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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.

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Speaker 2: I'm Joe Wisenthal and I'm Tracy Alloway.

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Speaker 3: Tracy.

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Speaker 1: Today we have a special episode of the podcast That's Right.

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Speaker 4: So we traveled to Austin, Texas. We were there for

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Speaker 4: the Texas Tribune Festival, and we recorded a live episode

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Speaker 4: with one of our favorite All Thoughts guests, Jiggershaw.

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Speaker 5: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Jigger is, as listeners may know, the head of the

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Speaker 1: Loan Program at the Department of Energy. This is his

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Speaker 1: third time appearing. The first time we talked to him

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Speaker 1: was early twenty twenty two, when the loan Program's office

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Speaker 1: was this sort of small backwater office within the DOE.

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Speaker 1: Then we talked to him again about a year ago,

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Speaker 1: right after the Inflation Reduction Act was passed, when his

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Speaker 1: office got tons of money to lend out. And then

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Speaker 1: this was sort of like a one year on at episode.

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Speaker 1: What are they doing with all this money at his

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Speaker 1: office and what are the real prospects for sort of

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Speaker 1: decarbonizing our electricity.

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Speaker 2: He's sort of in the groove now.

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Speaker 4: He's spending some of the billions of dollars that he's

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Speaker 4: been authorized to spend by Washington and it's really interesting

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Speaker 4: to see how he's actually putting that money to work

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Speaker 4: and what's getting him excited in the energy space right now.

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Speaker 3: All right, so take a listen, Jigger.

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Speaker 1: We've talked to a couple of times in the past

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Speaker 1: on the podcast about the Loan Program Office. What do

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Speaker 1: we start just to like sort of a quick summary,

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Speaker 1: and we've talked like about what you do, like real quickly,

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Speaker 1: just what is the Loan Program Office for people who

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Speaker 1: may have not familiar with it or past episode, and

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Speaker 1: what do you do?

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Speaker 5: Well, thanks for having me back.

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Speaker 6: The Loan Program's Office was started in two thousand and five,

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Speaker 6: and the whole point of it was that for a

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Speaker 6: lot of this technology that Doe is awesome at inventing,

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Speaker 6: it tends to not be able to get commercial debt

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Speaker 6: for commercialization.

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Speaker 5: So a lot of these projects might be.

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Speaker 6: A billion dollar project and going to get debt from

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Speaker 6: the commercial markets for a first of a kind project,

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Speaker 6: you know, namely like you know, the Tesla's first loan

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Speaker 6: or some of the large solar and geothermal projects we did,

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Speaker 6: it was just not feasible. But what's more interesting is

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Speaker 6: today our remit's been expanded substantially, so it used to

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Speaker 6: be we had this innovation bucket, and then we had

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Speaker 6: this vehicles bucket. Basically, today we have a tribal energy program.

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Speaker 6: We have this energy infrastructure refurbishment program, right, so figuring

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Speaker 6: out how to take old coal plants and term of

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Speaker 6: nuclear plants, or old transmission lines and double them up,

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Speaker 6: or you know, figuring out what to do with old

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Speaker 6: refineries or tank farms. And so we have a much

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Speaker 6: larger scope today. So we've got, you know, a lot

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Speaker 6: more resources today.

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Speaker 2: So how much money do you actually control now?

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Speaker 4: Because of course I've seen variable estimates and I get

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Speaker 4: that a lot of it depends on how things develop.

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Speaker 4: But you've been doing this for a while. Now, you

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Speaker 4: have extended some loans. Do you have a good sense

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Speaker 4: of whether it's four hundred billion or five hundred billion

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Speaker 4: or six hundred billion.

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Speaker 5: I mean, what's a billion between friends?

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Speaker 3: What's a hundred million between friends?

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Speaker 5: Yeah? I think so.

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Speaker 6: When I first came into office, it was roughly forty

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Speaker 6: billion dollars of loan authority. Today, if all of our

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Speaker 6: loan authority was used, it'd be closer to four hundred billion.

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Speaker 6: We have no idea whether it'll all be used, right,

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Speaker 6: So the largest program there is this refurbishment program, which

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Speaker 6: is two hundred and fifty billion dollars. Interestingly enough, it

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Speaker 6: really is taking off. So I think when we first

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Speaker 6: started talking to electric utilities and oil and gas companies

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Speaker 6: and others about using it, I think they didn't want

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Speaker 6: any part of it.

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Speaker 5: They didn't really see how it was valuable.

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Speaker 6: Today, I think we've already got about fifty six billion

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Speaker 6: dollars worth of loans either received or being actively prepared

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Speaker 6: that we've seen early drafts of. So we are seeing

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Speaker 6: a lot of interest in that program. So you know,

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Speaker 6: whether we get to that number or not will be

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Speaker 6: determined whether that program is successful.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The first time we ever talked to I think it

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Speaker 1: was early twenty twenty two and someone said, oh, Jigger,

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Speaker 1: he's someone you should talk to. He knows about energy,

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Speaker 1: sort of an interesting.

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Speaker 3: Guy and knows about this stuff.

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Speaker 1: And then I think it was like about three or

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Speaker 1: four months later and the Inflation Reduction Act passed and

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Speaker 1: someone's like, oh, you know that guy, Jigger, you talk to.

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Speaker 1: His office just got whatever six hundred Billion're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: so what went from like the sort of I don't know,

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Speaker 1: backwater is the right word, but fairly like modest division

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Speaker 1: of the Department of Energy, you are now a key

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Speaker 1: player and essentially this massive effort by the Biden administration

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Speaker 1: to decarbonize our energy system.

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Speaker 5: Yeah.

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Speaker 6: Look, I think that when you think about my own background,

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Speaker 6: having started Son Edison and then Generate Capital, I think

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Speaker 6: I have a unique understanding on how this stuff works,

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Speaker 6: which is that we have these extraordinary people who frankly

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Speaker 6: bust their hump for ten years in obscurity before they

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Speaker 6: get to.

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Speaker 5: Where the loan Program's office can help them.

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Speaker 6: Right when you think about a lot of these companies

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Speaker 6: who have figured out green cement or green steel or

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Speaker 6: you know, next generation transmission lines or next generation hydrogen facilities,

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Speaker 6: I mean they were in a lab getting some like

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Speaker 6: fifty thousand dollars grant like ten years ago, and then

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Speaker 6: their thesis worked out, and then they decided to get

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Speaker 6: an a round and then a B round. Some of

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Speaker 6: them may have spacked prematurely, you remember the time, and

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Speaker 6: so you know, I think that the goal for me

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Speaker 6: is not to you know, puff myself up, but to

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Speaker 6: recognize that we have all these people and honestly the

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Speaker 6: ecosystem that we have in this country. To take them

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Speaker 6: from the technology works to connecting it to the American

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Speaker 6: worker building the facility here.

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Speaker 5: Doing all this stuff here.

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Speaker 6: Frankly, we haven't done in forty years here, right, I

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Speaker 6: mean most of our technologies went to Asia or went

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Speaker 6: to Europe to get commercialized. And now I think with

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Speaker 6: the Inflation Reduction Act, it's sort of my job to

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Speaker 6: convince them to use these resources to stay here and

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Speaker 6: to do it here, right, And I think a lot

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Speaker 6: of that really means that we got to do a

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Speaker 6: lot more outreache. We've got to convince them that this

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Speaker 6: is a place that wants them, because you know how

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Speaker 6: hard it is, right, I Mean, you have to get

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Speaker 6: permission from people, you have to get a permit, you

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Speaker 6: have to get a governor who actually wants to put

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Speaker 6: together an economic development package for you, right, And if

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Speaker 6: you haven't done it in forty years, then it could

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Speaker 6: be that, you know, it's a little bit harder to

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Speaker 6: do it here.

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Speaker 4: Do you feel pressure to spend the money, like is

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Speaker 4: there a sense of urgency here? And then how do

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Speaker 4: you actually balance that with the need to make efficient

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Speaker 4: and useful and ideally profitable investments.

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Speaker 6: So I definitely don't feel pressure to put the money

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Speaker 6: out the door. I think that the money should go

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Speaker 6: out the door if it, you know, deserves to gout

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Speaker 6: the door. And we have three hundred people who work

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Speaker 6: for us at the Loan Program's office, and so they

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Speaker 6: are the ones actually evaluating and you know, doing the

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Speaker 6: work to get the loan to the finish line. I

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Speaker 6: certainly have a lot of subject matter expertise, so I

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Speaker 6: can be somewhat helpful, But honestly, the biggest part of

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Speaker 6: my job is to get people to trust us, right.

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Speaker 6: So getting the growth companies to trust us was something

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Speaker 6: that was fairly easy for me because a lot of

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Speaker 6: those people are my peers from my professional life. But

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Speaker 6: getting the electric utility companies to use us, I mean,

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Speaker 6: that was not an easy task. And now I've got

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Speaker 6: to get the oil and gas companies to get to

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Speaker 6: use us, right, and that's not easy at all. Many

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Speaker 6: of them feel like they're going to get stripped of

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Speaker 6: their country club membership if they use the Loan Program's

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Speaker 6: office right and so, but they're not going to do

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Speaker 6: the right thing unless they do it right, because the

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Speaker 6: numbers don't work without our debt, Like the returns aren't

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Speaker 6: high enough without our debt, and so I need them

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Speaker 6: to come into the office. And so a lot of

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Speaker 6: what I'm doing is trying to build trust.

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Speaker 1: So your company that you started, sun Edison, I mean

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Speaker 1: it was a finance breakthrough, right, I mean the solar

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Speaker 1: technology has existed, but you understood that there was an

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Speaker 1: opportunity to finance the deployment of solar in a new way.

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Speaker 3: Can you just speak theoretically or big picture?

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Speaker 1: Why are there projects that can pay back the debt,

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Speaker 1: but which private sector money is not there? Why is

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Speaker 1: it important for the public sector balance sheet to be

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Speaker 1: deployed for certain types of energy projects?

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Speaker 3: And then maybe we can get into some of these specifics.

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Speaker 5: There's a couple of reasons that I'll go through. Right.

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Speaker 6: One is the Department of Energy has ten thousand expert

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Speaker 6: scientists and engineers on the platform. Right, most of the

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Speaker 6: fundamental patents and these technologies were invented by one of

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Speaker 6: those ten thousand people. So when you have a methane

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Speaker 6: pyrolysis project like monolith materials that we give a conditional

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Speaker 6: commitment to in twenty twenty one, like, there's somebody in

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Speaker 6: a national lab who actually invented it. And so when

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Speaker 6: I go to him and I say, hey, you know, like,

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Speaker 6: what do you think about this thing?

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Speaker 5: Right?

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Speaker 6: They're like, yeah, we've done like eighteen demonstrations of this

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Speaker 6: project and we think this will work. And the way

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Speaker 6: that they're approaching it's going to work, et cetera. There's

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Speaker 6: nobody for JP Morgan to go to for that. They're

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Speaker 6: going to be like this scares the crap out of me.

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Speaker 6: I'm not going to do that. And so you can

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Speaker 6: imagine that there's a lot of technology risk that is

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Speaker 6: perceived by the banks that we can actually manage because.

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Speaker 5: We have all these experts on a platform.

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Speaker 6: The other piece of it, though, is that you know,

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Speaker 6: with the Basel three rules, you know, passing up to

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Speaker 6: the global financial crisis, for a lot of these banks,

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Speaker 6: if they don't actually have investment grade off take agreements

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Speaker 6: for some of these things, Like I'll give you an example,

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Speaker 6: like for a lot of these critical minerals projects, there's

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Speaker 6: no history whatsoever for someone and say you know what,

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Speaker 6: I'll pay a fixed price for that lithium for ten years.

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Speaker 6: Generally speaking, it's like, well, whatever the lithium price is,

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Speaker 6: we're going to benchmark to that price.

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Speaker 5: My lithium has gone down by forty five percent already

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Speaker 5: this year, right.

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Speaker 6: And so so the government is actually willing to take

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Speaker 6: that risk because we know that, you know, we're going

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Speaker 6: to have all these electric vehicles purchased over the next

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Speaker 6: ten years.

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Speaker 5: The world's going to be short lithium.

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Speaker 6: So even if in the short term lithium prices went down,

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Speaker 6: in the long term, you're going to need these resources

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Speaker 6: like that. That formula under a bank's rules would require

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Speaker 6: a huge amount of Tier one capital to be set

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Speaker 6: aside for that loan. So you can imagine them saying,

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Speaker 6: I'm not making investment banking profits on this. I'm not

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Speaker 6: going to use my Tier one capital for this, right.

