:02:12.560 that you're accidentally stepping on the handle and they're just 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:16.600 going right down the drain. You're like, man, this is 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:20.880 not my week. But this isn't about water. It's about power, 0:02:22.000 --> 0:02:24.160 which you know, it's a it's a really good question, 0:02:24.200 --> 0:02:26.840 and I'm not surprised that the um you've got the 0:02:26.880 --> 0:02:30.520 response that you got from it, because like we we 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:33.280 tend to think of, like, you know, electricity is you know, 0:02:33.320 --> 0:02:38.320 a really nice modern luxury, and that is basically not 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.320 the case anymore for most of the climates in the 0:02:41.400 --> 0:02:45.280 United States, electricity is an absolute necessity. It's not a luxury, 0:02:45.320 --> 0:02:48.560 like you need it to survive in the modern world. 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:52.160 You could try to do the take Kazinsky thing, go 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:55.480 off grid. People do it successfully, But even then, if 0:02:55.560 --> 0:02:58.400 you look into what they're doing, I would guess something 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:01.959 in the neighborhood of of those people are still using 0:03:02.160 --> 0:03:05.519 something like solar power or wind power. They just aren't 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.200 connected to this grid that we're going to talk about today. Yeah, 0:03:09.200 --> 0:03:11.440 and I should caveat the question I posted the movie 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:16.040 Crushers was whether aside like obviously, in the hot, hot 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.720 summer people can and do die from outages, and in 0:03:18.760 --> 0:03:22.080 the winter they do as well. But it was you 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:24.160 know that wasn't the case here in Atlanta. All that 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.040 is cold today. Yeah it is very cold, but I 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.200 mean not deadly cold, but it gets deadly cold once 0:03:30.240 --> 0:03:33.000 in a while here. Um, but even beyond like heating 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:36.480 and cooling just to stay alive, Like, electricity is so 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:40.520 interwoven with our lives that you know, you you're like, okay, 0:03:40.520 --> 0:03:42.800 I can wash dishes by hand. You know it's not 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.320 my preference, but whatever, or um, you know, I can, 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.480 I can use the old gas powered lawnmar and so 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.720 the electric lawnmar But there's also like can you keep 0:03:51.800 --> 0:03:55.920 up in school or at work without you know, electricity? 0:03:55.800 --> 0:03:58.720 That like it's it's really just a it's a fundamental 0:03:58.800 --> 0:04:04.680 necessity in my modern industrial life. And um, we get 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:10.800 this based on this huge, sprawling, rickety old black and 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:15.120 white cartoon donkey of an engineering marvel that we call 0:04:15.240 --> 0:04:19.960 the electrical grid. It's crazy how held together with like 0:04:20.160 --> 0:04:22.960 duct tape and bubblegum this thing is. But it's still 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.080 literally delivers the juice for us. Yeah, and it is 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:30.760 funny how we it's so like power and water you 0:04:30.760 --> 0:04:33.120 know here in the United States is so ingrained. Is 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:35.320 just something we kind of take for granted that when 0:04:35.320 --> 0:04:37.880 you don't have it, this is the only time you notice. 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:41.760 And like, the only fun thing about the past few 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:46.159 days was hearing Emily scream from another room because you know, 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.680 your instinct is, oh, I have grease on my fingers, 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.240 let me go watch it off, and just hearing her 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.320 like flick uh, you know, some faucet or something somewhere 0:04:55.320 --> 0:04:57.680 in the house over the past three days and nothing 0:04:57.720 --> 0:04:59.920 comes out because you just forget, say, when the powers 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.240 if you're constantly flicking a switch and going I hate life. 0:05:03.520 --> 0:05:06.479 It's not there. Yeah. Well, but that's why you'll see 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:09.800 in a lot of different like power companies, UM names 0:05:09.880 --> 0:05:13.960 the word reliability because that is key, Like you can't have, 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:17.280 you know, an electric company that's just kind of like, oh, 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:19.640 you work a lot of the time, you know, don't 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.160 we get credit for that. It's like, no, people want 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:25.039 you to work basically a hundred percent of the time. 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:26.960 You don't want to sign up for a company, and 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:30.479 it's called partial credit exactly you want. You want the 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.200 full credit one the real ambitious types that like with 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:35.640 their hands shoot up into the air at every question. 