WEBVTT - The History of Energy Efficiency 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.800 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:15.040 He there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.680 Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with I Heart Radio 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:24.560 and I love all things tech. And yesterday I published 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:28.360 a tech News episode. Today's date, by the way, is July, 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:32.640 in case you're listening in the future. But yes on 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:36.239 July I published a tech News episode and mentioned in 0:00:36.240 --> 0:00:41.200 that episode a story, a fairly amusing story about how 0:00:41.240 --> 0:00:45.199 alien Ware, which is the the Dell Computers subsidiary that 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:51.080 focuses on building you know, gaming PCs, recently acknowledged that 0:00:51.159 --> 0:00:54.600 the company was going to have to avoid orders from 0:00:54.840 --> 0:01:00.520 certain regions for a selection of gaming rigs, and that 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:09.080 these regions included six states. Those states are, by the way, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, 0:01:09.440 --> 0:01:14.000 and Washington State. Now, the reason that alien Ware was 0:01:14.000 --> 0:01:17.039 going to have to cancel those orders is that these 0:01:17.080 --> 0:01:22.920 particular models of these particular gaming computers exceed the energy 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:28.160 consumption rates that are allowed by those states regulatory bodies. So, 0:01:28.200 --> 0:01:31.400 in other words, these states have limits on how much 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:36.560 electricity a computer system is allowed to consume per hour, 0:01:37.160 --> 0:01:41.199 and these particular computers exceed that. So if you prefer 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.480 to look at it a different way, these computers are 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.360 too powerful or really to power hungry, and are thus 0:01:48.400 --> 0:01:52.160 illegal in six states. Now that's being a bit hyperbolic, 0:01:52.600 --> 0:01:54.720 but it's also a way to spend this that could 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:57.920 make those computers seem really cool, right Like if alien 0:01:57.920 --> 0:02:00.800 Ware said it's a computer, so fat asked it's illegal 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.240 in six states, that could sell a lot of computers. 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.200 But anyway, this all got me to thinking about energy 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:13.200 efficiency and power consumption regulations in general. So we have 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.320 different certifications for energy efficiency. You might have seen different 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.120 labels on stuff that claims that a particular product meets 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:25.760 a certain set of standards for energy efficiency. And as 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:27.720 I've just pointed out, there are some states that have 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:32.040 some fairly strict limits on energy consumption. So what is 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:35.600 the history here, How did all this develop and why? 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:40.120 And what do these different certifications mean and what is 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:43.160 the history behind those? So today we're going to take 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:46.960 a look at the issue of energy efficiency. Now I 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:49.680 hope by the end of this episode you'll have a 0:02:49.680 --> 0:02:53.440 better understanding of why these regulations are in place in 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.600 the first place, and why certain areas might have greater 0:02:56.680 --> 0:03:00.960 restrictions compared to others. And you also know what that 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:04.440 energy star label actually means when you see it on 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:09.040 say an appliance or maybe on a home listing. So 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.280 this episode, like most of my episodes, is going to 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.360 focus largely on the United States because that's where a 0:03:15.400 --> 0:03:17.720 lot of this evolved. But there are other regions of 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:21.280 the world that have similar stories. It's just that to 0:03:21.480 --> 0:03:26.000 cover a global approach to this issue would require an 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:31.080 entire podcast series, not just an episode. However, it will 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:36.360 involve global events because, as it turns out, some big 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.720 events on the global scale impacted the United States approach 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:45.520 to energy consumption. So let's set the stage, and we 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.120 do have to go quite ways back to kind of 0:03:48.160 --> 0:03:51.640 cover this. So way back in the early eighteen hundreds, 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:56.200 most Americans were living in rural areas. Right like in 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.600 the first few decades of the nineteenth century, only around 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:04.200 ten or scent of the American population were living in cities. 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:08.440 Even by eighteen sixty that percentage was still below twenty 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:13.560 five percent of the population. For comparisons sake, today, more 0:04:13.600 --> 0:04:17.839 than eighty percent of all Americans live in a metropolitan area. 0:04:18.400 --> 0:04:23.400 So urbanization plays a part of our story today. But 0:04:23.480 --> 0:04:26.200 as we'll see the story is big and it has 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:29.440 lots of moving parts to it. So another element is 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:34.000 the rising dependence on fossil fuels. So up through the 0:04:34.040 --> 0:04:37.640 eighteen fifties, one of the main resources used for stuff 0:04:37.680 --> 0:04:41.080 like lighting fuel because you know before the light bulb, 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.119 was whale oil. But by the eighteen fifties, whale oil 0:04:45.200 --> 0:04:47.880 was starting to get in short supply because of the 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.840 shortage of whales because of how they were hunted extensively. 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.960 But enterprising engineers learned how to produce kerosene by refining 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.320 crude oil, and then in the eighteen sixties we get 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:06.960 the first US oil refinery, which takes raw petroleum and 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:10.000 then refines it into a fuel that provides an alternative 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.680 to coal, and thus the oil rush begins. In the 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:18.159 latter half of the nineteen hundreds, the United States takes 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:22.120 the world lead in oil production and refining and provides 0:05:22.160 --> 0:05:28.839 around of the global supply of oil. In eight other 0:05:28.880 --> 0:05:31.600 parts of the world are getting into the oil speculation 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:36.200 craze themselves, with countries like England and the Netherlands and 0:05:36.279 --> 0:05:41.440 Russia all discovering oil deposits, but the US continues to 0:05:41.760 --> 0:05:46.440 lead the global stage in that regard. At the same time, 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:50.919 inventors start creating creating new technologies that rely upon refined 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.359 oil for operation. So a growing consumption of oil is 0:05:55.400 --> 0:05:59.480 going hand in hand with the growing production of oil. 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:01.719 So not only are you producing more of it, but 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:05.560 we're finding new ways to use it. And thus the 0:06:05.680 --> 0:06:10.200 demand continues to increase along with the supply. Uh, we 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:14.440 find and refine more oil, but we also consume more oil, 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:18.560 and it's not like we quite hit an energy excess. Instead, 0:06:18.560 --> 0:06:20.920 we just find lots of new ways in order to 0:06:21.080 --> 0:06:24.159 need that good old bubble and crude. In the early 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:27.960 nineteen hundreds, the rise of the automobile in the United 0:06:27.960 --> 0:06:31.640 States would further push oil consumption to new heights, and 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:35.559 Ford would introduce the Model T in nineteen o eight 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:39.839 that was a mass produced car that actually brought automobiles 0:06:40.279 --> 0:06:44.280 within the realm of purchase for a lot more households 0:06:44.279 --> 0:06:47.760 in America. So by nineteen ten, the US demand for 0:06:47.839 --> 0:06:52.600 gasoline had surpassed the demand for kerosene for the first time, 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:54.640 because you know, kerosene was being used for things like 0:06:54.720 --> 0:06:58.640 lighting fuel and heating fuel. And now the fact that 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.360 we were starting to see a motorized population in the 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:05.039 United States meant that gasoline was becoming more in demand. 