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Speaker 6: Because there's a bit of a friction, right because on

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Speaker 6: the other side you got the Federal Reserve and the

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Speaker 6: OCC Commissioners who are saying that looks like a risky

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Speaker 6: load if we're going to make you put more Tier

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Speaker 6: one capital against it, right, And so there's lots of

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Speaker 6: reasons why you have friction in the marketplace. But before

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Speaker 6: we were active, most of these these companies had one

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Speaker 6: hundred percent equity finance everything. Right, they would just have

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Speaker 6: to raise a billion dollars in the marketplace and then

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Speaker 6: do that, and you can imagine there's very few companies

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Speaker 6: that could do that. So then we were restricting innovation

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Speaker 6: and restricting it's getting commercialized.

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Speaker 4: I realized I made an assumption in my previous question

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Speaker 4: because I said, ideally you would make loans that make

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Speaker 4: a profit, and that's probably true.

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Speaker 2: But how do you think about profit versus risk?

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Speaker 4: Do you have to make a profit or do you

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Speaker 4: think there's a role for government to finance riskier projects

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Speaker 4: that maybe have a public good or utility.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, a profit is a very strong word, right, because

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Speaker 6: we don't really make a profit in the government, So

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Speaker 6: I don't think about it that way. I think the

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Speaker 6: way I think about it is Congress gives us a

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Speaker 6: couple of things. So let me just maybe help you

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Speaker 6: understand how the money flows. So you know, when we

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Speaker 6: give somebody a loan, the US Treasury Department theoretically issues

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Speaker 6: bonds and then we issue that loan. So the US

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Speaker 6: government has to pay back those bonds, and so there's

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Speaker 6: a certain cost to the US government of that thing.

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Speaker 6: So if I'm charging someone US treasuries plus thirty seven

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Speaker 6: a half basis points, which is a lot of our

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Speaker 6: loans are at that rate, then the money I'm getting

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Speaker 6: in for the US Treasury bond coupon, I'm not viewing

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Speaker 6: as profit, right say, because that's just going back out

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Speaker 6: the tour to investor. So it's the thirty seven half

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Speaker 6: basis points that you know was coming in abovehand.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 6: Separately, the US Congress gives us something called credit subsidy,

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Speaker 6: and what we use that for is to put a.

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Speaker 5: Loan loss reserve in place.

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Speaker 6: So I might say, like our average loan is rated

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Speaker 6: B minus, right, what you guys would call junk bonds.

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Speaker 6: So so like you know, by definition, when we issue

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Speaker 6: the loan, we are saying that it will likely have

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Speaker 6: a default right of let's say, maybe a twelve percent

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Speaker 6: risk of default or a twenty two percent risk of default,

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Speaker 6: but it's not a one percent risk of default. And

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Speaker 6: so then we put that much money to the side

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Speaker 6: and a loan loss reserve. So the Congress is saying,

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Speaker 6: you have this amount of money to quote unquote lose, right,

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Speaker 6: and that's the money that they.

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Speaker 5: Allocate through a budget process.

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Speaker 6: And what we've averaged today is that we put aside

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Speaker 6: five dollars in loan loss reserve for every dollar.

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Speaker 5: Of actually realized losses we've had.

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Speaker 6: So we put together roughly five billion dollars of loan

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Speaker 6: loss reserves and we've lost about one point zero three

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Speaker 6: billion total. And so from that perspective, that's you know,

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Speaker 6: four billion that the Congress gave us to quote unquote lose,

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Speaker 6: that we didn't lose, and that we returned back to

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Speaker 6: the taxpayer. So but I mean the other way I

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Speaker 6: think about it, right, So that's strictly answering your question.

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Speaker 6: But the other way I think about it is it

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Speaker 6: is clearly the case that Tesla is the best electric

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Speaker 6: vehicle company in the world, clearly, and they will fully

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Speaker 6: admit that there is no chance that they would have

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Speaker 6: gotten the metals off the ground without our loan. And

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Speaker 6: so what's it worth to dominate these industries into the future,

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Speaker 6: not just electric vehicles, which happened in the first generation there,

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Speaker 6: but in the future. Right when you look at methane pyrolysis,

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Speaker 6: what they do is they take natural gas, they split

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Speaker 6: it into hydrogen and carbon. Carbon black is something you

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Speaker 6: need to make tires, even electric vehicles used tires, and

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Speaker 6: so we need to use that, right and so right

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Speaker 6: now the largest exporter of carbon black in the world

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Speaker 6: is Russia.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 6: If this works, which I'm pretty sure it will, we

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Speaker 6: will be the largest exporter of carbon black in the world. Right,

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Speaker 6: and that's a really important market for us to dominate.

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Speaker 5: Right.

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Speaker 6: So the question really is like, you know, yes, there's

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Speaker 6: you know, being good with taxpayer money, but the other

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Speaker 6: piece is actually reaching real outcomes.

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Speaker 1: All right, So we sort of we've covered in the

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Speaker 1: very broad strokes the bank that you basically run within

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Speaker 1: the Department of Energy. Zooming out is part of this

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Speaker 1: whole project. And we're here in Texas in Austin at

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Speaker 1: the Texas Tribune Festival. This is a state of course

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Speaker 1: where energy and the grid has been in the news

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Speaker 1: a lot in the last few years.

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Speaker 3: And it seems to me like when we think.

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Speaker 1: About the grid, well, a few years ago, most of

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Speaker 1: us weren't even thinking about the grid.

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Speaker 3: We just sort of took it for granted. It just worked.

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Speaker 1: Over the last few years in various states, we've had

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Speaker 1: these problems. People want right, cheap electricity, they want reliable

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Speaker 1: electricity and increasingly clean electricity.

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Speaker 3: Can we have all three?

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Speaker 5: We're delivering all three.

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Speaker 6: I mean, look at Texas, right, Texas is the like

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Speaker 6: ground zero here, right, You're talking about the state that

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Speaker 6: has installed more wind power and more solar power over

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Speaker 6: the last five years than any other place in the

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Speaker 6: entire country. I think it's number one in the country

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Speaker 6: and wind and number two in the country in solar,

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Speaker 6: and will be number one in the country in solar in.

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Speaker 5: Like eighteen months.

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Speaker 6: It's also number one in the country and on an

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Speaker 6: ongoing basis in installing battery storage, right. I mean, it's

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Speaker 6: also the one that's actually like, you know, piloting these

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Speaker 6: virtual power plants where there were Tesla Electric Company customers

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Speaker 6: this last summer who had like negative six hundred dollars

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Speaker 6: bills because they were selling power from their power walls

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Speaker 6: into the marketplace at five dollars a kilo an hour

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Speaker 6: when market prices dictated it, and so they were helping

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Speaker 6: their neighbors, right, And so that that is not allowed

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Speaker 6: in California, like that is allowed here. So when you

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Speaker 6: think about the level of innovation happening in Texas right now,

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Speaker 6: it is at an all time high. And you know, I

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Speaker 6: think that part of it is because Texas needs that

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Speaker 6: level of innovation, right, I mean, their natural gas fleet

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Speaker 6: didn't perform as well as they wanted it to during

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Speaker 6: you know, URI and then some of the other issues.

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Speaker 6: So they've recognized that they need to diversify where the

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Speaker 6: electricity comes from, which is why they're building so much

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Speaker 6: solar and wind. But also they've decided to put two

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Speaker 6: new semiconductor plants here in Texas. They have all this growth,

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Speaker 6: All these companies are deciding that Texas is where they

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Speaker 6: want to build stuff. If you fly into DFW Airport,

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Speaker 6: there's all these roads and you're like, where the house is.

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Speaker 6: They're coming in like the next eighteen months. There's so

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Speaker 6: much load growth here. So now the question really becomes like,

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Speaker 6: how do we build the grid of the future. And

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Speaker 6: they're figuring that out here in Texas. It's pretty exciting.

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Speaker 4: Well, setting the great state of Texas aside, and we

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Speaker 4: are recording this live in Austin, so I feel like

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Speaker 4: I should describe it that way.

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Speaker 2: Setting Texas aside.

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Speaker 4: I mean, it is true that you have seen demands

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Speaker 4: on the grid rise, and in particular, I think I

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Speaker 4: saw a statistic saying that something there was a forty

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Speaker 4: percent increase in the amount of grid connection applications in

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Speaker 4: twenty twenty two alone, And a lot of this is

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Speaker 4: coming from you know renewable solar wind that need electricity

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Speaker 4: and want to feed it back into the grid.

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Speaker 2: How do you solve that problem?

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Speaker 6: Let me back it up for a second and then

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Speaker 6: like explain to you what's you know, where the friction

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Speaker 6: points are, and then maybe we can talk about how

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Speaker 6: we solve it. So, in general, you've got three major

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Speaker 6: pieces here, right, You've got generation of electricity. You've got

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Speaker 6: the transportation of the electricity to your home or business

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Speaker 6: or whatever is the transmission distribution grid. And then you've

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Speaker 6: got the load itself, right, and so you've got a

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Speaker 6: lot of load growth from new manufacturing facilities being announced

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Speaker 6: because of the Inflation Reduction Act. You've got electric vehicles

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Speaker 6: being added to the grid at record numbers. You've got

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Speaker 6: heat pumps, all these other things. Right, So the main

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Speaker 6: thing that I think you're asking about is the transmission grid.

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Speaker 6: So you've got a whole bunch of people.

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Speaker 2: Wait, can we back up for a second. What's the

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Speaker 2: difference between transmission and distribution.

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Speaker 6: So the transmission grid is generally at much higher voltages

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Speaker 6: and you're transporting power long distances from where you know,

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Speaker 6: like the Panhandle of Texas where they have a lot

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Speaker 6: of wind down.

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Speaker 5: Here to populated centers.

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Speaker 6: Right, the distribution grid is what's in your neighborhood and

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Speaker 6: is you know, basically having to manage, you know, making.

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Speaker 5: Sure that you have power for your four heir amp service.

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Speaker 6: Because if you plug in fifteen electric cars at the

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Speaker 6: same time, then the distribution grid has to either be

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Speaker 6: able to handle it or be able to throttle the

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Speaker 6: amps to each home so that the distribution grid doesn't

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Speaker 6: you know, get overloaded.

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Speaker 4: So what are the issues sort of facing the transmission

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Speaker 4: aspect of the grid at the moment.

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Speaker 6: So basically what happens is is that you know, someone says,

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Speaker 6: I've got a fantastic piece of land. I think I

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Speaker 6: can put wind power on it or solar power. Mostly

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Speaker 6: it's solar these days, there's a lot less wind in

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Speaker 6: that transmission queue and they say, great, you know, like

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Speaker 6: I'd like to apply to be able to use.

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Speaker 5: That transmission line. Now, there's.

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Speaker 6: Many different regions of the country, and each one of

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Speaker 6: them does it differently. Texas is arguably the best region

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Speaker 6: for this, and so what they do is they check

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Speaker 6: to make sure it'll be safe so when you connect

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Speaker 6: it to the grid, it won't actually make the grid

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Speaker 6: like unstable and you know, and then take something down

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Speaker 6: so they'll check that, But then they don't actually check

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Speaker 6: necessarily that there's capacity for you.

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Speaker 5: They sort of say you.

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Speaker 6: Should just interconnect, and if there's too much on the

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Speaker 6: grid any one time, we're gonna tell you to curtail.

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Speaker 6: So we're gonna tell you to shut off. And you know,

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Speaker 6: you can imagine you're not making any money when you

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Speaker 6: shut off, right, and so but Texas is like, that's

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Speaker 6: your problem, like you know, and then separ they actually

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Speaker 6: calculate really well what the loss to rate payers are

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Speaker 6: for that congestion. Right, So if there's not enough transmission capacity,

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Speaker 6: then the coal plant that's next to somebody's house has

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Speaker 6: to turn on and be used more. That's more expensive.

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Speaker 6: They say, Oh, if there was enough transmission capacity, then

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Speaker 6: that would have been cheaper and better, right, And then

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Speaker 6: that's what they justify paying Encore, which does a lot

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Speaker 6: of the transmission distribution, to be able to build new transmission.

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Speaker 6: They're like, well, the congestion charges were so large that

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Speaker 6: we should build new transmission to make sure that people.

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Speaker 5: Have lower bills.