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:39.200 That's the kind of energy company you want. So should 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:43.440 we talk about this big, antiquated system. Yeah, so, like 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:45.480 I said, it is considered a modern marvel. And part 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:47.960 of the reason why it's considered a modern marvel is 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:53.479 just from its sheer enormous size. Yeah, I mean big time. 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.800 We're talking uh nineteen thousand generators and in this case 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:00.640 it is literally generating the power or like a coal 0:06:00.720 --> 0:06:03.760 plant or a National natural gas plant or a wind 0:06:03.760 --> 0:06:07.760 farm that kind of thing. Uh fifty five thousand substations, 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:11.279 transmission substations, and we'll we've talked about this before and 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:12.880 we'll get to it later. But this is when you're 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:15.839 stepping up and stepping down power to get it in 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:18.000 and out of your house. I guess not out of 0:06:18.080 --> 0:06:20.479 your house. It only comes in. It depends if you 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:25.360 have a good solar rain. Like a power wants your stuff. 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:31.440 It's uh six miles of um transmission lines. It's a 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:34.480 six point three million miles of distribution lines. And these 0:06:34.480 --> 0:06:36.960 are like the power poles, unless you're lucky enough to 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:39.839 have buried power lines. I know, it looks so much better. 0:06:40.880 --> 0:06:44.800 They're doing that actually in our neighborhood finally, and they 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.800 approached us with a dollar figure to say, can we 0:06:47.880 --> 0:06:50.279 put this huge, big green thing in your front yard? 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:56.120 And we said thank you, No, Um, try someone else. Yeah, 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.760 you're you're like not these neighbors. We like them, but 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:02.200 three doors down they really sucks. So try that well, 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:04.080 I mean something. It doesn't have to go in our yards. 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.080 So I think they're just taking volunteers who want to 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.080 make a little scratch. But you can't, like plant bushes 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:10.960 in front of it or anything in our front yard 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.520 is very exposed. It would look really bad. Yeah, well 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:16.840 we'll talk about what those are, but they are seriously 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:20.040 dangerous too if you end up getting into one of those, 0:07:20.560 --> 0:07:23.160 the one the things that kids play on all the time. Yeah, 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:27.440 it's crazy. Those are really really dangerous. Basically many power stations, 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:30.800 they're transformed. They just happen to be like on the 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:33.360 ground rather than up on a pole where everybody's used 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:35.360 to them. Yeah. I mean I felt kind of bad 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:37.040 at first because I thought, am I not doing my 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:40.560 part to make sure our neighborhood gets buried? But they 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.680 said that you know there, it doesn't have to go there, 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:45.520 and they can just that there are a lot of 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:48.280 people that are gonna want that, however much money it 0:07:48.400 --> 0:07:50.920 was were. They like, okay, well, you know, we understand 0:07:50.920 --> 0:07:53.120 your decision, but we noticed you have an empty lot 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:57.280 behind your and you keep walking. You know what's funny 0:07:57.800 --> 0:08:01.640 we found out once we assume oimed that property that 0:08:01.680 --> 0:08:04.640 we were squatting on, that two weeks later, Georgia Power 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:06.200 got in touch with them. So no, I know, that's 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:08.640 why I made that joke, but that was exactly what 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:10.840 was going to happen, right, Yeah, for that's not a joke, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:14.240 I know, but I was joking about how close she came. 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.280 Oh goodness me. All right, so let's talk about the 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:20.720 nationwide network. Uh. And when we're talking about this, keep 0:08:20.760 --> 0:08:24.440 in mind we're talking about the lower forty eight. Obviously, 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.840 Hawaii and Alaska have their own grids and systems. Yeah, 0:08:28.960 --> 0:08:32.440 they were strangely left out of this, the poor poor DearS. Yeah, 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.600 but we're thinking about them. But on the lower forty eight, 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:40.200 we have basically three big separate grids that are called 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.880 inter connections, and really it should just be two. There 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:47.360 should be the Eastern interconnection, which is basically everything west 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.880 