Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Odd Lots Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Joe Wisn't and I'm Tracy Halloway. Tracy, you know
Speaker 1: a cliche that I hear a lot or I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's a cliche, but a line that I
Speaker 1: hear a lot is that our electrical power grid is
Speaker 1: not made? What's so fun? Sorry you say a cliche
Speaker 1: that you hear a lot. I think everyone is just
Speaker 1: walking around going like, oh, the electrical power grid is
Speaker 1: not ready for renewables. Maybe I was exaggerated. Are you
Speaker 1: talking to on a daily basis? You're right, I'm talking
Speaker 1: to my my, my, my six year old Dodgers. Isn't
Speaker 1: it to be a lot? She says, Dad. It's great
Speaker 1: to have renewable energy, but our electrical power grid isn't
Speaker 1: that made for intermittent renewables. But you have for a
Speaker 1: group that's good. Yes, yes, there are lots of people, um,
Speaker 1: I mean not just in the energies is, but in
Speaker 1: politics as well who will make this point repeatedly. But
Speaker 1: I actually don't know what that means. So I hear
Speaker 1: it it gets repeated, but actually I actually do not
Speaker 1: know what they're saying. When they say that, like it
Speaker 1: sounds like a smart thing to say, But I don't
Speaker 1: have any intuitive sense of like what that means or
Speaker 1: what the difference between our existing grid and how it
Speaker 1: works versus a grid that is optimized for a world
Speaker 1: of much more wind and solar and intermittent sources of
Speaker 1: clean energy. I mean, I have this simplistic view of it,
Speaker 1: I guess, which is that I guess we need more grid, right,
Speaker 1: like just this is the simplest possible like interpretation of that,
Speaker 1: just that our infrastructure isn't where it should be and
Speaker 1: so we should be building newer. But you're right, I
Speaker 1: have no idea whether or not there are technical differences
Speaker 1: between like the types of electricity transmission you need for
Speaker 1: something like solar and wind versus more traditional energy generation
Speaker 1: by you know, natural gas or coal or whatever. So
Speaker 1: the one thing that kind of does make sense to
Speaker 1: me and everybody knows, you know, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: wind turbines don't do anything when the wind isn't blowing,
Speaker 1: or you don't get any solar power when the sun
Speaker 1: isn't shining, or if there's a lot of clouds or something.
Speaker 1: But if you had really widespread geographical reach of the grid,
Speaker 1: then you could sort of diversify away some of those risks,
Speaker 1: so that if there isn't wind in one area, maybe
Speaker 1: it's more likely that at least somewhere it's windy. So
Speaker 1: you sort of ameliorate some of these risks by longer
Speaker 1: wire is a bigger grid, But beyond that, that's that's it.
Speaker 1: That's the only thing that I sort of like can
Speaker 1: sort of into it about maybe what's insufficient about our
Speaker 1: existing grid. I mean, it also seems like doing something
Speaker 1: like that would just be a massive undertaking, both in
Speaker 1: terms of the actual amount of money you would need
Speaker 1: to build something like that, but also just getting different
Speaker 1: groups of people different states to work together, especially in
Speaker 1: the current environment, that seems like a long shot. The
Speaker 1: idea that I don't know, you know, if Texas is
Speaker 1: generating a lot of energy from solar, that they're going
Speaker 1: to be willing to send it over to a place
Speaker 1: like Vermont or New Hampshire, and Texas of course has
Speaker 1: its own energy grid. So that's a really bad example,
Speaker 1: but it does kind of it gets to those issues. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I am also aware of this. There was,
Speaker 1: like I think there was some plan to bring in
Speaker 1: more quebec Qua hydro power in the Northeast, but there
Speaker 1: was like a vote in Maine and I think and
Speaker 1: they shot it down. And sometimes you hear about these
Speaker 1: big land use battles in the West where people want
Speaker 1: to make you know, wires over big ranches and those
Speaker 1: can get held up. Anyway, there's a lot we need
Speaker 1: to learn more about the grid itself. Yeah, let's do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to bring in our current guest. We're
Speaker 1: going to be speaking to Rob Gramleck. He is the
Speaker 1: president of Grid Strategies, which consults with all kinds of
Speaker 1: different players in the energy space on grid issues. He's
Speaker 1: been involved in the grid business for about three decades.
Speaker 1: He's going to explain what that actually means, what what
Speaker 1: an ideal grid would look like. So Rob, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on odd lots right to be here.
Speaker 1: Tracy and Joe I really appreciate it. So we do
Speaker 1: hear this cliche and again maybe it's not that common,
Speaker 1: but it is a thing that people say. But how
Speaker 1: would you summarize when people say, this is a grid
Speaker 1: that's not made for intermittent renewable power. What are people
Speaker 1: saying in reality, yeah, no, well you you both had
Speaker 1: it right in your in your intro, Tracy kind of said,
Speaker 1: we we need more gridge. You said, you know somewhere
Speaker 1: it's windy. Uh, And those two of course go together. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that's how renewable energy works, is that there there
Speaker 1: actually is pretty steady overall renewable supply, just not at
Speaker 1: your location. So everybody thinks about renewables as intermittent because
Speaker 1: they're looking at their spot in the country. But if
Speaker 1: you look at across the country, there's actually quite a
Speaker 1: steady supply of renewable energy. But what that means is
Speaker 1: you have to connect it and then we get into transmission.
Speaker 1: So I have a really basic question before we go
Speaker 1: any further, And actually I have a feeling I'm going
Speaker 1: to have a bunch of basic questions during this conversation.
Speaker 1: But you know, Joe mentioned your company grid strategies and
Speaker 1: how you talk to different stakeholders when it comes to grids.
Speaker 1: Who are the stakeholders like, who is making the decisions
Speaker 1: on how grids are designed and built? Sure, well, it's
Speaker 1: it's worth stepping back and saying that our electric utility
Speaker 1: business or industry in this country and around the world.
Speaker 1: Really grew up around electric utilities, and these are the
Speaker 1: ones that send you your bill. Every every listener here
Speaker 1: kind of knows who they are in their in their community,
Speaker 1: and they were kind of vertical stylos, vertically integrated utilities
Speaker 1: doing soup to nuts generation transmission, distribution in their local
Speaker 1: area or sort of you know, around their city, or
Speaker 1: maybe they would cover half a state or something like that.