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.520 And again Ford's approach to mass production means that automobiles 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.560 are actually within the grasp of a significant percentage of 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:14.920 US households, not all of them, but a lot of them. 0:07:15.000 --> 0:07:19.520 And before the automobile was essentially a vehicle for the 0:07:20.000 --> 0:07:23.720 idly rich. Right wealthy people could afford a car, no 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:26.880 one else could until we started seeing, you know, the 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:31.680 the principles of mass production applied to the automobile. So 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:36.400 the US rapidly becomes motorized, much more rapidly than other 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:39.080 parts of the world. You know, part like Europe was 0:07:39.160 --> 0:07:42.000 also getting motorized at this time, but at a much 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.320 slower rate, and thus the United States dependence upon oil 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:51.520 grew significantly as a result of this. World War One 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.640 obviously would change things up quite a bit. Countries like 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.880 Britain and France began to depend upon US oil exports 0:08:00.360 --> 0:08:03.640 when they were, you know, needing fuel to help in 0:08:03.680 --> 0:08:07.240 their war efforts, and of course, the Germans worked to 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.480 disrupt supply lines between the United States and these countries, 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.920 and when the US entered the war in nineteen seventeen, 0:08:15.640 --> 0:08:21.560 the demands for US oil exceeded domestic production. At that point, 0:08:21.640 --> 0:08:24.560 the US was still supplying oil to its allies, but 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.680 it also needed oil to provide for domestic use right 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:30.880 for people back here in the States, and so in 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:35.080 order to supplement oil production in the US, the United 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:39.120 States began to import oil from Mexico because now it 0:08:39.200 --> 0:08:42.080 just couldn't produce enough to meet all the demands. By 0:08:42.160 --> 0:08:45.480 nineteen nineteen, the U s Geological Survey comes up with 0:08:45.559 --> 0:08:51.120 a startling revelation and incorrect one, as it would turn out, 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:53.680 but they didn't know it at the time, and that 0:08:53.760 --> 0:08:57.000 revelation was that the United States supply of oil was 0:08:57.040 --> 0:08:59.920 going to run out within a decade. So by nineteen 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:03.760 twenty nine, oil reserves were going to be gone. Now, 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:06.160 at that point, the United States was producing around a 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:10.000 million barrels of oil every day, and consumption rates meant 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:15.160 that of that oil was being consumed domestically. So again 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:18.280 that means the only ten of US oil was available 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:23.160 as an export. Everything else was was immediately being used 0:09:23.200 --> 0:09:27.000 because consumption rates were on the rise. Meanwhile, overseas in 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:31.120 the Middle East, Britain and France were overseeing regions that 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.040 they called protectorates. Though I'm sure the locals had less 0:09:35.679 --> 0:09:40.480 you know, nice words to describe them. The Middle East 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.080 was proving to be rich with oil, and Britain and 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.760 France were doing their best to keep US oil companies 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.640 out of the Middle East because this way, you know, 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:54.479 Britain and France, by overseeing these protectorates, could get access 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:59.120 to that oil and thus remove their dependency upon US oil. 0:09:59.160 --> 0:10:01.840 They wouldn't have to win port as much because they 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:06.400 would just essentially take the oil that was in these protectorates. 0:10:06.760 --> 0:10:09.959 By the late nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties, oil 0:10:10.080 --> 0:10:13.640 diplomacy had become a major part of politics as various 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:18.200 countries saw their energy needs hinging on access to oil 0:10:18.240 --> 0:10:22.199 production and oil refinery. So an agreement called the nineteen 0:10:22.240 --> 0:10:26.640 twenty eight Red Line Agreement established an oil monopoly in 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:31.040 the Middle East, governed by the Iraq Petroleum Company, which 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:35.000 in itself was made up of multiple partners, including an 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:39.880 American oil company, and the agreement essentially laid out rules 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:45.000 that prohibited these partners from independently drilling for oil outside 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:48.880 of the partnership, you know, within this specific region of 0:10:48.920 --> 0:10:51.440 the Middle East that was defined by this Red Line, 0:10:52.240 --> 0:10:54.680 and they were all supposed to engage in what was 0:10:54.720 --> 0:10:58.520 called a self denial clause. So if any one partner 0:10:58.600 --> 0:11:03.199 of this group were to pursue oil interests within this region, 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:07.320 that partner would then be obligated to share that with 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.120 other partners. They could not claim it for their own. 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:16.240 Every partner within this UH this organization would have equal 0:11:16.360 --> 0:11:20.760 right to it. This Iraq Petroleum Company, and again that 0:11:20.800 --> 0:11:26.080 was essentially a cartel. It was the the one authority 0:11:26.120 --> 0:11:30.640 for how the oil in this region could be exploited. However, 0:11:30.679 --> 0:11:33.640 it turned out that the back in the United States, 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:36.640 that geological survey that said the US was going to 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.680 run out of oil was totes wrong, and in fact, 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.600 the US would begin to produce a surplus of oil. 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:47.000 And that meant that the supply actually outpaced the demand 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:49.400 for oil. And thus if you have a lot of 0:11:49.440 --> 0:11:56.000 supply and lower demand, prices drop an oil prices plummeted. Now, 0:11:56.120 --> 0:11:58.600 the government tried to respond to this by putting in 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:02.959 quotas for oil auction, saying don't produce more than x 0:12:03.000 --> 0:12:06.280 amount in order to limit the effect of these price drops. 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:10.200 Like so this was to protect oil companies from you know, 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:15.240 having financial disaster because suddenly the stuff they provide is 0:12:15.320 --> 0:12:18.080 so plentiful that they can't make a profit off of 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.040 it anymore. By the way, the Supreme Court would later 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:24.760 overturn those quotas. But then we get up to World 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.920 War Two, which obviously really complicated things. For one thing, 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:33.200 Mexico took the step of nationalizing oil production within that country, 0:12:33.520 --> 0:12:37.120 something that many other countries would do in the following years. 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.840 And in the process, Mexico revoked US oil concessions, which 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.520 was a move that the US did not counter for 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.120 fear that if it did counter that, if it put 0:12:47.120 --> 0:12:50.160 any sort of political pressure on Mexico, it might push 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.720 Mexico to align with the access powers in World War two. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:58.000 So again politics plays a huge part in this. Now, 0:12:58.080 --> 0:13:00.920 during World War Two, the United States against to ration 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:06.079 various resources and luxuries, and one of those resources is gasoline. 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.080 The US government issues gas coupons which limits how much 0:13:10.080 --> 0:13:14.240 gasoline citizens are allowed to get, and also institutes a 0:13:14.360 --> 0:13:19.000 national speed limit of thirty five miles per hour, again 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:24.079 to cut back on consumption. Uh, you know, the slower 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:29.840 speeds would mean less fuel consumption even over great distances. Now, 0:13:31.080 --> 0:13:34.920 by the end of World War two, this would completely 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:38.880 do a one eight. At that point, consumption would boom. 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.320 Returning soldiers start buying homes and houses and appliances. At least, 0:13:43.920 --> 0:13:45.880 you know, if they were white, they were able to 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:50.000 do that. There's plenty out there about the unfair practices 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:55.160 that disproportionately harmed people of color who are coming back 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.400 from World War Two. Anyway, there's a proliferation of inventions 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.720 around this time and that gain popularity, everything from air 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:08.280 conditioners to refrigerators, to televisions to brand new automobiles, including 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:12.320 gas guzzlers. And here's the thing. At the time, there 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:15.280 was plenty of oil to power all that stuff, whether 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:19.200 it was you know, using oil in the process of 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:24.560 electricity generation or oil being used in order to refine 0:14:24.600 --> 0:14:27.760 it into gasoline. There's enough to go around. It was 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:30.640 a time of plenty. The US also starts to reach 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.280 out to Saudi Arabia at this time and established connections 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.040 just as that nation was discovering enormous oil fields within 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.520 its borders. It would actually take a few years before 0:14:41.520 --> 0:14:44.000 the United States would import a massive amount of oil 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.200 from Saudi Arabia. But this is where the foundation was laid. 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:51.920 In the mid nineteen forties and from nineteen to nineteen fifty, 0:14:51.960 --> 0:14:55.120 we see a transformation in the United States. The increased 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:59.480 consumption requires more oil than the US can produce. Finally, 0:14:59.520 --> 0:15:04.600 demand is actually outpacing supply, So in nineteen forty five, 0:15:04.800 --> 0:15:08.920 the US is a net oil exporter because it's producing 0:15:08.920 --> 0:15:11.800 more than it needs. But by nineteen fifty it's a 0:15:11.840 --> 0:15:15.440 net oil importer, bringing in nearly a million barrels of 0:15:15.440 --> 0:15:18.600 oil every day. This was just the beginning of a 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:21.000 trend that would see the US import more and more 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:25.200 oil from other nations, including the Middle East. In nineteen 0:15:25.240 --> 0:15:29.400 fifty two, the Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammed Massadiq, nationalized 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:33.440 the oil industry there not by coincidence. Just two years later, 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.920 there's a military coup in Iran, supported by British and 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.880 US intelligence. By the end of nineteen fifty four, there's 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.440 a new Iranian government headed by a shah who agrees 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:50.400 to allow US oil companies to manage Iran's oil industry. 0:15:50.440 --> 0:15:53.920 So technically the companies don't own the oil, but they're 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:58.200 allowed to manage the industry. Uh this, you know, this 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:00.400 is again another one of those cases where you see 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:05.680 energy and politics just tightly intertwined. Here. Then we get 0:16:05.720 --> 0:16:09.640 to the Suez Crisis, which was a very complicated affair 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.840 that's best left to some other podcast than mine. And 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:16.320 by nineteen fifty nine, the US faces another over supply 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:20.960 of oil. So President Eisenhower issues an import quota and 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.040 that limits foreign imports of oil to know more than 0:16:24.120 --> 0:16:28.040 nine percent of domestic production, saying all right, well, let's 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:34.320 not bring in more and completely destroy this economy. While 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.640 we'll have plenty of oil for our energy needs, we 0:16:36.680 --> 0:16:40.960 would also at the same time undermine the industry that 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:45.040 it's built upon. So the following year, in nineteen sixty, 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:49.040 a group of countries including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.440 Iran in the Middle East, and as well as Venezuela 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:55.880 in South America, all form a group called the Organization 0:16:55.960 --> 0:17:00.680 of the Petroleum Exporting Countries or OPEC. Now, the reason 0:17:00.880 --> 0:17:04.119 that they did this was that the United States and 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:08.520 various nations in Europe had been essentially dictating things like 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:13.200 oil prices without actually consulting these countries in a lot 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.840 of the countries where the oil was coming from, and 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:20.639 so these these nations, like the United States and various 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:23.959 countries in Europe were largely seen as being exploitative. They 0:17:23.960 --> 0:17:28.800 were exploiting the resources of these other oil producing countries 0:17:29.200 --> 0:17:32.400 for their own advantage. Now, it would take several years 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.520 before OPEC would actually have enough political leverage and economic 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.399 leverage so that countries like the United States would even 0:17:39.440 --> 0:17:42.080 really pay attention to them. But that would come to pass, 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.639 and then we move ahead by like a decade a 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:48.879 little more than that, and we come to a conflict that, 0:17:49.000 --> 0:17:52.359 depending upon your perspective, you might call the yam Kapoor War, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.480 or you might call it the Rama Don War. You 0:17:55.560 --> 0:17:58.840 might call it the nineteen seventy three Arab Israeli War. 0:17:59.720 --> 0:18:04.560 That conflict began on October six nine, and it lasted 0:18:04.600 --> 0:18:08.359 until October twenty six of that same year. Now, this 0:18:08.520 --> 0:18:11.760 was the fourth in a series of major conflicts between 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.760 Israel and various Arabic nations in the Middle East, and 0:18:15.800 --> 0:18:19.240 it largely stemmed. This particular one largely stemmed from a 0:18:19.320 --> 0:18:23.520 demand that Egypt was making to Israel. Egypt was telling 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:28.520 Israel to return certain territories that Israel had received in 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:33.440 the previous conflict, the Six Days War, and Israel declined 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:37.920 that demand, and then hostilities followed. Well. A full discussion 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.400 of these conflicts again goes well beyond this show. I 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:43.760 imagine the hosts of stuff you missed in history class 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:48.280 would put together a phenomenal breakdown of the incredibly complicated 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:52.080 scenarios that led to these conflicts. But for our purposes, 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:56.000 the salient point here is that on October nineteenth, two 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:00.000 weeks into the conflict, the then US President Richard Nixon, 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:03.639 sent a request to