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Speaker 6: So that is the ideal situation, and that's what Texas does,

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Speaker 6: and you get a lot more movement. I mean, even

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Speaker 6: Texas is clogged up just because there's so many applications,

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Speaker 6: but they're the fastest. But places like the Northeast, or

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Speaker 6: the mid Atlantic States or the Midwest States, I mean

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Speaker 6: people are actually waiting like four to five years to

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Speaker 6: get permission to interconnect because in those states they largely say, well,

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Speaker 6: we we want to know that there's actually a piece

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Speaker 6: of transmission that's available for you. So we're waiting for

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Speaker 6: this coal plant to cease operations with this natural gas

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Speaker 6: plan before we allocate that transmission for you, because we

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Speaker 6: don't want to do this curtailment thing. And so as

443
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:18,960
Speaker 6: a result, we we have twelve hundred megawatts twelve hundred

444
00:21:19,000 --> 00:21:22,400
Speaker 6: gigawatts of like roughly like of generation.

445
00:21:22,080 --> 00:21:22,720
Speaker 5: In this country.

446
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,639
Speaker 6: We have the same amount twelve hundred gigawatts waiting in

447
00:21:26,720 --> 00:21:29,760
Speaker 6: queues for permission to be added to the grid right now.

448
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:30,000
Speaker 5: Wow.

449
00:21:30,320 --> 00:21:34,000
Speaker 1: As soon as the Inflation Reduction Act passed and everyone

450
00:21:34,080 --> 00:21:37,040
Speaker 1: got really excited about all of this new energy that

451
00:21:37,160 --> 00:21:39,480
Speaker 1: was going to be in a wind and solar, et cetera,

452
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:42,520
Speaker 1: then immediately people started saying, oh, but we don't have

453
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:45,120
Speaker 1: the transmission capacity, and then there was this big fight

454
00:21:45,160 --> 00:21:47,600
Speaker 1: we need permitting reform, and we need that because that's

455
00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,199
Speaker 1: the only way otherwise we're gonna have all this stranded energy. Like,

456
00:21:50,480 --> 00:21:54,640
Speaker 1: are we at risk of having a bunch of government

457
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:58,960
Speaker 1: subsidized or government influenced energy that ultimately does not make

458
00:21:59,000 --> 00:22:00,959
Speaker 1: it onto the grid because of some other fight that

459
00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten taken care of.

460
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:06,359
Speaker 6: You, So let me answer that question from the other side, Okay,

461
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:09,760
Speaker 6: but I will answer it. I think that in general,

462
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:11,920
Speaker 6: the question is why does any of this stuff matter?

463
00:22:12,640 --> 00:22:14,400
Speaker 5: Right? Like, I mean, why do you.

464
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:18,240
Speaker 6: Care rather we actually interconnect all this sore and wind

465
00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:21,919
Speaker 6: or new nuclear plants or a geothermal facility? You know,

466
00:22:21,960 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 6: we want to relcense thirty seven gigawatts of hydro dams

467
00:22:25,600 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 6: that are like from nineteen ten, Right, why do we

468
00:22:28,320 --> 00:22:28,800
Speaker 6: even care?

469
00:22:29,280 --> 00:22:32,920
Speaker 5: It's because everybody wants to use chat GBT. Right.

470
00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:38,200
Speaker 6: Chat GBT is ten thousand megawatts of compute power by itself.

471
00:22:38,480 --> 00:22:40,560
Speaker 6: Now you add like Google and all this other stuff,

472
00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:41,880
Speaker 6: and then people want to let.

473
00:22:41,800 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 5: Your cars they like it.

474
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 6: You know, like my son yells at the car in

475
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:47,399
Speaker 6: front of me because it's like they have a tailpipe.

476
00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,520
Speaker 3: My daughter, you know, help my daughter does That's how.

477
00:22:50,440 --> 00:22:53,119
Speaker 5: It is right. So that's why we care about this stuff.

478
00:22:53,160 --> 00:22:55,199
Speaker 6: Like, we're not doing it because we're trying to like

479
00:22:55,280 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 6: just make everything more complicated. We're doing this because Americans

480
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:03,280
Speaker 6: believe that using more electricity makes their life better. Right,

481
00:23:03,359 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 6: whether it's like storing photos that they probably should delete,

482
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:08,399
Speaker 6: but they're going to keep them around anyway, right, and

483
00:23:08,400 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 6: then paying like Apple another dollar niney nine a month.

484
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:14,320
Speaker 5: Right, That's that's why we care about this stuff. Right.

485
00:23:14,560 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 6: So now the question becomes like, if we all care

486
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:21,000
Speaker 6: about this enough, right, if we all want this enough,

487
00:23:21,560 --> 00:23:23,439
Speaker 6: what are we willing to do to accelerate it?

488
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 5: Right?

489
00:23:24,160 --> 00:23:27,640
Speaker 6: So you've got permitting, You've got the National Environmental Protection Act,

490
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:29,919
Speaker 6: and so people talk about NEPA and all this other stuff,

491
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:34,000
Speaker 6: and so do we want to make this stuff easier?

492
00:23:34,400 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 5: Right?

493
00:23:34,600 --> 00:23:37,320
Speaker 6: And you've got Bill McKibben, who wrote a big article

494
00:23:37,359 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 6: about saying it's time to build. I mean, this is

495
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:41,879
Speaker 6: the guy who led the movement to like kill the

496
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:46,000
Speaker 6: Excel pipeline, right, and so even he's saying like we

497
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:48,639
Speaker 6: sort of need to build, right, And so now the

498
00:23:49,160 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 6: question really becomes how do we build, and how do

499
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:53,719
Speaker 6: we do it in a way that's equitable, that like

500
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:55,840
Speaker 6: make sure that we're you know, paying people a fair

501
00:23:55,880 --> 00:23:59,119
Speaker 6: wage and all these other things. And what we're looking

502
00:23:59,160 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 6: at doing is, like you know, is figuring out how

503
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:06,520
Speaker 6: we actually like check to make sure that things.

504
00:24:06,359 --> 00:24:08,680
Speaker 5: That we really care about are checked. Right.

505
00:24:08,760 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 6: We don't want to like, you know, just gloss over

506
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:13,920
Speaker 6: things and just say, ah, whatever, we should just lower

507
00:24:13,920 --> 00:24:16,920
Speaker 6: our standards. We're just saying that we might be applying

508
00:24:16,960 --> 00:24:21,200
Speaker 6: the standards in an incorrect way for certain projects, right,

509
00:24:21,200 --> 00:24:24,760
Speaker 6: because certain projects really don't have the level of toxicity

510
00:24:25,160 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 6: within air pollution issues or local impacts or the things,

511
00:24:29,320 --> 00:24:32,680
Speaker 6: and certain projects maintain those things right, like bring chemical

512
00:24:32,680 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 6: plants or some of these other things, And so we

513
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:36,679
Speaker 6: just need to be more appropriate in the way in

514
00:24:36,720 --> 00:24:39,000
Speaker 6: which we implement those rules.

515
00:24:39,080 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 5: Right.

516
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 6: So that's one piece of it. The other piece of

517
00:24:41,600 --> 00:24:44,560
Speaker 6: it is, you know, we need to do things differently.

518
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 6: Right for a long time, for twenty years, we have

519
00:24:48,920 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 6: not had load growth in this country. Right, So we

520
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:55,600
Speaker 6: basically sell the same number of tarra wade hours today

521
00:24:55,920 --> 00:24:57,840
Speaker 6: that we did in two thousand and three. And largely

522
00:24:57,920 --> 00:24:58,679
Speaker 6: that's because.

523
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: There's a good reason that no one WI really paid

524
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: much attention to this stuff.

525
00:25:02,320 --> 00:25:03,439
Speaker 3: There just wasn't the need for it.

526
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 6: There was no need for it, right, I see. But

527
00:25:05,240 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 6: now everyone is like, oh my god, we got to

528
00:25:08,000 --> 00:25:11,359
Speaker 6: grow again. That's a lot, right. But the beauty is

529
00:25:11,400 --> 00:25:13,960
Speaker 6: we actually have solutions to all of it. Like the

530
00:25:14,400 --> 00:25:17,280
Speaker 6: crazy thing is, like I'll like on the grid, right,

531
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,680
Speaker 6: there are all these things called grid enhancing technologies.

532
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 5: I'll give you an example.

533
00:25:21,800 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 6: Like the grid basically is operated by slide roll and

534
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:28,840
Speaker 6: so people say this, this thing basically has three thousand

535
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:29,840
Speaker 6: megawats capacity.

536
00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 5: Right, That's actually not true, right.

537
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,560
Speaker 6: What's true is that it the capacity changes based on

538
00:25:36,600 --> 00:25:37,800
Speaker 6: the temperature outside.

539
00:25:38,080 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 5: Right, So there's less.

540
00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:41,720
Speaker 6: Capacity when it's like one hundred and two degrees outside, way,

541
00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 6: more capacity when the it's forty five degrees. Right, So

542
00:25:43,960 --> 00:25:46,640
Speaker 6: you can put in dynamic load ratings. Right, guess who

543
00:25:46,680 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 6: does that? Everybody but the United States? Right, and so,

544
00:25:50,119 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 6: and we invented it. So the UK is fully deployed it,

545
00:25:53,119 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 6: Belgium is fully deployed, all these other Brazil, India, Everyone's

546
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 6: doing this stuff except for us. So, like this is

547
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:00,960
Speaker 6: what I was saying. We have all the entrepreneurs who

548
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:04,240
Speaker 6: invented all this stuff, and we didn't deploy it here.

549
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 6: We let them go overseas to deploy it right there?

550
00:26:07,680 --> 00:26:09,720
Speaker 2: Why it seems like a slam dunk.

551
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,000
Speaker 6: Why why not impediment So like PPL was on a

552
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 6: podcast the other day, which is Pennsylvania Powered Light, and

553
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 6: they were saying, you know, basically they had this thing

554
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 6: where they had to solve it. So they put in

555
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 6: dynamic lotter rings. It was only like nine hundred thousand

556
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 6: dollars to do it, but it saved fifty million dollars

557
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:27,919
Speaker 6: of upgrades. And they were like, we make money to

558
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:31,919
Speaker 6: deploy dollars, Like this was a terrible decision for our shareholders.

559
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,240
Speaker 6: We did it because there was no other way for

560
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 6: us to upgrade that line, and we had a customer

561
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:39,639
Speaker 6: that really needed it. And so to upgrade the entire

562
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:43,320
Speaker 6: United States of America with grate enhancing technologies to unlock

563
00:26:43,440 --> 00:26:47,359
Speaker 6: thirty percent more transmission capacity would cost a total of

564
00:26:47,400 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 6: three billion dollars. Let's do it, right, But like, but

565
00:26:51,640 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 6: you have, but you, but but you have like all

566
00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:58,360
Speaker 6: these competing interests of people who are like, but Jigger,

567
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 6: I was gonna spend twenty three billion dollars to upgrade

568
00:27:01,080 --> 00:27:03,400
Speaker 6: the transmission grade that was going to be rate based

569
00:27:03,440 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 6: for my shareholders. Why would I want the three billion,

570
00:27:05,720 --> 00:27:08,439
Speaker 6: But you know what, all of that is evaporating away

571
00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 6: today because they're all just saying, we can't.

572
00:27:11,160 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 5: Keep up with load growth.

573
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:15,720
Speaker 6: So we'll do the three billion, and we'll invest even

574
00:27:15,760 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 6: more money because a lot of our stuff's fifty years old,

575
00:27:18,440 --> 00:27:20,640
Speaker 6: so we kind of have to like replace it anyway.

576
00:27:21,000 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 6: And so all of these traditional like loggerheads that we've

577
00:27:24,680 --> 00:27:27,960
Speaker 6: been at for twenty years is really going away because

578
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:29,399
Speaker 6: people know that we need both.

579
00:27:30,240 --> 00:27:32,240
Speaker 4: I'm going to take a queue from a member of

580
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 4: the audience and ask, like, how much interest do you

581
00:27:34,840 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 4: see from the utilities themselves when it comes to your

582
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:39,200
Speaker 4: loan program?

583
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 2: Are they knocking at your door? Is there still a

584
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:41,840
Speaker 2: lot of reticence?