of the Rockies or east of the Rockies, a lot 0:08:50.920 --> 0:08:53.920 of the um Great Plain states up to the northeast, 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.959 the southeast all that's the Eastern connection. Then you've got 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:02.760 the Western interconnection, which is west of the Rockies, and 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.839 then you've got Texas. Those are the three inter connections 0:09:05.960 --> 0:09:09.600 of the United States electrical grid. Yeah, here's my question, 0:09:09.800 --> 0:09:13.880 is it is Texas literally no longer connected at all? No, 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.800 that's the big about the whole thing. They're connected to 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:20.840 God and everybody. They're connected to Mexico. Mexico saved there, 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:23.880 took us in two thousand eleven. They're connected to everybody. 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.360 They just somehow are being left out of the law. 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:30.559 It's ridiculous. No, but they are connected, like okay, yes, 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:32.920 because I was gonna say, is it the lower forty seven? 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.880 But technically they are connected, but they're just Texas is 0:09:35.880 --> 0:09:38.480 gonna do Texas now? And there's even that's exactly right. 0:09:38.520 --> 0:09:41.240 And then there's even parts of Texas, including El Paso 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.120 and some parts of the Panhandle, that are connected to 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:47.480 either the Eastern or the Western inter connection. But most 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:52.080 of Texas by far is its own interconnection, its own 0:09:52.160 --> 0:09:55.800 separate grid. Yeah. Even know even more than that, I 0:09:55.800 --> 0:09:59.400 would say it's probably closer like percent, like almost all 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:02.600 of it. Okay, all right, Well this is good though, 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:05.080 that we're interconnected. Uh. And there are a lot of 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:08.400 big benefits to that, chief of which is probably reliability 0:10:08.440 --> 0:10:12.400 because when you have such an interconnected grid, um, you 0:10:12.640 --> 0:10:14.760 can work together and there's a lot of backups and 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:17.880 redundancy is built in, so if there's a big demand 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:20.600 in one place, or if power goes down in one place, 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.760 you can reroute and have get some help from your neighbors. 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.520 Basically right, exactly, um. And that actually came about, as 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:33.120 we'll see from a little bit of deregulation, but also 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.120 it kind of developed from from power producers realizing like, well, 0:10:37.160 --> 0:10:39.960 we'll talk about that in a minute. There's also flexibility, right, 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:42.920 So if you have like a bunch of different sources. 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:47.400 So you've got a wind farm offshore in in Um, Florida, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.760 and then you also have you're getting power from like 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.120 a damn in Georgia, and all of these are providing 0:10:54.160 --> 0:10:56.080 power to the southeast, and you have all sorts of 0:10:56.120 --> 0:10:59.000 coal fire power plates and nuclear power plates. You can 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:01.720 kind of put all these two gather into an energy portfolio, 0:11:01.880 --> 0:11:04.520 and all of them are providing electricity to do the grid. 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:07.600 So the fact that it's like interconnected, it can accept 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:12.600 electrical um production from generators all over the place and 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.679 from different varieties and types. But as far as you're concerned, 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:18.720 it's all just it all just turns into electricity after 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:24.760 it's generated, right. Uh. And then the last advantage is affordability. 0:11:24.920 --> 0:11:26.839 And this is kind of what you were hinting at. 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:30.560 You know, deregulations sort of has giveth in taken away 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.440 in some ways. Starting in the eighties, the grid was 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:40.080 open to wholesale competition and private power companies started investing 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.080 in certain efficiencies and that made that did really make 0:11:43.240 --> 0:11:46.920 electricity affordable in the US. But it also when it 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:52.200 comes to like like insulating pipelines like Texas did not do. Um, 0:11:52.200 --> 0:11:55.480 it makes companies more reticent to invest in money like 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:58.120 that because they're like, you know, why would we want 0:11:58.120 --> 0:12:01.480 to unline our pockets? You know, envy. And so you 0:12:01.520 --> 0:12:05.200 put all this stuff together. You put the power generation plants, 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.479 you put the transmission lines, you put the distribution networks 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:12.559 that all go into like people's homes and businesses and 0:12:12.960 --> 0:12:15.120 end up as like an outlet or socket or something 