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Foreign.
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Welcome to American Power. I am your host, Nat Town. Comedian, speechwriter, and most reflective in my father's eyes when he looks at me with joy. Podcast host. With me, as always, is my panel of experts. I wing those. I want you to know, is my panel of experts. Our expert on the military and foreign policy, Chad Scott. Chad, how's it going, man?
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A
It's going well, Nat. If I was your father, I'd be very proud of your podcasting endeavors.
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B
You know what? He actually is. I shouldn't make that joke, but thank you. You're my new dad and also on the panel. Nevertheless, you have replaced my father. And on the other father on the panel, my other father, my third father, you know him as Mr. Global. He's our expert on all things energy, oil, renewable, global energy markets, Matt Randolph. Matt, how's it going?
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C
It's going great. I just got a text from Mori and I am, in fact, not your father. So good news all around.
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B
Spiritual paternity tests. Now, it turns out that you're not even philosophically his father. He doesn't see you ideologically as a patrilineal connection. I look up to both of you. Are we the same age? I'm not certain. And on this episode, we're also joined by a very special guest. They are a campaign manager for Spring Street Climate Fund, a longtime climate organizer and strategist, and prior to their work with street, prior to their work with Spring street, they were the coordinator of the Energy Democracy alliance and manage a statewide coalition to organize for a renewable and equitable energy system. And. And also played a leading role in one of my favorites, this campaign to pass the Build Public Renewables act right here in New York, the biggest green New Deal bill in America, which became law in 2023. Please welcome to the podcast, Patrick Robbins.
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D
Well, thank you so much, Nat. I am doing great. It's great to be on. Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this.
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B
Thank you. I'm so happy to have you here. And I'll say for our listeners, I've known Patrick for many years. We actually went to high school together and we found each other again, it's true, through the climate movement. And I found that Patrick doing some really incredible work and was really happy to see what you've been doing, but I was hoping. I don't have the full story. I was hoping you could tell us a little bit of your path as to how you became an energy affordability advocate.
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D
Yeah. Thank you, Nat. So I work as the director of the Utility Customers association, which is a project of Spring Street Climate Fund here in New York. And we are an organization of utility customers who are sick of high electricity bills and want structural changes to high electricity charges. And so, you know, one reason why we got started is because these causes, the causes of, you know, pro climate policy and affordability policies, these are frequently positioned in the media as separate and sometimes even framed as competing or clashing. And we really believe that it's the exact opposite. The way you get affordable bills is through common sense, renewable and storage policy. And there is a clear need to do something about the affordability crisis that we, that we find ourselves in. So we've been organizing for about a year. It's been really great to just talk to people on the street, farmers markets, you know, all over New York about electricity bills. And now I'm happy to talk with all of you.
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B
That's great. And I understand that your expertise lies primarily in New York State, but I was hoping we could talk about New York as something of a model for the whole country, because I think the sort of the clean energy transition is something that every state's handling differently, but it's on everyone's minds. And I think New York is a really interesting use case for that. But I want to ask you a question that I think pretty much every New Yorker is asking, but all our listeners across America are probably also asking this question. And if you're in Europe, hang tight, because I want to know, why is the electricity bill so damn high? It's never been like this.
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D
No. Well, for what it's worth, I promise you they're asking that in Europe as well. But, but no, that is the, the million dollar question. And I could give the very long version or I could give the very short version, but I think that maybe I'll start just by talking a little bit about how the electric grid works. I feel like that's important to talk about before we get to, you know, how we got into the kind of quagmire that we're in now. So to your listeners who may be already familiar with this, apologies for going over any kind of remedial stuff, but I want to offer a quick breakdown of how the electric grid works and what exactly it is, what we talk about when we're talking about the electric grid. So the electric grid is broken down fundamentally into three separate parts. There's the generation side of the grid, the infrastructure that generates electric power. There is the transmission side of the grid, where that power is transported from the sources of generation to source, you know, the sites of consumption. And then there's the distribution grid, which is the wires that go into our homes and businesses after, you know, the power has been downgraded to, to a voltage that is, that is safe for our homes. And so those three different parts of the grid are sometimes owned by the same company. In some cases here in New York, that is not the case. We do not have a vertically integrated grid. We have different entities owning those different separate parts of the grid, and also with different kind of regulatory bodies and regulatory procedures governing the behavior of those different parts of the grid. So, you know, the first power station in the country was actually built here in New York in 1882. And, you know, for a long time, electricity was really something only for wealthier customers. And municipal and city governments began exploring how to build public distribution lines. And that was really a rallying cry for a lot of local governments across the country around the turn of the century. And so there was this public power movement that was very much on the minds of the distribution companies at this time. And they were also worried about competition between each other. And so the earliest business association of the distribution utilities got together and proposed this kind of public utility commission model where there would be a state level commission to regulate the distribution grid with a single company providing power to a given territory. So a utility is a natural monopoly. And in the absence of any kind of market, you know, discipline of that company, that company is regulated by a public utility commission.
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B
So the structure is designed so that only one company can run the utility in a given area, which, like, as you're saying, automatically creates a monopoly.
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D
Yeah, that's exactly right. And so, you know, the obvious question is, how do you prevent that company if it's a monopoly and it's got a, you know, captive customer base for the entire territory? How do you stop them from just charging whatever they want?
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B
My question is, why didn't they do it earlier? But because it seems to be what's happening right now. Sorry, go ahead.
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D
Well, well, no, that's, that's exactly right. And so that is sort of the underlying logic or how it works in theory, with the, you know, public utility commission model. You have this body that is in charge of regulating how much the utilities are allowed to spend. The problem is that very often these regulators defer to the company on matters of financial analysis, on aspects of the grid that in some cases are considered proprietary. The company is a private company, so there's certain information about how our grid functions that we legally are not allowed to know. And so there's this massive asymmetry of both knowledge and resources between the public and the company. In the case of New York City, that's Con Edison. And oftentimes the regulator will. They may knock down what a company proposes by a couple of percentage points in a rate case. But they are, I would say, very much hamstrung by that asymmetry. And so that's one answer as to how we ended up getting the high bills that we see today. But I think that if we want to go into more depth on why our electric bills are so high, we can also look at two components of the grid that I mentioned before, that generation side of the grid, and then we can talk a little bit more about distribution. I understand that on this show you guys have talked about the war in Iran pretty extensively. I would say that. I mean, this will be very familiar territory for your listeners. But that war and geopolitical instability more broadly has real, real consequences for the fuel supply of our electric grid. Here in New York, we have about 50% of our generation coming from fracked gas, methane gas. And that means that when there's market volatility, we are extremely susceptible to that. And, you know, I can go into a little bit more on how wholesale markets work and why the market structure and the generation market is actually kind of designed to exacerbate those fluctuations, you know, with the highest cost energy source, setting the price for, you know, for the market across the board. But that's one big, big answer to why our bills are so high. The other side of it, I'll say, is the distribution side. So when you look at the distribution side costs, that's counterintuitively considered the biggest driver of high electricity bills across the board. And the reason for that is that the utilities get paid a return on equity for building stuff. So when they want to raise rates, they go to the commission of their state. They say, we want to raise money to build new substations, other kinds of infrastructure, and here's what we'll need to maintain service, build what we need to build, et cetera. And that sum cost of what they need, that's called the revenue requirement. But then on top of that, the utility says, we need to attract investment, so we need a return on equity for all of that stuff we build. And that return on equity is often a lot higher than the actual cost of equity, you know, the amount that would be strictly necessary for them to offer in order to attract investors. So when you put it all together, there are these Massive costs in the system that are actually built into the business model itself that honestly have very little to do with what it actually costs to generate and distribute power. And so we at the Utility Customers association are trying to lower bills by taking on both those generation and distribution costs.
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B
Interesting. So a lot of it, as you're saying, is sort of built into the structure of the system originally. That has gradually exacerbated that inequity and the sort of lack of effective accountability of the regulatory body's ability to exercise too much power over the utilities. Some of that is just the gradual acceleration and increase over time of a system not designed to resist the increase in costs. And then some of it is the second problem that you're describing. Now, if I could summarize that one correctly, am I understanding in that so much as ratepayers, utility customers like myself and the rest of us listening, when our utility needs or chooses to build to expand capacity, those costs are passed on via the rates?
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D
Yes, that's exactly.
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B
So we're essentially investing, not only investing in the expansion of the grid or the expansion of the capacity for the utility or generative. Generative capacity, but we're also investing in the fund that they're using to. To attract investors. And I have to imagine we don't see a return on our bills if those investments pay off.