585
00:27:42,560 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 6: So when this when the Inflation Reduction Act first passed,

586
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:49,080
Speaker 6: we got this you know, energy refurbishment sort of program,

587
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:51,560
Speaker 6: and you know, I reached out to them all and

588
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:54,440
Speaker 6: they said, Jigger, we can raise money ourselves. We don't

589
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:56,080
Speaker 6: need to use your program. We're never, never going to

590
00:27:56,160 --> 00:27:58,560
Speaker 6: use your program. Then I was able to like recruit

591
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:01,639
Speaker 6: Leslie Rich, who's the most stock analysts on Wall Street

592
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 6: for the electric utility industry from JP Morgan to come

593
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 6: run the program and like, suddenly I've got like fifty

594
00:28:07,560 --> 00:28:09,879
Speaker 6: eight billion dollars with a loan applications in the loan

595
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 6: program's office. So you know, people really do matter, and

596
00:28:12,760 --> 00:28:15,720
Speaker 6: so she's been able to convince them. She's like, well,

597
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:18,400
Speaker 6: you know, you kind of are a soft rate cap.

598
00:28:18,440 --> 00:28:20,359
Speaker 6: You can't keep raising rates ten percent a year and

599
00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 6: continue to like have a social license in your state,

600
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,680
Speaker 6: like you should actually figure out how to reduce rates

601
00:28:25,680 --> 00:28:29,119
Speaker 6: for rate payers. And so the arguments are like, you know,

602
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 6: filtering through. People are having these conversations. I do think

603
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:37,399
Speaker 6: that for sure, in twenty nineteen, people were not serious

604
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:39,680
Speaker 6: about the fact that we might have load growth again.

605
00:28:40,120 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 6: Even when the Inflation Reduction Act passed. It's not clear

606
00:28:42,920 --> 00:28:46,800
Speaker 6: to me that people really had internalized it. Today, no

607
00:28:46,880 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 6: matter where I go, people are actually actively interested in

608
00:28:51,640 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 6: learning about how they should do things differently within the

609
00:28:55,680 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 6: utility sector in all three areas, right, So generationsmission distribution,

610
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,200
Speaker 6: and what we call virtual power plants, which is actually

611
00:29:04,640 --> 00:29:07,920
Speaker 6: you know, flexing demand with the same level of dexterity

612
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:09,479
Speaker 6: that we currently only flex supply.

613
00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:12,640
Speaker 4: I definitely want to talk about virtual power plants, but

614
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 4: since you mentioned electricity rates just then, I mean both

615
00:29:16,440 --> 00:29:19,280
Speaker 4: Joe and I live in New York. We are the

616
00:29:19,360 --> 00:29:23,160
Speaker 4: slaves of con Edison in some respect. And every year,

617
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 4: it seems con Edison will announce a rate hike, and

618
00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 4: a lot of that goes into not necessarily the price

619
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,400
Speaker 4: of electricity, but the distribution costs. And I think that's

620
00:29:32,400 --> 00:29:34,360
Speaker 4: been a trend for a few years where you know,

621
00:29:34,600 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 4: actual load demand or consumption of electricity has been pretty stable,

622
00:29:39,240 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 4: but distribution costs have gone up and up. Can you

623
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 4: explain what's happening with that dynamic and how you know

624
00:29:44,760 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 4: the DOE can help with that aspect of it.

625
00:29:47,880 --> 00:29:51,560
Speaker 6: Yeah, so let me start from first principles and then

626
00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,640
Speaker 6: I'll answer your question directly. So in two thousand, right,

627
00:29:55,640 --> 00:30:00,440
Speaker 6: the National Academy of Sciences said, you know, the most

628
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 6: important machine in the whole world was the electric utility grid,

629
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,520
Speaker 6: right of the twentieth century. Right, And so they got

630
00:30:07,520 --> 00:30:10,720
Speaker 6: this award for you know, the best engineering marvel of

631
00:30:10,720 --> 00:30:11,520
Speaker 6: the twentieth century.

632
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:11,760
Speaker 5: Right.

633
00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 6: This engineering marvel has cost us over at trillion dollars

634
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:19,040
Speaker 6: to build right over time, and we use it forty

635
00:30:19,080 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 6: percent of the time.

636
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:21,640
Speaker 5: So, if you're a private center.

637
00:30:21,480 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 6: Company, which some of these utilities are, and you have

638
00:30:24,960 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 6: a machine that you built, a cost a trillion dollars

639
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,200
Speaker 6: and you only use it forty percent of time. You'd

640
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 6: be like, usually we're trying to maximize the like operational like,

641
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 6: you know, capacity utilization of this machine.

642
00:30:36,760 --> 00:30:38,360
Speaker 5: We spend a trillion dollars on it, we should use

643
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:39,560
Speaker 5: it more, right, So.

644
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:41,920
Speaker 6: The reason they don't use it more is when air

645
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:45,200
Speaker 6: conditioning came in in the nineteen seventies, right, then you

646
00:30:45,280 --> 00:30:47,960
Speaker 6: had this peak, right, so whenever you have a hot day,

647
00:30:48,000 --> 00:30:50,400
Speaker 6: you have its peak. And so they built the transmission

648
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 6: distribution grid to handle air conditioning. They built a bunch

649
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:55,760
Speaker 6: of natural gas peaker plants to be able to power

650
00:30:55,800 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 6: that air conditioning. And so the peak to trough youation,

651
00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,720
Speaker 6: like has gone bigger. Right, So now you're using one

652
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:06,280
Speaker 6: hundred units of energy at the top and you're using

653
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,160
Speaker 6: like twenty five units of energy at the bottom.

654
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 5: Right.

655
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 6: And so what they have said to homeowners or you

656
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 6: know condo owners or you know renters, is you can

657
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:20,920
Speaker 6: do whatever you want with your demand, and we will

658
00:31:20,960 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 6: make sure that the lights work.

659
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:23,160
Speaker 5: Right.

660
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:27,920
Speaker 6: That's really expensive, right, So every time you buy something,

661
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:32,000
Speaker 6: whether it's a hair dryer or an espresso machine or whatever,

662
00:31:32,040 --> 00:31:34,520
Speaker 6: it is they have to upgrade the service to make

663
00:31:34,560 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 6: sure that if all of you turn it on at

664
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 6: the same time, or some reasonable amount of you turn

665
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:40,960
Speaker 6: at the same time, then you can be accommodated.

666
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 5: Right.

667
00:31:41,680 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 6: The other way for them to do that is to say,

668
00:31:44,680 --> 00:31:47,560
Speaker 6: there are some loads that you just don't care about, right,

669
00:31:47,720 --> 00:31:51,160
Speaker 6: Like your water heater. You don't really care whether your

670
00:31:51,200 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 6: water heater turns on right after you finished taking a

671
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,040
Speaker 6: shower or whether it turns on like six hours later

672
00:31:56,080 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 6: when there's excess capacity in the grid. And a lot

673
00:31:58,680 --> 00:32:02,040
Speaker 6: of real electric co ops have controlled those water heaters

674
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:05,040
Speaker 6: for thirty years, so it's not new technology. But like

675
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,800
Speaker 6: if you flatten the load, right and you shift like

676
00:32:09,080 --> 00:32:11,080
Speaker 6: you know. And the reason this is coming back in

677
00:32:11,120 --> 00:32:14,520
Speaker 6: a big way right now is because of electric vehicles. Right, Like,

678
00:32:15,360 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 6: most people who have electric vehicles, they plug in their

679
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,440
Speaker 6: car when they come home from work or school or whatever,

680
00:32:20,840 --> 00:32:23,320
Speaker 6: and they leave it plugged in for thirteen hours, but

681
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 6: it's only charging for three of those thirteen hours, right,

682
00:32:26,600 --> 00:32:29,840
Speaker 6: So people don't really care which three hours they're charging

683
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,400
Speaker 6: as long as it's charged by the time they wake

684
00:32:32,480 --> 00:32:33,000
Speaker 6: up in the morning.

685
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 5: Right.

686
00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 6: And so people are like, oh, like, we can actually

687
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 6: accommodate a lot more electric vehicles if we do manage charging.

688
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 6: And so now once you open that door, well, now

689
00:32:44,400 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 6: you've got to allow water heaters and thermostats and all

690
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 6: sorts of other stuff that you have an app for

691
00:32:49,280 --> 00:32:52,400
Speaker 6: on your phone right to be able to manage charging.

692
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 6: And so so the old paradigm was that kan ED

693
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,760
Speaker 6: just upgraded the distribution circuit every time you found some

694
00:33:00,240 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 6: new thing that you want to buy. And now we're saying, ah,

695
00:33:03,440 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 6: that's kind of getting expensive. You should actually do managed

696
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:21,720
Speaker 6: you know, charge.

697
00:33:23,120 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 1: So we're about halfway done with our time with you here,

698
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 1: and I want to like get into like some of

699
00:33:27,720 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: the specific source of generation. We should talk a little

700
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: wind and nuclear and all that. But before we do,

701
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: there's this critique of the way entered infrastructure in the

702
00:33:36,320 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 1: US has developed these days, particularly under that Biden administration.

703
00:33:39,760 --> 00:33:42,959
Speaker 1: And the critique is basically, Okay, we have this mission

704
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,200
Speaker 1: to decarbonize the grid, add capacity, all that, but that

705
00:33:46,280 --> 00:33:50,920
Speaker 1: the administration adds all these other requirements social requirements. Oh,

706
00:33:51,080 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: the companies have to provide childcare, and they have to

707
00:33:54,600 --> 00:33:56,520
Speaker 1: do this or that, all these other things that maybe

708
00:33:56,520 --> 00:34:00,000
Speaker 1: didn't make it into the bill. And maybe other progress

709
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,959
Speaker 1: several liberal interests like want to squeeze it in somehow

710
00:34:03,120 --> 00:34:05,520
Speaker 1: to how we build out, and they're like, we're never

711
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:08,840
Speaker 1: going to accomplish these goals of decarbonization if the company's

712
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,600
Speaker 1: building this or that also have to satisfy X, Y

713
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 1: and z, you know, sort of liberal wish list progressive

714
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,640
Speaker 1: dreams of whatever it is. Do you see that in

715
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:21,839
Speaker 1: your day to day that this is an impediment that

716
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:25,280
Speaker 1: things that are not directly related to building an electrification

717
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 1: get in the way of new construction.

718
00:34:28,360 --> 00:34:33,600
Speaker 6: No, So, so in general, I'd say that we have

719
00:34:33,640 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 6: statutory requirements. Right, so for our office, you have to

720
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:39,160
Speaker 6: pay Davis bake and wages. For construction, you have to

721
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,399
Speaker 6: use this thing called the Cargo Preference Act. But other

722
00:34:42,440 --> 00:34:45,240
Speaker 6: than that, there are no other requirements of my office,

723
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 6: and so we don't impose any other requirements onto, you know,

724
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 6: our applicants. Now that being said, remember we haven't done

725
00:34:53,120 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 6: this in forty years, right. It's not like the United

726
00:34:56,120 --> 00:34:59,080
Speaker 6: States of America has been like building manufacturing facilities, brand new.

727
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:00,879
Speaker 5: Manufacturing facilities for four years.

728
00:35:00,880 --> 00:35:01,280
Speaker 3: We haven't.

729
00:35:01,719 --> 00:35:04,920
Speaker 6: And so you know, yesterday I was in Georgetown, Texas,

730
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,759
Speaker 6: one of our companies, Uh, Selling right is building their

731
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:12,080
Speaker 6: facility up there there to make these extraordinary wire harnesses

732
00:35:12,160 --> 00:35:15,439
Speaker 6: for electric vehicles that are like ninety five percent less weight,

733
00:35:16,200 --> 00:35:18,680
Speaker 6: which is amazing. But you know the thing is, and

734
00:35:18,719 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 6: you would think wire harnesses are things that you know,

735
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:23,640
Speaker 6: you can only make in low wage countries around the world.

736
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 6: But they have this innovative process and so they can

737
00:35:25,680 --> 00:35:29,319
Speaker 6: make it here in Georgetown, Texas. We asked them to

738
00:35:29,360 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 6: put together a meeting right for you know, workforce. They

739
00:35:32,400 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 6: have to hire about a thousand people, and so you know,

740
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:36,040
Speaker 6: how are you going to do that? Where are you

741
00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:38,719
Speaker 6: going to go? Et cetera, et cetera. There were a

742
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 6: lot of people came and you know, facilitated conversation.

743
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:42,879
Speaker 5: There's no mandate there.

744
00:35:42,880 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 6: I wasn't suggesting that they had to hire you know,

745
00:35:45,239 --> 00:35:47,239
Speaker 6: a good mix of this group or that group or

746
00:35:47,280 --> 00:35:50,120
Speaker 6: whatever it is. It's more like, let's have a conversation, right.