Speaker 1: And there are hundreds of them around the country. Uh,
Speaker 1: those continue to be the main players in the electricity
Speaker 1: business when we are talking about these kind of large
Speaker 1: regional and interstate transmission lines. Because this is the bulk
Speaker 1: power system, it's a little bit of a separate world
Speaker 1: from what's happening locally on the distribution grid and in
Speaker 1: your community. But this bulk power system, as you both
Speaker 1: said in the introduction, requires a heck of a lot
Speaker 1: of coordination and a lot more than it ever used to.
Speaker 1: So what we're doing in the electric industry, and we've
Speaker 1: actually been doing this for the three decades i've been
Speaker 1: in it, is working to develop these regional processes and institutions.
Speaker 1: So we've gone from hundreds and hundreds of these little
Speaker 1: vertical styles two more connections between each of them, this
Speaker 1: sort of horizontal integration through the transmission grid, both with
Speaker 1: physical connections and the institutions that plan that and operate that.
Speaker 1: We have these organizations called Regional transmission Organizations that sometimes
Speaker 1: cover thirteen states, and they're regulated at the federal level.
Speaker 1: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is kind of a key
Speaker 1: federal entity that's been trying to put those in place
Speaker 1: around the country and as continuing to try to do that,
Speaker 1: and that was all happening in order to create mainly
Speaker 1: to create competitive markets so you could buy and sell
Speaker 1: power from many states and different suppliers. But then as
Speaker 1: renewable energy came on the scene, really starting about two
Speaker 1: decades ago, suddenly the need increased dramatically to to do
Speaker 1: that because again, the wind is always blowing somewhere and
Speaker 1: you need to make the power output more steady and
Speaker 1: move the power back and forth. So that need increased.
Speaker 1: We're trying to do that, and now as people are
Speaker 1: talking about electrification of transportation with electric cars and electrified buildings,
Speaker 1: just the whole demand for electricity goes way up. So
Speaker 1: now now you know all of this on steroids, and
Speaker 1: we really have to work on this regionalization of the
Speaker 1: power system. So first of all, it seems like, you know,
Speaker 1: even though we have yet to see the big upsurge
Speaker 1: in e V demand on the grid, we we all
Speaker 1: sort of expect that that's coming. But even before that,
Speaker 1: we're seeing strains on the grid right now. Of course,
Speaker 1: we all know about the blackouts that we've seen in Texas.
Speaker 1: I know there are concerns about whether the grid strains
Speaker 1: in New England this winter and even in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: Can you just sort of maybe quantify or give us
Speaker 1: your summary of like, why is this happening, Why are
Speaker 1: we seeing the grid under such strain today, and how
Speaker 1: much worse is it going to get? What is the
Speaker 1: scale of the problem that needs to be solved as
Speaker 1: we electrify more parts of industry. Sure, and and you're right,
Speaker 1: there are a few lenses through which to look at
Speaker 1: this power system and can forget about for the moment,
Speaker 1: climate change and clean energy. You can forget about competitive
Speaker 1: markets and just think about these severe weather incidents were
Speaker 1: getting and uh, for that reason. It turns out what happens,
Speaker 1: you know, not always, but maybe nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: is that there's power sharing from one region to the
Speaker 1: next that keeps the lights on. And the recent winter
Speaker 1: storm Uri experience, everybody knows about Texas, and it was
Speaker 1: a horribly tragic event for a few days in the
Speaker 1: middle of winter where people lost their lives and Texas
Speaker 1: imported all that could, but it just could not import
Speaker 1: much power because it's physically disconnected from the Eastern and
Speaker 1: Western grids, whereas all the states to the north of
Speaker 1: Texas going up through the Dakotas at the same weather situation,
Speaker 1: but they did have strong interregional transmission connections and they
Speaker 1: did important tremendous amount of power from places like the
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic region. And what you tend to find again,
Speaker 1: not all ways, but almost always, is that the grid
Speaker 1: is physically bigger than the weather pattern. So even a
Speaker 1: big weather pattern like that big polar vortex was big,
Speaker 1: but the grid is bigger and can be bigger if
Speaker 1: we build it up, and so you can have this
Speaker 1: power sharing opportunity to save the day and keep the
Speaker 1: lights on. So that's another completely separate reason to work
Speaker 1: on these large regional and in oregional connections. So the
Speaker 1: idea is that even if your short energy in one
Speaker 1: particular area, because maybe there's a supply disruption or there's
Speaker 1: a sudden surge in demand that you can get it
Speaker 1: from somewhere else where the weather is stable or things
Speaker 1: are more normal. I have another basic question when it
Speaker 1: comes to this sort of grid interoperability, but is there
Speaker 1: a difference in the types of transmission mechanisms that you
Speaker 1: need for renewables versus more traditional energy sources, or is
Speaker 1: it just the case that you build more you know,
Speaker 1: electric wires. In general, generally it's the same technology, and
Speaker 1: our transmission system is regulated to be open access to
Speaker 1: all resources, and so you know, you can't even if
Speaker 1: you wanted to. There's no there's no entity that could
Speaker 1: say block coal power from getting access to the grid,
Speaker 1: or gas or you know, whatever your preferences are. The
Speaker 1: federal regulators have to be technology neutral, and you generally
Speaker 1: use the same types of high voltage a C alternating
Speaker 1: current lines, interconnected networks across large regions that are the
Speaker 1: same types of lines we used decades ago, and some
Speaker 1: high voltage d C lines that tend to be more economic.
Speaker 1: That's direct current. If you're going a really long distance,
Speaker 1: like it used to be, a hydro plant in the
Speaker 1: middle of the interior West trying to get to a
Speaker 1: major urban area or a mine mouth coal plant going
Speaker 1: hundreds of miles to a city. Uh. Now we have
Speaker 1: similar opportunities, but just with remote wind and solar areas
Speaker 1: on the on the end of the line that we're
Speaker 1: trying to access. And so we do probably have a
Speaker 1: little bit more of a need for these very long
Speaker 1: distance types of lines, which tends to lead to more
Speaker 1: high voltage DC lines relative to the amount of a C.