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.000 like that, and that all together, all those components is 0:12:19.080 --> 0:12:24.800 the electrical grid. And that's that's it. But uh so 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.160 let's take a break and um we'll come back and 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:28.760 talk a little bit about the history of the grid. 0:12:28.760 --> 0:13:02.360 How about that. Let's do it, okay, Chuck. Also, before 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:04.560 we talk about the history, I want to direct everybody 0:13:04.559 --> 0:13:06.920 to what I think is one of our better science 0:13:06.960 --> 0:13:11.719 based episodes, How Electricity Works. Yeah, it's a good one. 0:13:11.760 --> 0:13:14.360 We cover some of this stuff in there. But um, 0:13:14.400 --> 0:13:20.480 like we really got into electricity. It was electrifying. Bo 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.600 you've laughed. I know, I'm just laughing because you're my friend. 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:27.840 I can't punch you right now because you're in a 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:33.520 different place, that joke in the same room, right, you 0:13:34.040 --> 0:13:38.000 learned from the last one. Uh so, And then then 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.920 we talked, like you said about part of this in electricity. 0:13:40.960 --> 0:13:44.760 But our earliest power grids were built in the eighteen eighties, 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:48.000 and they were all very local and specific, and this 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:51.320 was a time and place when Edison and Tesla were 0:13:51.400 --> 0:13:54.359 duking it out in a very public, sometimes a grotesque 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:58.360 way to prove that they're uh. In Edison's case, DC 0:13:58.520 --> 0:14:02.240 system or Tesla is a c Alternating current system was 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:07.559 better and gruesome, meaning electrifying large animals. That s ob 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.080 You always got to say that, right, Oh yeah, he 0:14:10.080 --> 0:14:13.520 should go down in history. That Yeah, he's a terrible 0:14:13.559 --> 0:14:16.920 guy in that respect for sure. But Tesla went out, 0:14:17.320 --> 0:14:20.000 um in large part due to a lot of financial 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:23.920 backing from George Westinghouse. Right, Um, but not just that, 0:14:23.960 --> 0:14:28.040 Like direct current has better in some ways, but it 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:32.680 also has some serious disadvantages to alternating current, which was 0:14:32.760 --> 0:14:38.600 the Tesla Westinghouse version. And um, we'll talk about exactly why, 0:14:38.640 --> 0:14:41.960 but just you know, remember that alternating current is way 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.240 better for long distance transmission. So the fact that we 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.280 went with alternating current meant that we could create this huge, 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:52.760 extensive grid with hundreds of thousands or millions of miles 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:56.160 of transmission and distribution line. That's all thanks to Nicola 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.520 Tesla's alternating current. That's right. So really part of the 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:04.640 twentieth century, there were about four thousand individual electric utilities 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:08.240 with all these tiny grids, and then World War Two 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:10.920 rolls around and there's a big spike in demand for 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:14.880 more power because it was just after World War Two. 0:15:14.880 --> 0:15:17.200 There was a big boon, lots lots of new appliances 0:15:17.240 --> 0:15:23.040 and fancy new things that needed power. And uh, the smaller, 0:15:23.080 --> 0:15:26.280 little independent grids looked at each other and said, I 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.800 guess we gotta hold hands now and start working together 0:15:29.880 --> 0:15:32.120 to to meet this demand. Yeah, there was this really 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.880 big push to electrify America that FDR took up pretty 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:38.640 early in his presidency, and he like took on these 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:43.560 really like powerful electric utilities and got a bunch of 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:45.840 black eyes as a result of it, but ended up 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:51.480 winning UM passing the Federal Power Act, of which basically 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:55.760 put a leash on the UM the holding companies that 0:15:55.800 --> 0:15:58.600 there was like a handful of very large powerful holding 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.960 companies that basically ran and electricity in the United States UM, 0:16:03.080 --> 0:16:05.880 and they weren't really innovating. They weren't doing much too 0:16:06.280 --> 0:16:09.320 to electrify the US. So the federal government got involved 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.480 in UM basically took over and so we're gonna regulate 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:15.120 you guys from now on, and the United States became 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.840 UM very much electrified, like as a whole country. But 0:16:19.920 --> 0:16:23.000 in return for this, it wasn't just the UM nanny 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.160 state taking away from the corporate state. They said, how 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.560 about this. We'll give you guys monopolies that we're gonna 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.640 keep a really close eye on, and we're gonna regulate strongly, 0:16:32.840 --> 0:16:35.840 but you guys can make your costs back and a 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:41.360 reasonable profit. And so owning an electric company became UM. 