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D
Well, no.
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B
I mean, do I see a rate decrease if that functions?
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D
Spoiler.
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B
No, I've never seen one. I'm just, you know, curious if there was any payback for the way of thinking about it. Fund this stuff.
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D
Well, another way of thinking about it would be we are ourselves, all of us paying back their investors. You see what I'm saying? So they go to the Public Service Commission and say we want to be able to offer this return on equity for, you know, for investment. And then all of that comes off of the ratepayers backs.
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B
Right. Because those investments.
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D
And then that's before you get into buy rate. Yeah, exactly. And that's before you get into all these other costs, like for example, ConEd's property tax, which is also directly passed on to the ratepayer and makes up, you know, an enormous portion of our bills. So there's all sorts of ways in which the utility is able to pass their costs down to the ratepayer above and beyond what is strictly necessary for providing electricity.
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B
So I have one more question and also, Matt, if you want to jump in at any point, if you have questions, feel free, but I was going to ask, is there any sense These are privately owned utilities, as I understand, and I know that the point in New York, you know, we have a, we do have a publicly owned utility, but it's not used to power most of the state. Is this a, in terms of rates, Is this a private utility problem? Is generation going to be just as expensive if we were to make it public? Is there. You know, we talked about Claire Valdez's national public utility proposal on her campaign a couple of weeks ago. What does that mean for consumers, though? Obviously, like, I would prefer the environment to divest from, from, for the environment, for us to divest from oil and move to renewables. But what is, what is divesting specifically from private utilities mean for consumers?
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D
You know, it's a really good question, Nat. And I think it's important to note that the idea that you're describing of having a public distribution utility, that is not a, you know, science fiction idea. We actually do have small public utilities already right here in New York State. We've got, you know, 40 or 50 or so towns that own their distribution lines. And, you know, we have public ownership of distribution in many states and in fact, many countries around the world. I will say that, you know, it's, it's, it's hard to say in terms of a hypothetical how that would impact prices, but I will say that for those 40 or 50 or so public utilities right here in New York, they do have hands down cheaper electric bills than the rest of the state.
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B
And are they stable in the same way? I mean, insofar as, like, it seems like our bills are skyrocketing, I'm curious if the public bills are more proportionate to cost of energy or to the cost of generation.
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D
It's a really good question, and I'll be transparent that I don't know the answer. I haven't looked side by side, apples to apples with some of the different distribution companies in the state. But I would suspect that a lot of the volatility that you're talking about is on the generation side because of the hikes that you see because of the war in Iran. And, you know, you saw that as well when the Ukraine, Russia war was kicking off. And I would say that in terms of ramifications for utility customers, the distribution model that we have now, the private distribution model that engenders a steady increase of electricity bills that is still bad but constant, whereas the supply side is much more volatile and fickle than what you'd see in terms of its impacts on, on your bills.
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B
Matt, I believe you wanted to talk a little bit about, as Patrick was just discussing the ramifications of the conflict in Iran, the war in Iran, on not only energy markets, but, you know, consumer attitudes. I don't want to put words into your mouth, but do you want to jump in here?
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C
Sure. So across the country, by far the largest contributor to increasing electric bills are either delivery fees or distribution fees, getting the power to your house. And that is because there is a real supply demand scenario happening within those transmission lines. And one analogy or example I like to use is like a pipeline. Like, say you have an oil pipeline, right? The more oil that's in that pipeline and the closer it gets to full capacity, the more expensive it is to put more oil in it. It is a true, like, supply demand scenario. And that's what's happening with our grid across the country as power demand, specifically electricity demand, continues to rise. And we've had massive underinvestment into our grid over the last 20 years because due to energy efficiency, you know, I've told you guys before, we went 20 years without increasing our energy demand in the United States because of our energy efficiency policies. And, and which I'm a huge fan of. The fact that we added 40 million people to this country and, and I believe 20 million homes, 40 million cars, and we're still using the exact same amount of energy just blows my mind because I nerd out about that stuff. But if you think about it, it's like adding an entire state of California to your country without consuming any more energy. And that's what those little yellow stickers are on your water heater that says, hey, you know, you save this much. That's what that is. And that's from George Bush's Energy Policy Conservation act that he passed and Barack Obama approved on that, improved on that when he came in office. So rates are going up, but distribution fees is what's making people's bills like, double and triple. You know, you can see a maybe a 10 rise in rates, but you're seeing, like, the distribution fees are what's really killing people. And that is a very difficult problem to solve because the way our system is set up, we need people to write checks, to invest in things, and the grid is not a flashy thing to invest in. You know, trying to permit power lines over eight states and 15,000 different landowners is impossible to do. So no one wants to invest in that when they can invest in anything the world has to offer. So we have it set up in a way where it's impossible to raise the Money either through investments, you know, to actually expand our grid the way we need to. We're like, I can't remember. I think we're 60 or 70,000 miles of transmission line behind where we need to be right now. We're insanely behind. And now that we have data centers and everything else that's increasing electricity demand, we're really struggling with that. So that is a huge problem in the United States. And I always tell people, you know, I'm an oil and gas expert, but I support renewable energy. And that is because every unit of energy that you place into the system has an impact on every unit of energy that exists there. Right? It decreases the burden of every other unit of energy, and it doesn't matter where that energy came from. And of course, you can't power a car with wind energy or solar energy. But when you put units from that type of energy into our portfolio, it actually decreases the burden of fossil fuel energy within the system and drives down the price of everything holistically. And that's why I support and all of the above energy policy. And it's. It kind of blows people mind when I tell them, like, you know, more solar would actually bring down your gas prices. And they're like, what are you talking about? And it's because you have to look at it holistically. You have to look at the thing, and you can't just look at one specific thing and say, this is the problem. And so currently we have an administration that is destroying renewable energy that is harming our energy consumption of every other kind of energy because it increases the burden of those other energies as well.
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A
Can I jump in with a. With a kind of a weird question that I just thought of, and it applies to both of you. So you guys, both of you, actually, all of you are talking about your energy bills doubling and tripling, and I'm not experiencing that in Idaho. And I think the reason is, originally I thought it was because we aren't a fossil. We're mostly hydroelectric. I mean, we use a lot of dams up in the Pacific Northwest. But I also found out through some research that Idaho Power, which is the. Is a private company, but it is called a regulated monopoly, meaning they have to go to our. Our legislature to request a rate increase. So you can't. So this private company has all the power to raise rates if they want, as a private company, within a specific, very narrow band. So if Idaho Company, the CEO of Idaho Company or Idaho Power, comes to and says, we want to raise rates, I get a notification by mail that says, hey, Idaho Power wants to raise rates. It's going before the legislature. They will vote on it. Now, obviously they can lobby that and they have a lot of money, but a lot of times they get pushed back. And I'm wondering, I just didn't, I didn't think of this until just now. I'm wondering, is that model where you have a private company, but it's called a regulated monopoly, is that viable at least in the near term for places like in New York? I mean, Patrick, do you have any thoughts on that?
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D
Well, that's what we have. I mean, a regulated monopoly is the standard model that I was describing. So that's not uncommon. What does stick out to me, though, about what you just said is the fact that those rates are controlled by the legislature. That is interesting to me because the model that I've seen certainly here in New York and in many other states as well, is one where there is a kind of layer between the public and that decision making process through the Public Utility Commission. And, you know, you can have states where the Public Utility commission is, you know, elected. New York is not one of those states. We are not an elected commission state. We are, you know, appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the Senate. But I have to imagine that some of the political accountability that is inherent in the process that you're describing probably makes a big difference. I mean, people are really furious in New York about high electric bills. I think that's true across the country. And so I have to wonder if politically that is helping insulate the, you know, the ratepayers in your area.
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A
Yeah, because it's kind of wild because as you all know, Idaho's incredibly red state. And traditionally you'd think that it would be just kind of let them run wild, but it is very much like severely regulated. And that's why, like my, I have a, like a 3, 400 square foot house and I only pay like 130 bucks a month for power.
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B
You notice how he got quieter when he said that? Because he's thinking.
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A
I know. I'm kind of embarrassed because I'm like, I don't want you guys to be all like, what an. He's over here and paying like. So anyways. But I'm just saying it's just very. It was, I'm just, It's kind of strange to me. And, and maybe you can explain it better. How come everyone else seems to be talking about their, their, their rates going up so high, but then you see a state like Idaho or there's a couple of other states that don't have the same regulatory structure. But they're not, we're not seeing like my family that I have in Washington and Oregon, they're not seeing massive rate increases. Is that just because they have more leverage in the. It's not a renewable to technically but like hydroelectric. Hydroelectric and things like that.