Speaker 1: But you know, we've always had both, and we're going
Speaker 1: to continue to need both. So it's it's largely you know,
Speaker 1: similar from a technology standpoint. That said, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of if you look at the industry that there's a
Speaker 1: lot of dynamism in the in the innovation. There's advanced conductors,
Speaker 1: there's grit enhancing technologies. The h v d C lines
Speaker 1: themselves and the converter stations provide tremendous reliability benefit that
Speaker 1: they didn't use to. So I mean, I would say it's,
Speaker 1: you know, generally the same type of network to any
Speaker 1: lay person looking at it. But for those people who
Speaker 1: kind of know what the capabilities of these new lines
Speaker 1: and the assets are, there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 1: opportunity to increase the reliability and services that they provide.
Speaker 1: Can you give us I don't know, like if you can,
Speaker 1: you know, explain it like I'm five, or how simple
Speaker 1: simple you can make it, But can you sort of
Speaker 1: explain either the math or the physics of very long
Speaker 1: distance transmission and how much degradation is there? And like
Speaker 1: what's realistic? Like can we get you know, if can
Speaker 1: we get electricity from can we get wind power in
Speaker 1: Iowa to Los Angeles or New York City? Like what
Speaker 1: happens when it goes that far? Yes? Absolutely, and this
Speaker 1: is this is one of the marvels of the electric system.
Speaker 1: And you know it's worth noting. I mean, we we
Speaker 1: do have an engineering marvel on our hands here that
Speaker 1: we've inherited, and it provides tremendous reliability relative to other
Speaker 1: county reason you know what what anybody sort of expected
Speaker 1: years ago. You know, now as we look forward in
Speaker 1: this need to move power around, both for reliability reasons
Speaker 1: and for clean energy and climate reasons. Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: to be realistic about that and think about what it
Speaker 1: can do. A short answer is if you're going from
Speaker 1: the middle of the country to the coast with a
Speaker 1: good high voltage line, you probably lose about ten of
Speaker 1: the power, which is pretty impressive. I mean, that's that's
Speaker 1: a yeah, right. I mean most people think about that
Speaker 1: and it and it and it is and it can
Speaker 1: be if we have we have uh insufficient capacity. I
Speaker 1: mean that's why everything in the transmission business is about scale.
Speaker 1: There are massive economies of scale, meaning the cost per
Speaker 1: delivered megawatt is lower if you build it at a
Speaker 1: bigger size, and you have to build it at that
Speaker 1: bigger size to get those numbers of efficiency and productivity
Speaker 1: for your delivery. So Joe asked you about the technical
Speaker 1: aspects or some of the technical aspects of building long
Speaker 1: distance lines. Can you talk to us a little bit
Speaker 1: about the social or political aspects of that, Like if
Speaker 1: I wanted to build or if someone wanted to build
Speaker 1: a line from what was the example, Ohio to New
Speaker 1: York or whatever, how easy would that be to do
Speaker 1: and what would it involve? It is very difficult, as
Speaker 1: you said at the outset, Tracy, even if it were
Speaker 1: easy from a financial and technical standpoint, how do you
Speaker 1: get the coalition and the support to build and construct
Speaker 1: these major power lines? And I would on this score,
Speaker 1: folks who are interested recommend the book Superpowered by Russell Gold,
Speaker 1: very good read about you know, one experience, one company's
Speaker 1: experience trying to do this, and it is very hard.
Speaker 1: And there are more recent experiences like in Maine with
Speaker 1: the citizen referendum. I would say the problem in those instances,
Speaker 1: First of all, we can overcome those problems. I'm optimist
Speaker 1: about this generally. I want to leave that impression because
Speaker 1: we've we've done it successfully in other instances, but there
Speaker 1: have been a lot of failed examples where there wasn't
Speaker 1: really the broad recognition of the problem or how everybody
Speaker 1: would would benefit. So, for example, in Maine, almost nobody
Speaker 1: from the polling I've seen and talking to people there,
Speaker 1: almost nobody even really thought about the regional clean energy
Speaker 1: benefits of building that line to access Quebec and their
Speaker 1: hydro and wind and clean energy sources and the need
Speaker 1: to move power back and forth between the regions. It
Speaker 1: was really viewed as sort of you know, one one
Speaker 1: company who uh, you know, people thought, well, maybe it's
Speaker 1: in their interest, but it's not mine. And similar instances
Speaker 1: around the country when one line was trying to traverse
Speaker 1: the state and local stakeholders said, well, some investor halfway
Speaker 1: across the country may like it, but why do I
Speaker 1: care about it? So I think we actually we should
Speaker 1: look instead at these successful examples, and we have built
Speaker 1: some very successful long distance lines that generally came out
Speaker 1: of kind of open, transparent regional planning processes. Is probably
Speaker 1: boring as I as I say it out loud, but
Speaker 1: but they do work. And and even just recently this
Speaker 1: group called MYCEO the it's the grid operator and planner
Speaker 1: in a thirteen state region in the center of the country.
Speaker 1: They just put together another agreement where all the states involved,
Speaker 1: all the utilities, and they put together a ten plus
Speaker 1: billion dollar transmission plan that would connect many many tens
Speaker 1: gigawatts of clean energy UH and also provide reliability benefits.