Congress to extend two point to 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.879 billion dollars worth of emergency aid to Israel, which was 0:19:07.920 --> 0:19:13.280 a move that Arabic countries would protest. I'll explain more, 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:24.879 but first let's take a quick break. So, in response 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.800 to the United States extending aid to Israel in the 0:19:27.800 --> 0:19:30.239 form of two point to billion dollars worth of it, 0:19:30.760 --> 0:19:35.720 the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Companies, so kind of 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:40.240 a subset of OPEQ, elected to raise an oil embargo 0:19:40.440 --> 0:19:44.639 against the United States. Now this had happened once before 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.439 in the conflict in nineteen sixty seven between Israel and 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:51.800 Egypt and Syria and Jordan's that was the Sixth Day 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.800 War I mentioned before the break, and during that time 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.679 Arabic country is placed an oil embargo on all of 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.600 Israel's allies but at that time, the United States was 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.359 able to offset that embargo with domestic production, so it 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:10.639 didn't really affect the US that much. But it was 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:14.919 a very different story in nineteen seventy three. In fact, 0:20:15.320 --> 0:20:18.840 nineteen seventy three was a particularly vulnerable time for the 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.560 United States. While the country had placed an import quota 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:26.000 years earlier due to that over supply I mentioned where 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:29.200 you know, the US could not import more than nine 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:32.959 percent of domestic production, otherwise you would have over supply. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:36.639 While all that had changed, by nineteen seventy three, oil 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.720 production in the United States was lagging behind the demand 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.159 for oil. So this oil embargo ended up having a 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.880 much larger effect on the US in nineteen seventy three 0:20:49.160 --> 0:20:53.600 than the one from nineteen sixty seven. Gasolene prices rose 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:59.800 by forty percent. Now you know that that conspicuous consumption 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.159 that had really driven the fifties and sixties was unsustainable. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.199 In the seventies, the big gas guzzlers that were the 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:13.400 hallmarks of US automotive industry were now a liability. Politically, 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:16.320 the US government moved to form a plan to gain 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:21.800 energy independence by nine eight. Spoiler alert, that didn't happen. 0:21:22.640 --> 0:21:26.919 Advisors were pointing out how energy dependence on imported fuel 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:30.480 sources isn't just a matter of energy, it's also a 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:34.720 matter of national security. And so in the early to 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.040 mid nineteen seventies we saw the first programs launched dedicated 0:21:38.040 --> 0:21:44.119 to improving energy efficiency and lowering energy consumption. The oil 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:48.320 embargo lasted until March of nineteen seventy four, but the 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:52.320 effects of that embargo would stretch on much further. The 0:21:52.359 --> 0:21:57.119 experience really emphasized a need to reduce energy consumption so 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.480 that when things are tight, the U. S economy would 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.760 not grind to a halt. And so we started seeing 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:07.800 some big changes, like here in the United States. One 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:10.960 major change that happened was the US government passed a 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:15.320 mandate that capped highway speeds to fifty five miles per hour. 0:22:16.160 --> 0:22:19.160 Now these days that's not necessarily the case. It can 0:22:19.680 --> 0:22:22.280 vary from region to region. But as a kid, I 0:22:22.320 --> 0:22:25.919 remember that all highways had that as the top speed 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.000 limit fifty at the time. When I was a kid, 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:33.280 I just assumed that those limits were there because somewhere 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.600 some number crunchers figured out that there was a balance 0:22:36.680 --> 0:22:39.199 between letting people get to where they needed to go 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.679 within a timely fashion and cutting down on the severity 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:47.359 of traffic accidents. Except it wasn't really about safety, it 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:51.919 was about conserving gasoline consumption. That's why that speed limit 0:22:52.000 --> 0:22:56.119 was there. Now, the state of California would lead the 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:00.280 way when it came to setting energy efficiency standards. The 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:04.800 state established energy consumption standards starting in nineteen seventy four. 0:23:05.280 --> 0:23:09.040 California has the largest population of the fifties states here 0:23:09.080 --> 0:23:12.920 in the United States, and the energy crisis was keenly 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:18.000 felt in California, especially when it comes to gasoline. The 0:23:18.080 --> 0:23:21.879 matter was somewhat mitigated in that most of California actually 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.880 has a pretty mild climate, so that reduces the need 0:23:26.080 --> 0:23:29.080 for energy consumption on a per capita basis for things 0:23:29.160 --> 0:23:33.160 like heating and cooling. That's not as big of an 0:23:33.200 --> 0:23:36.800 issue in California during most years. During the era of 0:23:36.840 --> 0:23:39.480 climate change, it's a different story. But we're talking about 0:23:39.480 --> 0:23:42.560 the seventies here, So the key here is that California 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:45.639 has frequently led the pack when it comes to energy 0:23:45.680 --> 0:23:51.880 efficiency and power consumption policies. In ninet two really big 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:56.600 things happened that relate to this podcast. One is that 0:23:56.640 --> 0:23:59.840 I was born and without me this episode wouldn't exist. 0:24:00.080 --> 0:24:02.240 I wouldn't be here to talk to you. But the 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:05.200 more important thing for this topic is that the United 0:24:05.240 --> 0:24:09.760 States government passed the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. The 0:24:09.800 --> 0:24:13.199 goals of this piece of legislation were many. One was 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:16.320 to give the president more executive options in the face 0:24:16.440 --> 0:24:19.239 of an energy crisis in order to speed up the 0:24:19.320 --> 0:24:22.719 response process, so if something goes wrong, the president can 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:25.640 do something about it quickly without having to go through 0:24:25.840 --> 0:24:29.199 all the bells and whistles that you would normally have 0:24:29.280 --> 0:24:34.360 to do. Another was to increase US energy production while 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:40.080 simultaneously lowering energy consumption, so produce more but use less. 0:24:40.200 --> 0:24:42.959 In other words. Part of that focus was on creating 0:24:43.040 --> 0:24:47.760 rules about efficiencies, with a large focus on automobiles. This 0:24:47.840 --> 0:24:50.439 is where we start to see rules for a minimum 0:24:50.480 --> 0:24:54.639 miles per gallon rate for vehicles. So in the early 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:58.199 nineteen seventies, the average miles per gallon rate for a 0:24:58.240 --> 0:25:01.600 passenger car in the United States was around thirteen to 0:25:01.720 --> 0:25:05.400 fourteen miles per gallon, which is pretty bad, and there 0:25:05.400 --> 0:25:08.720 were some gas guzzlers that were way worse than that. 0:25:09.400 --> 0:25:12.920 The new legislation set standards that car manufacturers would need 0:25:12.960 --> 0:25:15.640 to meet in order to you know, sell their cars 0:25:15.760 --> 0:25:19.879 or to receive certain incentives or subsidies, And in nineteen 0:25:19.920 --> 0:25:24.000 seventy eight that minimum was set at eighteen miles per gallon, 0:25:24.440 --> 0:25:28.560 and it went up each successive year like with it 0:25:28.680 --> 0:25:32.399 reaching twenty seven point five gallons by the mid nineteen eighties. 