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C
So what you have, Chad, is shocker. Idaho doesn't use a lot of power.
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A
Yeah, there's that too. So there's like 10 people here.
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C
Just like Washington, Oregon, Idaho. Hydroelectric power, the, the cheapest in the world, easily and low demand. Like I live in Oklahoma, not a lot of demand. My power bills are really cheap here. But this is mostly happening in the worst places, highly populated areas and also in the upper Midwest areas where population growth is exploding. I can't even talk about this without thinking about PJM Interconnect. But and as far as the structure, we have a similar thing here in Oklahoma. You know, they, they, they do ask a public utility commission for the rate hikes, but if anyone within our state legislature has a problem with their decision, they can actually go back and override the Public Utility Commission. So the Public Utility commission approves them. But if someone in our state legislature says wait a minute, hang on, I don't like that, then the legislature can then take it up. And most of the time they don't. But here recently there was a case where they took up a case involving a data center where they were like, no, we're. Even though the utility commission had approved it, the state legislature said, yeah, we don't. That doesn't jive with us. So they actually knocked it down. So in my state, it's like a, there's a secondary sort of barrier there. Even though 99 of the time that legislature doesn't even bother with it.
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B
But on a case more connected though, like in chat, like, yeah, the accountability, I mean, we vote for again another really rich for our governor who assigned service commission here. But it's very abstruse. It's very different, distant from that one particular policy. And you know, she's essentially running unopposed right now, even though everyone hates that policy. So re. Electing a governor, electing a new governor is really complicated and I don't think we see that kind of voter accountability. I think what you're describing is like legislators who are representing a smaller district within the state more likely to be primaried or defeated in the next election or just feel generally more accountable to voters that just by being in that position and by having that legislative oversight, they might, you know, feel more empowered in that regard. But because yeah, technically we vote on our governor, but it does not feel in New York as if we have the ability to vote on our rates. And I think what you're describing are two models that have a little bit more, even though it is all somewhere electoral, it seems a lot more accountable to the will of the people.
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C
So I guess touch on what Patrick was talking about earlier. A utility company, typically a privately owned, publicly regulated monopoly, right. And it's different in each state, but if you took the averages, they're guaranteed a profit. So and it comes out to about a 10 profit per year that they are guaranteed and they can generally pass on any cost that they need to to the ratepayer to ensure they get that 10 profit.
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D
And that's right.
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C
Every time I talk about this I'm like, God, why didn't I get into utilities when I was 20 instead of the oil and gas industry? It's so much more lucrative. Like because in the oil and gas industry you might have 100 profit one year and a 300% loss the next, like a 10% guaranteed profit every year. You cannot beat that.
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D
And Matt, I actually want to take a moment on that because that's a big difference in the kind of investment proposition that you're talking about between different parts of the grid. So it's true that there are elements of the grid that are difficult to attract investment because of that uncertainty. Distribution is not one of them because you're looking at some of the safest investments out there, second only to treasury bonds. Con Edison here in New is what is charmingly called a dividend aristocrat, which means that it has returned consistently higher returns every year for the last 25 years. And so there's a lot of, I think justifiable anger when the utility says, oh, we have to charge this exorbitant fees in order to attract investment. It's like, well, something's not adding up because you know people are going to be interested in investing in Con Edison. You know, it's a, it's a recession proof investment. You know, when you're looking for something really stable, whether you're talking about pension funds or whatever else, you know, they could be charging all of us way, way, way less than they are charging now. If that's, if that's really the rationale. And you know, in 2025 when they were, you know, cutting off power to customers for non payment, you know, they awarded their CEO nearly $20 million in compensation according to the Energy Policy Institute. So that kind of thing rubs people the wrong way. You know, you don't say, well, the
- [31:49]
C
double edged sword like the vicious loop or feedback loop in this is when the only way to decrease utility bills is by adding infrastructure and you get charged for all of the additional infrastructure. There's no way to reduce utility bills. You know what I mean?
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D
Exactly. Well, I think that this gets to. Sorry to interrupt, but I think this gets to something really right that I think you were touching on, which is that we kind of have like a simultaneously overbuilt and underinvested grid. It's this very strange paradox that we're in where the utility can't actually earn a profit on the basic maintenance stuff. And so their business model really, really encourages and really incentivizes this kind of capex bias toward building new substations and all of that. And we, we're on the hook for that. You know, all of us who pay bills are on the hook for that. So, you know, we really need to figure this out. And like I said, I really think that there is a major, major opportunity for any elected official, any politician, you know, regardless of where they are for getting this right. And you know, I've seen lots and lots of elected officials, you know, sort of trying to take this on. I mean, honestly, I'll be, I'll be just very real with you guys. I feel like I've lost count of the number of press releases I've read where it's like X or Y state assembly member is taking on utility bills. You know, and so everybody clearly, like a lot of these people really feel like they need to seem like they are doing something about this problem. But it is such an understood sector that that can really mean anything. You know, I've seen everything from here in New York, our governor gutting our climate law, the CLCPA, and saying, you know, that's somehow going to save utility customers money for this thing that we never really actually enforced in the first place. Or you know, I've seen in New Jersey you have Mickey Sherrill running on freezing rates and arguably that contributed a lot to the success of, of her campaign. And you know, in practice what that looks like is sort of up for grabs, I think. I mean, there is this kind of, you know, executive orders toward, you know, looking into the problem and encouraging the, you know, proliferation of renewable energy. And then in Pennsylvania you have Governor Shapiro with that letter to all of the utilities in his state saying, you know, the utility model Is fundament fundamentally broken? And I will say that I find that very exciting because he's clearly got his eye on the presidency. And so this is very likely to be an explicit presidential issue over the next cycle.
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A
So I'm going to blow your guys minds a bit. Idaho does not have a guaranteed profit state.
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D
Hey.
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A
So again, very red state. This is surprising to me. Idaho Power, it allows them to earn a profit up to a specific ceiling. If they go over that and so they have, let's say they want to build a new power plant or whatever or a transmission station, they can overcharge to earn a profit on it up to say 9%. Usually it's agreed upon. If they go over that consistently, the legislature can come back and say, okay, we're gonna automate, we're gonna lower your rates for you. You don't get a choice anymore. And so our CEO of Idaho Power, granted again, very little state, I mean Boise, the Boise Metro has like 800,000 people, is the biggest city in Idaho and it makes up half the population basically. So he only makes like $6 million a year. And it's. And it's mo and half of it is in stock options. So it's just very weird to me because like we does red state has these very. It seems like it's one of the most regulated power grids and that's why maybe our power is so cheap, I don't know. But it brings up a broader question is it makes it very hard for us to drive towards a more renewable, I guess, grid. We're not big into solar here, even though we get a ton of sunshine here because we're high desert. We're not big into wind farms. Yeah. Even in the winter we actually. What's funny is if you go Google Southern Idaho, it's actually one of the sunniest locations in the state or in the, in the country.
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C
Said solar is irrelevant in the winter. Like the sun doesn't come out in the winter. That's what energy set.
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A
Well, that's been, that's what they tell people. I know. But here's the thing is it's like how do we, how do we balance that though? How do we balance. Well, well, it's just how do you balance the, the, the need for investment because it's going to cost extra money to get these, these renewable plants online. Whether it's solar, whether it's the cool solar. I can't remember what they're called, like the directed solar they have outside of las solar power. Yeah, those are cool. And Then they have wind and everything like that. How do we force the investment there when we're also trying to keep affordability in play? Because I feel like if we, if we want to bolster the grid, bolster the, the renewables, we're going to have to charge customers more, I would assume. Am I wrong there? I'm just kind of guessing as a layperson here because if you want to invest more upfront, it's going to cost, our bills are going to go up. Is that why we're not, we're not investing?
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D
Can I say something to that?