Speaker 1: And I think when everybody's engaged in that process, UH,
Speaker 1: and then it goes into a local or a state
Speaker 1: transmission permitting proceeding. Right, we have mostly local and state
Speaker 1: authority over the permitting of these lines. Then that regional
Speaker 1: consensus can be reflected the the technical people from those
Speaker 1: planning organizations can come in and testify and say here
Speaker 1: the benefits. When that happens, the batting average has been
Speaker 1: over When it's just one developer on their own, the
Speaker 1: batting average has been closer to ten percent, And so
Speaker 1: I think we need to get more to the regional
Speaker 1: planning process. There there can and will It should be
Speaker 1: some some of these independent developers out there picking off
Speaker 1: opportunities and if they can put together all the least
Speaker 1: agreements with rangers and farmers across along the way, and
Speaker 1: hopefully I know the administrations trying to open up interstate
Speaker 1: highways more and railway corridors some of these existing corridors,
Speaker 1: you know, then that could be more of an opportunity
Speaker 1: for independent developers. So I think we'll see some of
Speaker 1: that too. But there are a couple of different ways
Speaker 1: to do this that I think can be successful. But
Speaker 1: you know, they have to work around exactly what you're
Speaker 1: asking about, these these occasional local resistance, largely with people
Speaker 1: who say, well, what's in it for me? Why is
Speaker 1: this something I should put up with? You know? Want
Speaker 1: to ask further about that is a actually two questions,
Speaker 1: but A are there other clear things that could be
Speaker 1: done at the federal level, either regulatory or bypassing laws
Speaker 1: that might make it easier and be. We're recording this
Speaker 1: August five as of right now that the Climate Bill
Speaker 1: or the Inflation Reduction Act hasn't passed, so we don't
Speaker 1: know for sure if it will. But is there anything
Speaker 1: in there that affects grid specific development? So I would say, honestly,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot that has passed or is likely
Speaker 1: to pass real soon that that helps a great deal.
Speaker 1: I would say, to the credit of the administration and
Speaker 1: some of the various centers, including Senator Mansion and uh,
Speaker 1: some of the Republicans, there seems to be a much
Speaker 1: greater will and interest in seeing this type of transmission
Speaker 1: infrastructure and supporting the clean energy evolution with it, and
Speaker 1: supporting reliability as well, but we haven't converged on exactly
Speaker 1: what that policy should be. There's despite a lot of
Speaker 1: the headlines, there really was barely any actual money, and
Speaker 1: that by part of an infrastructure law for transmission. You know,
Speaker 1: I've folks like me had sort of argued, look what
Speaker 1: we spend Our industrate highways are paid for by taxpayers
Speaker 1: by the federal government. Shouldn't we have something closer to
Speaker 1: that for transmission, which our interstate highway in nature, and
Speaker 1: that everybody benefits across you know, dozens of states, and
Speaker 1: we almost got a tax credit for transmission, didn't make
Speaker 1: it through. I think they are looking at alternative ways,
Speaker 1: and there's this uh conceptual agreement between Senator Schumer and
Speaker 1: Senator Mansion that holds great promise and hopefully that would
Speaker 1: that would help a lot. And separately, at the regulatory level,
Speaker 1: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has very strong jurisdiction over this,
Speaker 1: and they have prioritized this very issue and are working
Speaker 1: on it, and thus far they've been moving forward on
Speaker 1: a bipartisan basis to try to fix some of these
Speaker 1: problems and get the transmission agreements together in these regional
Speaker 1: planning processes. So there there is some there's definitely some hope,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe where there's a will, there's a way.
Speaker 1: But I'm my honest scorecard of where we are sitting
Speaker 1: here today is that there hasn't been a lot that's
Speaker 1: passed that would really transform this, like I think needs
Speaker 1: to happen. What would be the most helpful in terms
Speaker 1: of building out the grid, like if you could see anything,
Speaker 1: whether it's I don't know, just having people be more
Speaker 1: amenable to having electricity wires strung up in their backyards,
Speaker 1: or more funding from the federal government. What would you
Speaker 1: like to see? If I had my druthers, I would say,
Speaker 1: let's get these regional and interregional processes set up to
Speaker 1: plan a robust grid for the expected future power makes,
Speaker 1: say thirty years out UM. Put together plans use as
Speaker 1: much as possible existing corridors. That example I mentioned in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, of those lines are going to be upgrades
Speaker 1: over existing rights of way in corridors, so you know, yes,
Speaker 1: there will be some new lines, but um, you know
Speaker 1: there will doesn't need to be that much. UM. You know,
Speaker 1: actual new new corridors and rights of way. UM. And
Speaker 1: then importantly, those regional agreements involve who pays and how much.
Speaker 1: And I really think either Congress or this Federal Energy
Speaker 1: Regulatory Commission need to put together a policy where everybody share.
Speaker 1: Everybody who benefits shares in the in the payment. Um.
Speaker 1: The The economic problem here is the classic public good
Speaker 1: where if everybody benefits, uh. And you know, even if
Speaker 1: in some individual pays a lot into this fund, everybody
Speaker 1: else benefits just as much as they do, which means
Speaker 1: they don't have an incentive to do that. So there's
Speaker 1: a strong disincentive to actually fund this infrastructure. So we
Speaker 1: need to get some kind of collective agreements together, you know,
Speaker 1: in partnership with states in the region. But what I
Speaker 1: just described as a million conversations with a million entities,
Speaker 1: and all of that has to has to go well.
Speaker 1: So it's it's hard work and it's not Maybe two
Speaker 1: doesn't sound too exciting, but it really needs to happen.
Speaker 1: And if you know, Congress and Firk, the federal agency
Speaker 1: here can require that to happen, or directed or encourage
Speaker 1: it than than I think, we really can get this
Speaker 1: done and get a grid that's able to handle the climate,
Speaker 1: clean energy goals, the new severe weather challenge of whom
Speaker 1: getting as well as the coming electric electrification. You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the idea of improving the process for longer
Speaker 1: term planning of the energy grid, and I feel like
Speaker 1: it's it's difficult at the best of times to get
Speaker 1: people interested in fixing long term problems. But secondly, what
Speaker 1: seems to complicate this with energy specifically, is it seems
Speaker 1: really difficult to predict what energy needs will be, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty or thirty years out, and it seems difficult to
Speaker 1: predict what the mix should be, um, what the weather
Speaker 1: might be. When we're talking about renewables, how much confidence
Speaker 1: can we have that the grid we're designing today or
Speaker 1: trying to design today is going to be the right
Speaker 1: one twenty or thirty years out. Well, I think I
Speaker 1: think we should have a lot of confidence. We're using
Speaker 1: this transmission network uh at or beyond its capacity. Every
Speaker 1: decade since this thing was invented, we've relied on it
Speaker 1: more and more. Electricity is all through our daily lives
Speaker 1: at home and at work. And we know for a
Speaker 1: fact that there are theys going to be the vast
Speaker 1: tracts of land amenable to very low cost wind and
Speaker 1: solar development across this country, and almost all countries in
Speaker 1: the world have that same phenomenon. And so it's not like, uh,
Speaker 1: sometimes you hear, oh, we don't want to build a
Speaker 1: bridge to nowhere. Well, look, you know, I can guarantee
Speaker 1: that our great great great great grandkids will come to
Speaker 1: this spot and say, western Oklahoma and it's going to
Speaker 1: be really windy, um, you know, and uh it's you know,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna be really sunny all through the Southwest.