747
00:35:50,520 --> 00:35:52,400
Speaker 6: It was very clear to me that most of the

748
00:35:52,440 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 6: people in that room were so appreciative of Selling creating

749
00:35:56,440 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 6: a thousand jobs in that community, but had never had

750
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 6: the chance to provide Selling any feedback about how they

751
00:36:03,560 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 6: might recruit better.

752
00:36:05,800 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 5: Right.

753
00:36:06,440 --> 00:36:10,040
Speaker 6: Now, that's not because Selling's a bad company, right. Selling's

754
00:36:10,080 --> 00:36:13,400
Speaker 6: a startup company that probably almost went bankrupt like three times.

755
00:36:13,719 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 5: And you know, think.

756
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:17,680
Speaker 6: They're lucky stars that they got the capitol when they

757
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 6: needed to to actually get to this point and now

758
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,360
Speaker 6: they're building a factory. They're like the American dream. So

759
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:24,759
Speaker 6: I'm not surprised that the number one thing that he's

760
00:36:24,800 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 6: working on is not figuring out that his workforce issues, right,

761
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 6: and number one thing he's working on is making sure

762
00:36:29,520 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 6: that the Chinese don't steal his technology, and like that,

763
00:36:32,640 --> 00:36:36,040
Speaker 6: he's continuing to like, you know, succeed on this stuff, right.

764
00:36:36,120 --> 00:36:38,600
Speaker 6: And so so he came up after me. His name

765
00:36:38,680 --> 00:36:41,440
Speaker 6: is Kevin Cokeley, and he's great, and he said, you know, Jigger,

766
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:43,120
Speaker 6: this was super helpful.

767
00:36:43,520 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 5: I want to do right by these folks in the community.

768
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:48,640
Speaker 6: I want to actually meet all these people, et cetera,

769
00:36:48,680 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 6: et cetera like and so it was a good conversation.

770
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:53,240
Speaker 6: I didn't force him to hit some sort of metric

771
00:36:53,400 --> 00:36:55,839
Speaker 6: or do this thing or whatever else. But you know,

772
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:58,280
Speaker 6: in general, what I find is all of the people

773
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 6: participate in the program's office are you know, Americans who

774
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:05,520
Speaker 6: are quite proud of their country. They want to do

775
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 6: right by their workers. They want to do right by

776
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,680
Speaker 6: the communities. So they're in et cetera. But it's not

777
00:37:09,800 --> 00:37:13,000
Speaker 6: surprising me that they're not experts in that part of,

778
00:37:13,440 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 6: you know, building a company. They're experts in their technology,

779
00:37:16,560 --> 00:37:19,600
Speaker 6: and so we do facilitate good conversations. I'll give you

780
00:37:19,680 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 6: one more story. So there's one company that we provide

781
00:37:23,080 --> 00:37:25,760
Speaker 6: a conditional commitment to. I'll try to keep the details sparse.

782
00:37:25,760 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 6: So they're uh, you know, outing them. They are going

783
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 6: into a state that has an extraordinary shortage of construction workers, right.

784
00:37:34,840 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 6: So and they said, look, Jigger, I'm just not gonna

785
00:37:37,239 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 6: be pro union, like, that's not going to happen, right. Fine,

786
00:37:39,840 --> 00:37:41,880
Speaker 6: So I said, well, but you should sign a project

787
00:37:41,920 --> 00:37:44,000
Speaker 6: labor agreement. They're like, Jigger, that sounds like a union term,

788
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 6: and so I was like, well, it kind of is

789
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:46,920
Speaker 6: a union.

790
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:49,120
Speaker 5: Term, right, So you should sign a project labor agreement.

791
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 6: And what that does is it mandates and requires the

792
00:37:53,320 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 6: union to do a couple of things. One is start

793
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 6: training workers for you right now, right six months eight

794
00:37:59,200 --> 00:38:03,040
Speaker 6: months before you actually need them. But two, if there's

795
00:38:03,160 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 6: actually too much work and not enough workers, you get

796
00:38:07,200 --> 00:38:11,000
Speaker 6: first in line right now. If you end up doing

797
00:38:11,040 --> 00:38:14,960
Speaker 6: an RFP and you pick a non union contractor, right,

798
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:18,799
Speaker 6: that's fine. They would still pull from this union hall

799
00:38:18,920 --> 00:38:21,239
Speaker 6: or not or whatever. Like union workers do a lot

800
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:24,560
Speaker 6: of non union contractor work, right. He's like, Jigger, I

801
00:38:24,640 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 6: never understood that. They never taught me that at Harvard

802
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 6: Business School, Like, I don't know how any of this

803
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,000
Speaker 6: stuff works, right, And so he was appreciative, Like, you know,

804
00:38:33,080 --> 00:38:33,600
Speaker 6: it wasn't like.

805
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:35,640
Speaker 5: He was union anti union, like pro union.

806
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:37,720
Speaker 6: He was like, I'm probably not inclined to go union,

807
00:38:38,120 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 6: but like, I do need workers that are trained to

808
00:38:41,280 --> 00:38:44,080
Speaker 6: like actually start working on my job site as soon

809
00:38:44,120 --> 00:38:45,880
Speaker 6: as I'm ready, and this is going to make it

810
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:48,000
Speaker 6: easier for me to meet my schedule and my cost.

811
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll do that.

812
00:38:49,800 --> 00:38:52,319
Speaker 4: So you sort of suggested that some of these executives

813
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:54,720
Speaker 4: maybe they just hadn't thought about it before or weren't

814
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:57,200
Speaker 4: experts in it because they were focused on other things

815
00:38:57,400 --> 00:39:00,399
Speaker 4: like competing with China. But just to press on the point,

816
00:39:00,400 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 4: because I think it's kind of timely at the moment,

817
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 4: especially given the UAW strikes.

818
00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,719
Speaker 2: But one of the arguments that you hear is if you.

819
00:39:07,719 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 4: Attach a lot of expensive conditions to the labor force

820
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 4: within the US that makes it uncompetitive compared to places

821
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:18,759
Speaker 4: like China or Mexico, where the cost of labor is

822
00:39:18,800 --> 00:39:22,280
Speaker 4: not only cheaper, but also not unionized and is probably

823
00:39:22,280 --> 00:39:24,040
Speaker 4: not providing things like childcare.

824
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:26,560
Speaker 2: How do you think about the competitive aspect of that.

825
00:39:27,000 --> 00:39:30,360
Speaker 6: As I said before, the Loan Program's office requires Davis

826
00:39:30,360 --> 00:39:34,640
Speaker 6: Bacon wages for construction in general. That hasn't been a problem.

827
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 6: You know, the in general, when you construct something, you

828
00:39:37,840 --> 00:39:40,080
Speaker 6: want the folks who have the most training doing your

829
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:43,360
Speaker 6: construction is you know firstand and you know and so

830
00:39:44,080 --> 00:39:46,520
Speaker 6: and so. You know, like that really isn't something that

831
00:39:46,560 --> 00:39:48,279
Speaker 6: we fight over. They're like, yeah, that makes sense. So

832
00:39:48,320 --> 00:39:50,759
Speaker 6: we want the highest quality workforce so that you know,

833
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:52,640
Speaker 6: when we build this building, it last for thirty years

834
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 6: and it'll be done properly.

835
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 5: Right, So, so that isn't really a problem.

836
00:39:56,080 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 6: There's no requirement for folks to go union for the

837
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:02,600
Speaker 6: operating jobs, like we're not requiring that. That being said,

838
00:40:02,719 --> 00:40:06,080
Speaker 6: we're saying to people that these are particularly in the

839
00:40:06,120 --> 00:40:08,919
Speaker 6: manufacturing space again, which we haven't done really in forty years.

840
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:13,880
Speaker 6: You know, these are craftsmen, right, Like they're actually like

841
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:16,839
Speaker 6: the more they work at that place, the better they

842
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,239
Speaker 6: get at that job, and they become more productive, and

843
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,719
Speaker 6: they provide a lot of insight. I think when you

844
00:40:22,760 --> 00:40:25,040
Speaker 6: hear Elon Musk talk a lot about this at Tesla,

845
00:40:25,440 --> 00:40:29,400
Speaker 6: you know, they've sort of onshore almost everything that it

846
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 6: takes to make a car, right, so they don't really

847
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:32,839
Speaker 6: import from you know.

848
00:40:32,800 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 5: One thousand different suppliers.

849
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 6: They do stuff here, and what they say is actually

850
00:40:36,160 --> 00:40:39,920
Speaker 6: the folks who work on the line actually bring a

851
00:40:39,920 --> 00:40:42,960
Speaker 6: lot of the best innovations to the table, right They're like, oh,

852
00:40:43,000 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 6: this could be done smarter, this could be done better,

853
00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 6: this could do stuff like So in general, like you know,

854
00:40:48,080 --> 00:40:52,000
Speaker 6: I feel like we're having these false arguments because this

855
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:55,200
Speaker 6: is like something that I don't know. It finds like

856
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 6: certain tribes want one things or tribes want something else.

857
00:40:58,040 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 6: So it's a great fault line to create. But I

858
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:03,360
Speaker 6: think we all agree that you want workers who actually

859
00:41:03,360 --> 00:41:05,000
Speaker 6: want to be there. You don't want turnover, you don't

860
00:41:05,000 --> 00:41:07,840
Speaker 6: want like ten percent of your workforce leaving every month,

861
00:41:07,920 --> 00:41:11,080
Speaker 6: and you know, you want you know, folks to believe

862
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 6: that they can you know, feed their families and you know,

863
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 6: support a community and all that stuff on that So

864
00:41:16,200 --> 00:41:18,879
Speaker 6: I don't think we're arguing over those things. And we're

865
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 6: also not saying that one hundred percent of everything that

866
00:41:22,320 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 6: America consumes, we consume a lot is going to be

867
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 6: made in the United States of America, right, And so

868
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,759
Speaker 6: I think the administration has gone to China gone other

869
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:33,839
Speaker 6: things saying we're not decoupling. So it's really but there's

870
00:41:33,840 --> 00:41:38,640
Speaker 6: a lot of these high value innovations that we've invented

871
00:41:38,680 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 6: out of the Department of Energy, and instead of licensing

872
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:43,719
Speaker 6: them to other countries, which is basically what we did

873
00:41:43,800 --> 00:41:46,200
Speaker 6: for forty years, we're saying, why don't we tied to

874
00:41:46,200 --> 00:41:47,759
Speaker 6: the American workforce and make them here?

875
00:41:47,880 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 3: Nuclear power?

876
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: Two questions, What is the role in your view long

877
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 1: in terms of meeting all this demand of nuclear growth

878
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:58,560
Speaker 1: in the US. And is the reason we haven't had

879
00:41:58,680 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: much nuclear expansion in the US because a bunch of

880
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: people there's like some combination of anti nuclear hippies and

881
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:07,919
Speaker 1: people who watch The Simpsons too much.

882
00:42:12,360 --> 00:42:14,160
Speaker 5: I challenged the premise of your question.

883
00:42:14,239 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 3: No, no, no, I'm just asking is that the reason

884
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:18,000
Speaker 3: or not? Am I wrong?

885
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:19,080
Speaker 5: I was?

886
00:42:19,280 --> 00:42:22,000
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily assuming that, but I believe a lot

887
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,160
Speaker 1: of people there's a lot.

888
00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,319
Speaker 5: Of stuff going on. Let me try to unpack it

889
00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:27,959
Speaker 5: for you. I think.

890
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:31,719
Speaker 6: So basically, nuclear power really had its heyday sort of

891
00:42:31,760 --> 00:42:33,520
Speaker 6: in the sixties and the seventies, right, that's when we

892
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 6: built a lot of our nuclear parwer plants. In the seventies,

893
00:42:36,239 --> 00:42:38,839
Speaker 6: it was already the case that nuclear power plants were

894
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:42,320
Speaker 6: becoming more and more expensive. You had the Nuclear Regultory Commission,

895
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 6: you had a lot more regulation, and so, you know,

896
00:42:45,960 --> 00:42:49,080
Speaker 6: so you were already getting people less interested in doing

897
00:42:49,120 --> 00:42:51,280
Speaker 6: nuclear power by the time you got to the late seventies.

898
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 6: Then you had through My Island, Right you can imagine

899
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,880
Speaker 6: like that sort of scared people. And so no one died.

900
00:42:57,160 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 6: Everyone's fine, Like, you know, nuclear is one of the

901
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 6: safe technologies in the world, but you know, it's scared people.