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A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [37:20]
D
That's the question for you. Well, I think that, Matt, your point about renewable energy bringing down costs for everyone and relieving some of the burden regardless of energy source, I think that that's really important to keep in mind here. So the way wholesale markets for electricity work is it's this kind of Dutch auction model where you have different generation sources feeding into the wholesale markets for electricity for a given territory or state in real time, with the cutoff being the amount you need to meet demand at that given time. It's a little bit of a tricky thing, but bear with me. And it's arranged by price so that whatever the highest cost supply source is for that to meet that amount of demand, every other supplier gets that cost or gets that gets that, gets that price. So then, you know, during the summertime here in New York, we have 10 gas fired peak power plants which are the dirtiest and most expensive generation sources in the state. They were all built in the backyards of black and brown communities, working class communities in New York City. It's a legacy environmental injustice in our grid that organizers have been fighting for, you know, since they were built basically. And during the summer everybody took turns on their air conditioner and we have to meet that demand and we turn on these gas fired peakers that are extremely dirty and extremely expensive. And every other generator gets that price. When that happens, every other generator in the wholesale market gets that price. So.
- [39:04]
C
Including the renewable.
- [39:06]
D
Exactly. So it really changes the value proposition across the board. You know, I remember I was attending a kind of retreat for energy organizers and analysts and you know, a dear friend, friend and colleague of mine was explaining how certain elements of the wholesale market work to some students. And I walked by just as she was explaining that point and the student was like, that can't be how that works. And she was like, it is, it is. He's like, that's crazy. She's like, I know, but that is how that works. And so I bring that up because renewable energy, which, you know, you know, megawatt hour per kilowatt hour by kilowatt hour is cheapest. That stands. There's a lot of benefits for bringing down costs across the board when you build more renewable and storage. So you're right that it will require upfront investment. Everything does. But I'd rather see that investment going to something that's going to bring down prices in the long term, rather than keep us on this kind of volatile and expensive source in perpetuity.
- [40:10]
B
It does seem like you could take more of a cost angle than you used to. Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you, Matt. I just. That was not always such an available argument to us now. But I. Sorry, Go. Go ahead, Go ahead.
- [40:23]
C
No, he's exactly right. And so just to try to explain it in a way for anyone that might have not understood that, let's say your, your. Your town is not using any power, right? And then suddenly it's time to turn all the lights on in town and 100% of your power is renewable energy. At that point, you're getting 100% of the cheapest available energy. But during the day it gets hot, right? And then suddenly you don't have enough renewable and you need to kick on a gas power generator to make up for the extra demand. Now, all of your power, the price of it, is all based on the gas, even if it's only a small portion of the total being delivered. And that's what people understand.
- [41:10]
B
At that rate.
- [41:12]
C
Yes, yes, everyone is paying for gas, even if 99% of it is renewable. Because the way that it's structured is you go up this ladder to higher forms of energy, and as soon as you hit that gas, that's what everybody pays for. And that's the way it's structured.
- [41:30]
B
I'm reacting.
- [41:30]
A
Doesn't that incentivize?
- [41:32]
B
I don't think I need to burn that.
- [41:34]
D
Your listeners can't see this because it's on YouTube.
- [41:37]
B
You can find this moment on YouTube. Find the time. I look like the emoji. That's three lines right now.
- [41:45]
D
I love Nat's face right now because that's the face that I've seen on anybody once they understand how that element of the wholesale market works.
- [41:52]
B
I truly don't think I knew that until right now. And that is.
- [41:54]
C
That's how it works.
- [41:55]
B
Baffling.
- [41:56]
A
Okay, so again then how.
- [41:59]
C
Yeah.
- [42:00]
A
Doesn't that incentivize them to drop the level to whenever, to whatever they feel like it starts incentivize the power companies to say, oh, we hit this whatever we determined to be the, the rate we need to fire these speaker plants and now we can magically charge anyone we want so they like, they can say, oh, we're, we anticipate it's supposed to be 100 degree day in New York. If we get to 70% power grid, we're going to fire peaker plants. Just in case everyone pay this massive rate now and there's nothing we can do. Right?
- [42:33]
D
Right. That's exactly wild.
- [42:35]
A
That is crazy.
- [42:36]
B
So that's like an extra level of basically being able to manipulate the rates beyond rate that the Public Service Commission even agreed on. Right. Because that's the standard rate, not the peaker. That's crazy.
- [42:47]
A
I did not know that works
- [42:51]
B
well. Well, I think I have an answer to my question about why the electric bill is so high. Wow, that is worse than you knew.
- [43:00]
D
It's. It's. Yes, that is true for so many elements of the electric grid. Worse than you knew. And I do want to just do a quick plug, if you don't mind. You know, we're trying to tackle this problem from a variety of ways here in New York. You know, and as I mentioned, a big part of the cost of our. A big part of our electric bills is the distribution side. And that's why we're really encouraged and really excited that assembly member Sarahana Shretza and Senator Shelley Mayer have brought the Fair act to the table, which would lower the return on equity that the distribution companies are allowed to charge. It would take. It tackles that problem by saying, okay, you know, we understand that you have to earn the revenue requirement, plus enough to attract investment. We are going to set it at what you need to attract investment, which right away you're looking at disincentivizing sort
- [43:59]
B
of
- [44:01]
D
extraneous capital expenditure. You're looking at shaving money off of people's bills. We're really in favor of that and I hope that people will check that out. And the other thing that I'll say is that here in New York City, the utility has been really putting up roadblocks to battery storage, which is a really necessary part of bringing our bills down here in New York, which is the biggest demand center in the state.
- [44:26]
A
Do you know why they're doing that though, by chance?
- [44:28]
C
Why.
- [44:28]
A
Why are they so anti battery?
- [44:30]
D
Well, you know, Chad, I wish that I could look into the hearts and souls of Con Ed's executives, but, you know, I would say you don't have to, you don't have to know exactly what's motivating them deep down in their hearts to see that their profit motive and their business model is sort of running contrary to bringing more batteries onto the grid. You know, batteries are great because they help us levelize demand. You know, batteries can charge at times when power is cheap and discharge and sell back to the grid at times when power is expensive. And that makes unnecessary a lot of the really expensive infrastructure that distribution companies would otherwise be charging all of us for. And that's, you know, that's great for us, but it does fly directly in the face of Con Edison's business model.
- [45:29]
B
It cuts into that distribution money because the source is more local.
- [45:33]
D
Well, there's a couple of different things going on, right? So on the one hand, you know, they don't have to invest, invest as much in substations because the grid itself is more stable. And on the other hand, there is not as much of a necessity to turn on those extremely expensive gas fired power plants during the, you know, hottest hours of the hottest summer days when they're, when they're needed. So it saves us money in all kinds of ways. Con Edison has been charging developers since around last summer something like 30 to 40 times what is customary to interconnect to the grid.
- [46:15]
B
And
- [46:18]
D
their logic is that there could be new peaks created if all of those batteries charge at the same time. I will say that, you know, I've had conversations with Con Ed and you know, one of the first questions I asked is, okay, so historically how much of these projects actually get built? Because they're assuming that all projects in the interconnection queue get built. And so, you know, it's somewhere around 5%, that's what it was last year. So, you know, I have a very hard time taking this argument at face value.
- [46:52]
B
And their claim is if 100% are built, it will be too much stress on the grid, which has never happened.
- [46:57]
D
That's exactly right.
- [46:58]
B
Got it.
- [46:58]
D
Which has never happened. And so it's also like saying, you know, this could be a problem in like three years time. Which, you know, another way of thinking about it would be if you were running a restaurant and you said, okay, well we've projected, you know, how much it's going to cost to buy a certain amount of ingredients. We could run out of food in three years, so we're going to stop serving now. You know, that's another way of thinking about it. And so we are excited to see that more and more legislators at the city and state level are speaking out about this. Councilmember Sandy Nurse has a resolution in the city council, resolution 422 that calls on the Public Service Commission to act. The comment period for this particular docket with the commission has closed that. That comment period closed on May 4th. So it really is in the hands of the Public Service Commission now. You know, whether they're going to bake in this terrible precedent for storage across the state or if they're going to side with utility customers and make Con Edison block this back.
- [48:09]
A
So I have a question. And again, this is for. This is both a Matt and Patrick question. So as a. On our last episode, I kind of alluded to, talked about the fact that I'm a. One of the many things I do is I'm a planning and zoning commissioner for Ada County. One of the biggest problems we run into is this massive pushback against solar panels being built on farmland. And so basically it turns into the, the NIMBY situation, not in my backyard. And they're using farmland as the Trojan horse to say we don't want these solar panels. Is that something you guys experience? And if so, for my own education, when I'm standing in front of all these farmers that say I don't want a solar panel because creates that urban heat bubble, it causes problems. It will never be. What happens if the solar panel farm goes down and it's just now wasting away? How do you address those concerns? So I have a bit of ammunition to kind of fire back at them. And when it comes to understanding, hey, this is broadly going to be more of a benefit than it's going to be a detriment for this plot of land versus all of your, your farms, essentially. Either one.