Speaker 1: So you know, we we know that for you know,
Speaker 1: far more certainty than we have about anything else we
Speaker 1: you know, we invest in. So I think we can
Speaker 1: very solidly invest in that. I think there is a
Speaker 1: question of, you know, how much realistically are we going
Speaker 1: to get done. There are a lot of people like
Speaker 1: me who would say we need to build this vast
Speaker 1: network and make it a whole nationwide, in fact, continental
Speaker 1: macro grid. And I believe that, but I also think,
Speaker 1: you know, I might not want to bet my you know,
Speaker 1: kids college tuition on that happening. That's going to be
Speaker 1: very hard. So I know you've had people like you've
Speaker 1: had Jigger Shaw on this on this show, and you know,
Speaker 1: he I think believes in that, supports that, but also
Speaker 1: he does he doesn't want all of his eggs in
Speaker 1: that basket. And other things like small modular nuclear reactors
Speaker 1: that you could put on the site of a closing
Speaker 1: coal plant. You know, there's hydrogen. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: other things that we can and should do as well.
Speaker 1: I don't want to rely on this, you know, this
Speaker 1: this opportunity alone. So just you know, as long as
Speaker 1: we're talking about your sort of dream, if you could,
Speaker 1: if you could just write the policy and get it implemented.
Speaker 1: What are we talking about from a dollar perspective in
Speaker 1: terms of what you think it takes to invest and
Speaker 1: get to this more modern grid? And what do we
Speaker 1: talk about even in terms of physical you know, what
Speaker 1: do we talk about in terms of miles? What do
Speaker 1: we talk about in terms of the raw materials that
Speaker 1: we need for the wires and the labor like give
Speaker 1: us a sense of the scale of the project in
Speaker 1: the ideal scenario. Sure like if Eisenhower came back, he said,
Speaker 1: all right, we built that system. Now it's time let's
Speaker 1: get this grid and our energy problem. And we want
Speaker 1: you know, domestic, home grown energy that's very affordable and
Speaker 1: reliable for everybody. Honestly, I think the current president is
Speaker 1: interested in doing that to the extent he could. I
Speaker 1: would say, a two hundred billion dollar investment in a
Speaker 1: national macro grid, which would take ten years if everything
Speaker 1: goes right, putting a lot of it along existing corridors,
Speaker 1: highway and rail systems, UH that would enable. That would
Speaker 1: be the best two billion dollars our government could spend.
Speaker 1: Because energy important to our lives, reliable energy is so
Speaker 1: important to our lives. The climate is such a problem,
Speaker 1: and if you build a network. We have very cheap
Speaker 1: wind and solar all over the country that can utilize that,
Speaker 1: and we know it's going to be there. Uh. Certainly,
Speaker 1: there's supply chain problems in every in every sector, and
Speaker 1: there will be materials needed, but I think those are
Speaker 1: solvable given the materials needed needed here, and you know,
Speaker 1: certainly we can. If we do that and commit to it,
Speaker 1: then we get more and more of that business in
Speaker 1: manufacturs We attracted to this country put a lot of
Speaker 1: people to to work. You know, it's no surprise ib
Speaker 1: E W the Labor Union for Electrical workers, you know,
Speaker 1: loves this idea. That tremendous number of well paying jobs
Speaker 1: in this and I think it would lead to the
Speaker 1: lowest cost because what I said earlier about scale, scale
Speaker 1: is everything in transmission. To build a bigger the dollars
Speaker 1: per delivered megawater cheaper. So uh. You know, consumer advocates
Speaker 1: are a very important player in this space, and I
Speaker 1: have a lot of conversations with them, and it's it's tough,
Speaker 1: right because what they're being asked to do is authorize
Speaker 1: a big spend of rate payer dollars for something that's
Speaker 1: super long term in nature and benefits everybody across everywhere.
Speaker 1: But you know, that's the way to get the cheaper
Speaker 1: power ultimately the cheapest delivered costs to the customers in
Speaker 1: the long run. So I think we all need to,
Speaker 1: you know, look at look at this opportunity. Certainly consider
Speaker 1: you know, different scenarios and and tested out and kick
Speaker 1: the tires. But I think that's the scenario that that
Speaker 1: is best for reliability and clean energy and affordability in
Speaker 1: the long run. Let me just get your take on
Speaker 1: a different vision because I have I see people, many
Speaker 1: of whom will interact with me on Twitter, and they say,
Speaker 1: you know what, instead of building all these like wires
Speaker 1: that go all the way across the country and all
Speaker 1: these fights with like farmers and ranchers and all this stuff,
Speaker 1: why not just build a bunch of nuclear plans locally
Speaker 1: and just have that be the silver built bullet solution. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to go to uh rooftop
Speaker 1: TV and batteries in your garage. I was going to
Speaker 1: do batteries. Actually also the question. But you know, both
Speaker 1: other Vision camps are out, Yeah, both camps are out
Speaker 1: in force on Twitter, that's for sure. Um. Look, um,
Speaker 1: you know I think there are opportunities for nuclear, particularly
Speaker 1: the small modulent nuclear, especially in that case, you know,
Speaker 1: putting them at the sight of the old co plants,
Speaker 1: and it's great for the communities there, UH to keep
Speaker 1: the jobs going and plants. I do think, you know,
Speaker 1: it is expensive now and it is going to take
Speaker 1: quite a while to like get to commercialization and wide deployment.