902
00:43:02,719 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 6: We basically didn't approve any new nuclear plants after that.

903
00:43:05,800 --> 00:43:08,680
Speaker 6: We finished the Biron nuclear power plant, which I grew

904
00:43:08,760 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 6: up next to in Illinois in nineteen eighty four, and

905
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:13,880
Speaker 6: then we finished watts Bar recently, and so we've had

906
00:43:13,920 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 6: a couple of nuclear plants come online. Vogel Unit three

907
00:43:16,640 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 6: just came online. Vocal Unit furs should come online at

908
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:22,960
Speaker 6: the end of the year. Early next year, so in Georgia.

909
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:25,840
Speaker 6: So I think that in general, the nuclear power fleet

910
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 6: that we have now was largely built in the nineteen seventies.

911
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:28,839
Speaker 5: Right.

912
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 6: Nuclear power is one of those things where the frustration

913
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:36,799
Speaker 6: that I have, and I was on the board of

914
00:43:36,840 --> 00:43:40,880
Speaker 6: Greenpeace for six years, is that they don't actually try

915
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:45,399
Speaker 6: to do it better, right. It's always someone else's fault.

916
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:48,959
Speaker 6: It's like nuclear power is just so damn complicated. It's

917
00:43:49,040 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 6: so hard to build. This soul and win stuff is

918
00:43:51,640 --> 00:43:55,080
Speaker 6: so easy. Like, we build complicated stuff all the time.

919
00:43:55,200 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 6: We built like oil refineries, we built like there's like

920
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 6: a lot of semiconductor fabs or no picnic right. So

921
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:04,719
Speaker 6: it's not like we don't know how to build complicated stuff, right.

922
00:44:04,760 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 6: But what I find is is that in nuclear power

923
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:10,719
Speaker 6: it's always something like, well, if the federal government would

924
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 6: just do it, we should just get the Department of Defense.

925
00:44:13,680 --> 00:44:18,239
Speaker 5: To just do it right, you know, like Okay, but like.

926
00:44:18,280 --> 00:44:20,520
Speaker 6: That hasn't really worked for you since the nineteen seventies,

927
00:44:20,560 --> 00:44:24,120
Speaker 6: so let's not try that because that's not working. So

928
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,560
Speaker 6: I think a lot of what we've done is right

929
00:44:26,640 --> 00:44:32,319
Speaker 6: size the nuclear energy industry by saying, look, you know

930
00:44:32,360 --> 00:44:35,480
Speaker 6: these ten to fifteen billion dollar nuclear plants. It's not

931
00:44:35,520 --> 00:44:35,880
Speaker 6: something that.

932
00:44:35,920 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 5: Utilities want to build, right.

933
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 6: Like, In fact, if you look at like the last

934
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,680
Speaker 6: forty or fifty years of utility bankruptcies, like half of

935
00:44:43,680 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 6: them were because of nuclear plets. So you know, I

936
00:44:46,880 --> 00:44:49,799
Speaker 6: can imagine like a CEO of the utility company is like,

937
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:51,480
Speaker 6: I don't know, I don't want to do a nucleus.

938
00:44:51,520 --> 00:44:53,719
Speaker 5: I like my job maybe not exactly right.

939
00:44:53,760 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 6: And so now we have this thing called small modular reactors,

940
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:58,760
Speaker 6: which are neither small nor modular, but like, that's fine,

941
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:03,040
Speaker 6: but they basically cost two to four billion dollars, right,

942
00:45:03,080 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 6: And in two to four billion dollars, the utilities know

943
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:07,279
Speaker 6: how to do two to four billion dollar projects, and

944
00:45:07,280 --> 00:45:09,680
Speaker 6: they can find bonding for that and assurance for that.

945
00:45:09,719 --> 00:45:13,120
Speaker 6: There's EPC contractors that have a balance sheet that's large

946
00:45:13,200 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 6: enough to wrap a two to four billion dollar project,

947
00:45:15,200 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 6: et cetera. So we now have a size that we

948
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 6: actually can handle. When you look at like Vogel three

949
00:45:21,280 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 6: and four, Fogel four was thirty percent cheaper than Vogel three,

950
00:45:25,280 --> 00:45:28,200
Speaker 6: right because the same workforce is working on the same reactor,

951
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 6: and they did it better the second time around, which

952
00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 6: you can imagine.

953
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:31,719
Speaker 5: So the way that these.

954
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 6: Small module reactors work is that you built four in

955
00:45:34,440 --> 00:45:37,440
Speaker 6: one place. You build three hundred megawat reactors. You build

956
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:39,319
Speaker 6: four of them in one place, and so you have

957
00:45:39,360 --> 00:45:41,600
Speaker 6: twelve hundred megawatts. The first one's probably going to come

958
00:45:41,640 --> 00:45:44,320
Speaker 6: in the closer four billion, the second one thirty percent cheaper,

959
00:45:44,440 --> 00:45:46,879
Speaker 6: the third ones twenty percent cheaper, the fourth than six

960
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 6: percent cheaper. And so now you get to a place

961
00:45:49,160 --> 00:45:51,920
Speaker 6: where it can be cost effective. Folks can handle it.

962
00:45:51,920 --> 00:45:54,200
Speaker 6: It's bite sized. You can end at any time if

963
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:55,719
Speaker 6: you don't want to build the third one or the

964
00:45:55,719 --> 00:45:58,560
Speaker 6: fourth one. And so you're starting to see a formula

965
00:45:58,600 --> 00:46:00,879
Speaker 6: that people are getting excited about. Not only are people

966
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 6: gettingxcited about, they're getting excited about US designs, right because

967
00:46:04,200 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 6: there's Korean designs and Russian designs and Chinese designs, and

968
00:46:07,920 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 6: so you know, our good friends in Canada chose a

969
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,400
Speaker 6: US design, the Giataci BWX three hundred. So they're building

970
00:46:13,400 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 6: four of them at Darlington. The folks at Cinthos and

971
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:20,040
Speaker 6: Poland also chose the design. There's a lot of lessons learned.

972
00:46:20,040 --> 00:46:22,560
Speaker 6: We're following those lessons learned. So I could go on

973
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:24,680
Speaker 6: and on and on an entire podcast about this. But

974
00:46:24,719 --> 00:46:27,319
Speaker 6: I would say that in general, I don't think it's

975
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 6: the fault of the environmental groups or the fault of

976
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 6: the Nuclear Reglatory Commission, which everyone likes to blame, or

977
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:36,560
Speaker 6: the Simpsons. I think it's the fault of the nuclear

978
00:46:36,880 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 6: energy industry to not say, look, you know, modern finance

979
00:46:41,600 --> 00:46:45,279
Speaker 6: works this way, right, Modern utility CEOs work this way,

980
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:48,799
Speaker 6: Modern public service commissions work this way. Let's create a

981
00:46:48,840 --> 00:46:52,000
Speaker 6: product that actually works within the framework that we have

982
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:53,240
Speaker 6: in the United States of America.

983
00:46:53,680 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 5: And they've now done that.

984
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,040
Speaker 6: So I think we now have a product that people

985
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 6: can get excited about. And you saw the governor of

986
00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 6: Texas and now that he was directing the Public Service

987
00:47:02,239 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 6: Commission to figure that out here. And you've seen announcements

988
00:47:05,440 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 6: from Duke Energy, and announcements from Dominion, and announcements from.

989
00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:10,360
Speaker 5: The Tennessee Value Authority.

990
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 6: So you're starting to see utilities, you know, say, this

991
00:47:13,280 --> 00:47:15,839
Speaker 6: is actually a really interesting approach, and so we'll see

992
00:47:15,840 --> 00:47:18,719
Speaker 6: if it works. But I think that there's approach now

993
00:47:18,760 --> 00:47:19,840
Speaker 6: that's fit for purpose.

994
00:47:20,840 --> 00:47:24,800
Speaker 4: Setting three eyed fish aside and other Simpsons references, I mean.

995
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,600
Speaker 2: Can you talk a little bit more about how.

996
00:47:26,400 --> 00:47:28,759
Speaker 4: You see it developing, Like what are the hurdles to

997
00:47:28,920 --> 00:47:32,080
Speaker 4: actually getting some of these smaller plants set up? Can

998
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:33,799
Speaker 4: you walk us through what the process would be and

999
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:35,759
Speaker 4: how you would imagine it unfolding.

1000
00:47:36,440 --> 00:47:38,960
Speaker 6: So one of the challenges with the nuclear power industry

1001
00:47:39,440 --> 00:47:43,160
Speaker 6: is that there's no nuclear power industry. So so you

1002
00:47:43,239 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 6: have like the Nuclear Energy Institute, right, and they're made

1003
00:47:47,239 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 6: up of a bunch of utility companies that basically own

1004
00:47:49,600 --> 00:47:52,560
Speaker 6: nuclear power plants. But like if you ask the CEO

1005
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:56,719
Speaker 6: of like Energy or you know, Doke or Dominion and say,

1006
00:47:56,760 --> 00:47:59,879
Speaker 6: are you a nuclear power person? And they're like, no,

1007
00:48:00,080 --> 00:48:02,440
Speaker 6: we own nuclear power plants, we own reneal bunergy power plants,

1008
00:48:02,440 --> 00:48:04,640
Speaker 6: we own cold plants, we own natri gas plants, right,

1009
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 6: And so you can imagine like they're not necessarily like

1010
00:48:08,480 --> 00:48:11,160
Speaker 6: the driving force behind new nuclear.

1011
00:48:11,600 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 5: Right.

1012
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 6: So then you've got a bunch of other companies you've

1013
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:19,439
Speaker 6: heard of, like New Scale, Oaklow, you know, Giataci, Hole Tech,

1014
00:48:19,920 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 6: Terror Power x Energy, Right, But they're also not the

1015
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 6: nuclear power industry. They are nuclear power designers. So that's

1016
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,440
Speaker 6: like saying I have an architect, and then architect designed

1017
00:48:30,440 --> 00:48:33,480
Speaker 6: the beautiful house. Yes, they've designed a beautiful nuclear power

1018
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:35,560
Speaker 6: plant and it works. And you know when I say

1019
00:48:35,600 --> 00:48:37,279
Speaker 6: it works, like they've spent a lot of money at

1020
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:39,880
Speaker 6: a supercomputer and told me that it works, right, So

1021
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:42,000
Speaker 6: like it's not like they've actually built one of these

1022
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:42,640
Speaker 6: things before.

1023
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 5: So now you've got that.

1024
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 6: So then the question becomes like who is the industry

1025
00:48:47,719 --> 00:48:51,200
Speaker 6: right And so in the case of the Giatachi b

1026
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:54,360
Speaker 6: to b r X three hundred, right, Giataci is only

1027
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:57,239
Speaker 6: a design firm. Ge does not make any of it.

1028
00:48:57,520 --> 00:48:58,440
Speaker 5: They don't like.

1029
00:48:58,719 --> 00:49:00,560
Speaker 6: All they do is design it right, and then they'll

1030
00:49:00,560 --> 00:49:02,960
Speaker 6: probably take it through the Nuclear Regatory Commission.

1031
00:49:03,200 --> 00:49:04,440
Speaker 5: B to BXT is.

1032
00:49:04,400 --> 00:49:07,000
Speaker 6: The company that actually has been hired to make it,

1033
00:49:07,040 --> 00:49:11,040
Speaker 6: and they are in the nuclear submarine and nuclear navy business,

1034
00:49:11,040 --> 00:49:14,320
Speaker 6: and so they make a lot of parts for the military,

1035
00:49:14,360 --> 00:49:16,400
Speaker 6: and so they have some knowledge of how to do

1036
00:49:16,440 --> 00:49:19,160
Speaker 6: this right, and so that's great, and so they're going

1037
00:49:19,200 --> 00:49:20,640
Speaker 6: to do parts of it. And then we have to

1038
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 6: now find an EPC contractor that wants to do this.

1039
00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:27,560
Speaker 6: Remember the ones who worked on Vogel went bankrupt, right,

1040
00:49:27,640 --> 00:49:29,960
Speaker 6: so it's not for the faint of heart for them

1041
00:49:30,000 --> 00:49:33,719
Speaker 6: to decide to get into the nuclear energy industry. But

1042
00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 6: we're you know, like aspirational, ambitious folks, right, and think

1043
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:41,120
Speaker 6: about it from a national security lens, right. I mean,

1044
00:49:42,000 --> 00:49:46,399
Speaker 6: once a country chooses a nuclear power plant, let's say

1045
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:50,239
Speaker 6: from Russia, they're tied to Russia for eighty years. You

1046
00:49:50,239 --> 00:49:53,280
Speaker 6: can imagine the national security complex with the United States

1047
00:49:53,560 --> 00:49:56,399
Speaker 6: would rather that country pick a US design and tie

1048
00:49:56,440 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 6: them to the United States for eighty years. So there's

1049
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,440
Speaker 6: a lot riding on figuring this out. So a couple things.

