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Insane strangling energy regulations: What to watch out for in 2026 · Cultural Wars | America Out Loud News

0:02
On in the grip of oppression.
0:06
I fought for my liberty.
0:10
I paid with the blood of my people.
0:14
Freedom has never been free.
0:18
Now my doors always open.
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To dreamers and friends.
0:27
When I'm attacked, I protect NDF.
0:35
Because my name is America.
0:39
Hello, everyone.
0:41
Welcome.
0:41
This is Karen Chan.
0:42
You're listening to the Prism of America's Education brought to you on the America Outloud.news network.
0:49
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1:03
We, the people are entering into a new year, 2026.
1:08
And that is going to bring a tremendous amount of change to the way we exist in America.
1:15
And that change is going to be up to us.
1:18
But we have to be prepared.
1:20
And we can't get stuck in the minute details that actually mean nothing.
1:26
We have to pay attention to what is important.
1:30
Things like health care, uh, illegals, immigration, sharing the truth, looking for fraud, oversight on legislation, checking the donors of the people that we vet, reporting on regulations for new policies that harm rather than do good.
1:52
Who do they benefit?
1:54
Who do they support?
1:55
Are they supporting the legislators or are they supporting we the people?
2:00
We have to pay attention to things like education, like energy and health care.
2:06
I have decided this year that I will be bringing you experts in each field so that you will be well informed and not have to listen to those that lie to us continually.
2:18
And it is for that reason that I am starting the year off with one of the most important interviews that I ever did, and that was with Dave Walsh on energy.
2:31
Dave Walsh is a guru on energy.
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Now he is with the administration, but his information is invaluable.
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Get out your pad and pen and make sure that you take notes.
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Remember that you will be able to listen to the podcast on every Tuesday following the interview.
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This time it will be on energy.
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Energy is power, and people have been giving their power away.
3:03
We have to stop giving our power away to people who want to do us harm.
3:09
So, folks, enjoy and God bless you all and have a wonderful new year.
3:18
Well, I got up this morning to some crisp air, and I knew that summer was over.
3:23
And that means that the thermostat changes from air conditioning to heat.
3:28
Not a problem, I thought, because we've been conserving.
3:31
And I said, let me look at my bill from last year.
3:34
And I realized that I'm paying more for less.
3:37
How is that possible?
3:39
Could it be because Florida has been replacing fossil fuels with solar panels?
3:45
Remember, I told you I sent the letter to Governor DeSantis and I asked him what the solar panels taste like because it seems as though we're replacing our food farms with solar farms.
3:56
Of course, I never got an answer.
3:58
So I asked Dave Walsh, who I have been following for a very long time.
4:03
He's the former president and CEO of Mitsubishi Power Systems America's energy advisor, national energy commentator, and he is fabulous and will give us a thorough explanation of what's going on with Florida's power.
4:22
Remember, energy is power.
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And if we don't power, we will be in big trouble.
4:29
So Dave, thank you so much for joining me today.
4:32
And I'm going to give the floor to you because you know a lot more than I do.
4:36
And I want you to be able to share with our audience some of the things that I'm discovering in Florida.
4:42
I know other people are as well.
4:44
Karen, thanks for having me.
4:46
Deeply appreciate the chance to speak on your on your show.
4:51
What is going on?
4:53
All I'm seeing in Florida is solar farm, solar farm, solar farm, and my energy costs instead of this free solar energy that we're supposed to be getting is going up.
5:06
How is that possible?
5:07
What's going on?
5:08
Well, Florida is following the path since um about 2021 of um probably three-fourths of the states in the country.
5:19
This is bipartisan, be they red or blue, on marching down a path of an all-renewable, uh new capacity addition of power generating plants being renewable.
5:30
Solar, now the dominant portion nationally and in Florida, maybe 70% of the renewables being installed or solar, about 10% battery storage and the balance wind.
5:40
Wind years ago is the big one.
5:41
Now it's solar.
5:43
But it's uh this is happening across the country, impacting over 250 million people living in states and regions on an absolute binge nationally the last uh five years.
5:54
91% of new capacity additions of generating assets have been solar, battery storage, and wind.
6:01
Florida is no different.
6:03
Florida, actually, the last since 2021.
6:07
The three major regulated utilities here have installed uh basically nothing but uh solar farms and a little bit of battery storage to check the box that yeah, they're storing a very tiny portion of this because battery storage operates from two to three hours a day, the latest technology, yeah, up to four hours, but a very minor, minor fraction of the time, and it's very costly.
6:29
But anyhow, no, the the three major utilities here, and this isn't all about any one of them in specific.
6:35
Duke Energy, Tico, and Florida Power and Light, the really big guy are the last uh since 2021, entirely new solar and battery storage, new additions of generating capacity, and the next 10 years, according to their 10-year site plan, more of the same.
6:51
91% of what they'll install the next 10 years across the state is solar and battery storage.
6:58
Florida Power and Light is in the middle of a rate case that started at a request for 9.9 billion over four years.
7:04
The biggest rate case in the history of the country to fund 10 more years of nothing but solar and battery storage because it is actually so expensive.
7:13
Um it's been reduced now to 7 billion after the Striden effort of many, many intervening groups stepping in and complaining bitterly about this.
7:22
But that this has been their plan along with what Duke has done and Tico has did this, and even uh uh CEO Pimentel of FPL last week in a in a public interview, acknowledged this is really more about the shareholders uh and the because to your point.
7:39
Um, solar is not free.
7:42
Solar is very, very expensive.
7:44
No, there is no natural gas purchase to operate it, but on the other hand, the capital equipment over history has been five to six times more costly than building conventional combined cycle gas-fired power plants, which has been, if you will, the weapon of choice and major power generation in the country up to about 2000, 2020.
8:06
Um, now we flipped it solar.
8:08
The trouble again with solar is you you've got capital costs, one the land.
8:11
The land use issue is massive, a typical announced 74 and a half megawatt solar farm rating plate, that is, not continuous energy basis, but 74 and a half megawatt solar farm takes about 670 acres.
8:25
670 acres cost 25 to 30 million dollars to begin with.
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Then you've got the solar panel, 87% of which emanate from China.
8:34
The inverters, the solar panels, large cost, the labor to install.
8:38
You've got uh for a net uh 19 megawatt energy facility.
8:44
96 million dollars of hard capital, which is close to six times more costly than the past prevailing cost of combined cycle.
8:53
Gas fire cost has gone up lately.
8:55
Uh, but uh the the cost of the amortized capital of this, which is so so high is what drives the bills up.
9:03
This stuff is massively expensive, but yeah, no gas, but on the other hand, the capital cost lands in your bill also at an 11.5% markup or ROI for the utility.
9:14
They make more money in this because they're transferring gas cost, which was a pass-through over to amortized capex, which goes in the bill with a markup, a guaranteed markup by the PSE of 11 and a half percent.
9:28
And this is true in most states that have regulated utilities.
9:32
So you're seeing across the country actually in red and blue states alike, an absolute boom of this, bootstrapping on the incentives that make it more attractive for the for the builder of these.
9:44
So it's a it's a tremendous issue.
9:46
It's unbelievable that it's happening in free Florida under our Republican reign, where the governor appoints the public service commission that approves these.
9:54
These have been happening for seven consecutive years under Governor DeSantis and his.
10:00
His nominated his chosen public service commission approving every single one of these solar farms.
10:06
Who does the study for this?
10:08
We usually we're supposed to have uh a study that uh takes a sampling and sees what the uh cause and the effect is.
10:17
Who is who is doing this?
10:19
Is nobody paying attention or they don't really care?
10:22
Well, yeah, okay, the electric power generation cost and choices of fuel are delegated to the states by the federal government back in 1930.
10:33
The public power act provided the state's total authority over making decisions about this.
10:38
So these decisions aren't made at the federal level, they're made at the state level.
10:42
Um, what winds up happening because the state has um uh most states have really no government uh organization that really is aggressively overseeing, and it wouldn't take a lot of people, would take four or five people with some major consulting firms in support to prepare studies of what this stuff actually costs.
11:01
But states tend not to do that.
11:03
Our state, for example, outside of the public service commission, which is appointed by the governor, we have a desk, a desk of a person in the ag department that tracks what the utilities are doing in terms of investment.
11:15
That's it.
11:16
Um there really is not a government body or chancellor of energy that looks at, hey, what's the best thing for the people?
11:22
We really let the vendors do that.
11:24
We let Duke Energy, we let Florida Power Light, and we let TICO, the three state-regulated monopoly utilities make decisions on capacity, and all of their analysis is sent to the public service commission for review.
11:37
Typically, the public service commission is dominated by former uh state senators, former state legislators with largely real estate and development backgrounds who have no background whatsoever in electric energy and power generation, nor what the costs and technologies are in that space, kind of, if you will, and I I don't mean to be demeaning of them, but kind of um clueless on the details of what energy alternatives there are in the engineering of it, because of their various backgrounds being non non-engineering, non-energy, and that you really wind up advocating and abdicating the analysis to the utilities who are submitting the rate cases and looked at as the experts and let you know, under a uh kind of theory of deregulate, let them do whatever they want to do, and they know best, right?
12:26
So, no, they're very conflicted, they're very conflicted to submit the most expensive kinds of uh resources that they can.
12:34
Yeah, so the point I was making, the uh you've got the chicken watching the hen house, and that's not the meaning of the great service utilities can and have provided.
12:42
It's not the meaning of that, but it is a basic fact of life when the creator of policy defaults to the vendor selling the apparatus and the electricity, you get a skewed set of recommendations that veer towards what's more expensive for ratepayers and what makes that service provider more money, and this stuff is a gold mine for the utilities doing it because of the ease of erection and the fact that you know, even if this whole case for solar crashes and burns, they come out of this with massive, massive land holdings in a great booming state, entirely subsidized by their ratepayers and 30% by federal taxpayers in tax credits.
13:28
So it's a uh win-win-win for the utilities doing this on particularly the landholding they come out of this with, entirely funded by others.
13:38
That's usually what happens.
13:40
You said that it's the vendors and the vendors are from China.
13:47
So China is running the show.
13:50
No, and that in that model, I was talking about the vendors of electricity, Florida Power and Light, Duke Energy, and Tico are vendors to the people.
14:00
Vendors are the ones selling things, they're selling electricity to the people of Florida.
14:05
In this case, they're the vendor.
14:06
You've got a business model where the vendor is self-regulating.
14:09
Now, okay, let's go to that issue.
14:12
The downstream vendor to those vendors of electricity to us.
14:16
This this equipment is factually made 87% in the world in China.
14:23
Thin film PV panels are made 87% of the world supply is from China.
14:29
Inverters, uh, battery storage, 87% of the lithium and lithium processing in utility scale battery storage that backs up a wee little bit of this, but costs the ratepayers huge money is also 87% Chinese sourced.
14:44
Inverters that convert DC to AC power when this stuff is formed in the field, are about 65% Chinese sourced.
14:54
So you have basically a conversion going on of what was gas, gas fueled power plants moving over to solar farms by the utilities with equipment in them that is dominantly sourced from China.
15:09
There is a supply base in Florida, Jinko Solar has a distribution assembly center up in Jacksonville that was funded by Florida in part, small part, Florida uh Enterprise Florida support funding that basically is a distribution center and very, very light assembly for Chinese thin film PV imported from Genko Solar, one of the dominant solar producers in China to their own base in Jacksonville for further distribution across the state to the utilities.
15:39
That's that's been called by some government officials a factory, it's not a factory, it's a large distribution depot in which the thin film PV entirely made in China arrives and is bolted up onto frames and then distributed through the state.
15:53
It seems to me like we are allowing China to use fossil fuels to create the solar panels, and yet we can't use it.
16:02
How does that help anybody?
16:04
Oh, indeed, we are.
16:10
Okay, Walt Reed had an interesting piece two days ago on this that uh it's worth noting.
16:14
Uh if you will, complaining that China's out competing us, building electrical capacity by a large measure.
16:22
They're in the middle of building uh last year, they built 450 gigawatts of power plants in China.
16:28
Now, about five eighths to three-fourths of that were coal plants, some gas plants, plants that run all of the time.
16:36
That they compared that to the U.S.
16:38
building this year only about 52 gigawatts of power plants.
16:42
52 gigawatts is really 16.
16:45
Why is it only 16?
16:46
They didn't say this part, but here's the quiet part out loud.
16:50
Even the 52 gigawatts we're building at the present pace are 91% renewable, meaning they operate solar operates 5.2 hours a day, wind operates a day.
17:03
So when you factor down the net capacity of 52 gigawatts being built this year in the U.S., it's really about 16 gigawatts.
17:12
That's horrendous because that stuff doesn't operate the vast majority of the time.
17:18
So when you take the rating plate value for the moment of the day that it would be actually giving you peak capacity, which is a very small portion of time, and apply all that dead time to the 52 gigawatts, you get like 16.
17:30
So here's China with a heavy mix of building stuff that runs all of the time.
17:36
Coal, nuclear, natural gas, sure, some of their own solar and battery storage, but still five-eighths of what they're building, base load, continuous duty plants that run 24 hours a day that we have stopped doing.
17:51
They're they're they're they're producing power generation plants to the degree of more than 20 times what we are when you take that into account.
17:58
I mean, no, this is a disaster, and it's being foisted by them.
18:02
They're the ones promoting the UN IPCC to give hair on fire.
18:06
The world is the world needs to address its carbon problem.
18:09
The world needs to address its carbon problem when they themselves are the generator of more carbon than all of the OECD nations combined, and they're doing it, creating solar panels and batteries and inverters to export to the rest of the world while they themselves are building 220 coal plants per year, which by the way, which by the way, there's nothing wrong with the last portion.
18:33
We ought to be doing the same thing.
18:35
We got to be building combined cycle plants that are very clean, scrub clean, uh ultra-supercritical coal, which is very clean, keep the plants open, which we're now a little bit doing.
18:45
Thank thank the Lord.
18:46
And we ought to be in the game too of getting back to power plants that run all of the time, not these devices that run a very, very small fraction of the time.
18:56
Well, they keep on saying that Florida is the sunshine state, but nobody really pays attention to the weather because Florida is also extremely cloudy.
19:05
So how does that work?
19:07
But I'm thinking as you're talking, all these people moving to Florida, and they want to put on top of that AI.
19:17
How is that going to work?
19:19
How is that possible at all that we will have energy on a continual basis?
19:27
We're going to wind up like California with blackouts and brownouts continually.
19:33
That's that's what to me, that's what you're laying out.
19:37
Am I correct?
19:38
Well, it is a curiosity.
19:40
Um, one of the okay, I'm gonna be careful not to say their name too many times.
19:44
The largest of our three public utilities has had uh its ambassadors running around the state from time to time, claiming in meetings in public that the energy model for Florida is California.
19:57
Oh gosh.
19:58
No, take that to the bank from their
20:00
Lips.
20:00
Um, and to hear to your first very first point on on the Sunshine State.
20:05
Solar power here is somewhat better than average compared to the national average, but maybe in the top three eights.
20:14
Uh and because of exactly what you mentioned, heavy cloud cover in the summer months, when it would matter most to have it.
20:21
So solar power is effective here on average, according to the national uh renewal and energy labs under the DOE.
20:29
Data from the Biden administration, Carter back through Obama, including from President Trump's prior administration, their data.
20:36
Florida power for solar is a 5.2 hour a day thing.
20:40
5.2 hours out of 24.
20:42
Therefore, if you're attempting to rely on it, you must have something else for the other 19 hours a day.
20:50
Okay, or 18.8 hours a day.
20:53
So the goodness of solar in Florida is kind of average nationally.
20:57
It's not remarkably better.
20:59
In the country, it's really good in New Mexico, Arizona, um, eastern Southern California, and uh Nevada.
21:07
Excellent.
21:08
And because 320 days a year, you can rely on the six and a half hours out there.
21:13
So, by the way, out there it doesn't need subsidized because of that 320 days a year, you can count on it.
21:19
It doesn't need federal subsidies.
21:21
It's it's useful in that zone.
21:24
Over here, and then when you get up in the upper Midwest and up to New England, you know, where you're talking four hours a day usefulness because of cloud cover and the northern northerly latitude.
21:34
It's it's utterly senseless.
21:35
It's senseless to be subsidized, and it's a massive cost to ratepayers to allow it to be intervened into their system.
21:43
But in those regions, you've got the same thing.
21:45
You've got public service commission too up there tend to be dominated by Democrats and who have been all over doing nothing but this for the last 20 years, independent of the cost to ratepayers, which wind up being huge, huge.
21:57
I was just going to ask you if doesn't President Trump who the energy they are condoning this.
22:07
How does AI run if you only have five or six hours worth of energy?
22:12
What is what happens next?
22:15
How do we have all of these plants that he wants to bring in?
22:19
Yeah, it's the problem.
22:20
For example, what we're doing here in Florida, AI will never show up here because of the reliability issue this present and then the basic lack of electrification because reserve margins are reducing here because of the replacement of coal, oil, and not building natural gas any longer with this part-time stuff.
22:41
You wind up with the reserve margins declining.
22:43
That's the headroom needed to achieve electricity on the hottest and coldest days.
22:48
Not because of extreme weather, but because in the winter, that's when the coldest days are and in the summer, the hottest days, you've got to have a headroom or cushion to absorb those peak periods of electrical demand in the cold winter mornings, as you pointed out, and in the peak summer period from 4 30 to 7 30 when the sun isn't there anymore for solar power, uh creation of power.
23:11
So that we're seeing a reserve reserve margins shrink, costs go way up.
23:15
So this becomes a very unattractive place for AI.
23:19
Then the debate in the rest of the country is who should pay for the massive quantity of power AI needs.
23:25
Um, it does appear that the most logical thing would be that the AI developers, owners themselves, be it Yahoo, be it Google, be it Facebook, be Microsoft, whomever uh NVIDIA are building these large AI, thousand megawatt, 2000 megawatt demand hogs, if you will, should should build their own generation.
23:47
In the in the public policy interest, that would be the most prudent thing.
23:51
That's that's the big debate going on.
23:53
That really uh the these firms shouldn't be let to plug into the public power pool um and take advantage.
24:02
Um in the U.S.
24:03
industrial commercial rates tend to be half on average, or about half of what retail rates are for the residential consumers.
24:12
So there's already a gigantic advantage they have.
24:15
If you just let them plug into the grid, you're avoiding out the fact that they're showing up here with the gigawatt or two gigawatts, huge demand that wind up the cost winds up getting spread like peanut butter over the entire rate base.
24:28
They don't really pay for the incremental capital cost of the new power plants they're causing to be built.
24:34
If they have to build their own, it's a better case for ratepayers.
24:39
We need more power.
24:41
We need more power.
24:42
We have a massive national shortage due to the overbuilding of these part-time things in the last 10 years and shutting down baseload continuous duty coal and nuclear plants.
24:53
So we have a shortage already, allowing them to fund the building of their own would be the most logical and the most fair thing to ratepayers.
25:01
You know, this is a raging debate.
25:02
Um the administration hasn't really weighed in on that yet.
25:06
In fact, they've weighed in more on the side of being supportive of AI almost no matter what.
25:10
So that's a that's an issue yet to be yet to be dealt with effectively.
25:15
We're gonna have to take a break and we will come back, folks, and continue with Dave.
25:22
He's said that he would be able to stay with us with the second segment.
25:26
And let's find out what we can do about this, because this is what we are facing to me.
25:32
After listening to you, Dave, is a horrifying situation where we the people will be paying and getting very little return on our investment.
25:44
Uh, so thank you for sticking with me, and we will be right back, folks.
25:49
This is Karen Schoen.
25:50
You're listening to the Prism of America's Education.
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Don't go away.
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28:12
Well, did you see Google quietly updated its AI principles removing its pledge not to use AI for weapons or surveillance?
28:21
A promise they agree to in 2018.
28:24
Well, the American people have seen Google's track record.
28:27
Prompt in the question is Google an untrustworthy player in the AI race.
28:37
Now is our time, my fellow Americans.
28:40
America outloo.
28:43
Liberty and justice for all.
28:51
Thank you.
28:51
This is Karen Schoen.
28:53
You're listening to the Prism of America's Education.
28:56
And my guest, Dave Walsh, who is laying out a really scary picture for we the people in Florida.
29:04
Dave, from what you've been saying, it sounds like we the people are going to be on the bottom of this energy uh need.
29:14
And business will take precedent.
29:16
AI will take precedent, and we are going to be told to turn up our thermostats in the summer, turn it down in the winter, and live with these blackouts that are self-imposed.
29:28
What do you see in the future for us if we don't do some corrections here?
29:32
Yeah.
29:33
Just to just to clarify what you said.
29:35
I mean, in the um the bigger context here in Florida and around the country, the bigger issue with the power shortage and with the high cost have been the displacement of full time assets, coal, nuclear, and not building enough gas fired combined cycles that run all the time, just attempting to displace lots of those with part time intermittent devices over the last eight years.
30:00
That's been the far bigger issue with rapidly escalating electricity costs up to this point.
30:07
AI is just only now showing up.
30:10
So there's there's a lot of blame transference by politicians on both sides who have done this to us, both red and blue, have done this to us for eight years.
30:20
Suddenly they found a new bogeyman to blame, and that's AI is going to be a new part abolition of baseload full-time power plants and attempting to replace them with those that work very part-time and don't operate at all at night and don't operate at all when it's cloudy, creating a huge shortage.
30:38
So no, this is uh we need to get to our politicians and candidates from both sides, especially though from the Republican side, who would appear now to be arguing on behalf of the people as populists, and and be supportive of the administration's initiatives on low cost electricity and not supporting dependence on China by getting in front of political candidates to remind them they've got to have a position on this.
31:04
They've got to have a position on this that is for ratepayers for low cost, abundance, reliable service for ratepayers, not this stuff that works part-time and is entirely devoting our our dependence to China.
31:18
That makes no sense.
31:28
We've solved that problem with fracking in this country, massively solved that problem.
31:32
We're now the largest producer, once again, in the world of oil and gas, is to be able to depend on those resources, natural gas specifically to generate electricity because it does it the most cost effectively at this time.
31:45
Nuclear is out there in the future.
31:47
It's been regulated into cost oblivion, so it's going to take a long time to rebuild the supply chain for that and get these new SMRs, small small modular reactors uh accredited and approved by the NRC, get the regulation world around that resolved to where it could be more cost effectively built.
32:07
Nuclear is out there, it's way out there, 10 to 15 years out there in terms of being an answer, but gas-fired power is what makes a lot of sense now.
32:14
And keeping open the coal plants.
32:17
Because here, for example, what we're doing in Florida to support this build out of solar, the utilities are shutting down the last 2700 megawatts, which mind you would support two and a half million people full time.
32:28
They're shutting down the last 2700 megawatts of coal and oil plants we have.
32:33
And the beauty of those is they run all of the time on human control.
32:38
So they they have 24 hour day capability, unlike solar, which is 5.2 hours, and battery storage, which is two to three hours.
32:45
So I mean, it's another mistake to be shutting down the remaining baseload fossil assets we have in Florida.
32:52
So you want to get in front of your political candidates, get in front of the governor, make sure he's completely aware of opposition to these massively high cost programs.
33:00
Uh Dave, I saw you on the Steve Bannon uh war room, and you mentioned a bill that the Florida legislature just passed that I don't think we the people really understand quite what it is, but it's going to affect us in the long run.
33:19
And I researched and found that it I believe the one you're talking about is SP 700.
33:26
Could you explain to everyone what this is and and what it actually means and how it's going to affect us?
33:34
Well, it's basically an in-state incentive for a lot more solar farms, utility scale solar farms now incented by the state.
33:42
Now, that bill was crafted even though he's not at the state house resident by Ag Secretary, Wilton Simpson.
33:50
Wilton Simpson, under the banner of an ag bill.
33:53
Now one would think that an ag bill is all about more abundant, cost effective farming, right?
33:59
All about farming.
34:00
You call something an ag no.
34:02
What it was about with respect to solar was if you're selling land to a farmland to a company, to Digo, FTL, for example, to build a huge solar farm on it.
34:15
Guess what?
34:16
It can retain its ag exemption.
34:19
It's ag status in in zoning, can be retained.
34:24
If any limited amount of mixed use can continue on that land, such as a little bit of tomato growing, a little bit of soybean growing, you know, whatever is grown on the land in fairly minor quantities.
34:38
While it's dominantly a solar farm, guess what?
34:41
It retains the ad theorem tax ag zoning benefit, which is huge.
34:47
Ag property is taxed on property tax basis here in Florida, but one seventh the basis of commercial or retail, industrial or a home, homestead property.
34:58
Ag is one seventh the property tax.
35:01
So these solar farm operators get from the prior owner a for basically a forever ag zoning benefit.
35:09
Now, also what the bill did was delegate to the county cities and municipal governments all the duty and responsibility to do zoning reviews, land use reviews, and environmental reviews pursuant to new solar farms.
35:24
So and with a five-year look back.
35:26
A five-year reverse look back that arguably has been the case because of this bill in May of 2025.
35:34
Also true for the past five years, which it hasn't been.
35:37
The state, who was supposed to be doing all this on these solar farms that have been built to date, the first 10,000 megawatts of them has not done it.
35:46
So this bill provides a clever get out of jail pre-pass for the state government officials and the state house basically can say, oh, well, now the bill says that this should have been done the last five years by municipalities, counties and cities and boroughs.
35:59
Well, therefore, what if you know if it has done shame and done shame on them?
36:03
But since it's retroactive, they didn't know that they had that responsibility four years ago, three years ago, two years ago.
36:10
This is all very sad.
36:11
This is called an ag bill.
36:13
You would think that it has to do with more abundant, profuse, and cost effective and promoting ag in the state.
36:20
No, it's really promoting the use of ag lands, present ag lands more aggressively to be used for utility-scale solar farms.
36:29
A total waste of the land.
36:31
Anyhow, that's a waste of the land and a waste of the money because from what you're saying, notoriously the big patches of land are in the counties that are very rural and are not as rich as the Miami Dade or uh West Palm or Broward.
36:52
So this burden of a feasibility study has now been thrown on the shoulders of the poorer counties.
36:59
Is that what you're describing?
37:01
Yes, but not only the burden to do the study, but the tax abatements of six-sevenths, basically, of what would have been the more appropriate property taxes to those more let's say more impoverished, not as well off counties that are mainly ag based, who will be punished the worst by this will be in a position to collect all the less property taxes going forward.
37:24
So it's a no, it's a lose-lose for them.
37:26
But it's a huge win for the utility scale, solar utilities in our state, which are the main three regulated utilities doing utility-scale solar farms across the state.
37:38
And what they've announced over the next 20 years, the three companies would amount to over 1,300 square miles of our land being converted to solar farms over the next uh 18 years or so.
37:52
A total disaster.
37:53
Absolutely.
37:54
Well, folks, we've got our business cut out for us and getting a hold of your legislator and new candidates and vetting them is what we have to do.
38:06
And I would also suggest that we get in front of Byron Donald's because it looks like he has a good foothold of becoming the governor.
38:14
And he is uh very uh in tune with the economics, but if you leave out power and energy, then your economics are out the window.
38:25
And uh, this is something that I see happening.
38:29
Um, Dave, we've been hearing a lot about this net zero stuff.
38:33
What is that actually mean?
38:35
Well, net zero, it's a false term to begin with, but there's no such thing as net zero.
38:40
It's about net zero carbon emissions.
38:43
First of all, the characterization of carbon as an emission is completely misplaced conflated language.
38:50
Carbon, by and large, is a naturally created substance.
38:55
Carbon is created by evaporating water from oceans, lakes, and rivers.
39:00
It's created by rotting animal and plant carcasses and plant material and vegetation material rotting.
39:07
About 5% of carbon is created by man-cause activity.
39:12
So 95% of carbon is naturally created.
39:15
It's fundamental to life itself.
39:18
Without carbon, we have no photosynthesis, we have no plant life, therefore we have no vegetation, plant life for food.
39:25
Carbon is essentially important to exist.
39:28
It cannot be eradicated because it's naturally mainly naturally occurring.
39:35
Net zero was a the last chance kid of the left to try to shift the power and shift the monetary value, the power of money away from gas, oil, and coal interests over to their interests.
39:50
Um by eradicating baseload continuous duty power plants.
39:56
They started the, you know, the the yeah, there was pollution that mattered.
40:00
Nitrous oxide, sulfur, heavy metals, heavy particulate mercury, yes.
40:06
These things from coal plants and gas plants were largely almost completely eradicated by the OEMs and major firms in the US, Japan, and Germany up through about 2001, coal was basically cleaned up, especially burning it at super high temperatures, ultra supercritical.
40:24
The uh actual pollutants that matter, 85% to 90% removed.
40:30
China today is building coal plants with those features.
40:34
Scrubbers, ultra, we should be doing the same thing, but for the fact that the Democrat governments ran that off intentionally, not because it wasn't clean, but because they were successfully able to label carbon a natural creating created element that's totally necessary for plant life as a boogeyman and label therefore coal plants as a boogeyman to be attacked, the same as they did years earlier with nuclear power.
41:01
Now suddenly they want nuclear power back because they recognize it's carbon free and it doesn't it doesn't have any emissions.
41:08
Um, but they've made it so costly through overregulating it.
41:12
So public policy by political entities, particularly on the Democrat side, have ruined the energy fortunes of the nation by by intentionally trying to eliminate coal under the Obama administration and prior to him, and uh eliminating the new bill of coal, and now more recently with Biden, the attempts to eliminate the building of combined cycle gas plants by insisting they be carbon capture supported, which makes them the cost prohibitive to build.
41:39
So we've got some positive momentum moving forward, but but be very wary of political agendas with respect to energy because they rarely have to do with actual science.
41:50
The CO2 thing is a make-believe thing.
41:53
Carbon is naturally created by and large and essential for human existence, given plant life is necessary for food stocks.
42:03
And let's remember what um when I had scientists on uh Charles Schultz, and he told us that the majority of carbon does not come from humans, it comes from termites, believe it or not.
42:19
So anything that decays creates carbon, and as Dave said, uh, we need that decaying matters to feed our to feed us, otherwise, no food, no people.
42:30
Exactly.
42:31
Evaporation of water, which covers 70% of the earth, and decaying plant life and carcasses form along with geologic activity, volcanic and others, and sub-sea volcanoes, etc.
42:45
Supply 95% of the carbon.
42:48
It is naturally created, it's wholly necessary for photosynthesis.
42:53
Without carbon, you have no photosynthesis, you have no plant life.
42:57
So to demonize it, the demonize it is uh it was clever, it was cleverly done.
43:03
Yes, sounds like it's a charcoal thing, a black thing, a charcoal thing, it's charcoal, it's burned ash or something in the air, we're breathing it.
43:10
Sounds like carbon.
43:12
So they they seized on it as something to you.
43:14
You can't, you can't, and trust me, you don't want to eliminate it.
43:19
You don't want to eliminate it, and you can't because it's naturally occurring.
43:24
Therefore, it's not emissions, it is not a human-cause emission.
43:28
All right, the UN, I heard is trying to put a carbon tax on ships.
43:36
They're trying to regulate the ship.
43:38
How does the ship run with solar panels?
43:41
I'm trying to figure out how is that going to be possible that a ship will be running solar?
43:48
That does not make sense at all.
43:50
Taxing carbon when we need carbon to exist does not make sense at all.
43:55
So obviously to me, this is a redistribution of wealth where they're trying to steal our money again and take it away.
44:06
And also, I think with our when you talk to one of your legislators, before you talk to them, go over to the website called open secrets and see where they get their donations from, because that has to be another play from the lobbies of the solar companies.
44:25
Um they're the ones that are funding all of this, and and they are the ones that are twisting the heads of the legislators into believing something that doesn't exist.
44:34
Wouldn't that be true?
44:36
Um, it's partly true.
44:37
Uh a bigger truism and a larger source of donations to political candidates are the utilities themselves who are who benefit massively in their rate structure and profitability picture in their EBITDA creation from this trend to solar, wind, and battery storage.
44:56
Donations from you regulated public utilities are are huge.
45:00
And they're far larger than donations from solar interests.
45:04
The utilities have become solar interests.
45:07
They're major donors.
45:08
And I've posited the case in the red and blue state alike that um regulated state regulated utilities regulated by a public service commission should not be in a position to be donors to political candidates within those states.
45:23
I posited that position.
45:24
I'll stick by it.
45:26
When you allow that, you're basically allowing the Fox to be watching the HEN House, which basically it creates conflict.
45:32
There is the party selling something, electricity to ratepayers, to the extent it's regulated, which it should be, makes some sense.
45:41
The regulators should be free of being encumbered by their PAC donations.
45:45
There shouldn't be PAC donations from regulated utilities.
45:48
And that's a bit further from regulated insurance firms.
45:50
We've got the same issue with the state insurance commission that's run by governments who are dominated with insurance interest donations.
45:59
Therefore, you've got a basic conflict there that needs to be resolved.
46:04
That's one of the key issues with this.
46:06
That conflict needs to be resolved.
46:08
We need to seek out candidates that don't take PAC money because that's where all of this money goes to.
46:15
And that's how it happens.
46:18
And if we don't ask the right questions of our candidates, then shame on us.
46:24
Yeah, the worst, the worst worst case of PAC money, you know, a separate issue.
46:28
I'll I'll pause it that PAC money has been in part the ruination of American government from the early 90s when this notionality was formed to allow massive corporate entities to influence elections so much more weighted than individual citizens.
46:43
But that's another story.
46:45
But but the issue that's really where the rubber meets the road on that are state regulated, state regulated utilities with respect to their rates and insurance companies who are state regulated with respect to their rates by either a state insurance commission appointed by government or by a public service commission by utilities supported by government, should not be capable to be donors to political activities within that state.
47:11
I mean, that's the nexus of where pack donations really hurt people, where you wind up with those organizations, be they insurers or underwriters or brokers and/or utilities really controlling those who regulate them, which creates no regulation.
47:29
I mean, this is an area, unfortunately, that does need some regulation.
47:33
From the you know, development of the fact that huge power plants do need huge billions of dollars spent on them.
47:39
Transmission systems need billions of dollars spent on them.
47:43
To delegate that to the private sector completely has not worked.
47:47
Um, it's same as water supply.
47:50
I mean, it is a basic thing.
47:51
There is some privatization in terms of encouraging the building of power plants by independent uh entities is a good thing.
48:00
But to have the complete abandonment of regulation, such as Texas has had, look what you have.
48:06
You have a massive electricity shortage because the developers building generation in Texas are only building wind and solar because that's what the federal government continues to subsidize.
48:18
So you've got an intractable problem with, yeah, they claim to be free of regulation over there, but no, the federal regulations that are really subsidized only wind and solar cause that's all that's being built there.
48:29
And to this day, and Republican government they're letting it happen, which has been a bit of a disaster.
48:35
So there is some, I mean, some regulatory oversight, such as here, the public service commission.
48:40
What we have is that it's abdicated doing its job.
48:43
It's not doing its job.
48:44
It's going along with whatever the three regulated utilities want to do.
48:48
And it's tightly related, you're exactly right to the fact that they're huge donors to those those who run our state government.
48:55
Folks, it's up to us again, I will say that over and over again.
49:00
It's up to us, and we need to make sure that we've had our candidates and we ask them point blank.
49:07
Are you going to take PAC money from the local utilities that will then determine how you will be voting?
49:14
And this is unacceptable.
49:17
Why would we want to put them in office?
49:19
We've got to pay attention.
49:20
And again, I will say it over and over again.
49:23
It's the primaries, people, it is not the general election.
49:27
If we don't vote in the primaries, especially in Florida, uh, whoever wins the primary usually becomes the winner of the general election.
49:37
And we're not doing our job.
49:40
So we can only complain so far if we don't pay attention and conduct our own oversight, go to the meetings, uh, go to these public service meetings, because I found that when I went to the public service meetings and I would speak in front of the committee, the
50:00
Audience is not the committee.
50:02
The audience are the people who are paying attention to that committee meeting on Zoom on uh Florida TV.
50:09
Those are the people that you have to impress.
50:12
Those are the ones that you have to make sure that they understand what is happening.
50:18
And again, I would suggest that we say, are you accepting PAC money and go look at open secrets and see who is?
50:28
Because unfortunately, they are only going to work within their own best interest.
50:34
And that's unsatisfactory to we the people because we the people will be the ones that will wind up suffering.
50:42
I mean, I'm I'm thinking as you're as you were saying, how are they going to f fly a plane using solar?
50:48
What do they what are they going to do?
50:49
Make the plane out of solar panels.
50:52
It's it's insane.
50:53
Yeah, of course, obviously.
50:55
Yeah, you can't.
50:56
And then the ship example you raised is also a perfect one.
51:00
Vessels around the world, large LNG tankers, freighters, all your passenger vessels tend to be powered either by diesel generators or gas small gas turbines running on propane or liquefied natural gas on board vessels, which makes compelling sense to do.
51:16
If you want to nuclear power them, you're you're talking about massive, massively costly, expensive transportation.
51:23
Nuclear is still very, very expensive.
51:25
It can be done, but it's expensive.
51:27
You can't do powering vessels with solar power.
51:30
Um there's not enough square footage of area.
51:33
Again, the area land mass or shipboard area it would take to do that would be uh 50 times larger than the vessel itself.
51:41
So um, yeah, no, you're exactly right.
51:44
You're precisely right.
51:45
Uh I'm gonna also mention on the juvenil candidates in the present field of the Republican Party in Florida, Byron Donald's clearly is our best hope to attack this issue.
51:57
Um the others have long histories of being very tightly aligned with um the pack interests of what's happening with across the regulated utilities supporting letting them do basically whatever they want to do before the public service commission.
52:14
I think Congressman Donaldson uh listened to his uh talks about this, and I know he's allowed himself to be exposed to listening to um the opposite side of what's happening presently in Florida on energy is well schooled in it, and um, I think our best hope of uh changing the playing field in this among those who have stepped up so far.
52:37
Well, I couldn't agree more, and I know that you have another interview that you're gonna be doing.
52:45
Uh so I want to thank you so much for joining me.
52:48
What parting words do you have for our audience?
52:51
What do you suggest we do?
52:53
What uh where do we go from here?
52:55
We can't recognize the problem and not have a solution.
52:59
Well, it's probably two things.
53:00
It's challenging uh the candidates for public office, now even at the county level, because recent state legislation delegated approval of solar farm land use, not accounties, believe it or not.
53:10
So even county commission candidates, mayor candidates, candidates for the state house, state senate governor.
53:16
Challenge them on not in your face.
53:19
What are your positions on part-time intermittent power generation sources that are not reliable and actually massively costly and with obscene land use characteristics, such as the plan of one utility to create 1200 square miles of solar farms across Florida?
53:37
Challenge that.
53:38
What do you candidate?
53:39
What do you think about that?
53:40
How do you think about that?
53:42
Why would that be good for ratepayers?
53:44
And are you going to fight it?
53:45
Again, fight intermittent, very part-time electrification sources that are China sourced and very expensive.
53:52
B shutting down coal plants and not building enough gas plants.
53:56
What are you going to do to promote more of that?
53:58
Because that's baseload, continuous duty power.
54:01
And C, you know, on the issue of server and data centers, a good thing, but better thing if they pay for their own power and not not actually um leverage off of very cheap industrial rates that were all about creating employment.
54:15
The challenge is these facilities, AI facilities don't really create employment.
54:20
They create the opposite as advertised.
54:22
Uh, so there it really isn't a basis for them to enjoy cheap power at the public trough, similar to industrials in the past that actually created jobs.
54:31
Uh, they should build their own generation facilities because we need them and they need them, and and they have the money to do it, and um ought to be doing that.
54:40
So that those are the kind of the key issues to I think face political candidates with uh to see where they are because this is a energy is a huge thing for development of the economy, it's a huge thing.
54:51
Oh, it certainly is, it's absolutely necessary.
54:53
And I would also ask a uh federal candidate if they would be in favor of eliminating subsidies.
55:01
I don't think any group should be getting subsidies.
55:07
The power companies have enough money, and the solar companies, if you can't support yourself, why are you in business?
55:14
You know, we had uh unfortunately seven, if you will, Rhino U.S.
55:18
senators stand up and block parts of the big beautiful bill until they were assured that it had the continuance of subsidies for at least two more years on solar and wind and battery storage.
55:31
Unbelievable.
55:32
Seven Republicans said that to us, the continuance of those subsidies, and then the continuance for the first year, 2026.
55:39
That if you invest only up to five percent as a developer and you're given solar farm, battery storage or wind facility, it's subsidized 20 years if you spend only 5% deposit on it in 2026.
55:53
That was pushed forward by seven Republican senators.
55:56
Very, very sad.
55:57
Very sad.
55:58
Republican doesn't mean against renewables.
56:01
Don't be fooled, folks.
56:03
Don't be fooled.
56:04
It doesn't mean that.
56:05
You've really got to challenge these folks on how they think about this individually.
56:10
Now is the time to do it, and now is the time to pick up the challenge.
56:14
Dave, thank you so much.
56:15
Where can people find your work, your writing, and keep in touch with you?
56:20
You can find me on Getter True Social NX and at Dave Walsh Energy, watch the war room periodically.
56:26
I'm on there quite a bit, and other uh other media and speak.
56:30
I'm speaking actively across Florida on the uh present uh case against solar for Florida, and we're talking utility scale solar.
56:39
This is so important, especially if we don't want our energy bills to escalate, which is what is going to happen if we don't pay attention.
56:49
And as usual, always it's up to us.
56:52
We have to get together and we have to make sure that we get the right people in Tallahassee.
56:58
Certainly not the group that we have right now because they are not paying attention.
57:03
Uh, you have been listening to Karen Schoen.
57:05
This is the Prism of America's education, and I hope you had a good education today because thank you, Dave.
57:13
Thank you for sharing that information.
57:15
And hopefully you'll come back again.
57:17
See you again next week and have a wonderful week.
57:21
And your homework for the week from Karen, the teacher is to share this podcast.
57:29
Stay informed and sign up for my substack.
57:32
Go to Karen Shone.substack.com.