Speaker 1: In contrast to you know, we're doing UH wide deployment
Speaker 1: of wind and solar all over the country, all over
Speaker 1: the world. So really the you know, it's the renewables
Speaker 1: that are the church technology. And you know, I never
Speaker 1: want to say that what we have now is going
Speaker 1: to beat out everything that could come. But I also
Speaker 1: don't put too many eggs in the basket of things
Speaker 1: that are not not there yet. So that's the I
Speaker 1: think the main nuclear answer, and heck, we're going to
Speaker 1: need all of it if we really want to be carbonized.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that the properties of nuclear is that
Speaker 1: it can operate at all times. Some of them can
Speaker 1: be dispatchable, they can ramp up and down. That's obviously
Speaker 1: very helpful. Wind and solar operate when they have their
Speaker 1: power source and not when they don't uh, And so
Speaker 1: you do need other resources. I don't want to necessarily
Speaker 1: advocate for wind and solar because then what do you
Speaker 1: do in the other times. For quite a while, we're
Speaker 1: going to be using dispatchable gas plants uh, and we
Speaker 1: may either continue that or use other clean, firm dispatchable
Speaker 1: sources as they come on in the future. So it
Speaker 1: is I think more of a portfolio outlook than any
Speaker 1: single technology. You know, it's not going to be a
Speaker 1: winner take all times. Who So can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit more about storage then, because if the issue
Speaker 1: is that we have you know, intermittent energy supply, then
Speaker 1: could we just have everyone or large population centers build
Speaker 1: giant batteries where they could store excess energy when they
Speaker 1: have it um to make up for times when they don't,
Speaker 1: rather than build multiple um long distance electricity lines. Yes
Speaker 1: in theory, yes. And what we have commercially ready and
Speaker 1: being deployed all over the country are roughly like four
Speaker 1: hour batteries, so people call them short duration batteries. It's
Speaker 1: the same technology that's in the car with the m
Speaker 1: I on and they are very helpful. They provide provide
Speaker 1: a number of different services on the grid, and in
Speaker 1: some places, like if you're in the Southwest, you can
Speaker 1: go a long way with solar and short duration batteries
Speaker 1: together because the batteries will provide your power from you know,
Speaker 1: say five pm through you know ten eleven on a
Speaker 1: hot day, you're still air conditioning and you're doing it
Speaker 1: with your batteries. Um. And then you know, if it's
Speaker 1: a cloudy day and you didn't get to charge as
Speaker 1: much because you didn't have as much solar, well that's okay.
Speaker 1: You probably don't need as much air conditioning on those days.
Speaker 1: So that works. It doesn't do everything, but you can
Speaker 1: do a lot other places, Like I grew up in Michigan,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of parts of the country where
Speaker 1: you're not going to be able to do that in
Speaker 1: the in the winter for certain, And a lot of
Speaker 1: these systems are becoming more winter peaking than the old
Speaker 1: regime where uh, you know, you thought it was a
Speaker 1: typically a you know, late July afternoon was going to
Speaker 1: be your peak. It's going to be more of a
Speaker 1: winter situation. It's dark, it's not as sunny, and really
Speaker 1: everywhere you will have multi day periods could be six
Speaker 1: eight days with very little wind and sun. They have
Speaker 1: a word in German for that, don't go flout to
Speaker 1: course sort of you know, dark and still time periods
Speaker 1: and then what do you do? So you have to
Speaker 1: have something else around for that, and that's where we
Speaker 1: get into the portfolio that you need. And maybe while
Speaker 1: on storage, you know, we might we we do have
Speaker 1: some promising interesting technologies that are longer duration and there's
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of research and development going into that.
Speaker 1: Everybody recognizes that we want longer duration storage and if
Speaker 1: we get it, then great, that will provide tremendous value
Speaker 1: and we can we can do a lot with that.
Speaker 1: It it's hard to see you know, that coming in
Speaker 1: sufficient scale to sort of replace the need for moving
Speaker 1: power around geographically, but it's absolutely a promising opportunity. What
Speaker 1: about other storage technologies. When we had a jigger shot
Speaker 1: on UH a month or two ago, he talked about
Speaker 1: hydrogen stward of salt caves too. You have the wind
Speaker 1: turbines spin in UH in the winter when there's not
Speaker 1: as much electricity demand from air conditioning. Also talked about
Speaker 1: you know, things like water elevators or sand elevators, other
Speaker 1: types of technologies that can maybe store, uh, potential energy
Speaker 1: long term for use when we actually need it. Yes,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of promising opportunities. Hydrogen is really
Speaker 1: exciting and different forms of storage. And I think people
Speaker 1: generally in the in the business recognize what we're looking
Speaker 1: for is something that can produce when the wind and
Speaker 1: solar are not both kind of on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: but also a sort of seasonal and annual basis for
Speaker 1: these other time periods when you need something. And what
Speaker 1: that means, by the way, is you don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: something that operates seven or even operates very much at all.
Speaker 1: You just needed as backup. If we can rely on
Speaker 1: wind and solar for let's say seventy or eight percent
Speaker 1: of our energy and that's providing the carbon free energy
Speaker 1: the megawatt hours, Uh, then what you're looking for is
Speaker 1: the is the backup. So I think about it like
Speaker 1: our you know, we have a gas powered minivan that
Speaker 1: sits in my driveway almost all the time, uh, and
Speaker 1: we put all our miles on the little Chevy Bolt
Speaker 1: ev um you know, around town. But every once in
Speaker 1: a while, we you know, we need to you know,
Speaker 1: put more people in the car or go along the
Speaker 1: distance or or what have you, and it's sort of
Speaker 1: there as a backup. I think we're going to have
Speaker 1: some variety of different backup sources. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: competition for what technology is going to be that best
Speaker 1: backup source. And that's great because we need we need
Speaker 1: a lot of options, and right now we don't have
Speaker 1: a perfect one, so we need we need more innovation
Speaker 1: in that area. One of the political question that comes
Speaker 1: up is, you know this idea of smart grids and okay,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna put if we're gonna be electrifying more
Speaker 1: things in cars at the end, then you know, you
Speaker 1: create incentives to charge your car maybe at a certain
Speaker 1: time when there's less demand. But then that also like
Speaker 1: raises its own set of politics questions. So we talked
Speaker 1: about the politics of land use. But then there's also like,
Speaker 1: well do people want the UH the utility nudging them
Speaker 1: or monitoring what they're using their electricity for it given time?