- [49:25]
B
Yeah.
- [49:26]
D
I mean, I'll, I'll just say this isn't, you know, this isn't really an area of, you know, expertise for me. I haven't really worked on this much. But I will say that there's exciting things happening with, you know, agrivoltaics in upstate New York, figuring out ways to productively pair, you know, growing different kinds of crops and sort of accounting for
- [49:45]
A
like a shady crop, almost like it can sit under something or.
- [49:49]
D
Yeah. I mean, another way of, another way of doing it would be like if there's land that's kind of not really good for anything else, you know, a lot, this can be a good source of income for, you know, land that would otherwise not be productive. I don't think that, I don't think
- [50:05]
B
that
- [50:07]
D
advocates in New York are encouraging you know, construction on productive farmland, like that's a. That's a strawman that I have seen sometimes here in New York State, and at least not in New York. Nobody's calling for that. Not really. The other thing that I'll say on the kind of NIMBY tip with regard to batteries, that's something I'm a little bit more familiar with. You know, there is an awful lot of fear mongering about battery storage. I was at a hearing in New York City on fire safety, which is usually what people talk about when they talk about objections to batteries. You know, you had the hazmat commissioner for the FDNY and you know, one of their deputy commissioners saying, you know, we have the highest safety standards in the country. We have 30 of these already up and running in the city. You know, they seem extremely unconcerned with new battery construction here. And, you know, as somebody who is not a fire expert myself, I'm inclined to take the word of the people whose job it is to know about and care about that issue. There was a case up near Vassar, actually upstate, near Poughkeepsie, I believe it was, where they were considering a moratorium on new battery construction for that reason. And it was just one local guy who was, you know, this isn't even his job. He's like a professor. He took it on himself to just like have meetings with the local fire department, and the fire department ended up coming out in favor of the battery projects. And that really changed the political calculus so that that moratorium was taken off the table. So I think that engaging in good faith with the concerns that people have and figuring out ways to have those conversations early on. The last thing I'll say is I really do think it's incumbent on the developer to be a good partner in all of this. Like, you know, for all of this to work, they have to be a good neighbor. You know, I've seen or heard about cases where developers are, you know, negotiating down the payment in lieu of taxes that they have to pay. And, you know, I don't think that's so great either. I mean, they should be benefiting the host communities where they're cited. So I do think that it cuts, you know, it goes both ways. And we should expect a high standard for businesses that are building in our areas.
- [52:39]
A
Yeah, and we use an escrow system now that got baked into our laws where they have to pay a amount. These solar companies pay an amount in case they go under, because a lot of them are independent. And so what will happen is if they go under and they can't maintain there's an account that we can. We pull that money out so we can tear down the solar panels and things.
- [53:00]
D
Yeah.
- [53:01]
A
So that is part of it. So I don't know. Matt, do you have any thoughts on that? I do. So I know we're gonna. I don't want to run out of time, but. Because I really want to ask you a very specific question about something, but do you have any thoughts on. On that idea of how I help me with the farmers and solar.
- [53:17]
C
So solar companies aren't looking for nutrient rich farmland to put solar panels on. It's much more expensive than just regular land. Like my father in law is a farmer and his best land is worth five times more than his crappy land that he doesn't grow anything on. So I don't really know if that's a much of an issue. Like I just don't see solar companies willing to pay five times more to be in one spot as opposed to another because of the type of dirt that's there. But I will say is your escrow thing. The oil and gas industry has the same thing, but it's majorly underfunded. You know, you have to put up a bond to eventually plug.
- [54:00]
A
Yeah, that's the word. Yeah.
- [54:03]
C
And it's probably the same thing with solar where if the operator isn't responsible and they flake out, then the money's there for the cleanup. The problem with oil and gas is those bonds probably don't even cover 20% of the cost by the time, you know, because you're looking at, you're paying a bond today for something you're going to fix in 30 years from now and just general inflation will blow that out of the water. So that's one of the. That's an oil and gas issue that also needs to be remedied. Not super familiar with the solar one, but it's. It does seem like cleaning up a solar farm would be a lot easier than.
- [54:39]
A
Yeah.
- [54:39]
C
Plugging and abandoning old gas wells for sure.
- [54:42]
B
Yeah.
- [54:42]
C
Yeah.
- [54:43]
A
Well, so if you have time, if you go and just indulge me on this final topic because I know Matt's thoughts and I know Nat's thoughts somewhat. What are your feelings on nuclear power?
- [54:55]
D
Well, you know, we take kind of an affordability lens on this, I will say that new nuclear tends to be extremely expensive. You know, the most recent Georgia plant went, you know, $17 billion over budget. And so, you know, I think this is something that can get Very heated when you go on energy Twitter or whatever. But you know, we really do take an affordability perspective and you know, I keep waiting for somebody to explain to me how this is going to be the best use of our resources if we're going to be investing in the grid. And I just haven't seen anybody be able to, to make it make sense.
- [55:40]
B
You know, projects typically finish way behind schedule to like, isn't our renewable energy source a little bit more. I mean, I'm sorry, I'm answering for my. But my understanding is it's just a very slow build at this point. Like we can build solar now.
- [55:56]
A
Is there, is there any value in like. So we have very little of our power here in Idaho comes from nuclear, even though the. We were the first. It's funny because we were the first nuclear powered cities in came from Idaho. You guys in New York have like three or four nuclear power plants. Is there any value in trying to extend that in the interest of, of the climate crisis? Like, because even though there's a huge upfront cost nuclear, I mean, it's hard to deny it is one of the cleanest out there other than obviously the waste that it can produce, which relative to as we said, lithium is not as much as lithium waste, but it's also far more dangerous. Is there some, is there some value as a transition as we transition to trying to keep nuclear on the table for a while? I know building out a plant is huge. There's like $30 billion is how much it costs. That's probably not going to be the case. The ones we have running. Is it worth it to try to keep them going as we try to transition to more renewable.
- [57:01]
D
I will share that. Part of my response to this just comes from our experience in New York where I just witnessed our governor tear down years of progress through the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The framing itself of nuclear is something that we can do as a transitionary measure assumes that we are actually making a transition to renewables when we're this far behind schedule. When we passed the Build Public Renewables act here in New York in 2023 and we still haven't seen projects breaking ground. I want to see some renewables and I want to see some storage. You know, that's my, that's my take on this.
- [57:50]
A
So you're concerned that we would lean too much on nuclear at the expense of building more renewable and it's just more of an easy button instead of getting to that renewable stage?
- [58:04]
D
Yeah, I mean, I don't want I don't think that these things need to be opposed from a strictly technical perspective, but I see them positioned against each other politically by elected officials and decision makers in the various agencies that govern our electric grid. And at a time when we're so far behind schedule on building the renewables and the storage capacity that we're supposed to be building, we have a goal of 6 GW of storage capacity that the governor herself called for. And at this point, at this point, like I said, I want to see renewables and storage being built before we can talk about that.
- [58:51]
A
That's a lot of questions I've got.
- [58:55]
C
We can add like 80 gigs of renewable power a year, easy. It would take us 20 generations of people to add 80 gigs of nuclear power. Like, it's just so slow. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't address the problem that we have at hand right now. I think that Vogel plant in Georgia was nearly 12 or 13 years before they finished it. For, I think they ended up with three reactors. So three gigs of power, like, we can do three gigs of power with renewable energy in a couple of weeks or a month, easy. Like, I mean, it's just, it's very time consuming. Every nuclear reactor is a custom build. There's no parts off the shelf you can buy. Like it's, you know, every, every solar panel is off the shelf, every wind turbine is off the shelf. Like, you can buy your left into
- [59:50]
D
uranium supply chains too, which is fun.
- [59:52]
C
Yeah, yeah. It's just. And I'm not anti nuclear energy, but if, if your goal is to reduce cost, nuclear energy is the absolute worst way to do it. Those people in Georgia are going to be paying for that Vogel plant for the next 60 years.
- [60:08]
D
Absolutely.
- [60:09]
A
Yeah. I guess.
- [60:10]
B
Passed on to ratepayers, right?