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:44.520 It was like printing your own money, you know, like 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.840 you had so many customers that you were making gobs 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.960 of money. And every year your your growth, the growth 0:16:51.000 --> 0:16:53.040 of the growth of the entire industry was about eight 0:16:53.080 --> 0:16:56.560 percent each year. That's really good, and it was also 0:16:56.640 --> 0:16:58.960 money in the bank. They knew that America was just 0:16:59.000 --> 0:17:01.960 going to keep consuming and consuming and consuming, so they 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.640 would just build more and more power plants and they 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:06.800 were just going to sit back and collect eight percent 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:08.720 a year, and actually everybody was happy. There's a lot 0:17:08.760 --> 0:17:12.160 of innovation and everything UM, but one of the things 0:17:12.160 --> 0:17:16.640 that these different power monopolies learned early on is that 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:21.440 everyone expected power on demand twenty four hours a day. 0:17:21.760 --> 0:17:24.920 If somebody wanted to plug their vacuum cleaner in at 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.439 three am, they better have power. There wasn't like downtime 0:17:28.480 --> 0:17:31.080 that these guys could factor in. And as we'll see, 0:17:31.359 --> 0:17:34.480 there was no storage capacity. That's something that we need 0:17:34.520 --> 0:17:37.080 to get that we don't have, which means that power 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.000 has to be generated constantly and you also have to 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.320 have backup power. Was really really expensive to build a 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:47.800 backup power station, and so these early UM companies figured 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:52.080 out that they could buy power from other rival companies 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:54.840 that had some surplus right then, cheaper than it would 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:56.800 be for them to generate it or to build a 0:17:56.840 --> 0:18:01.679 backup generating plant. And in this way, the early independent 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.280 grid started to connect to one another to kind of 0:18:04.560 --> 0:18:07.480 buy and sell power as needed, and this kind of 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:11.520 wholesale power market developed, and that's where the grid started 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.880 to connect together, right And we should also point out 0:18:14.960 --> 0:18:17.679 that in nineteen thirty five, with the passing of the 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.840 Federal Power Act. That's when Texas said, nah, ye said, 0:18:21.880 --> 0:18:24.280 we're gonna do our own thing. We're gonna make our 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.000 own power, we're gonna keep our own power, and we're 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.080 gonna have our own our own body to oversee it. 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:35.240 Called the URCOTT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Millions 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.760 of listeners just WoT boo uh. They created that in 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:43.600 nineteen seventy and they manage about of the grid in Texas. 0:18:44.600 --> 0:18:47.960 And um, we use a lot of power in this country. UM, 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:50.399 I think the US consumed there's a couple of years ago, 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.800 in twenty nineteen three point nine trillion kill a lot hours, 0:18:54.200 --> 0:18:57.960 which is about thirteen thousand kill a lott hours per human. 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:00.880 And you'd think, like, that's got to be the most 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:04.160 in the world. There's about a dozen countries ahead of US, 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:06.560 but those are countries where it can get really really 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.399 cold or really really hot, not places like the United States, 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.280 where comparatively to other places like US, we use a 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:17.960 lot more per person. Yeah, so thirteen thousand kilowatt hours 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:19.560 per person, It sounds like a lot, and it is 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:23.920 a lot. But in Iceland they use fifty three thousand 0:19:24.040 --> 0:19:27.600 kilowatt hours per person on average, they gotta heat those 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.840 soundests and that crazy. But for for in their defense, 0:19:30.920 --> 0:19:34.840 they're making most of the electricity from geo thermal, so 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.080 who cares? Use as much electricity as you want. And 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:40.440 then we I know some of our other listeners don't 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:42.840 just live in the US, so Canada actually beats the 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:46.280 United States and per capita consumption, they use fifteen points 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:50.240 six thousand killed watt hours. Australia is um better at 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:52.960 it than we are. They use ten thousand. New Zealand's 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:56.160 nine thousand kill watt hours. And then for our three 0:19:56.240 --> 0:20:01.720 German listeners seven thousand kilwatt hours. And then in the UK, 0:20:01.880 --> 0:20:06.440 I think it's about five thousand kilwater yeah, exactly. Volcomb 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:12.680 the end, What was that Cabaret? I think, Okay, yeah 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.040 it is Cabaret. I think it's like the opening of it. 