Speaker 1: Like perhaps some people feel it's invasive or people feel
Speaker 1: like is a privacy violation in some way, or that
Speaker 1: maybe the UH the utility operator is just going to
Speaker 1: unilaterally warm up their house or cool it down at
Speaker 1: a time because they've decided you know, whatever, do you
Speaker 1: encounter much of that? Like, how real is that sort
Speaker 1: of impulse against grid modern modernization? Yes, that's uh, that's
Speaker 1: also important there there there's a tremendous opportunity first of
Speaker 1: all in the whole demand side of the equation here. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you know that is the perfect example. If you know,
Speaker 1: if you buy an electric vehicle, you don't have to
Speaker 1: necessarily charge it at six pm when you pull in
Speaker 1: your driveway, because that's probably the time, certainly in the summer,
Speaker 1: where you know, everybody's coming home, plugging in, everybody's cranking
Speaker 1: up their air conditioning. If you if there were just
Speaker 1: a way to shift that charging to be you know
Speaker 1: between midnight and four am, say, you could save a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount on electricity infrastructure. And so how do we
Speaker 1: put that actual retail customer in the position where they
Speaker 1: benefit from that, you know, and they trust that it's
Speaker 1: for the benefit because, as you say, people don't people
Speaker 1: don't trust many institutions at all anymore, let alone you know,
Speaker 1: big electric utilities. And there was a lot of pushback
Speaker 1: to the smart meters when people thought they were you know,
Speaker 1: they were being monitored and all these sorts of privacy concerns.
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, you know, people who buy
Speaker 1: you know, teslas for example, where or there's you know,
Speaker 1: different states allow a different rate plan where you you know,
Speaker 1: you come home, you just push a button and say,
Speaker 1: you know, do you want discount power or do you
Speaker 1: want to pay for premium power? Push a button, boom,
Speaker 1: discount power. That's all they know. They hop out of
Speaker 1: their car, they've pushed discount power, and then they go
Speaker 1: on their home and about their business and you know,
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, what's happening is that battery knows to
Speaker 1: start charging itself at midnight rather than at seven pm.
Speaker 1: There's got to be a lot more ways to do
Speaker 1: that that people will be comfortable with, that will trust,
Speaker 1: and it will be to their benefit where they save money.
Speaker 1: You know, they get paid for for doing that. There
Speaker 1: really are a lot of ways, but it goes through
Speaker 1: this process of retail rate making, and there's always politics around,
Speaker 1: you know, the pricing and the terms of that retail
Speaker 1: rate making. So it's you know, it's it's hard, but
Speaker 1: we absolutely have to do more with that, and there's
Speaker 1: a huge, a huge opportunity to do that. So we've
Speaker 1: been talking a lot about the US for obvious reasons.
Speaker 1: But of course America isn't the only country that's trying
Speaker 1: to up graide um. It's electrical system and it's power grid.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking specifically about China, which I think is
Speaker 1: about to start upgrading it's great or building out a
Speaker 1: super grid I think sometime this year later this year,
Speaker 1: and they're spending billions and billions of dollars to do it.
Speaker 1: But when you see a massive project like that, what
Speaker 1: sort of takeaways or lessons um would that have for
Speaker 1: the US or you know, looking across the world, what
Speaker 1: sort of things can we learn from the way other
Speaker 1: countries are upgrading their electrical systems. Yes, I think there
Speaker 1: is a lot going on around the world on that
Speaker 1: these large connections between countries, because the physics and the
Speaker 1: economics are pretty much the same everywhere. Okay, there's certainly exceptions,
Speaker 1: but like those are like Hawaii. Okay, Hawaii is a
Speaker 1: whole different situation. They're just not going to string a
Speaker 1: line to some other place. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about stringing a line from Morocco to England and
Speaker 1: between different Southeast Asian countries and across China. And you
Speaker 1: know between Ireland and other countries and all sorts of
Speaker 1: subsede cables in the North Sea Baltic Sea. You know,
Speaker 1: this is happening all over the world because again, the
Speaker 1: technology opportunity and the value of remote renewable resources is
Speaker 1: such in the know ability to move power back and
Speaker 1: forth when you need it really is there now in
Speaker 1: all these cases you need some type of cooperation. I
Speaker 1: look obviously more to Europe than China. Is the government
Speaker 1: political situations a little bit different in terms of permitting
Speaker 1: lines and you know, figuring out who pays and all
Speaker 1: that arguably a lot easier, which is why China is
Speaker 1: way ahead on this whole large scale transmission agenda. But
Speaker 1: you know, we have the government system, we have Europe
Speaker 1: pass what it has. There are ways to do it,
Speaker 1: just you know, requires a lot more coordination and work.
Speaker 1: So one simple question that I don't think we've asked
Speaker 1: yet is, Okay, the biggest are a big source of
Speaker 1: electricity demand coming forward or new electricity demand is going
Speaker 1: to be in cars and electric vehicles? What are we
Speaker 1: talking about specifically, Like, you know, if we wanted to
Speaker 1: have an all e V fleet in twenty years or
Speaker 1: ten years or something like, what are the numbers in
Speaker 1: terms of how much more we're gonna power we're gonna
Speaker 1: need to have on the grid than we have today. Sure,
Speaker 1: I would estimate in a core to a third increase
Speaker 1: in overall power for that, which in one sense is
Speaker 1: is huge for grid planners, But in another sense, there's
Speaker 1: a lot less than what most people expect. And the
Speaker 1: reason for that is that, Uh, it turns out internal
Speaker 1: combustion engines on your car are extremely inefficient. And if
Speaker 1: you compare, even if we didn't clean up electric power
Speaker 1: production and we just had a whole bunch of coal
Speaker 1: plants producing all the power going to e vs would
Speaker 1: be tremendouslyly you know, beneficial from both an environmental perspective
Speaker 1: and a cost What are we talking about? What's the
Speaker 1: efficiency gained by just by having a generation of power
Speaker 1: at a at a at a power plant as opposed
Speaker 1: to and a power plant within each car? Great question.