- [60:12]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. My concern is the Germany model. Not so much building new ones as we start taking ours offline way too fast. Now, granted, Germany was a weird situation because it was a response to the war in Ukraine and they got their oil and gas shut off and so they had fired. They'd shut down their nuclear power plants and then suddenly this crisis happened. I don't think that necessarily affects us because we, with Canada generally can, can remain somewhat more energy independent than obviously Germany does. But they ran into a brick wall where they shut down their nuclear plants in anticipation of going green. And then war in Russia starts or war in Ukraine starts, and they had to fire oil and coal back up, albeit temporarily. It wasn't permanently. It was just temporarily. Their, their green grid did catch up, which maybe put a boot in their ass. I just worry maybe we're not in the same situation because the United States is far more energy powerful. That that's a concern is I just don't want to start taking down nuclear when we, as you said, we really need to bolster our green energy because I would love to go green across the board. Yeah. So I mean, and it's kind of a cool good news story for Idaho is we, we actually are. Our wind turbines are starting to go up in such a way that we are actually able to destroy some of our dams, which is good for fish, for the fish and things like that. So it's wild. It's weird because Idaho is again a very red state, but we are very, very conservation. It's, it's a very conservationist state. It's a. So that's kind of, it's kind of a cool story there. And I just again, we did that well and prepare, we were prepared to decommission these dams. Well, it was one whole dam, let's be honest. With a fan, with the fans, with the windmills. But yeah, I just kind of. When you look at much bigger states like New York, obviously you start seeing the, the politicization of shutting down plants. And if you guys are. And then suddenly all of a sudden now you're burning peaker plants constantly and they're chasing a headline of well, we shut down a nuke plant and then it ends up hurting. And I just worry about that.
- [62:18]
D
See, see this is the position that you end up in whether it's by design or not. You know, when we, when we talk about this, this framing, you know, people make the same, people say the same thing about the gas fired beaker plants that I mentioned before. And that continues to position affordability and reliability against the transition. I think about how under the Build Public Renewables act, which Nat and I work together on, that was. When was that introduced? That was introduced in 2020. Yeah.
- [63:03]
B
Four years before it passed or three and a half years before it passed. So 2020. Yeah.
- [63:07]
D
Right. And if we had had the political will to use this incredible historic engine, this legacy new deal project that already governs New York's hydropower resources and has this kind of like built in bond model that you can use, we could have been doing so much more so many years ago. And that's why I think it's so frustrating when I hear elected officials say, oh well, we're just going to have to keep these peak power plants on for a little Bit longer. It's like the answer to shutting down these dirty and expensive fuel sources. You specifically have had the answer at your fingertips for years now, and you haven't. You haven't done it. So we need political leadership that will actually have a spine and get us to the cheaper electricity and cleaner electricity sources that we need.
- [64:12]
B
I also want to jump in and say, I think it's interesting. I know, Chad, you're deflecting a lot about how or you're mentioning a lot how Idaho is a red state. But I think it does kind of illustrate that this is not a partisan issue. I think it's framed that way. The environment became rural at some point.
- [64:25]
D
Exactly.
- [64:27]
B
Was a conservative value at some point in the history of our country. They have the same word root like these. These are no longer. The idea that red state value is destroying the. For like, that is a product of capitalism, that is a product of late 20th century corporatism, reframing conservation as a frivolous liberal pinko, like aesthetic value versus like American industriousness, whereas American industriousness and conservationists were one of the same. At a certain point, you know, and regardless of the history of it, I think it goes, you know, we're in a very. Well, I should say we're in a very blue city in a mixed state over here in the Northeast, in New York. But as Patrick has laid out, we are having a lot of roadblocks with, you know, effectively capitalist energy industry and people within that, within the legislature and within the government preventing us from taking this supposedly philosophically consistent energy action. So I think it's really interesting to see, like, your state has handled it well with its resources. Obviously you have fewer people. But it also goes to show that, like, your state hasn't rejected that. That's not a conservative value. And I think a lot of our listeners might find themselves in places where they think this kind of change is hopeless. But like, you might be in more of a susceptible market in a territory where making change in terms of energy affordability and availability and renewability is actually possible.
- [65:50]
A
Yeah, and it's, it's really fascinating because the. Idaho is, is bucks a trend. And I don't say necessarily, I don't think it's necessarily concerned. I will call it maga because that's the, the kind of the, the, the Trump. I want to tear down all the windmills. I want to tear down solar and coal is great. I mean, he said things like that, yes, we are red in that regard, but a lot of people, even Read blue doesn't matter. That move to Idaho are very, very outdoorsy. But that can be the Trojan horse, I think for us is there's a reason Idaho is 75% renewable. Now I caveat that where a lot of us, again hydroelectric was just considered renewable, but it's not in that same vein of we just can't, it doesn't scale like you get you guys in New York or Oklahoma just can't build dams in the mountains. Like we have mountains everywhere here. So. But the fact that we are actively, instead of just tearing down the dams and replacing it with oil or something, we are using the wind power. I think that's a very good move for Idaho. And we're, we're now working on things like hydrogen potentially as, as a clean fuel instead because we have the Idaho National Laboratory, which is where the first nuclear reactor was built. But they are pivoting to other stuff. So I do think it isn't a red blue issue, it's a human issue.
- [67:08]
D
Well, I would completely agree with all that. And to your point about dams, you know, you can't build dams everywhere for sure, but hydroelectric is such a stable source of power that one thing you can do is reinvest the revenue from that power back into the things that you want to see and back into the grid. And that's what we've been trying to do here in New York with the New York Power Authority. You know, when you are fortunate enough to have a resource like that, you know, and up in the Northwest you have the Bonneville Power Administration, you have these other kind of legacy institutions. There are these kind of untapped financial engines that can be put to the service of the planet and the ratepayer.
- [67:59]
A
Yeah. And they, I mean it even boils down to just kind of the forward thinking on the solar panels of the nuclear test sites that we used to have here in Idaho. That's where they're now putting solar panels because no one wants to live there, no one wants to farm there. There's a nuclear Test site back 60, 70 years ago. So they're now putting solar panels out there on top of these old sites. And I, I, I gotta give kudos to the conservation mentality. That is one thing where as Nat was saying, I tend to think it bucks the trend, but really it doesn't. We, everyone should be more conservationists. It should be just a very easy route for us to take.
- [68:39]
B
So it's your right as an American not to get trampled by all these corporations that, that don't Want you to have individualism and the land that you're entitled to as an Amer. I'm trying to frame this you as an individual. I love being individuals. Oh, we love being individuals so much.
- [68:57]
D
You the.
- [68:58]
B
The don't tread on me by putting a nuclear reactor or fracking cracked gas into my state. You got to think of it that way. All right? Capture our indignance, if not our spirit of unity that we sacrificed by the time Reagan was president.
- [69:14]
A
The key is trying to convince Matt's
- [69:16]
C
state, let's not give Idaho too much credit. Like, if they had a bunch of oil and gas, it might look totally different.
- [69:21]
A
Oh, yeah, that's what I mean. 100.
- [69:25]
B
It's more varied. It's not a red or blue, you know.
- [69:28]
C
Yeah. They play the cards they're dealt. And they were dealt a very nice, you know, hydroelectric and have good geography.
- [69:35]
B
Providing energy to an amount of people that is roughly equal to my neighborhood.
- [69:40]
A
So we actually overproduce energy and we sell it to Oregon and California.
- [69:44]
D
It's also very bipartisan, the kind of indignation that you see about this issue and that you see about high electricity bills. I mean, I'll tell you, I've done door knocking and canvassing and organizing on kind of a variety of issues over the course of my life. And I think that probably the easiest canvassing I've ever done is talking to people like, hey, how do you feel about con Ed? Let me tell you, like, I don't know if we can swear on this show, but, like, oh, yeah, this is
- [70:13]
A
the Find out media network. Have you seen some of the other shows? Well, it's. It's funny because you have staunchly conservative people in Idaho now, like, hey, what kind of. Because I have a hybrid minivan kind of hybrid is that? And so when your pocketbooks are affected. Yeah. You suddenly become more apt to look into green energy stuff like how I only pay 30 bucks a tank for a tank of gas for a huge minivan as my kid and business hauler. And it people are like, that's awesome. I'm going to look into that. So, I mean, even if it's not an electric vehicle, they're at least maybe taking that hybrid step to do that. So I think that money angle like you're talking about where con it is, getting lambasted for their costs is a great avenue of approach in any state, whether red or blue. Yeah.
- [71:02]
B
No one likes paying too much for their energy. And it's not a. This isn't a trick. Conservatives are also being exploited by their utilities. Like that's the thing when it comes down to it, it's not like, oh, we need to convince them it's about affordability. It is about affordability and we're all being screwed by it in the same way.