0:25:33.480 --> 0:25:36.880 Now the law also gave authority to the newly formed 0:25:37.000 --> 0:25:40.080 Department of Energy in the United States to set energy 0:25:40.160 --> 0:25:44.199 conservation standards for equipment and appliances. So the Department of 0:25:44.280 --> 0:25:47.960 Energy began to set minimum efficiency standards for a selection 0:25:48.160 --> 0:25:52.920 of different technologies. In nineteen seventy eight, an oil workers 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:57.159 strike in Iran escalated to an outright revolution, with the 0:25:57.200 --> 0:26:00.960 Iranian shaw fleeing in nineteen seventy nine and the country 0:26:01.000 --> 0:26:05.399 coming under new leadership, the Ayatola. And in addition, a 0:26:05.440 --> 0:26:09.720 group of Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran 0:26:09.960 --> 0:26:14.720 in nineteen seventy nine and took more than sixty Americans hostage. 0:26:15.160 --> 0:26:19.199 The US President Jimmy Carter leveled an embargo on oil 0:26:19.280 --> 0:26:23.480 imports from Iran, and oil prices escalated to more than 0:26:23.560 --> 0:26:27.399 twice the going amount as a result. Following that was 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:30.600 an oil shortage in the United States with long lines 0:26:30.640 --> 0:26:35.960 at gas stations and super high gas prices. President Carter 0:26:36.119 --> 0:26:40.040 signed the Energy Security Act, which encouraged the pursuit of 0:26:40.080 --> 0:26:43.679 fossil fuel alternatives. Now at this stage, the reason for 0:26:43.760 --> 0:26:48.720 doing that was primarily because of the continuing political and 0:26:48.800 --> 0:26:53.560 economic dependence upon fossil fuel imports. It was not because 0:26:53.680 --> 0:26:58.639 of the environmental impact of fossil fuels. That also is 0:26:58.680 --> 0:27:03.280 a factor, But the main concern here was if we're 0:27:03.320 --> 0:27:07.120 dependent upon fossil fuels and we're getting a significant percentage 0:27:07.119 --> 0:27:10.879 of our fossil fuels from foreign sources and then foreign 0:27:10.960 --> 0:27:14.520 conflicts breakout, we're kind of up the creek. So we 0:27:14.560 --> 0:27:18.080 need to find a different way. And that's why this 0:27:18.160 --> 0:27:22.200 Act was about looking into alternatives for fossil fuels. In 0:27:22.240 --> 0:27:25.520 this era, there was a lot of activity. Uh, there 0:27:25.560 --> 0:27:27.600 was a lot of innovation, and there was a lot 0:27:27.640 --> 0:27:31.200 of failure in the realm of energy efficiencies and lower 0:27:31.680 --> 0:27:35.640 energy consumption. By that, I mean organizations attempted to take 0:27:35.680 --> 0:27:41.480 some steps towards energy conservation, but with varying degrees of success. 0:27:41.560 --> 0:27:44.240 Sometimes it was the smallest of actions, like it was 0:27:44.280 --> 0:27:47.480 telling companies, hey put up signs that tell people to 0:27:47.520 --> 0:27:49.399 flip off the light switches at the end of a 0:27:49.520 --> 0:27:53.639 day so that they're not wasting electricity. And that's important, 0:27:53.800 --> 0:27:56.239 and it does reduce waste, but it's kind of a 0:27:56.240 --> 0:27:59.320 tiny drop in the bucket compared to some other activities. 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:03.360 Were companies that were producing products that claimed to help 0:28:03.400 --> 0:28:08.760 reduce energy consumption, like plug this in between. You know, 0:28:08.840 --> 0:28:12.199 your outlet and whatever it is you're you're using the 0:28:12.280 --> 0:28:14.919 electricity for, Like this would be a go between that 0:28:15.000 --> 0:28:18.639 somehow would magically reduce the amount of electricity you were consuming. 0:28:19.040 --> 0:28:21.960 But a lot of these were of dubious effectiveness and 0:28:22.000 --> 0:28:24.240 amounted to a little more than a black box that 0:28:24.320 --> 0:28:27.480 didn't really do anything at all. Also, they were scams. 0:28:27.560 --> 0:28:30.320 In other words, most of them were. This is something 0:28:30.640 --> 0:28:35.359 we still encounter today. In fact, manufacturing companies were having 0:28:35.400 --> 0:28:38.880 a little bit more impact. Guided by the requirements of 0:28:38.920 --> 0:28:42.360 the Energy Act of nineteen five and a subsequent amendment 0:28:42.400 --> 0:28:46.280 to that Act in nineteen seventy nine, companies making big 0:28:46.320 --> 0:28:50.560 appliances like refrigerators and washers and dryers and air conditioners 0:28:50.560 --> 0:28:53.600 and that kind of thing began to innovate in being 0:28:53.640 --> 0:28:57.760 able to do more while consuming less energy. The days 0:28:57.800 --> 0:29:01.280 of seemingly endless energy were long gone, and now the 0:29:01.360 --> 0:29:04.440 name of the game was figuring out how to outperform 0:29:04.520 --> 0:29:09.040 the competition while still being energy efficient. California continued to 0:29:09.120 --> 0:29:13.560 lead the way news standards in night set new goals. 0:29:14.080 --> 0:29:18.520 The state consulted with various engineers and energy experts to 0:29:18.640 --> 0:29:23.200 draft the standards, and further, those standards would increase the 0:29:23.280 --> 0:29:28.400 efficiency requirements every three years automatically, so you would have 0:29:28.480 --> 0:29:31.440 a certain set of standards. Three years later, those standards 0:29:31.480 --> 0:29:35.040 would get more strict. Three years after that they would 0:29:35.080 --> 0:29:38.320 increase again. They would do so no matter who was 0:29:38.400 --> 0:29:43.360 in office. Uh that included the building code in California, 0:29:43.640 --> 0:29:46.440 so every three years, the building code would get more 0:29:47.200 --> 0:29:50.960 strict and there were numerous benefits to this approach. One 0:29:51.080 --> 0:29:55.160 was that due to those higher standards, Californians were starting 0:29:55.160 --> 0:29:59.120 to consume less energy on an individual basis, which meant 0:29:59.160 --> 0:30:02.840 their electricity bills were going down. People in California were 0:30:02.880 --> 0:30:07.040 spending less for electricity even as electricity costs would increase. 0:30:07.440 --> 0:30:10.680 The consumption was going down, so the bills were going down. 0:30:11.240 --> 0:30:13.600 The standards also meant that California didn't have to go 0:30:13.640 --> 0:30:17.560 into a phase of building out new power plant facilities 0:30:17.960 --> 0:30:20.640 they didn't have to increase production, in other words, because 0:30:20.720 --> 0:30:25.560 they were reducing consumption, and obviously if they had increased 0:30:25.600 --> 0:30:29.480 production and built more power plants, that would have had 0:30:29.560 --> 0:30:34.640 an enormous negative environmental impact. So this also helped cut 0:30:34.640 --> 0:30:37.840 down on smog generation, which was a problem that was 0:30:37.920 --> 0:30:40.320 huge in California, to the point that if you grew 0:30:40.400 --> 0:30:43.640 up in the same era that I did, you probably 0:30:43.680 --> 0:30:48.280 associated the words smog with Los Angeles like that was 0:30:48.800 --> 0:30:51.960 a defining feature of l A and it didn't appear 0:30:52.080 --> 0:30:55.160 to come at the cost of California's economy. In fact, 0:30:55.160 --> 0:30:59.720 California's economic growth outpaced that of the US as a whole, 0:31:00.160 --> 0:31:02.440 so the state was able to do this and not 0:31:02.680 --> 0:31:05.800 have it make a negative impact on economy. That's often 0:31:05.920 --> 0:31:12.160 a counter argument to adopting environmentally friendly or energy efficient 0:31:12.320 --> 0:31:15.840 processes is that it could have a negative economic impact, 0:31:16.360 --> 0:31:21.040 But in reality, in the regions where we see states 0:31:21.280 --> 0:31:28.080 and other countries adopt more restrictive regulations, we don't tend 0:31:28.120 --> 0:31:31.120 to see a huge hit to the economy. That seems 0:31:31.160 --> 0:31:36.960 to be a fallacious argument. So there were both federal 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:40.400 and state energy efficiency regulations at play here, and if 0:31:40.440 --> 0:31:43.120 you are in the United states. The ones that apply 0:31:43.200 --> 0:31:46.560 to you depend entirely on where you reside. For example, 0:31:46.960 --> 0:31:49.360 I live in the state of Georgia. Now, according to 0:31:49.400 --> 0:31:53.320 the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, my state 0:31:53.440 --> 0:31:57.120 ranks number forty two out of fifty one in the 0:31:57.200 --> 0:32:00.000 United States. And you might say, hey, the United States, 0:32:00.000 --> 0:32:03.760 it only has fifty states. Well, the a c e 0:32:03.760 --> 0:32:08.120 E is also including Washington, d C in this scorecard. 0:32:08.960 --> 0:32:12.760 That ain't great. And uh, the neighboring states to Georgia, 0:32:12.960 --> 0:32:15.360 at least to our right and left, are kind of 0:32:15.400 --> 0:32:19.240 in a similar boat. So South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and 0:32:19.280 --> 0:32:23.720 Louisiana all rank in the forties. But some other states 0:32:23.760 --> 0:32:28.520 like Vermont, Massachusetts, Washington State, and several others have adopted 0:32:28.640 --> 0:32:32.360 energy standards similar to California's, and they have a much 0:32:32.400 --> 0:32:37.120 better track record when it comes to energy consumption. Now, 0:32:37.360 --> 0:32:39.920 before I move on, I should also point out that 0:32:40.880 --> 0:32:43.000 you can't just compare apples to apples. There are a 0:32:43.040 --> 0:32:45.800 lot of factors at play here. For example, the Southeastern 0:32:45.960 --> 0:32:49.760 United States has a climate that's pretty brutal for about 0:32:49.800 --> 0:32:52.600 half the year. Although with climate change, I think we've 0:32:52.600 --> 0:32:56.240 got some pretty stiff competition now but we often have 0:32:56.440 --> 0:32:59.400 very hot, very humid summers, and that means we're frequently 0:32:59.480 --> 0:33:03.240 using more energy to keep cool during those months. But honestly, 0:33:03.360 --> 0:33:05.240 over the past few years, we've seen a lot of 0:33:05.280 --> 0:33:08.360 areas of the country hit just as hard, if not harder, 0:33:08.400 --> 0:33:12.120 than we are, So that story is changing over time. 0:33:13.160 --> 0:33:16.560 Now I've got a lot more to say about energy efficiency, 0:33:16.600 --> 0:33:19.880 but before I get to that, let's take another quick break. 0:33:27.680 --> 0:33:31.720 So I've mentioned a couple of things here about energy 0:33:31.760 --> 0:33:34.480 efficiency and the factors that that play a role, but 0:33:34.520 --> 0:33:36.720 there are a lot of other complicating factors that also 0:33:36.760 --> 0:33:40.000 come into play. So the economic and political issues with 0:33:40.040 --> 0:33:44.520 oil provided the initial urgency to move towards energy efficiency, 0:33:44.920 --> 0:33:47.400 But then there was also this growing awareness of the 0:33:47.520 --> 0:33:51.360 environmental impact of fossil fuels that was developing around the 0:33:51.400 --> 0:33:55.920 same time. Now, there were environmental activists working hard in 0:33:55.960 --> 0:34:00.040 the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, of course, but you 0:34:00.080 --> 0:34:02.720 know that, I think an event that really brought this 0:34:02.800 --> 0:34:07.440 issue into the national focus was a man made disaster 0:34:07.800 --> 0:34:12.160 that happened in nine That's when the Exxon valdis And 0:34:12.360 --> 0:34:16.560 oil tanker carrying more than ten million gallons of crude 0:34:16.560 --> 0:34:20.560 oil struck a reef off the coast of Alaska and 0:34:20.680 --> 0:34:24.439 spilled its contents into the region, and it caused an 0:34:24.520 --> 0:34:29.600 unprecedented man made environmental disaster. So this was in the 0:34:29.640 --> 0:34:33.840 news day after day, complete with disturbing videos of the 0:34:33.920 --> 0:34:38.440 impact on the Alaskan coastline and the wildlife, and it 0:34:38.480 --> 0:34:41.920 would stand as the worst oil spill in American history 0:34:42.040 --> 0:34:46.280 until twenty ten. That's when Deepwater Horizon, when that oil 0:34:46.360 --> 0:34:50.000 platform released even more oil in the Gulf of Mexico. 0:34:50.640 --> 0:34:54.560 But arguably the Valdis was one that was far more 0:34:54.719 --> 0:34:59.560 visible because of the impact it had on that region. Now, 0:34:59.600 --> 0:35:04.880 while these were acute disasters with a truly enormous scale, 0:35:05.600 --> 0:35:09.359 there was this growing understanding in the general public as 0:35:09.400 --> 0:35:12.640 to the effects of fossil fuels on the environment in general, 0:35:13.120 --> 0:35:16.880 even without disasters. The idea of greenhouse gas emissions, of 0:35:17.040 --> 0:35:20.760 the emissions of various chemicals that could lead to acid 0:35:20.920 --> 0:35:24.680 rain like these were things that were starting to become 0:35:24.840 --> 0:35:29.439 clear in the American consciousness around this time. And so 0:35:29.719 --> 0:35:32.400 around the late eighties and early nineties, we saw the 0:35:32.400 --> 0:35:38.600 conversation around energy consumption include not just energy costs and efficiency, 0:35:38.760 --> 0:35:42.120 as in, you can save money by switching to you know, 0:35:42.960 --> 0:35:48.600 more efficient technologies. But now we also had environmental impact 0:35:49.120 --> 0:35:52.880 become part of the conversation, so the story gets a 0:35:52.880 --> 0:35:56.960 bit more complicated in other words, And interestingly, these days, 0:35:57.040 --> 0:36:00.520 you're far more likely to see energy efficiency come stations 0:36:00.560 --> 0:36:05.200 contextualized as an environmental issue. Which, don't get me wrong, 0:36:05.640 --> 0:36:09.880 it is an environmental issue, but it's also all these 0:36:10.000 --> 0:36:13.120 other things that we've already talked about. You know, it's 0:36:13.120 --> 0:36:17.040 also a national security issue, it's an economic issue, it's 0:36:17.080 --> 0:36:20.640 a political issue, etcetera. It's all of these things at 0:36:20.680 --> 0:36:23.960 the same time. Personally, I believe if you reduce it 0:36:24.080 --> 0:36:29.919 down to just one factor, it's misleading. Now, admittedly it's 0:36:29.960 --> 0:36:32.600 way easier to talk about if you reduce it down 0:36:32.640 --> 0:36:35.160 to one. You know that that makes it an easier 0:36:35.200 --> 0:36:41.239 to message, but it actually reduces how important this is 0:36:41.560 --> 0:36:46.479 on multiple fronts. So this brings us up to that's 0:36:46.480 --> 0:36:50.239 when the Environmental Protection Agency or e p A, introduces 0:36:50.320 --> 0:36:54.520 a program called green Lights. The e p A formed 0:36:54.520 --> 0:36:58.279 on December two, nineteen seventy, under the executive order of 0:36:58.440 --> 0:37:01.200 President Richard Nixon, and the purpose of the e p 0:37:01.400 --> 0:37:05.520 A was to consolidate the U. S. Government's environmental responsibilities. 0:37:05.600 --> 0:37:10.719 The government was responding to various environmental crises and issues, 0:37:11.160 --> 0:37:15.200 and this was a way of kind of focusing the 0:37:15.239 --> 0:37:19.200 government's role with that regard. Now, over the years and 0:37:19.560 --> 0:37:23.640 over the various presidential administrations since nineteen seventy, the e 0:37:23.760 --> 0:37:26.799 p a's role has changed a great deal. But on 0:37:26.920 --> 0:37:31.920 January six and initiated the Green Lights Program, which pushed 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:36.600 for US organizations, including companies and government agencies to adopt 0:37:36.840 --> 0:37:41.160 energy efficient lighting. Now, at the heart of the matter 0:37:41.200 --> 0:37:44.520 here was energy waste. According to the e p A, 0:37:44.920 --> 0:37:49.719 twenty five of all electricity consumption at that time was 0:37:49.760 --> 0:37:54.200 going to lighting, and stuff like incandescent light bulbs were 0:37:54.760 --> 0:37:59.560 highly inefficient, with most of that energy the vast majority 0:37:59.600 --> 0:38:03.120 of the ergy sent to these light bulbs going into 0:38:03.480 --> 0:38:07.359 turning into waste heat rather than light. In fact, incandescent 0:38:07.400 --> 0:38:10.799 bulbs only convert somewhere between five and ten percent of 0:38:10.840 --> 0:38:14.480 the energy they receive into visible light, and the rest 0:38:14.719 --> 0:38:20.680 is waste heat. Fluorescence or CFL bulbs are far more 0:38:20.760 --> 0:38:26.120 energy efficient than incandescent bulbs. Commercial and consumer led light bulbs, 0:38:26.160 --> 0:38:28.440 like the kind used you know that you would use 0:38:28.480 --> 0:38:31.040 to light your room, those really didn't have a presence 0:38:31.040 --> 0:38:35.680 in the early nineties. They are obviously available today, but 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:41.160 those are even way more efficient than both incandescence and CFLs. 0:38:41.880 --> 0:38:44.880 But let's get back to green lights. So the e 0:38:45.040 --> 0:38:49.200 p A was advocating for a move for less wasteful 0:38:49.640 --> 0:38:52.800 you know, light lighting solutions, which would not only provide 0:38:52.800 --> 0:38:57.520 an environmental benefit, but would also lead to lower energy consumption. 0:38:58.080 --> 0:39:02.480 Thus it would costs to use these kinds of light bulbs. 0:39:02.840 --> 0:39:05.680 In the long run, the bulbs or the tubes or 0:39:05.719 --> 0:39:10.200 whatever would last longer, they would use less power, and 0:39:10.239 --> 0:39:12.640 that meant over the course of a single light bulb 0:39:13.160 --> 0:39:17.040 the organization would spend less money on it. That would 0:39:17.120 --> 0:39:21.040 mean that the organization would actually profit off of cutting 0:39:21.040 --> 0:39:24.919 back on waste. It might be a higher upfront investment 0:39:25.440 --> 0:39:30.480 to buy CFLs over incandescence, but over the life of 0:39:30.520 --> 0:39:34.880 that CFL you would more than save the money you 0:39:34.880 --> 0:39:38.319 would have spent on a larger number of incandescent bulbs. 0:39:38.360 --> 0:39:40.600 So this was a pretty good message and it would 0:39:40.600 --> 0:39:44.200 also be part of the move to abandon incandescent bulbs. 0:39:44.400 --> 0:39:46.960 I mean, you can still find some types of incandescent 0:39:46.960 --> 0:39:51.520 bulbs today, especially like those specialized like Edison bulb types, 0:39:52.200 --> 0:39:55.080 but for the most part, we've moved away from those. 0:39:55.520 --> 0:39:59.360 The e p A stated, quote, every kilowatt hour of 0:39:59.400 --> 0:40:03.600 electricity not used prevents the emission of one and a 0:40:03.600 --> 0:40:07.840 half pounds of carbon dioxide, the most important greenhouse gas, 0:40:08.640 --> 0:40:12.960 also five point eight grams of sulfur dioxide, a principal 0:40:12.960 --> 0:40:16.319 component of acid rain, and two point five grams of 0:40:16.440 --> 0:40:20.920 nitrogen oxides, precursor to both acid rain and smog, as 0:40:20.960 --> 0:40:24.840 well as the pollution attendant upon mining and transporting power 0:40:24.880 --> 0:40:29.120 plant fuels and disposing of power plant wastes in the quote. 0:40:29.760 --> 0:40:31.759 So the e p A was taking a pretty big 0:40:31.800 --> 0:40:35.240 picture approach with this messaging, of which I approved because 0:40:35.640 --> 0:40:38.680 when we get a really narrow focus, we miss out 0:40:38.760 --> 0:40:42.000 on a lot of stuff. In the e p A 0:40:42.120 --> 0:40:45.080 made another move, one that would have a big effect 0:40:45.120 --> 0:40:48.440 on the consumer electronics industry, and that is when the 0:40:48.520 --> 0:40:52.239 e p A launched the Energy Star Label. Now, the 0:40:52.280 --> 0:40:57.400 program identified energy efficient products with a special Energy Star 0:40:57.760 --> 0:41:01.880 label or sticker. Products that matched or exceeded the energy 0:41:01.920 --> 0:41:04.960 efficiency standards that were set by the e p A 0:41:05.400 --> 0:41:10.040 would qualify for this designation, which would serve as a 0:41:10.080 --> 0:41:13.759 guide for consumers. When it came time to shop for 0:41:13.920 --> 0:41:18.200 various types of technology. When we come back, I'll talk 0:41:18.239 --> 0:41:21.960 a little bit more about energy Star to explain how 0:41:22.000 --> 0:41:33.080 it works. When the e p A first launched energy Star, 0:41:33.480 --> 0:41:37.600 which would eventually actually incorporate the green Lights program that 0:41:37.600 --> 0:41:40.160 that had launched the year before. Green Lights would then 0:41:40.239 --> 0:41:43.960 incorporate into energy Star, well, when it launched it, the 0:41:44.120 --> 0:41:47.719 focus was on computer systems and computer displays, or rather, 0:41:47.800 --> 0:41:51.640 I should say computer monitors display as being far too 0:41:52.360 --> 0:41:56.280 grand to describe what we were using back in those days. 0:41:56.480 --> 0:41:58.960 So this kind of gets at an issue that we 0:41:59.040 --> 0:42:02.960 saw with alien where and its computers. Because the six 0:42:03.160 --> 0:42:06.400 states that Dell is not going to be shipping alien 0:42:06.400 --> 0:42:09.720 Ware computers to or these specific models, I should say, 0:42:09.840 --> 0:42:13.560 all have energy standards for computers that the alien Ware 0:42:13.600 --> 0:42:17.759 models don't meet. They exceed those standards, they're not as 0:42:17.880 --> 0:42:21.279 energy efficient as is required, so they cannot be shipped there. 0:42:22.320 --> 0:42:25.680 According to an e p A publication that was celebrating 0:42:25.719 --> 0:42:30.160 the twentieth anniversary of the launch of energy Star, the 0:42:30.239 --> 0:42:36.200 program was apocryphal. Lee sprung from an office tour that 0:42:36.320 --> 0:42:39.480 the then director of the e p a's Atmospheric Pollution 0:42:39.520 --> 0:42:43.480 Prevention Division took back in nineteen nineties. So the idea 0:42:43.520 --> 0:42:47.760 is this director is walking around an office after hours, 0:42:47.800 --> 0:42:50.640 just taking a look to see what's going on, and 0:42:50.680 --> 0:42:54.000 according to the story, he was upset that a number 0:42:54.360 --> 0:42:57.000 of the employees at the e P A, we're not 0:42:57.120 --> 0:42:59.520 shutting down their computers at the end of the day. 0:43:00.000 --> 0:43:04.360 And his point was, we know that increased energy consumption 0:43:04.440 --> 0:43:07.839 leads to increased greenhouse gas emissions, and that this in 0:43:07.920 --> 0:43:12.520 turn affects climate change, and yet we, the people who 0:43:12.600 --> 0:43:15.279 know this and who are in charge of trying to 0:43:15.840 --> 0:43:20.279 protect the environment, are doing this. So the machines were 0:43:20.320 --> 0:43:24.440 continuing to run after hours, consuming electricity and thus contributing 0:43:24.440 --> 0:43:26.759 to air pollution. And so he saw the need to 0:43:26.800 --> 0:43:31.279 launch a program that would encourage technical solutions to human problems. 0:43:31.640 --> 0:43:34.840 If people were too lazy to turn off their computers, 0:43:34.960 --> 0:43:38.080 or if for some reason they believe that turning computers 0:43:38.160 --> 0:43:41.200 off and on again too many times would decrease the 0:43:41.360 --> 0:43:44.799 useful lifespan of those machines, there needed to be some 0:43:44.920 --> 0:43:50.040 sort of technology solution to encourage computer manufacturers to build 0:43:50.080 --> 0:43:54.000 in standby or low power modes that would engage automatically 0:43:54.040 --> 0:43:57.120 after some period of inactivity. Now the e p A 0:43:57.239 --> 0:44:01.640 says this story is only kind of sore true, and 0:44:01.719 --> 0:44:03.720 that there were in fact a lot of people working 0:44:03.719 --> 0:44:06.759 on ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and how to 0:44:06.880 --> 0:44:10.200 create a path for companies to go that particular route. 0:44:10.600 --> 0:44:14.040 It wasn't enough to say this will cause less pollution. 0:44:14.719 --> 0:44:18.680 There needed to be some economic incentives as well. So 0:44:19.440 --> 0:44:22.880 here's your proposition. If you're the e p A. You 0:44:22.960 --> 0:44:27.880 tell companies, hey, here's how much money you're spending just 0:44:28.040 --> 0:44:31.560 to keep those machines running when no one is there 0:44:31.600 --> 0:44:36.359 to use them. That's just money down the drain. And 0:44:36.480 --> 0:44:41.480 businesses hate throwing money down the drain. Now, I mean, 0:44:41.560 --> 0:44:44.239 some businesses are actually pretty free with their cash, and 0:44:44.280 --> 0:44:46.080 you could argue that some of the stuff that business 0:44:46.080 --> 0:44:48.959 has spend money on effectively is the same as throwing 0:44:49.000 --> 0:44:51.279 it down the drain, but they prefer to feel like 0:44:51.320 --> 0:44:56.520 they're getting something out of using cash, and just spending 0:44:56.520 --> 0:44:59.360 money to keep computers running when no one is around 0:44:59.440 --> 0:45:03.200 to use them doesn't really make the cut. So then 0:45:03.320 --> 0:45:07.080 you've got these companies which need to use computers, wanting 0:45:07.120 --> 0:45:10.520 a solution to an economic problem, and this creates an 0:45:10.520 --> 0:45:14.600 incentive for the computer manufacturers who want to land those 0:45:14.600 --> 0:45:17.719 suite orders with big businesses to provide, you know, a 0:45:17.800 --> 0:45:22.760 truckload of computers for an office. So the computer manufacturers 0:45:23.080 --> 0:45:26.480 have an incentive to create a more power efficient computer 0:45:26.880 --> 0:45:30.160 to meet the expectations of these customers, who in turn 0:45:30.680 --> 0:45:34.200 see these computers as an investment both in resources and 0:45:34.320 --> 0:45:39.520 in decreased wastage. And along the way, we see electricity 0:45:39.719 --> 0:45:44.279 being used by the organization's computer systems UH at a 0:45:44.280 --> 0:45:47.080 lower level, and that means less of a load on 0:45:47.120 --> 0:45:50.880 the power grid and ultimately less of an environmental impact. 0:45:51.160 --> 0:45:54.239 So this is kind of like three D chess, y'all. Now, 0:45:54.280 --> 0:45:57.560 I should also remind you the bag in the early nineties, 0:45:57.560 --> 0:46:01.120 computer monitors, as I kind of alluded to early were different. 0:46:01.200 --> 0:46:05.040 We are not talking about flat led displays that are 0:46:05.080 --> 0:46:10.480 really energy efficient. I'm talking about big, old, honking electricity 0:46:10.640 --> 0:46:16.560 hungry cathode ray tube or CRT monitors. Sometimes these things 0:46:16.600 --> 0:46:21.200 weighed more than a small child and they were not 0:46:21.560 --> 0:46:25.359 energy efficient devices. So the e p A launches this 0:46:25.600 --> 0:46:31.839 market driven approach towards energy efficiency totally voluntary. This is 0:46:31.880 --> 0:46:35.120 not like you must meet these qualifications or you're not 0:46:35.200 --> 0:46:39.880 allowed to produce monitors. Instead, it's if you meet these, 0:46:40.080 --> 0:46:43.080 then you get an energy Star rating. You know, that 0:46:43.239 --> 0:46:46.640 Energy Star rating was originally for computers and monitors that 0:46:46.680 --> 0:46:49.200 would go into a low power sleep mode after a 0:46:49.200 --> 0:46:53.200 period of inactivity. That was pretty much it. This mode 0:46:53.800 --> 0:46:57.719 meant that they should consume thirty watts or less when 0:46:57.719 --> 0:47:00.400 they're operating, so when they're in sleep mode, it should 0:47:00.400 --> 0:47:02.680 be thirty watts or less to keep them in sleep mode. 0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:06.000 As long as it met those criteria, then the Energy 0:47:06.000 --> 0:47:09.480 Star label could be slapped onto those products, and that 0:47:09.640 --> 0:47:12.440 Energy Star label would then give consumers the heads up 0:47:12.440 --> 0:47:16.960 regarding which systems were compliant with these specifications. Even if 0:47:17.000 --> 0:47:20.560 they didn't know what the specifications were, they knew, oh, 0:47:20.960 --> 0:47:24.759 this particular monitor has an Energy Star label on it, 0:47:24.800 --> 0:47:28.799 which means it consumes less electricity. And no one was 0:47:28.840 --> 0:47:32.560 required to do this. It was totally voluntary. But following 0:47:32.560 --> 0:47:35.120 those specs, men a company could include that Energy Star 0:47:35.200 --> 0:47:39.000 label and that became a marketing tool and the program 0:47:39.200 --> 0:47:42.359 saw some early success, and before long the e PA 0:47:42.480 --> 0:47:46.000 began to extend the Energy Star program to other types 0:47:46.040 --> 0:47:49.960 of technology. At first, it's stuck around with office technology 0:47:50.200 --> 0:47:52.720 and then moved on to things like like printers instead 0:47:52.760 --> 0:47:55.440 of just computers and monitors. So the idea here was 0:47:55.520 --> 0:47:59.600 that corporations and offices have a lot of technology and 0:47:59.640 --> 0:48:03.120 them and it gets a lot of use, right And thus, 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:05.600 if you get a few big companies to make the 0:48:05.640 --> 0:48:12.000 investment into lower energy uh consumption, high energy efficiency products, 0:48:12.320 --> 0:48:14.600 that would have a bigger impact than trying to convince 0:48:14.680 --> 0:48:18.359 individual consumers to follow suit. So the strategy was that 0:48:18.400 --> 0:48:21.359 the companies would lead the way and then consumers would 0:48:21.360 --> 0:48:23.640 also follow along. And for the most part that was 0:48:23.680 --> 0:48:27.719 true consumers looking to save money on their electric bills 0:48:27.880 --> 0:48:31.440 or those who are concerned about the impact that their 0:48:31.480 --> 0:48:34.640 lifestyle was having on the environment. And to be fair, 0:48:34.680 --> 0:48:37.920 there was some overlap with those two groups. They began 0:48:37.960 --> 0:48:40.520 to rely on the energy Star label as one of 0:48:40.520 --> 0:48:43.200 the factors that would matter when they start making a 0:48:43.280 --> 0:48:45.960 purchasing decision. I mean, if you've got to go out 0:48:45.960 --> 0:48:48.480 and buy a new fridge, it kind of makes sense 0:48:48.520 --> 0:48:52.239 that one of the criteria you consider is how much 0:48:52.400 --> 0:48:54.920 energy is that fridge going to require? How much is 0:48:54.960 --> 0:48:59.000 that fridge going to cost you in electricity bills over 0:48:59.040 --> 0:49:02.439 the course of you owning it and getting one that's 0:49:02.440 --> 0:49:04.960 going to cost you less while having the features you want. 0:49:05.080 --> 0:49:09.080 Just makes sense. So the e p A expanded beyond 0:49:09.200 --> 0:49:13.400 consumer products with its Energy Star program, and in it 0:49:13.480 --> 0:49:17.400 extended the program to evaluate homes so that people looking 0:49:17.440 --> 0:49:19.839 to buy a house could look for homes that meet 0:49:20.000 --> 0:49:24.840 Energy Star specifications. So stuff like insulation and energy efficient 0:49:24.920 --> 0:49:27.480 doors and windows and all this kind of stuff would 0:49:27.480 --> 0:49:31.080 all count towards an Energy Star designation, which would tell 0:49:31.120 --> 0:49:33.400 the consumer, Hey, I'm gonna have to spend less to 0:49:33.600 --> 0:49:37.840 heat or cool this house because of that label, and 0:49:37.960 --> 0:49:41.080 I have the good feeling of knowing that it meets 0:49:41.120 --> 0:49:44.000 these requirements, and I'm going to be less wasteful and 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:47.480 thus have less of a negative impact on the environment. Now, 0:49:47.520 --> 0:49:49.440 I think a big thing to take away from the 0:49:49.560 --> 0:49:53.080 Energy Star program was how it helped create a market 0:49:53.120 --> 0:49:57.200 based solution for energy efficiency. By creating a designation that 0:49:57.239 --> 0:50:01.080 gives consumers an idea of the impact of in particular product, 0:50:01.400 --> 0:50:03.759 the e p A created a way from manufacturers to 0:50:03.800 --> 0:50:07.480 try and stand out against the competition, and then that 0:50:07.560 --> 0:50:11.000 created a market pressure that meant other companies needed to 0:50:11.040 --> 0:50:14.640 follow suit or else get left behind. If your products 0:50:14.680 --> 0:50:18.920 do not meet those Energy Star standards and your competitors do, 0:50:19.760 --> 0:50:22.759 then you might see a negative impact in sales, and 0:50:22.800 --> 0:50:26.040 so Energy Star in that sense was a really big success. 0:50:26.080 --> 0:50:30.960 It pushed companies to create more energy efficient products. Meanwhile, 0:50:31.239 --> 0:50:34.080 we saw both the federal government and some states but 0:50:34.239 --> 0:50:38.480 into place tougher energy consumption standards. So in two thousand 0:50:38.520 --> 0:50:41.280 five of the U. S. Government passed the Energy Policy Act. 0:50:41.520 --> 0:50:45.919 That legislation set new appliance energy standards, also created new 0:50:45.960 --> 0:50:49.680 tax incentives designed to encourage more efficient use of energy 0:50:49.760 --> 0:50:54.480 and lower energy consumption in general. Growing energy prices prompted 0:50:54.560 --> 0:50:57.760 another law in two thousand seven that was the Energy 0:50:57.840 --> 0:51:02.080 Independence and Security Act. This again increased standards in various 0:51:02.080 --> 0:51:06.000 areas regarding energy consumption, and as the name suggests, the 0:51:06.040 --> 0:51:09.280 goal is to find an equilibrium or or better case 0:51:09.640 --> 0:51:12.759 in which the United States energy needs are met by 0:51:13.000 --> 0:51:17.120 the United States energy production, making it unnecessary to import 0:51:17.200 --> 0:51:20.560 stuff like oil from other countries. This was a big 0:51:20.600 --> 0:51:24.400 focus of the proposed hydrogen economy, the idea being that 0:51:24.480 --> 0:51:27.240 the United States could transition from a fossil fuel based 0:51:27.239 --> 0:51:30.319 economy to one based on hydrogen, we would have no 0:51:30.440 --> 0:51:34.080 need to import oil from foreign sources. Of course, the 0:51:34.120 --> 0:51:38.360 problem there is that switching to anything besides fossil fuels 0:51:38.840 --> 0:51:44.080 is big and expensive and hard. We've got an infrastructure 0:51:44.080 --> 0:51:47.400 for fossil fuels that dates back more than a century. 0:51:47.440 --> 0:51:50.920 There's a lot of inertia that's built up there. Further well, 0:51:51.000 --> 0:51:54.759 hydrogen is the most abundant element in our universe. It's 0:51:54.800 --> 0:51:57.760 also the type of element that bonds with other stuff. 0:51:57.880 --> 0:52:00.319 So in order for us to get hydrogen so that 0:52:00.360 --> 0:52:02.880 we can make use of it for the purposes of energy, 0:52:03.000 --> 0:52:06.000 we first have to exert some energy in order to 0:52:06.000 --> 0:52:09.600 break those chemical bonds and free up hydrogen. So unless 0:52:09.640 --> 0:52:11.560 we do that in a way where the energy and 0:52:11.560 --> 0:52:14.440 the hydrogen is greater than whatever energy we had to 0:52:14.440 --> 0:52:17.200 pour into the system in order to get the hydrogen, 0:52:17.600 --> 0:52:21.440 you're at a losing proposition. But the hydrogen economy is 0:52:21.480 --> 0:52:24.000 really a matter for another episode, and in fact I 0:52:24.080 --> 0:52:28.680 have covered it in the past. Generally speaking, energy efficiency 0:52:28.920 --> 0:52:32.200 remains a pretty big topic. I would say that most 0:52:32.239 --> 0:52:34.880 of the time we see this conversation revolve around the 0:52:35.000 --> 0:52:39.000 environmental impact of fossil fuels and the issue of climate change, 0:52:39.200 --> 0:52:43.879 and these are undeniably important and big and real concerns, 0:52:44.320 --> 0:52:48.680 and energy consumption definitely plays a part here, as electricity 0:52:48.680 --> 0:52:52.400 production makes up one quarter of total greenhouse gas emissions 0:52:52.400 --> 0:52:57.440 in the United States and transportation is twenty nine so 0:52:57.520 --> 0:53:00.239 even more than electricity, at least according to the e 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:05.000 p A. So energy efficiency standards really matter here. They 0:53:05.000 --> 0:53:08.480 can make a huge difference. And as we move forward 0:53:08.719 --> 0:53:12.920 with an increased emphasis on switching to alternative energy sources 0:53:13.320 --> 0:53:16.200 and moving away from fossil fuels as well as pushed 0:53:16.200 --> 0:53:20.560 towards electrifying the fleet of vehicles out there, energy efficiency 0:53:20.600 --> 0:53:23.040 will continue to be a critical part of our strategy. 0:53:23.600 --> 0:53:26.080 You want to be efficient, you want to have lower 0:53:26.160 --> 0:53:28.760 energy consumption. That's going to be important for all sorts 0:53:28.760 --> 0:53:31.440 of things with electric vehicles. It will be important for 0:53:31.480 --> 0:53:35.000 the you know, the purposes of how much driving range 0:53:35.040 --> 0:53:37.200 do you get with this car? Because we can only 0:53:37.239 --> 0:53:40.640 make batteries up to a certain size. Before that starts 0:53:40.680 --> 0:53:44.640 to become an issue too, you start seeing issues like 0:53:44.760 --> 0:53:48.400 weight and safety and other things play a part. So 0:53:48.480 --> 0:53:50.680 you have to say, well, if we can make more 0:53:50.719 --> 0:53:54.600 efficient use of electricity, then a charge on this battery 0:53:54.760 --> 0:53:57.640 will allow this card to go much further than if 0:53:57.680 --> 0:54:00.680 we're not careful. Right, So they're a lot of reasons 0:54:00.760 --> 0:54:04.520 to be careful with energy consumption. Even should we make 0:54:04.560 --> 0:54:09.279 the move away from fossil fuels. So that I think 0:54:09.640 --> 0:54:14.080 is a good encapsulation of the concept of energy efficiency 0:54:14.200 --> 0:54:18.319 and energy consumption and why it's important to have these 0:54:18.320 --> 0:54:21.439 regulations and standards in place, and that it is more 0:54:21.480 --> 0:54:24.320 than the climate. Like if you're the type of person 0:54:24.760 --> 0:54:28.040 who doesn't see the big deal about climate issues, well 0:54:28.120 --> 0:54:30.439 I I don't understand that. But even if you are, 0:54:30.960 --> 0:54:33.080 there's still the matter of the fact that it just 0:54:33.200 --> 0:54:36.759 makes more economic sense to be more efficient with your 0:54:36.880 --> 0:54:41.160 energy usage. And if money doesn't matter to you and 0:54:41.200 --> 0:54:44.480 the climate doesn't matter to you, I'm wondering how you 0:54:44.560 --> 0:54:46.680 ended up getting equipment to be able to listen to 0:54:46.719 --> 0:54:51.680 a podcast. But anyway, that's it for this episode. I 0:54:51.719 --> 0:54:54.319 hope you learned something. I hope you enjoyed it. Like 0:54:54.360 --> 0:54:56.960 I said, there are a lot of complicated parts of 0:54:56.960 --> 0:54:59.879 this story that I hope are being covered in other 0:55:00.040 --> 0:55:04.240 podcasts because I would also love to hear them. Uh, 0:55:04.280 --> 0:55:07.399 And they are important for us to have an understanding 0:55:07.400 --> 0:55:11.000 of how we got to where we are and helps 0:55:11.040 --> 0:55:13.360 inform us of the decisions we need to make to 0:55:13.520 --> 0:55:16.600 get to where we want to be. All of that's 0:55:16.640 --> 0:55:19.880 really important. If you have suggestions for topics that I 0:55:19.880 --> 0:55:23.080 should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff. I welcome 0:55:23.120 --> 0:55:25.160 you to reach out to me and let me know. 0:55:25.560 --> 0:55:27.560 The best way to do that is on Twitter. The 0:55:27.600 --> 0:55:30.480 handle for the show is text Stuff H s W 0:55:31.360 --> 0:55:39.880 and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff 0:55:39.960 --> 0:55:43.120 is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from 0:55:43.160 --> 0:55:46.920 my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:55:47.040 --> 0:55:49.040 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.