1050
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:05,120
Speaker 6: One is that if you're a supply chain provider for

1051
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:07,880
Speaker 6: a nuclear so you're making a forge or whatever it is,

1052
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 6: you can imagine ramping this whole thing up for one

1053
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 6: nuclear reactor is not.

1054
00:50:13,080 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 5: Your idea of awesome.

1055
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 6: So you're like, well, where are the ten reactors going

1056
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:18,200
Speaker 6: to come from?

1057
00:50:18,239 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 5: Right? So I've told you this one, where's the next

1058
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:20,960
Speaker 5: one going to come from?

1059
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,279
Speaker 6: So in some ways, when I say that, like Duke

1060
00:50:23,320 --> 00:50:26,360
Speaker 6: has put nuclear into their Integrated Resource Plan and dominion,

1061
00:50:26,440 --> 00:50:28,120
Speaker 6: you know, the governor has been talking about it. And

1062
00:50:28,160 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 6: then you've got you know, the Tennessee Value Authority where

1063
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:33,760
Speaker 6: Jeff Flash has talked about, you know, putting four reactors

1064
00:50:33,800 --> 00:50:36,000
Speaker 6: at Clinch River. And then you've got the Governor of

1065
00:50:36,000 --> 00:50:38,839
Speaker 6: Texas directing the Public Service Commission to do this stuff. Well,

1066
00:50:38,880 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 6: now you've got like a critical mass of people that

1067
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,560
Speaker 6: are saying we should do this, And then the question becomes,

1068
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,880
Speaker 6: what do you need to go from this would be

1069
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:49,920
Speaker 6: really awesome to do in our state to here's an

1070
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:53,600
Speaker 6: order right for the nuclear reactor. And so we wrote

1071
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:56,360
Speaker 6: a lift off report at the Loan Program's office and

1072
00:50:56,400 --> 00:50:59,040
Speaker 6: the Department Entergy was led by Vanessa Chan at the

1073
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 6: Office of Technology Transitions and the Office of Planergy Demonstrations,

1074
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:06,920
Speaker 6: which runs the Advanced Reactor Deployment Program.

1075
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:08,359
Speaker 5: And these are.

1076
00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 4: Very cool, by the way, I don't normally say this

1077
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:13,279
Speaker 4: about government publications, but these ones are what I was.

1078
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:14,480
Speaker 3: Going to see the exact same thing.

1079
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:18,479
Speaker 1: They're all really worth reading, very readable, and really good

1080
00:51:18,719 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: entry points and just to understanding some of these technologies.

1081
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:22,240
Speaker 3: So well done on that.

1082
00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:23,040
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you.

1083
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,399
Speaker 6: We like kept it down to like thirty pages or so,

1084
00:51:26,640 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 6: and then like it's uh, it was. It was a

1085
00:51:29,080 --> 00:51:31,759
Speaker 6: really an extraordinary effort. And then the woman who was

1086
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:35,120
Speaker 6: a lead off there there, Julie Kosaraki, is like on

1087
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:37,359
Speaker 6: a speaking circuit. She's going to all these places and

1088
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:39,799
Speaker 6: figuring out how to get this person to move one

1089
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:42,160
Speaker 6: inch this direction and this person to move one inch disrection.

1090
00:51:42,600 --> 00:51:45,880
Speaker 6: And so there's a lot of facilitation and technical assistance

1091
00:51:45,920 --> 00:51:49,440
Speaker 6: that we're providing in this process. But the roadmap is

1092
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:53,760
Speaker 6: there told to us by the industry in that Nuclear

1093
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 6: liftop report. So you know, I don't know whether we're

1094
00:51:57,080 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 6: going to get there, but like, those are some of

1095
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:02,520
Speaker 6: the tenants, right, is you need a design that multiple

1096
00:52:02,560 --> 00:52:05,400
Speaker 6: people pick. You need to at least build ten, hopefully

1097
00:52:05,480 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 6: twenty of them, right. You need to make sure that

1098
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:09,440
Speaker 6: the supply chain gets built out. You need to have

1099
00:52:09,640 --> 00:52:12,720
Speaker 6: a trained workforce, right, which we have thirteen thousand people

1100
00:52:12,719 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 6: now that have been trained out of the Vocal Nuclear plant.

1101
00:52:15,880 --> 00:52:18,480
Speaker 6: You know, you need all these pieces in order to

1102
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 6: attempt this.

1103
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,760
Speaker 1: I just thought of a question, and I've been meaning,

1104
00:52:21,840 --> 00:52:23,759
Speaker 1: I've been wanting for like two years to do a

1105
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:26,200
Speaker 1: whole episode on this that I just never happened.

1106
00:52:26,239 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 3: So now I'm going to ask you this to answer

1107
00:52:27,680 --> 00:52:29,200
Speaker 3: this in one literally one minute.

1108
00:52:29,320 --> 00:52:32,399
Speaker 1: I read the ISM Manufacturing Report every month and there's

1109
00:52:32,400 --> 00:52:34,600
Speaker 1: this section on things that are in short supply, and

1110
00:52:34,640 --> 00:52:37,640
Speaker 1: as the supply chain has healed over time, that list

1111
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:41,359
Speaker 1: gets shorter and shorter. But the most persistent thing that

1112
00:52:41,440 --> 00:52:45,480
Speaker 1: is in short supply for manufacturers is just electrical components,

1113
00:52:45,480 --> 00:52:47,520
Speaker 1: and they complain about that, and it's been this issue.

1114
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:48,359
Speaker 3: What is going on there?

1115
00:52:48,480 --> 00:52:51,359
Speaker 1: Do you know, like what the source of this bottleneck

1116
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:54,120
Speaker 1: is and what is driving it?

1117
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 6: Well, I don't know that I know for certain what

1118
00:52:57,280 --> 00:52:59,360
Speaker 6: the source of the bottle neck is, but I would

1119
00:52:59,360 --> 00:53:03,560
Speaker 6: say that in general, when you look at manufacturing companies,

1120
00:53:04,360 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 6: they're The dynamic with manufacturing is if you build it,

1121
00:53:07,080 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 6: they will come right. So like I build a factory

1122
00:53:10,680 --> 00:53:13,560
Speaker 6: and you buy one piece, and then the next week

1123
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 6: you buy one piece, and then you're gonna buy a piece,

1124
00:53:15,280 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 6: and then you're like, ah, I think I'm gonna wait

1125
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,759
Speaker 6: two weeks and I'm gonna buy something, right, Like, I

1126
00:53:19,800 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 6: don't know. That's not like a reassuring like model by

1127
00:53:23,120 --> 00:53:25,080
Speaker 6: which I want to stay ahead of the market. I

1128
00:53:25,239 --> 00:53:27,680
Speaker 6: like to stay slightly behind the market so that like

1129
00:53:27,719 --> 00:53:30,279
Speaker 6: I could charge a higher price and you know, et cetera. Right,

1130
00:53:30,320 --> 00:53:34,279
Speaker 6: And so for those folks who want us to accelerate

1131
00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:37,000
Speaker 6: investments in the supply chain, they need to make a

1132
00:53:37,040 --> 00:53:40,480
Speaker 6: long term order, right. And so for a lot of

1133
00:53:40,480 --> 00:53:43,640
Speaker 6: the electrical contractors or a lot of the utility companies

1134
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:47,240
Speaker 6: who are wanting transformers or a lot of these other stuffs.

1135
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:49,400
Speaker 5: But think about it.

1136
00:53:49,400 --> 00:53:53,359
Speaker 6: If you're running electric utility company, do you not have

1137
00:53:53,440 --> 00:53:56,560
Speaker 6: a predictable track record of how many transformers you install

1138
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,480
Speaker 6: every year? Do you not have like an integrated resource

1139
00:53:59,520 --> 00:54:01,600
Speaker 6: plan that's as over the next ten years, I think

1140
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,160
Speaker 6: we're gonna buy this many transformers. Well, then why wouldn't

1141
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:06,359
Speaker 6: you just make an order for like ten years worth

1142
00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 6: of transformers this week? You and like ten of your

1143
00:54:09,200 --> 00:54:13,320
Speaker 6: closest friends, and then you build a transformer manufacturing facility

1144
00:54:13,360 --> 00:54:16,200
Speaker 6: in your community, and then they feel confident because they've

1145
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,279
Speaker 6: got orders for the next ten years, and you feel

1146
00:54:18,320 --> 00:54:21,200
Speaker 6: confident because you've got a local supply of transformers. Instead,

1147
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 6: I got a bunch of people going, uh, jigger, we

1148
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:26,280
Speaker 6: need to fix transformers. And I was like, you should

1149
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:27,600
Speaker 6: give me an off take agreement.

1150
00:54:27,920 --> 00:54:30,200
Speaker 5: I don't know. That seems like a lot of work.

1151
00:54:30,440 --> 00:54:32,920
Speaker 6: And I was like, but that there's a formula to

1152
00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:35,680
Speaker 6: how this stuff happens. Like It's not like one of

1153
00:54:35,680 --> 00:54:37,719
Speaker 6: those things where it's like I wish I had an

1154
00:54:37,800 --> 00:54:40,840
Speaker 6: oversupply of the components that I want and I'm not

1155
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:43,280
Speaker 6: willing to do anything to actually make that happen.

1156
00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:48,600
Speaker 4: Speaking of bottlenecks, this is kind of a cliched question,

1157
00:54:48,680 --> 00:54:50,480
Speaker 4: but I'd still be curious to get your answer to this.

1158
00:54:50,800 --> 00:54:54,040
Speaker 4: If you could waive a magic wand and make you know,

1159
00:54:54,280 --> 00:54:58,600
Speaker 4: one aspect of the industry, or the political landscape, or

1160
00:54:58,640 --> 00:55:03,719
Speaker 4: the regulatory landscape go away to make the process of

1161
00:55:03,760 --> 00:55:08,520
Speaker 4: transitioning to cleaner, cheaper energy better, what would it be.

1162
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 6: Oh gosh, this is definitely gonna get me in trouble,

1163
00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,360
Speaker 6: so maybe let me say it this way. I think,

1164
00:55:16,560 --> 00:55:19,960
Speaker 6: in general, as I've said before, we have all the

1165
00:55:20,040 --> 00:55:23,520
Speaker 6: technologies we need to not only tackle this problem, but

1166
00:55:23,800 --> 00:55:28,560
Speaker 6: dominate not only you know, the sector here, but then

1167
00:55:28,600 --> 00:55:31,080
Speaker 6: to export and dominate around the world, like whether it's

1168
00:55:31,320 --> 00:55:35,240
Speaker 6: hydrogen or transmission or you know, whatever it is, solar wind,

1169
00:55:35,320 --> 00:55:38,480
Speaker 6: all these other things. We have all those technologies, and

1170
00:55:38,520 --> 00:55:41,560
Speaker 6: frankly we invented them. Everyone's like, oh, China makes solar panels.

1171
00:55:41,840 --> 00:55:45,480
Speaker 6: We invented all that technology right along with Martin Green

1172
00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,080
Speaker 6: at the Internasy of New South Wales and so like,

1173
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:50,239
Speaker 6: you know, those are the two places where all came from, right,

1174
00:55:50,280 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 6: we were forced a license to them because you know, like

1175
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:55,520
Speaker 6: we weren't manufacturing here. And so one of my big

1176
00:55:55,600 --> 00:55:59,680
Speaker 6: challenges is that as we learn to build again, what

1177
00:55:59,719 --> 00:56:02,719
Speaker 6: we do in the nineteen seventies is basically divorce all

1178
00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:05,280
Speaker 6: politicians from knowledge in this area.

1179
00:56:05,960 --> 00:56:06,200
Speaker 5: Right.

1180
00:56:06,640 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 6: So all politicians basically have like an airport authority and.

1181
00:56:10,440 --> 00:56:12,759
Speaker 2: They are diplomatically put by the way.

1182
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,880
Speaker 6: Right, and they have like a sewer authority, an electric

1183
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:18,160
Speaker 6: utility and you know whatever it is.