- [71:18]
A
How do you convince them, though, Matt, in Oklahoma, who, where it's huge oil and gas? How do you can, how do you, because, like, I mean, you, you guys, you haven't seen a lot of the pressure like other states have. You're kind of in my boat because you're a big oil and gas producer like Texas. So is that, is that going to be harder for you to sell to them? Hey, let's try looking renewables and we
- [71:40]
C
have a ton of renewable energy.
- [71:42]
A
Are you guys overtaking the oil, though?
- [71:46]
C
I wouldn't say that. But, but I think it's the, I think it's the third largest wind farm in the country, is like 20 minutes from my house.
- [71:56]
D
Tex, Texas has amazing wind energy.
- [71:59]
C
Yeah. Texas has more than anybody. So there's a lot. But we actually export most of that because Oklahoma, we produce, I think, four times more energy than we consume. So we're a huge exporter. A lot of that wind energy goes to Louisiana and Arkansas and I think Mississippi or Tennessee. But yeah, we have a lot of renewable energy here. They're building a massive solar farm south of where I live.
- [72:24]
D
You know, Matt, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this. My understanding is that actually building out a lot of the, you know, gas infrastructure and, you know, LNG infrastructure the last couple of years actually could have led to domestic bills going up because all of a sudden you're talking about competing on a, you know, international market to a greater extent than you were before.
- [72:46]
C
Yeah, I've been talking about that for a long time. Yeah, being being the world's largest natural gas exporter comes with a cost.
- [72:55]
D
Exactly.
- [72:56]
A
Yeah.
- [72:58]
D
Well, this has been terrific, guys. I really should be on my way, but I've so enjoyed spending some time and, and chatting. So thank you all for having me on.
- [73:06]
B
Patrick Robbins, thank you for joining us here on American Power once again for our listeners. PATRICK Robbins from Spring Street Climate look into everything they're doing. Look for energy affordability advocates in your state, in your area and look at the Fair act also as we got into it in this episode. I learned a lot right now. A little wonky as to how the financial structure of this is, but I think essentially a bill that stops utility payers from over investing in the utility company for the utility Company's own profit is a pretty good once you get people to understand what it is. And I'd love to see more solutions like that on a state level across the country. So make sure you check that out. And if you'd like to know more, please follow the Utility Customers association one more time. Patrick Robbins, thank you so much for being on American Power.
- [73:54]
D
Thanks all. Have a great day.
- [73:55]
B
Patrick Robbins from the Energy Affordability association and Springtree Climate, thank you once again for joining us. What do you guys think? That was a really interesting discussion. I'm glad they could join us on the show.
- [74:04]
C
Yeah,
- [74:07]
A
I'll defer to Matt.
- [74:10]
B
I personally did not know that deal about utility rates being set at auction by the highest, at the highest rate. For example, like the peaker plant rate. That completely blew my mind. I've been reading about this stuff for years.
- [74:23]
C
Well, yeah, and when they hold their auctions for months that fall during the year where we have extreme temperatures, those auctions get crazy because they know how much demand is going to be on the system. And, and the thing is, regardless of whether that extreme temperature comes or not, you still end up paying a higher price because they've already paid to play during those extreme temperatures.
- [74:49]
B
So it's not only said, but it's kind of crazy how expenditure, it's like the potential maximum expenditure.
- [74:55]
C
Yeah.
- [74:56]
B
Should the weather get that extreme. Wow, that is crazy. Well, thank you guys for explaining.
- [75:01]
C
Whitehouse has made a few videos on social media where he shows how that works. What we were talking about there and one time he did it wrong and I called him out on it and a lot of people got mad at me. But I mean we need to be correct. But yeah, that's how it works. The cheapest power first. But the moment you use any more expensive power, all of it is more expensive. It's crazy that that's the way it's set up.
- [75:25]
A
But I like, I like the, I really like the fact that he came across as down to earth, like more how this impacts the average person because a lot of times you hear in this green energy world it becomes very preachy of and it kind of was how we remember our, our episode on the, the Democrat their autopsy and how the, the Democrat part, the Democratic Party loves to just kind of think at this high level theoretical, he's actually coming in and like hey, this, this is how we get cheaper. This is how we get cleaner. This is how you do it. I like the fact that he came in and was like, like hey, nuclear is okay. It's Just we can't build it out because it's so expensive. And I kind of knew that. I just, I'm glad that he came in and was like this is the reality for this works for whether you're in New York or if you're in California, Idaho, Oklahoma, wherever. And I like having that type of guest on that's not so thinking at such a high level, well, we need to save the western yellow backed butterfly for, from power. And I'm like that's cool, but how do we make it cheaper? And he's like this is how we
- [76:30]
B
do about out the flu vaccine was in that butterfly. But I hear what you're saying.
- [76:33]
A
I know something like that, like we just. The cure for cancer is in there, butterfly wing dust or whatever.
- [76:38]
B
But I know what you mean. It's very pragmatically focused which I think is like I said, it's not a disingenuous approach. This is not a partisan issue. I mean this is a human issue. This is, this is a populist issue too because we're the ones paying for these massive investments.
- [76:51]
A
Money talks.
- [76:52]
B
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right. I mean I've said before I wish more people cared about the environment automatically, even if it was expensive. But, but I do think a pragmatic approach is, is what gets people to care about these things and it really does affect everyone.
- [77:06]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
- [77:08]
C
I think most, most people don't realize like we're probably going to add 25 to 30 gigawatts of battery storage by the year 2030. That would be 25 to 30 nuclear reactors. You know what I mean? Like people don't think about batteries in like comparison to nuclear reactors. So he talked about New York wanting had 6 gigawatts of battery storage. Right. That would be fought for years. Six. That would be the equivalent of six nuclear reactors. Now how long would it take you to build six nuclear reactors in the state of New York? You know what I mean?
- [77:44]
B
Like that's over a decade even if simultaneously but probably longer.
- [77:48]
A
Oh yeah, that decade would be just on debating the legislation to allow it to happen.
- [77:52]
B
The idea of one of these things turning on in the next two decades is like optimistic stick.
- [77:57]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [78:00]
B
So I didn't mean to cut you off there, were you?
- [78:02]
C
No, I was just saying the cost of those six nuclear reactors, like what would you be looking at, you know, $50 billion or something like it's in
- [78:10]
A
six plants would be insane. Almost between 150 and $200 billion.
- [78:15]
B
Yeah.
- [78:15]
A
And that's like that's not sustainable.
- [78:17]
B
Well, I like their answer to your question about like you're right, we don't want to take things down so fast that we end up firing oil plants more. But the solution to that is to build the renewables that the law already says we have. I mean, at least in New York it's like, well, that you're inventing a problem that assumes you're not going to follow through on building out renewable energy. Like at least in our states, like we passed that bill. Where are those six? I mean the original Build Public Renewables act said 15 gigawatts, but the governor has been slow rolling and adding small. It started with 3, then 3.5 up to 7, back down to 6. They've been been screwing around back and forth. But you know, regardless, that's you know, relative to the amount the actual goal like that would have taken care of our, our nuclear coverage had they started building when they, when the law said they were supposed to build it. And also if the problem is further capacity, then we have to build the renewables to make up that capacity and not hope that there's a gap there. Which is something I thought but I thought they articulated it really well, which is like, that does make a lot more sense because I've had that thought too of like is it really so bad if the plants already there? It's like we can build solar. So like you said Matt, they're on the shelves already. Yeah, solar panels already made product. Yeah.
- [79:32]
A
My only concern, and I didn't bring this up, but my only concern is the lithium and the copper and things like that that goes through as of right now. Now we're doing better. It goes through China. That is unfortunately their wheelhouse. So all of these things that we have the ability to leverage, South America, Australia, Chile, Argentina, those will eventually overtake China. But right now China is the kind of the end all be all in the lithium world. And that is concerning from a geopolitical standpoint and a national security standpoint. But I think we can overcome that. Whereas the uranium side of it, not much better, but it is better because we have, we can leverage Canada. Canada has a lot of uranium that we can use. But again it doesn't matter if we want to spend 200 billion, we're not going to spend half a trillion dollars on nuclear plants in this country. So the renewable route is going to be the far better way to go.
- [80:25]
B
So yeah, that's what it seems like to me too. Well, this has been a really productive discussion And I hope that we can have them back on. I think it's given us a lot to talk about in future episodes as well. And I was glad we were able to take a moment to really expand on an issue. And I'm sure we'll be talking about more headlines next week and international issues as we often do. But I was glad we could have a moment to, to really break things down. And now that we're at the end of our show, I want to take us to a segment that we end almost every show with where we highlight a positive part of our week or a story that gave us a little bit of hope. This was not our bleakest episode, but I still want us to give us give a little moment to each one of us for the least worst part of our week. Chad, do you have a least worst part of your week?