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.560 I just know Cabaret from Ship's Creek right same here. 0:20:21.440 --> 0:20:24.400 I mean, I'm gonna watch it before but uh but yeah, 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.560 that's where I've seen most of Cabaret from that episode 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.000 of Ship's Creek. Yeah, Emily and I were both are like, 0:20:31.040 --> 0:20:34.240 we need to see Cabaret though, Now dude, I started watching, Um, 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:38.000 what we do in the Shadows again from the TV Yes, 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:41.720 it's so. It's one of the best comedies ever put 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.720 on television. Yeah, and it's sort of a rare case 0:20:44.760 --> 0:20:48.840 of taking a movie changing the cast up for television 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.200 and it's just as good. Yeah, the movie was great. 0:20:52.280 --> 0:20:55.280 The TV show was great. I I have to I 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:56.960 haven't seen all of the movie, but from what I 0:20:57.000 --> 0:20:59.919 saw the movie, I prefer the TV show. I love him. 0:21:00.320 --> 0:21:02.520 I think for good six months after the TV show, 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.400 we would walk around the house saying these iffing gay 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:11.800 that like every dude, every single character. And that's just 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:14.719 so it's just great. Thank you people who made what 0:21:14.760 --> 0:21:18.480 we do in the shows. Than uh, it is wonderful. 0:21:18.640 --> 0:21:21.439 So as far as what we use that power for 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.520 here in the States, uh, and I guess this is 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.480 lower forty eight. Who knows what they're doing in Alaska, Hawaii, 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.800 but thirty eight percent of that power consumption is residential 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.840 people like you and I and or you and me. 0:21:37.600 --> 0:21:43.760 And the bulk of that is that is is heating 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:48.000 and cooling our homes and making hot water or washing dishes, 0:21:48.040 --> 0:21:50.960 and then the rest is you know, running appliances, charging 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:54.520 your laptop, that kind of stuff. Yeah. Um, The other 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:58.040 sixty one point five percent is non residential stuff commercial 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:02.400 things like office buildings, and then industrial, which is mostly 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:08.840 um used for running motors or because America loves its lathes. 0:22:11.480 --> 0:22:13.960 I thought of that earlier, and I was like, oh, yeah, 0:22:14.000 --> 0:22:16.600 I've I've seen pictures of lathe accidents before. So I 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:21.240 spent a good twenty minutes looking at lathe accident photos. 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:24.119 I do not recommend, but I didn't see that coming 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.399 up when I started researching this. I used a lathe 0:22:27.480 --> 0:22:30.200 back in industrial arts in high school. Dude, once I 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:32.320 found out how dangerous those things were, I would never 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.360 go near near one. That's you have all your baseball 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:39.320 bats made by someone else. Now, yeah, I subout that 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:44.240 part of my life. So the good the good news 0:22:44.320 --> 0:22:47.400 is with energy efficiencies, they've really come a long way 0:22:47.800 --> 0:22:50.120 over the past couple of decades, the whole Energy Star 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:54.159 program and just appliances being made much more efficiently than 0:22:54.200 --> 0:22:56.720 they used to be. Um, it's only going to increase 0:22:57.480 --> 0:23:00.800 I think the demand by one percent a year from 0:23:00.800 --> 0:23:05.520 now to which is good, but that's still thirty increase, 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.399 which is a lot. But it's astounding that as we 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.840 keep consuming more and more electricity and we do, um, 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:15.040 we we use a lot. They figured out, like these 0:23:15.040 --> 0:23:17.840 Americans are nuts, They're just gonna keep consuming and consuming. 0:23:17.840 --> 0:23:19.479 We better figure out how to make our stuff more 0:23:19.600 --> 0:23:22.679 energy efficient. And that they've managed to offset all but 0:23:22.880 --> 0:23:25.239 one percent of that growth per year, because I can 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:27.280 only imagine if we were still working with you know, 0:23:27.880 --> 0:23:32.400 nineteen thirties style blenders and vacuum cleaners. Good lord, we'd 0:23:32.400 --> 0:23:34.639 be suck in the cold directly out of the earth, 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:37.760 like straight into your vacuum cleaner. Would be so used, 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:41.720 so wasteful. Yeah, And I imagine that they are always 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:44.000 working on this, Like I I assume the goal is 0:23:44.080 --> 0:23:46.720