1184
00:56:18,239 --> 00:56:18,479
Speaker 5: Right.

1185
00:56:18,760 --> 00:56:21,440
Speaker 6: So when you ask them, like, hey, how do we

1186
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:24,719
Speaker 6: lead in this area, they don't know, right, And so

1187
00:56:24,840 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 6: they go to the guy who runs the sewer authority

1188
00:56:27,040 --> 00:56:29,480
Speaker 6: or the water authority or the you know, airport authority,

1189
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:32,320
Speaker 6: and that person says, I want to do things exactly

1190
00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:34,840
Speaker 6: the same way as my grandfather did in the nineteen seventies,

1191
00:56:34,920 --> 00:56:36,840
Speaker 6: and we should replace everything exactly the same way. I

1192
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:39,640
Speaker 6: don't want to install new technology. I've already got people

1193
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,239
Speaker 6: who are like trained in the old technology, right, And

1194
00:56:42,280 --> 00:56:43,520
Speaker 6: so why do we do this stuff?

1195
00:56:43,560 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 5: Right?

1196
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:46,920
Speaker 6: And so we need to like come back together and

1197
00:56:47,000 --> 00:56:51,680
Speaker 6: commit ourselves to actually taking us technology and deploying it here.

1198
00:56:52,239 --> 00:56:55,040
Speaker 5: Right. And the risk aversion is.

1199
00:56:55,040 --> 00:56:58,160
Speaker 6: Like leading to a lot of increased cost because doing

1200
00:56:58,200 --> 00:57:01,440
Speaker 6: things the same way as nineteen seventies is crazy expensive.

1201
00:57:01,760 --> 00:57:04,840
Speaker 6: We have stuff that's ninety percent cheaper. But what happens

1202
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:07,960
Speaker 6: is you go to the consultant who you pay, and

1203
00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:10,680
Speaker 6: they say, I don't know if that's gonna work.

1204
00:57:11,320 --> 00:57:12,520
Speaker 5: I don't know, Like I.

1205
00:57:12,480 --> 00:57:14,839
Speaker 6: Know it's been deployed like forty times in China and

1206
00:57:14,880 --> 00:57:17,320
Speaker 6: fifty times in the Middle East and like in Europe,

1207
00:57:17,360 --> 00:57:20,000
Speaker 6: but I don't know if it's gonna work here. We

1208
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:21,800
Speaker 6: should do exactly the same thing we did in the

1209
00:57:21,840 --> 00:57:25,000
Speaker 6: nineteen seventies, and so it'd be nice to like figure

1210
00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:28,360
Speaker 6: out how to break that like sort of knowledge gap

1211
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:30,760
Speaker 6: so that we're doing stuff here again.

1212
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:31,880
Speaker 3: One last question.

1213
00:57:31,920 --> 00:57:33,760
Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of it's an exciting time and

1214
00:57:33,800 --> 00:57:36,200
Speaker 1: it's fun every it feels like every day or at

1215
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:38,920
Speaker 1: least every week, there's some new announcement. Some of it

1216
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:42,720
Speaker 1: comes from loan program office funding, like some new battery

1217
00:57:42,840 --> 00:57:45,480
Speaker 1: factory or some new technology or breaking ground on some

1218
00:57:45,560 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: new geothermal et cetera.

1219
00:57:47,120 --> 00:57:48,280
Speaker 5: So much winning.

1220
00:57:48,840 --> 00:57:52,600
Speaker 1: So we're getting tired of all the winning with all this,

1221
00:57:52,760 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: But like twenty twenty four, like what is what are

1222
00:57:55,600 --> 00:57:58,240
Speaker 1: we looking for? Are is twenty twenty four gonna be

1223
00:57:58,280 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 1: another year where there's just like ton more in the pipe,

1224
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:03,120
Speaker 1: and we can expect a lot more out of EU.

1225
00:58:03,600 --> 00:58:05,880
Speaker 1: Of all these announcements, is there a lot more coming?

1226
00:58:06,840 --> 00:58:09,920
Speaker 6: There is a lot more coming, some of which is predictable, right.

1227
00:58:09,960 --> 00:58:13,200
Speaker 6: You got the Hydrogen hubits announcement coming out later this year.

1228
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:17,160
Speaker 6: You know, you've got the GRIP funding for like grid

1229
00:58:17,200 --> 00:58:19,000
Speaker 6: resilience coming out here pretty soon.

1230
00:58:19,120 --> 00:58:20,800
Speaker 5: And so some of it's predictable.

1231
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,360
Speaker 6: Some of it's not predictable because like all the folks

1232
00:58:23,360 --> 00:58:26,680
Speaker 6: who've applied to my office are confidential. But you know,

1233
00:58:26,760 --> 00:58:30,160
Speaker 6: I think that the part that is the most exciting

1234
00:58:30,240 --> 00:58:34,520
Speaker 6: to me is that you're starting just starting to get

1235
00:58:34,800 --> 00:58:39,120
Speaker 6: mayors and county commissioners and others going, wait a second,

1236
00:58:39,440 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 6: how do we make our town or our county attractive

1237
00:58:43,200 --> 00:58:44,400
Speaker 6: to the next announcement?

1238
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:45,040
Speaker 5: Right?

1239
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,360
Speaker 6: And so like, you know, we have like I think

1240
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:51,440
Speaker 6: less than one percent vacancy right right now in industrial properties,

1241
00:58:52,240 --> 00:58:54,240
Speaker 6: and so if you talk to brokers, they're like, we

1242
00:58:54,280 --> 00:58:57,160
Speaker 6: have no more properties left. I have like four applicants

1243
00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 6: who are waiting to pick a site, and that's what's

1244
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:02,400
Speaker 6: holding them up to like actually make an announcement.

1245
00:59:02,440 --> 00:59:02,560
Speaker 5: Right.

1246
00:59:03,480 --> 00:59:06,360
Speaker 6: But then, like I talked to this guy in Ohio,

1247
00:59:06,440 --> 00:59:08,520
Speaker 6: and he's like, oh, yeah, I have like five sites.

1248
00:59:08,800 --> 00:59:11,640
Speaker 6: We just forgot to like rezone them and we forgot

1249
00:59:11,640 --> 00:59:14,960
Speaker 6: to reregister them this way. And so now he's doing

1250
00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:19,320
Speaker 6: that and that property doesn't actually earn any property taxes

1251
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:21,760
Speaker 6: right now because it's classified as a brownfield. They like

1252
00:59:21,800 --> 00:59:24,360
Speaker 6: are cleaning it up, putting it back into circulation and

1253
00:59:25,080 --> 00:59:27,360
Speaker 6: like you know, folks can pick it and then they

1254
00:59:27,360 --> 00:59:29,480
Speaker 6: can like put jobs there. And also there's stuff we

1255
00:59:29,600 --> 00:59:31,360
Speaker 6: just like it's one of those weird things in the

1256
00:59:31,440 --> 00:59:35,680
Speaker 6: United States where like we have all this extraordinary wealth, right,

1257
00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:39,880
Speaker 6: wealth of innovation, wealth of like engineering talent, applied engineering,

1258
00:59:39,880 --> 00:59:43,240
Speaker 6: town all this stuff, and like we forgot about some

1259
00:59:43,400 --> 00:59:46,520
Speaker 6: of it. It's like just there, it's sitting there, and

1260
00:59:46,600 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 6: like so like there's all these pieces that we have

1261
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:51,280
Speaker 6: to get out. So part of what's going to make

1262
00:59:51,360 --> 00:59:54,920
Speaker 6: next year so successful is not just the announcements around

1263
00:59:55,000 --> 00:59:57,160
Speaker 6: you know, the funding opportunities and that kind of stuff,

1264
00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:00,800
Speaker 6: but also all these micro decisions that are being made

1265
01:00:01,400 --> 01:00:04,720
Speaker 6: by local towns and communities going wait a second, you're

1266
01:00:04,760 --> 01:00:07,200
Speaker 6: saying that that piece of property that's just been sitting

1267
01:00:07,200 --> 01:00:10,720
Speaker 6: there is actually like an asset. Yeah, it's an asset,

1268
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:12,720
Speaker 6: like clean it up, let's put it back into use.

1269
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:15,080
Speaker 6: Like they have a rail spur that goes to them,

1270
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:16,680
Speaker 6: there's actually there's actually on the river.

1271
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:19,240
Speaker 5: People want to like use that so they could transport

1272
01:00:19,240 --> 01:00:19,600
Speaker 5: their goods.

1273
01:00:19,640 --> 01:00:21,920
Speaker 6: They're like, oh, man, I thought that was just an

1274
01:00:21,920 --> 01:00:24,720
Speaker 6: eyesore in our town. And so like that to me

1275
01:00:24,840 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 6: is super exciting, right, And then we're starting to get

1276
01:00:27,320 --> 01:00:30,120
Speaker 6: a ton of people who are saying, maybe I don't

1277
01:00:30,120 --> 01:00:31,480
Speaker 6: have to go to a four year college and maybe

1278
01:00:31,520 --> 01:00:33,720
Speaker 6: I can go to Texas State Technical College and do

1279
01:00:33,760 --> 01:00:36,360
Speaker 6: a two year degree and like and make six figure income,

1280
01:00:36,800 --> 01:00:39,080
Speaker 6: like actually becoming really good at my trade, right, and

1281
01:00:39,080 --> 01:00:41,760
Speaker 6: also this stuff and that's bringing pride to people because

1282
01:00:41,760 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 6: for a long time people were like I like to

1283
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:46,440
Speaker 6: work with my hands, right, that was like a euphemism

1284
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:48,800
Speaker 6: for I wasn't like a book person.

1285
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:51,360
Speaker 5: And but like we actually need a lot of people

1286
01:00:51,640 --> 01:00:52,160
Speaker 5: to work.

1287
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:55,160
Speaker 6: With their hands, right, and so like, like I find

1288
01:00:55,200 --> 01:00:57,959
Speaker 6: that what's most exciting is not the announcements we're making here,

1289
01:00:58,520 --> 01:01:01,800
Speaker 6: but like it's leading to a level of confidence in

1290
01:01:01,840 --> 01:01:04,520
Speaker 6: all these other parts of the economy where.

1291
01:01:04,320 --> 01:01:06,640
Speaker 5: People are like, maybe we can't actually pull this off.

1292
01:01:06,800 --> 01:01:09,360
Speaker 3: Jigger Shaw, thank you so much. This is a real thrill.

1293
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:11,880
Speaker 1: I always love catching up great not dand it on.

1294
01:01:12,640 --> 01:01:14,120
Speaker 3: Thank you to everyone uh.

1295
01:01:14,240 --> 01:01:30,760
Speaker 1: Texas Tribune Fest and appreciate everyone coming up. That was

1296
01:01:30,800 --> 01:01:34,440
Speaker 1: our conversation with Jigger Shaw. I'm Joe Wisenthal. You could

1297
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,280
Speaker 1: follow me at The Stalwart.

1298
01:01:36,040 --> 01:01:38,880
Speaker 4: And I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway.

1299
01:01:39,120 --> 01:01:44,160
Speaker 1: Follow Jigger at Jiggershaw DC. Follow our producers Carmen Rodriguez

1300
01:01:44,240 --> 01:01:47,440
Speaker 1: at Carmen Armand and dash Ol Bennett at dashbod and

1301
01:01:47,480 --> 01:01:50,200
Speaker 1: a special thanks to Moses on them. Follow all of

1302
01:01:50,200 --> 01:01:53,840
Speaker 1: the Bloomberg podcasts under the handle at podcasts and for

1303
01:01:53,960 --> 01:01:57,200
Speaker 1: more oddlocks content, go to Bloomberg dot com slash odlots,

1304
01:01:57,440 --> 01:02:00,360
Speaker 1: where we have a blog, we post transcripts, we have

1305
01:02:00,360 --> 01:02:03,920
Speaker 1: a newsletter, and if you enjoyed this episode and you

1306
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Speaker 1: want to chat about it with fellow listeners, go to

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Speaker 1: discord dot gg slash odd Lots. We have an energy room,

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Speaker 1: we have a climate room in there, lots of fans

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Speaker 1: of Jigger in there, so people will be discussing this.

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Speaker 3: One for sure.

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Speaker 4: And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you want us

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Speaker 4: to do more episodes, for instance on the future of

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Speaker 4: the nuclear industry or lack thereof.

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Speaker 2: Then please leave us a.

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Speaker 4: Positive review on your favorite podcast platform.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.