- [81:09]
A
Yeah, I kind of, kind of stole my thunder myself already because I kind of talked about it it earlier where I was. I'm just want to highlight that again. Red, blue, purple, doesn't matter. The state, you can leverage the, the conservation aspect. You can leverage just the, the intrinsic value people have in ensuring that the environment is clean. And Idaho, probably the second red estate in the, in the country, still very, very focused on conservation even through their their energy. 75% of Idaho electricity generation comes from renewable. Whether it's hydroelectric wind, it's solar, where you can find unique ways to build solar power on places where no one's going to live anyway. Like we're using old nuclear test sites to build solar and it seems to be working. And then it allows us to start decommissioning some of these older, more obsolete, more dirty power generation. And if Idaho can be a model, and I get it, we're very small. To be fair, we're growing faster than just about any state out there, but we're very small. I still think that it can be a model for how to at least have the discussion in a, in an educated academic way, but also a pragmatic way with anyone. It doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on. So I'm just, I'm super proud of Idaho for that and I kind of highlighted earlier, but I just wanted to re highlight that.
- [82:35]
B
No, I think it's worth it and I think that's great. And I think you have a really good point. I mean I know I'm always is I'm the one going on about how it's not partisan, but I thought you did a really good job of illustrating That, I mean, I didn't know that much about your state. It is kind of fascinating how much has come out of it in terms of not only to sustain within the state, but also as a model for other states. I think it's really interesting, Mr. Global, what's the least worst part of your week?
- [83:00]
C
So I normally, you know, entertain you guys with silly stuff, but a little more serious this time. Cancer. Cancer treatment.
- [83:09]
A
Way serious. Yeah, the other direction.
- [83:13]
C
Yeah, I'm going the other direction.
- [83:15]
B
It depends on what he's about to say about it.
- [83:16]
A
I know it could be. It could be good news, though.
- [83:18]
B
I'm hoping.
- [83:19]
C
Now, a couple weeks ago, we heard about a new treatment for pancreatic cancer. I heard about the pill that like, doubles the life expectancy of those, but a new one has dropped since then. And it is a cancer vaccine and a immunotherapy that actually reduces or increases life expectancy.
- [83:38]
B
It.
- [83:38]
C
It cuts the death in half, is what I'm trying to say, of melanoma patients by 50%. It's called inter Ismaran, I think, is how I'm saying it. But that, combined with an existing therapy that they already had, has proven to reduce deaths by 50% in melanoma patients. And all of this, this sort of news about new cancer treatments has been happening a lot more recently lately. I don't know if that's AI related or like, I don't know how this is all happening. It seems to be happening quicker, but it's. It's really cool that we just continually now seem to hear more positive things about cancer research and the things they're figuring out. So that was my best news of the worst week, or whatever you call this segment.
- [84:28]
B
You should listen to our podcast sometimes. I mean, I don't, but you should. I clearly, I remember the name of the segments. No, that's really good news. And I don't want to brush by into jokes too fast. I think, you know, I actually have a lot of fears that, especially in the US with, you know, the Trump administration defunding all this medical research, that, you know, this kind of progress would come to a. Come to a halt. And seeing that more recent. What feels like an acceleration of good news is, you know, really heartening.
- [84:52]
D
And that's an important.
- [84:53]
B
An issue that's really important to me.
- [84:54]
D
Me.
- [84:55]
C
Yeah.
- [84:55]
A
And it. It just to quickly jump in, there's these. These classes of drugs, they call them like the. The Mabs, the Nibs and the. The Sib drugs. These are. And Matt alluded to it, we talked about the, the data centers. Those are being driven by what I call human or AI assisted humans. And so that's where they're coming from. And I'm actually a direct beneficiary. I take, I, I. So I have eosinophilic esophagitis. It's not, it's more just a annoyance than it is anything dangerous. But there's a drug called dupilumab, and it's one of those MAB drugs that I take, so I can manage it. And all of these new classes of drugs that we see are not trying to defend the data centers, but that's kind of, we're being, we're getting some benefit out of these. These humans are using kind of the AI to help them assist, to do, do really quick trials on things rather than, which allow them to get to approval faster. So very cool.
- [85:55]
B
That is cool. And we also will probably discuss data centers more on another episode. So I'm sure we can, we can talk about the integration of medical research and all when we revisit that next time. But no, I mean, I'm only saying that to say you don't need to devalue what you're saying because.
- [86:08]
A
No, no, I got you.
- [86:09]
B
That's really important. And I'm also scrambling because I'm trying really hard to transition to the thing I'm about to say, which is considerably less serious, which is go for it. Normally at the beginning of the episode, I say we are recording this on Monday evening. You're listening to Wednesday. This is not a particularly timely episode, but I do want to say that by the time you have listened to this on Wednesday, we've both seen the New York Knicks go three and oh. In the NBA Finals. And I think we all know that was a great game. Jalen Brunson really outdid himself.
- [86:42]
A
I'm gonna back up here because we got two opposites of the opposing sides.
- [86:46]
B
We all know it's currently Wednesday when you're listening to this. And also that halftime shootout between Trump and Zoron, I mean, I don't know why Trump got himself into that, but I mean, Sauron cooked him. I don't know why they went down to a knockout game one on one, but I guess Trump thought he could double down on double nothing. But I think nationally, this has really helped the mood. The guy just does not have a clean J. He wants to believe he's good at it, but Zoron's got the outside shot and he goes hard in the paint. So go, Nick. That's the least worst part of my week.
- [87:14]
A
That's the first fan on the right side of me over here, though. Since I'm on the middle of this,
- [87:19]
C
actually, I'm rooting for the Knicks. Look, I thought you were going for
- [87:22]
A
the spurs after the Thunder.
- [87:24]
C
So after the spurs beat us, I told my spurs fans, followers that I would root for the spurs, but I hadn't really paid attention to basketball. I only watch sports during playoffs. Like, I don't pay attention. And after watching that first game, I. I just became a Knicks fan. I was like, I love these guys. Like, I like Carly. I like the Brunson guy. I like Carl Anthony Towns. Like, I just like him. Like, I don't know why. And honestly, I don't think the spurs have anything for him. I think it's a sweep. Like, you beat somebody twice at home. Oh, my gosh.
- [88:01]
B
Like, I will not.
- [88:03]
C
I really like that Brunson guy. He seems down to earth. And I like the Carl Anthony town. I just like them. Like, I don't know why, but I. I think they're gonna win.
- [88:10]
A
Send your hate mail to Mr. Global Appeal Box.
- [88:13]
C
I will get emails, trust me.
- [88:14]
B
Well, I agree that it's great they won that last game, and I don't want to count our chickens before they hatch about the sweep, but, you know, you know, you don't want to predict a victory, but I'm so glad they won game three. By the time you're listening to this, and I will also. I know I'm always going on about community in New York, but this, the vibe in this city has been incredible for the past week. I mean, human ingenuity. You just see people putting on costumes. They're making sets outside of Madison Square Garden. People are. Don't leap off of a billboard. But people are leaping off billboards. People are getting videos from the tops of building. Like, you just this. It feels like summer of, like, 1993 again. All of a sudden. Like, people are so jazzed. Deli guys are yelling me out the door, like, hey, did you see the game tonight? I'm not joking. That happened. Like, it. I'm not even the biggest sports fan. But the way that it brings people together and the way that you see, like, like, you know, the similarities between these people. I don't want to be like, oh, we're all one race. Your politics absolutely matter. But it's really cool to see the soul of a city come together that way and see people realize how much they have in common.
- [89:14]
A
I guess the city didn't collapse after Monvani. After. After.
- [89:18]
B
Yeah. It's so interesting how that didn't happen.
- [89:21]
C
Honestly, I think it's better for the country if the Knicks win and not the Spurs. Nobody cares about San Antonio. Nobody cares what happens in San Antonio, Texas.
- [89:30]
D
Mr.
- [89:31]
B
Global, P.O. box. Things are happening there. Yeah.
- [89:33]
C
When New York does well, the country does well. That's just a fact. Like, you know, that's just how it is.
- [89:39]
B
That has been the least worst part of our week. And you're listening to American Power. This has been American Power for chad Scott and Mr. Global. Matt Randolph, I'm Nat Town. We'll be back next week. And remember, power corrupts, but American power corrupts Americanly.