Speaker 1: I don't want to give you the wrong answer, but
Speaker 1: I'm just going to guess. You know, it's sort of
Speaker 1: an order of magnitude, sort of tenfolds. Just you know
Speaker 1: the fact that you're burning in this tiny little power
Speaker 1: plant inside your car under the hood compared to a massive, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, scaled power plant that could be a thousand
Speaker 1: megawats in size, there are massive efficiency gains. Again, it's
Speaker 1: all about scale and the electric industry, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's just a lot cheaper to do things at large scale.
Speaker 1: So again, if we were only you know, shifting from
Speaker 1: internal combustion gasoline engines to uh, central station coal power,
Speaker 1: we would get a lot of environmental and efficiency improvement.
Speaker 1: But what is happening is that we're also replacing you know,
Speaker 1: old fossil power plants with clean mainly wind and solar,
Speaker 1: and so that that power source is getting cleaned up.
Speaker 1: So but again those those uh that increase in electricity
Speaker 1: demand isn't as large as a lot of people think,
Speaker 1: just because the engines in your car are so inefficient
Speaker 1: today and the you know, the batteries in your car
Speaker 1: and the evs are so efficient by composed. Well, Rob
Speaker 1: Graham like this was an extremely helpful conversation in terms
Speaker 1: of sort of getting our heads around the scale of
Speaker 1: the need and the opportunity and the challenge. So really
Speaker 1: really appreciate you coming on online. Great to be here.
Speaker 1: Enjoyed the conversation. Yeah, that was great, Thanks so much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was really interesting. Well, thank you both, Tracy. I
Speaker 1: thought that was a very helpful conversation. That last point
Speaker 1: at the end was actually particularly interesting. That even if
Speaker 1: you don't decarbonize the grid at all, and it makes sense,
Speaker 1: but you know, people don't talk about it that much. Uh.
Speaker 1: I sees are not particularly internal combustion engines are not
Speaker 1: particularly efficient at turning fossil fuels into motion in your car,
Speaker 1: and so the idea of like big gains just by
Speaker 1: having the power done centrally is kind of interesting. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: I mean the other thing, well, I didn't realize the
Speaker 1: grid in the US was sort of like source agnostic,
Speaker 1: that it doesn't really matter where the energy comes from,
Speaker 1: and that it has to accept energy from all different
Speaker 1: types of things. I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 1: You should set up a little coal plant with the
Speaker 1: coal and your evasement if they if they have to
Speaker 1: take anything, I mean there might be some other permitting
Speaker 1: or something, I don't know, but if they have to
Speaker 1: take anything, he's like, hey, I have some coal. I'm
Speaker 1: setting up a little coal plant in my basis. Is
Speaker 1: this like like small batch electricity supply, like just out
Speaker 1: of my backyard, just burning a bunch of coal and
Speaker 1: sending it back into the grid. Okay, people add solar
Speaker 1: to their roofs, so why can't you do that with call?
Speaker 1: But no, I thought that was a really interesting conversation.
Speaker 1: And I do you know if you look at it
Speaker 1: on the surface, um, just at the US, and you think,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this seems so difficult, not just because
Speaker 1: it's really expensive to build these power lines, but just
Speaker 1: because you have to get so many different people and
Speaker 1: bodies on board to do it, you know, ranging from
Speaker 1: federal and state legislature to individual homeowners or property owners
Speaker 1: who might not necessarily want to have lines running through
Speaker 1: their yards or whatever. But on the other hand, you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the rest of the world, they're
Speaker 1: having these same discussions. And China might be an extreme example,
Speaker 1: because of course China is quite good at central planning
Speaker 1: uh and and these large scale infrastructure projects. But there
Speaker 1: are places in the world where these are getting done.
Speaker 1: It's not impossible. And if you think about, you know,
Speaker 1: the two things that people really need on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis, it has to be energy and food, right,
Speaker 1: So we should be paying attention to this and we
Speaker 1: should be trying to build it out and improve it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing though about the politics and what you
Speaker 1: say sounds exactly right, is like, you know, you do
Speaker 1: get conflicts in what is even the sort of environmentally
Speaker 1: friendly solution because a lot of those people who say
Speaker 1: voted down that new transmission line that would have brought
Speaker 1: in hydro power from Quebec in the northeast, they argued
Speaker 1: that they were doing something for the environment because they
Speaker 1: didn't want you know, new uh, new towers put up
Speaker 1: through old growth forest and areas of the state that
Speaker 1: had never been touched. And so, you know, there's different parties.
Speaker 1: But to Rob's point, you know, we already have we
Speaker 1: have the federal highway system, we have rail system, and
Speaker 1: so to the extent at which physical corridors which have
Speaker 1: already been you know, developed for some sort of interstate used,
Speaker 1: could also be places where we just put a lot
Speaker 1: more lines. Obviously that sounds telling, but it does seem
Speaker 1: like there needs to be more active effort, at least
Speaker 1: nationally on some level to get all the stakeholders on
Speaker 1: board and move these things along. Yeah. The one thing
Speaker 1: I was I don't want to say not convinced by.
Speaker 1: But the one thing I had a little bit of
Speaker 1: reservation about was the question over long term planning of
Speaker 1: the grid and whether or not we can be confident
Speaker 1: that the thing we're building right now is something that
Speaker 1: will be useful in thirty years, because I think maybe
Speaker 1: I'm just scarred by the experience of the summer with
Speaker 1: multiple heat waves and lots of talk about the impacts
Speaker 1: of climate change and things. But it does seem like
Speaker 1: there are things happening right now which we did not
Speaker 1: anticipate twenty or thirty years ago when we were building,
Speaker 1: for instance, a nuclear power reactor that needs a certain
Speaker 1: amount of cool water in order to function. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, probably are going to be using a
Speaker 1: lot of electricity in the future. Yeah, Okay, Yes, that's right. Okay,
Speaker 1: shall we leave it there, Let's leave it there. Okay.
Speaker 1: This has been another episode of the All Thoughts Podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Tracy Alloway, and I'm Joe Wisn't Paul. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our guest Rob
Speaker 1: Graham Like on Twitter. He's at Rob Graham Like DC.
Speaker 1: Follow our producer Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman Armand and check
Speaker 1: out all of our podcasts under the handle at podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening one