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The Cheapest Grid Is the One We Already Paid For · Energy Empire

0:00
When something's comfortable, you're going to stick with it.
0:02
But we are in a very uncomfortable moment.
0:05
You know, in, in Northern California, it's pretty normal
0:08
to have an $800 utility bill or a $1300 utility bill.
0:13
We are trying to be like, hey, here's an effective way that
0:16
might be a little uncomfortable, that's going to allow you to
0:19
continue to run your business and do your thing, but it's
0:21
going to save everyone a lot of money.
0:29
Hello, my name is Jigar Shaw and I'm a clean energy entrepreneur.
0:33
And I'm Jamie Nolan, a clean energy communications
0:35
consultant. And this is Energy Empire.
0:38
Welcome to the show. Hi, Jigar.
0:41
Hey, we had a fantastic launch. Like I, I thought it was it.
0:47
It was so great. I got tons of positive comments
0:50
and I think people are hungry for the personal story behind
0:54
the story. Yeah, I think it went great.
0:58
I was very nervous, but my friends were so supportive
1:02
lifted me up. I we really appreciate all the
1:04
LinkedIn posts and all the love. So keep it coming.
1:08
Keep the reviews coming, rate review and subscribe as they
1:12
say. Thank you so much for the
1:14
support and stay tuned because we are we have a lot of very
1:19
exciting guest planned. Well, I, I got a lot of feedback
1:22
that the only reason they're listening is you.
1:24
So I appreciate you being on this journey with me.
1:28
Thank you. Well, I have to balance out, you
1:31
know, all these podcasts feel these energy podcasts are so bro
1:34
Y, So it's nice to have some female energy in the
1:38
conversation. It's good.
1:40
Well, you know, we're bringing on one of our good friends today
1:45
are not Paul. As you know, we worked with him
1:48
at the loan programs office. But more importantly, I think
1:51
he's just a fantastic friend and collaborator.
1:54
And he has always had way better political instincts than me.
1:59
And so he's kept me a lot out of a lot of messes that I otherwise
2:03
would have gotten myself into. That's definitely true.
2:07
And yeah, I think between the two of us, he on the political
2:10
front and myself and the media front, we were definitely very
2:14
focused on trying to keep you from putting your foot in your
2:19
mouth. Stepping in it, I think that's
2:22
what they the technical term is stepping in it, I think we.
2:25
Were mostly effective at that. But yeah, so another friend of
2:29
the POD and our knob founded a clean energy advocacy group
2:34
called Deploy Action that is really doing something very
2:37
different from any other group in the space.
2:40
Well, I mean, the thing that I love about it is, I mean, we're
2:43
clearly in a very crowded space, right?
2:45
Lots of organizations, etcetera. But I do think that, you know,
2:49
he has a dispassionate perspective, which I find really
2:55
endearing, where the work matters to him, don't get me
2:58
wrong. But what he really cares about
3:00
is making these governors look good, right?
3:04
Like, and that's kind of what they want, right?
3:06
Like, like there's a lot of trade associations and others
3:09
who want what they want, and they don't care what the
3:11
governors want. But I think he comes at it
3:14
going, how do I make sure the politician looks good out of
3:18
this? And so they're enthusiastic
3:20
about helping me. And that is a completely
3:23
different point of view, I think, than most other, you
3:26
know, folks have who are in the advocacy space.
3:29
So I know that you have been involved in deploy action from
3:32
the very beginning Jigger. So what's your role there and
3:35
kind of what do you what do you do with Arnab and how do you
3:39
support their work? Well, when Arnab came out with,
3:42
you know, his plan here, you know, I helped fundraise Ford
3:46
and some aboard chair at deploy action.
3:49
But also, you know, like every once in a while he needs me to
3:52
show up and, you know, and and press the flesh with, you know,
3:57
the legislators in California or other places to get people
4:01
enthusiastic about the work, right.
4:03
And I'm happy to be helpful. Yeah, I'm excited for our
4:06
audience to get to know our knob and deploy action and learn more
4:10
about what they're trying to do and why.
4:19
This episode is supported by S2G Investments.
4:23
If you've been listening to me, you know that I'm done talking
4:26
about R&D. We have the technology.
4:29
The real question is can we deploy it at scale?
4:33
When I joined Sanjeev Krishnan on the S2G podcast, we skipped
4:38
the hype and talked about what actually matters.
4:41
Affordability, fit for purpose, capital, and getting real
4:45
infrastructure built. S2G Investments is one of the
4:49
only firms who brings that same deployment first mindset to
4:54
energy, agriculture and the oceans, connecting the dots
4:59
across the real economy. Listen to the S2G podcast on
5:04
your favorite podcast app now and start with my episode on
5:09
energy affordability Are not Paul.
5:17
Welcome to the podcast. I think our second friend of the
5:21
pod. Thanks.
5:23
For having me. Well, you didn't have a choice.
5:26
I mean, we were going to draft you onto the pod regardless, so.
5:30
I I I barely have a choice with you jitter so.
5:35
Arnab, you're the Executive director of the clean energy
5:37
advocacy group Deploy Action. And of course, before that we
5:40
were all colleagues at the Department of Energy's Loan
5:43
Programs office and you and I were senior advisors, well,
5:46
senior consultants as they say, advising Jigger on political and
5:51
media strategy. But tell us a little more about
5:54
how you may got your start in energy.
5:57
Yeah, so, you know, I, I, it all started kind of at that KPMG job
6:03
where I, you know, I think we've all been through this in, in
6:06
lives when we're, we're young, we take a job for the money.
6:09
And a lot of us like me, like while we love the people we
6:12
worked with, we absolutely hated what we did.
6:14
And we, you know, I was like 23 years old wondering like, am I
6:18
just going to do this the rest of my life?
6:20
Show up at 8:00 AM, leave at 8:00 PM.
6:22
Eat some CPK on the way out the door in downtown LA.
6:25
You really weren't California through and through.
6:27
That's like California Pizza Kitchen.
6:29
Yeah, exactly. It's right across the KPMG
6:31
tower. It's where, here's where I
6:33
realized not to be a lawyer because like, I would go home at
6:35
8:00 PM and take my CPK to go and all the lawyers at Latham
6:39
and Watkins would go take their CPK and go back to the office.
6:42
So I was like, yeah, no, I'm not doing that for a living.
6:46
So I, I basically was like, hey, I want to do something that I
6:49
like doing. I I became an AmeriCorps
6:51
volunteer for a year to mostly figure out my life.
6:55
I worked for Goodwill Industries.
6:57
Then I went back. I went to grad school for the
6:59
first time. I went to grad school twice.
7:01
Anyone listening to this podcast?
7:03
You don't need to grad school twice.
7:06
It's. Really not.
7:07
Wait, wait. I need to understand, did you
7:09
like, did you get anything from Goodwill that you still own
7:12
today? Oh yeah, tons of stuff.
7:14
They have these like, so they have these like really nice
7:17
Goodwills like in Palo Alto in San Francisco where they have
7:21
like really nice clothing for for cheap and like they the
7:24
people never wear of and it's like brand new essentially and
7:27
it's like 90% off. So yeah, I'd buy some stuff from
7:29
there. I think I still own a coat from
7:31
from Goodwill so all. Right.
7:33
I mean, you know, like it's good to be a value shopper.
7:36
Yeah, always. I mean, you know, like it's,
7:38
it's why we're friends. You know, you like to you like
7:41
to eat at Panera Bread and I like to buy cheap clothes
7:47
drifting. Is very on trend right now, you
7:49
guys, so way to be, way to be with the times.
7:52
Thanks, Jamie. I appreciate that.
7:54
So when and how did you get to DC?
7:58
You know, that's a great question.
8:00
So I, I, I, it was all done by Zoom, right?
8:04
Because. So it was during COVID.
8:06
It was during COVID, so I think, you know, at the time I've been
8:09
watching Homeland like every episode, like every night.
8:13
And I really wanted to go work for the CIA, which is what you
8:17
do during COVID, because you don't know what's going on and
8:20
you're bored. And so I applied it to being the
8:23
Ciai got through like the first round.
8:25
And, you know, I don't think I got any further than that.
8:27
And if I did, I don't think I'm allowed to say so.
8:29
Your charisma wasn't enough to get into the.
8:32
CIA it was not it. Was enough for KPMG, but not
8:36
enough for the CIA. Not enough ribs for that.
8:40
Yeah, I was very disappointed. But I also got a, a call from,
8:44
you know, I interned in DC in college from an old mentor of
8:49
mine who said, you know, the congressman I worked for at the
8:51
time, Ed Markey, who's now senator, needed a new energy
8:55
advisor. His last one went to, went to
8:59
the administration. So I interviewed on Zoom, you
9:02
know, basically gave the pitch as to why, you know, I thought I
9:06
could help them pass a climate bill.
9:08
They bought it, which is great. So, you know, I went from Zoom
9:14
in California to DC in 2021 and I spent the next two years,
9:20
which, you know, trigger you were a part of unofficially or
9:23
officially in some ways and working on what became the
9:26
Inflation Reduction Act. So, and, you know, I think a lot
9:30
of what we do today also is shaped by the fact that we were
9:33
able to get something really big done and keep some of it from,
9:38
from, you know, even the repeal in 2025.
9:40
So look, that was a, you know, a great life experience.
9:43
It's, you know, it's how we met early on in the process.
9:47
And, you know, I think the two things I sort of learned from it
9:50
was one, nobody really knows what they're doing and nobody
9:53
has any projections on what's going to happen.
9:56
So the key, the key is to just always stay ready because, you
9:59
know, anyone who worked in there with me knew that there was a
10:02
very slim shot we're ever going to get anything done.
10:05
And somehow in the end, it all worked out.
10:06
And and, you know, I played a small part in that.
10:09
But, you know, there were so many people that were naysayers
10:12
in that process. And, you know, you have to stay
10:14
ready with with with the legislation and the ideas and
10:18
coalitions because at any moment you could have a chance.
10:21
When President Biden got elected, a lot of promises were
10:24
made. And everyone was afraid to break
10:28
those promises. So we were all pretending like
10:32
we could pass a bill for $6 trillion.
10:35
And deep down, everybody knew that wasn't even close to
10:38
possible. And the reason why it took so
10:41
long to get there is because it took us 18 months to come to
10:44
terms with reality. And I think when we look at this
10:48
next time around, we should come to terms with reality a lot
10:52
quicker because we could probably get a lot more done.
10:55
And what happened in that first year is we danced around and
10:58
made everyone feel good. And eventually we realized we
11:00
weren't going to get there. We jeopardize the chance to do
11:03
anything in the in the end, we we got a little lucky with a lot
11:07
of skill in the background from a lot of really smart senators
11:11
and congressmen and women, and we were able to to salvage
11:15
something which became the Inflation Reduction Act.
11:18
All right. So like, so we were really
11:21
close, it sounds like, to not having an inflation reduction
11:24
act. Yeah, absolutely.
11:28
That was like the likely scenario.
11:29
We snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.
11:33
Yeah, I, I mean, if they had calci markets like I think and
11:37
if, you know, staffers were allowed to bet in those markets,
11:40
I think everyone would have bet against us.
11:43
So after you served in the US Senate, you left and joined us
11:48
at the loan programs office. We had gotten this incentive
11:53
program called the State Energy Financing Incentive, SAFI and I
11:58
guess the State Energy Financing Initiative.
12:01
So many acronyms, so little time.
12:03
In any case, we were not getting enough loan volume from
12:07
California, weirdly, even though we were getting accused of
12:10
sending all the money to blue states.
12:12
And so, like, I sent you to California and said, like,
12:15
figure out what the Hell's going on in California, right?
12:17
Like, and I wonder what you think of that experience, right?
12:24
Because we didn't in the end, give a lot of loans to
12:27
California. But I I do want to understand
12:30
like, why and you know, what is the challenge with the
12:34
coordination between the States and the federal government?
12:38
Yeah. And to be fair, it it wasn't
12:41
just California. I think I mean California's
12:43
where I worked. But I think the interesting
12:45
thing we found out was in a lot of the places where we expected
12:50
there to be interest in our programs, there weren't the kind
12:53
of uptake we thought there would be.
12:55
So New York, California, Massachusetts, whereas there was
12:59
tons of money being put out in, you know, Georgia, Michigan,
13:04
Tennessee. And part of it is, you know, a
13:07
lot of what we did was tax credit and loan based.
13:10
And you need to be willing to build projects, and people are
13:14
less likely to want to build big projects in California and New
13:18
York than in those other states. So that led you in some ways to
13:25
start deploy action, right? Like so after we left office,
13:29
you were like, I want to, you know, contribute, I want to give
13:34
back. I want to understand, you know,
13:37
like why these dynamics are what they are and like tell us the
13:43
origin story of deploy action. Yeah.
13:46
So look, I think we, we started thinking about deploy action and
13:53
I used the proverbial we because there's so many people involved
13:56
really like last in the fall of 2024.
13:59
And the idea was like, hey, if there's going to be 4 more years
14:02
of the inflation reduction act, like we should work in these
14:06
States and get them ready to really bring the the money in.
14:10
But when I say bring the money, and I don't mean like the grant
14:13
dollars, right? There's always like cities and
14:15
counties and groups set up to bring in the grant money.
14:18
It's like, but who's going to help the project developers want
14:20
to build those projects so we can bring in all the tax credit
14:24
dollars and all the loan dollars, which are really like
14:26
were the big pieces of it. I think along the way, you know,
14:31
even after the election occurred the way it did, we realized
14:35
like, hey, these states still need help.
14:37
And, you know, I think there's a a different way, a different
14:40
paradigm. It's like if you're going to be
14:42
a, a state that's a clean energy champion, I think you need to
14:46
actually champion the building of those projects and make sure
14:50
you don't have one set of constituents who want to protect
14:53
the environment, but also want to stop these projects from
14:56
getting developed. And another set of constituents
14:58
who are trying to develop these projects and are getting blocked
15:01
in their process all the while while these states have these
15:03
goals to like build up so much clean energy.
15:06
So that's the like the policy rationale behind all this.
15:11
And you know, there's obviously like spiritual and
15:13
communications pieces to it as well.
15:16
What is deploy action? So Deploy Action is A5O1C4 with
15:23
A5O1C3 sister organization, Deploy Action Fund organization
15:27
that is dedicated to building out clean energy affordably in
15:34
in the states. And we start with the states
15:37
that that have always wanted this, that have built the
15:39
policies for this and are now having some trouble actually
15:43
getting across the finish line on these bold and audacious
15:46
goals they put out there. I mean, there's a lot of clean
15:51
energy organizations out there, right?
15:53
Trade associations, environmental nonprofits,
15:55
advocacy groups. I mean, why does deploy action
16:00
need to exist? So what does it add to the fray?
16:03
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question.
16:05
It's a very existential one, right?
16:07
Look. We should take this, I'm taking
16:10
take this conversation a little bit in a different direction.
16:13
I think that the policy rationale is what I just
16:16
explained to you all. And I think what the other piece
16:21
of this is really like looking back in time.
16:23
So I go back to 2017 when Trump was first elected.
16:27
The environmental movement was extremely successful over the
16:30
next four years to a point where they made climate change and
16:35
addressing climate change the number one issue for a new
16:39
Democratic president and a Democratic Congress, which just
16:42
wasn't the case in the the previous administrations, both
16:45
Republican or Democrat. And, you know, going back to the
16:49
IRA, you know, days as we started to move towards chopping
16:55
off parts of the Build Back Better or whatever it was, the
16:59
last thing that remains standing was the clean energy tax credits
17:03
and the climate mitigation pieces.
17:06
And that was because of the narrative that was developed by
17:09
a lot of great, you know, green groups in the process that that
17:14
said like, hey, this is our existential crisis, we must
17:17
address it. And I think it was successful.
17:20
And when I thought about, well, do we just run that playbook
17:23
again? I also thought about the things
17:25
we didn't accomplish, the things we failed in that while climate
17:28
and energy and, and, and, and the Environmental Protection is
17:32
a very popular issue, it's not a strong issue and that it's never
17:37
people's top 1-2 or three issue. So when I look at how we rebuild
17:41
in 2025, I didn't want this to just be a climate or
17:45
environmental group. I wanted to address an issue
17:48
that people cared about every day, which is their pocketbook,
17:51
right? It would just always been a top
17:54
three issue. And my thinking is if we can
17:56
build an organization that addresses, you know, clean
18:00
energy deployment, but really through the lens of
18:02
affordability, we can not only be popular like, you know,
18:06
climate environment was, but we can also be a forceful issue
18:10
that people actually vote on. And and that's the real thinking
18:13
behind this. I mean, there's some nuance to
18:17
this, though, right? Which is that the environmental
18:20
groups had their own political rails, right?
18:22
They like, elected people to office.
18:24
They had all sorts of other things that they did.
18:27
But often times they couldn't get to the finish line with just
18:30
those rails, right? They needed labor.
18:32
They needed, you know, other groups, right?
18:35
I mean, part of, I think what you recognized in California,
18:38
which I think has been super impressive, but also in some of
18:41
the other work that you've been working on in Virginia and other
18:43
places, is that each state has their own mix of reasons why
18:48
things pass, why they don't pass.
18:50
And I think you've been more scientific about studying it,
18:53
right? Sometimes the environmental
18:55
groups are the right way to pass something.
18:57
And sometimes it's, you know, other issues that I think come
19:00
to the foreground, right? Yeah.
19:03
And and look, this is like sort of inside baseball versus
19:06
outside baseball. So I, I think what a lot of us
19:09
realized is, you know, when it comes to inside baseball, the
19:14
environmental groups have been around for a long time.
19:17
I think they're trusted as advisors.
19:19
I think they're technically very sound, but ultimately they don't
19:24
deliver votes in some of these capitals the way, you know, a
19:28
healthcare organization would or a woman's organization would or
19:31
a labor organization would. So I think it's going to take
19:35
some time for those groups to build up that kind of capacity
19:37
if they want to. But in the meantime, you know,
19:39
they, they really need to partner with the people who can
19:42
bring those votes both, you know, internally in the halls of
19:47
Albany and Sacramento and, and, and these state capitals, but
19:51
also like on the ground, right? Like so when someone runs first
19:55
state office in California, especially on the Democratic
19:59
side, which is almost 3/4 of the legislature, like they generally
20:02
run their campaign out of the IDW office, right?
20:05
They're not running it out of the NRDC office.
20:08
Right. And also the natural, so the
20:10
natural follow up to that question that is like is a lot
20:13
of people actually, particularly in the clean energy area, you
20:17
know, try to claim that they're going to stay above the fray,
20:20
right? They're not going to get
20:21
political, they're bipartisan, whatever.
20:23
But like, I don't think you're staying away from the fray.
20:27
You're right in the middle of the fray.
20:29
Yeah. And, and to be clear, we're
20:31
we're nonpartisan like we will, you know, we'll work with what
20:34
We'll work with anyone. You know, we have bills that
20:37
we've championed that have gotten unanimous support from
20:40
Republicans and Democrats. I think when you're thinking
20:43
about California and New York or some of these, you know, more
20:45
Democratic states, it's you tend to be with one side of the aisle
20:48
because that's where the action is.
20:50
Yeah, No, you have to. And, and look, I think a lot of
20:52
this is like people don't realize, like when you're a
20:56
state legislator, especially in a consensus state with one
21:00
party, you, you have a lot of power with the pet, you can do a
21:04
lot of good things and making sure the right people are
21:08
elected and the right people are in the right committee chairs.
21:12
Like that's how good policy happens, right?
21:15
A lot of the early climate policy that California did was
21:17
because they were right people in the right places, you know,
21:20
and it's not just writing bills and just, you know, posting on
21:25
social media is like, that's great, but it's not enough.
21:27
You have to champion the people who champion you all.
21:31
Right. So can you give me an example
21:34
of, you know, your impact, like where you've helped to move
21:37
policy or drive, you know, driven measurable results?
21:41
Yeah. So one of the things that we're
21:43
really focused on here is the the utilization of the grid,
21:47
which I think we'll talk about more.
21:49
But, you know, to really address affordability, you need to be
21:53
able to control the cost of building infrastructure.
21:56
So, you know, we have this concept that we've worked on
21:59
with, you know, so many other partners in the business
22:01
community and in the environmental community that
22:04
utility should use more of their existing infrastructure.
22:07
And, and we've already seen that legislation pop up in multiple
22:10
states. There's a bill in Virginia that
22:13
the governor has championed that is, you know, that is still not
22:17
all the way through but has made tremendous progress.
22:21
So we're already seeing our impact here in less than a year.
22:24
That's awesome. So if you if you zoom out five
22:28
years, what does winning look like for deploy and what happens
22:32
if we don't get this right? Yeah.
22:34
So, so again, I go back to the template of what I saw between
22:38
2017 and 2021. I I really think winning is
22:42
everyone acknowledging that the the next generation of the clean
22:47
energy and climate fight is not so much about getting people to
22:52
buy into the existential crisis, which obviously is true and
22:55
occurring. But for these folks to realize
22:58
that like what this industry does benefits their lives
23:01
everyday, not just humanity, you know, over the course of the
23:05
next fifty 100,000 years. And success is taking that and
23:10
putting in the frameworks that are, you know, that that states
23:14
can push. But success is also like
23:17
building a national platform. And that's not just going to be
23:20
deploy action. It's got to be a whole host of
23:22
groups working together so that the next time there's an
23:26
opportunity to address the grid and clean energy, that there is
23:31
an affordability plan that every consumer in America is going to
23:34
benefit from. So our knob you and Jigger are
23:37
co-authors of a new white paper dropping today called Grid
23:41
Growth, Utilization and Affordability.
23:44
And I know it's meant to be kind of a playbook for states,
23:47
governors, regulators, other state officials on energy
23:51
affordability. So let's start there.
23:53
Are governors about to get blindsided by a grid
23:56
affordability crisis? Well, I don't know if they're
24:00
going to get blindsided, but they're about to deal with a
24:02
grid affordability crisis. So and I think they're well
24:06
aware of it. And, and that's really why the
24:08
motivation behind putting the time into this paper and, and
24:12
thought and getting people together to really put our
24:15
thoughts down. Yeah.
24:16
I mean, look, I think when you think about, you know, there's
24:19
sort of a tale of 2 governors here, right?
24:21
I mean, Governor Spamberger and Governor Cheryl both got elected
24:25
at the same time. I think, you know, Governor
24:27
Spamberger has really pushed this great utilization concept
24:30
and frankly, I think has gotten a tremendous amount of people
24:34
enthusiastic about this, right, Folks in the grid utilization
24:37
category, folks who focus on distributed energy resources,
24:41
folks who are interested in battery storage, folks who are
24:44
interested in reforming the way in which the electric utility
24:47
deploys innovation, right. So I think that there's really a
24:51
big tent of enthusiasm, not just of entrepreneurs, but also of
24:56
like capital that wants to, you know, run into helping to solve
25:00
this problem, which I think has to be part of a solution that,
25:04
you know, the governors are pursuing.
25:05
Like we need a lot of investment, you know, frankly,
25:08
to drive this affordability into innovation, right?
25:12
So I'm, I'm pretty excited about the approach that that was
25:17
outlined to the white paper. But you know, what do you think,
25:20
Arnab? Yeah.
25:22
So look, I, I think these are like common sense ideas for the
25:26
most part as in like use more of the existing grid.
25:31
Let's see how we can incorporate, you know,
25:33
distributed resources to, to address reliability, great
25:39
enhancing technologies, rate design.
25:42
So I, I think the issue, and this goes back to almost, you
25:45
know, the, the climate opinion issue is if you ask someone, oh,
25:50
should we use more the existing grid to save money?
25:52
Everyone's like, yes, but it's not really top of mind to anyone
25:56
anywhere, right? Like there's always like, hey,
25:58
we're going to do this grant program or we want to do this EV
26:02
program or there's always something, or we want to, you
26:05
know, in California, like take, you know, take, take all the
26:09
poles and wires away from PG&E and start a new utility, right?
26:13
There's, there's always stuff that's just way shinier than
26:16
this. But if the shiniest thing out
26:19
there is to bring down costs for people, then this is the object
26:23
we should all be looking at. I mean, there are certain things
26:26
that I think people just don't know, right I mean, when you
26:28
people think about electricity, they really think about
26:30
electricity generation. They don't really think about
26:33
the poles and wires that serve them.
26:35
And it happens to be that, you know, since the global financial
26:38
crisis in 2008, right, the the cost of generation has actually
26:42
come down from the perspective of a inflation adjusted level,
26:46
right? So the fact that we have really
26:48
expensive bills right now are really driven by the fact that
26:51
we've had a lot of increases in cost in the transmission and
26:55
distribution grid that serve us, right?
26:57
And we frankly had a lot of innovation in that space, right?
27:01
What? So when you think about like
27:02
grid enhancing technologies, a lot of what it does is realize
27:05
that we measure the capacity of our transmission grid using a
27:09
slide roll, right? Like if you use modern sensors
27:13
like you can actually unlock 3040% more capacity out of that
27:17
grid than than people thought was there, right?
27:20
I think the same thing is true with, you know, like batteries,
27:24
right? When you think about we have a
27:26
lot of generation that goes underutilized, right, because
27:29
the transmission grid is clogged, If you put batteries on
27:32
both sides of the transmission grid, you can use that existing
27:36
transmission grid more efficiently.
27:37
So when it's not fully utilized, you use it to charge batteries
27:41
on the other side, closer to customers, right?
27:43
So think like batteries at Walmart stores, battery at
27:46
community centers, battery at churches, right?
27:49
Battery at government facilities, batteries in
27:51
people's homes, right? I mean, and this then alleviates
27:55
the, you know, like sort of stress in the traffic jam on the
27:59
grid for the several 100 hours a year where there's congestion,
28:03
right? And that's way cheaper, like 90%
28:06
cheaper than doing things the old way, which is like building
28:09
new generation, upgrading transmission, upgrading
28:12
distribution. And what you find is, is that
28:14
that's the old familiar playbook that the utilities like to do.
28:18
That's what they've known how to do for 50 plus years.
28:22
And a lot of the technologies we're talking about, we've been
28:24
piloting for 20 years. So it's not like it's new
28:27
technology, it's just, you know, hasn't been scaled up.
28:32
Yeah. And, and look, it's human
28:34
nature. When something's comfortable,
28:36
you're going to stick with it. But we are in a very
28:39
uncomfortable moment, right where where prices are going up.
28:43
Everyone is seeing, you know, in in Northern California, it's
28:47
pretty normal to have an $800 utility bill or a $1300 utility
28:52
bill, as is the case in many parts of the East Coast.
28:55
Like that's not comfortable anymore.
28:57
So part of what we're trying to do is in the nicest way possible
29:01
and sometimes not in the nicest way possible, we are trying to
29:05
be like, hey, here's an effective way that might be a
29:07
little uncomfortable that's going to allow you to continue
29:10
to run your business and do your thing, but it's going to save
29:12
everyone a lot of money. And after we explain it, people
29:16
get it, but you got to explain it like 10 more times.
29:19
That's kind of how this works. Absolutely.
29:22
So in the paper, you all make a pretty bold claim that virtual
29:25
power plants are the fastest megawatts we can build.
29:28
And I know we've talked about them in a couple of episodes
29:30
now. But are VP, PS really that
29:33
impactful? And can you help me draw a line
29:35
to how they help lower costs or reduce upward pressure on rates?
29:41
It, it really is a sea change, right?
29:43
And so the way that the utility works today, is it you as a
29:47
residential customer or commercial customer for that
29:49
matter, can do whatever you want with your house.
29:53
Like you can turn every single thing on in your house at the
29:56
exact same time. And the utility has an
29:59
obligation to serve you, right? And so as a result, they keep
30:04
over building the distribution system.
30:06
So like if five of your neighbors get an electric
30:08
vehicle, they're like, well, just in case they all plug it in
30:11
at the same time, we're going to have to upgrade the substation
30:13
for another $50 million, right? And what you find is all of this
30:18
stuff is digital. You can control it on an app on
30:22
your phone, right? And so if you say, hey, I'm
30:26
willing to subscribe to a virtual power plant because I
30:28
don't care when my electric vehicle charges as long as it's
30:32
full by the morning, right? I'm, I'm plugged in for 13 hours
30:35
a day. And you know, it only takes 2
30:38
1/2 hours to fully charge it, right?
30:40
And so as long as it's charged, I'm good.
30:43
Then you can have a computer program actually make sure that
30:46
not all 5 cars are charging at the exact same time.
30:49
Same with electric water heaters.
30:52
Same with a heat pump. I mean, it's gotten to the point
30:54
where Carrier now has a battery that they install in their next
30:59
generation heat pumps so that they can avoid some of these
31:02
peak demand issues, right? And so these are all features
31:05
that you get when you buy an appliance.
31:07
So it's not like you have to go out and buy something custom
31:11
just to be subscribed into a virtual power plant.
31:14
All of these new appliances come with an app on your phone,
31:17
right? And so once you have an app on
31:19
your phone, you can coordinate them and that coordination saves
31:23
a ridiculous amount of money, right?
31:25
And so part of the challenge right now is that consumers are
31:28
like, yeah, I'll take a 20% discount on my bill to subscribe
31:32
to a virtual power plant. But then the utility also has to
31:35
have a computer program on their side to be able to use the
31:39
virtual power plant to actually make sure that they're using the
31:44
grid that we've already paid for more efficiently, right?
31:47
And so we're headed in that direction.
31:49
There's over 433 utility virtual power plant programs in effect
31:54
now across the country across 2000 plus utilities, right?
31:58
So like almost 20% of all utilities in the country have
32:01
one of these programs and more adding them every month because
32:05
they don't have any other choice.
32:07
As Arnab is suggesting they can't keep raising rates 9% a
32:10
year. So if you look at like someone
32:11
like Duke Energy, you know, they had a very robust plan to invest
32:16
in their grid to meet load growth and they just increase
32:19
that plan by another 18% because they wanted to do things the
32:23
most expensive way possible, build new central natural gas
32:27
generation, upgrade transmission, upgrade
32:29
distribution. They separately have 7200
32:33
megawatts worth of utility scale solar in the state of North
32:37
Carolina that they already have contracts with, right?
32:41
None of those projects have batteries.
32:44
The hyperscalers have already offered to install batteries at
32:47
all of those locations, which would dramatically reduce rates
32:52
for everyone in the state of North Carolina.
32:55
Duke finds that weird. I get it.
32:58
It might be weird, you haven't done that before, but Lord
33:01
almighty, they're asking for a 15% rate increase right now to
33:06
implement their current plan. That's a lot of money, right?
33:10
That's a lot of money. And Jamie, if I can just add one
33:14
point to this. You know, I think Jigger uses
33:16
virtual power plants as like the ultimate utilization tools, but
33:20
there's many ways to do this, right?
33:22
It's a broad term. So like one of the things that
33:24
we've been looking at is like is there a program to sort of
33:29
procure front of the meter distributed batteries, which you
33:33
know, used to be community storage in a way and
33:35
corresponding community solar? Like can we do that to ease, you
33:40
know, burden on the distribution system and bring down costs and
33:43
the utilities can either rate base procure own be a part of
33:48
that? Like what we're talking about is
33:50
not like a violation of the utility business model.
33:53
Like we're not telling that that they have to stop, you know,
33:56
existing and doing what they're doing.
33:58
We're just telling them that they have to fundamentally
34:00
change what they're doing and it will work for them in the long
34:03
term. So how's this being received by
34:06
utilities? And I know the the playbook is
34:09
about to be released, so they maybe haven't seen that yet, but
34:12
just kind of the concept of grid utilization, VP, PS this entire
34:17
kind of paradigm shift that you all are proposing, how's that
34:20
being received, you know, in the private conversations that
34:23
you're having? Yeah.
34:25
So I look, nobody disagrees with the problem.
34:29
Everybody agrees that this is a potential solution.
34:33
I, I think that, you know, there's the, the push back is,
34:38
oh, well, you know, there's a reason why we don't utilize the
34:42
grid more. It's because we have to account
34:44
for reliability and, you know, the equipment could go bad if we
34:48
use it to a certain a point. And you know, I think they're
34:51
sometimes missing the point because they have these set of
34:54
arguments that they always like to use no matter what.
34:57
Anytime tries to post something different.
34:59
And what we're trying to say is like, hey, look, if you're
35:01
utilizing 50% of your grade, you could utilize it at 65%, maybe
35:07
even 70% and still hit all your reliability targets.
35:11
This is more about a culture shift, right?
35:14
The culture has been our number one priority is to keep the
35:17
lights on. Now your number one priority is
35:20
to keep the lights on and bring costs down.
35:22
And there are very smart people that work in the distribution
35:25
and transmission planning groups in these utilities.
35:28
They can do it. They can do both these things.
35:30
I have all the faith in the world in them and and we need to
35:34
short a shift that culture and be like now you have multiple
35:37
problems to deal with and solve for.
35:39
Part of that is having to make changes regulatory and
35:42
legislatively, but part of it is just is acknowledging that, hey,
35:46
we're in a unique moment and, and, and we need to change the
35:50
way we. Operate.
35:52
I mean, digging just a little bit deeper into the culture
35:54
change piece, I'd say that the CEO and CF OS of all the
35:59
utilities are sort of required to be In Sync with the governor,
36:03
right, Because the governor of the state actually regulates
36:06
their utility. They get it, right?
36:09
They can't keep raising rates this fast.
36:12
And their Wall Street analysts get it right.
36:14
Like the Wall Street analysts are like, wait, what?
36:17
You want to raise more equity over the next five years then
36:20
you've raised in the entire history of your utility company?
36:24
That seems cuckoo, right? And so they get it right.
36:28
But like they are sort of secretly or not so secretly
36:31
saying we like this criticalization stuff because
36:34
this now like allows us to blame the state legislature and the
36:37
governor for forcing us to do this stuff.
36:40
And it allows us to force the regulators to do this stuff who
36:44
don't think that they currently have within their mandate the
36:47
ability to regulate grid utilization from the utilities.
36:50
So that the regulators are like, this gives me another tool by
36:53
which to keep rates down. And the CEO and CF OS like,
36:57
thanks. Because now I don't have to say
36:59
this is my idea. I can blame the state
37:00
legislature and the governor for forcing us to do this, right?
37:05
And, you know, like, it's it is what it is.
37:07
Look, do I want everyone to just be all knowing and just do the
37:11
right thing at every single time?
37:13
Yeah. But right now, the utilities
37:16
make more money by spending more money.
37:18
It's not like odd to me that they want to make more money by
37:22
spending more money. So what do you want governors or
37:27
regulators to take away from this report?
37:29
Like if you could just sum it up in one sentence, what would you
37:32
like to see them take away? When they go to
37:36
deploy-action.org and download the playbook, what should they
37:41
take away? I'll let Jigger answer after me
37:46
so but I'll go first. But my take away is the pathway
37:50
to both controlling and reducing rates for your customers is to
37:56
get utilities to smartly use more of their existing
38:00
infrastructure. Yeah.
38:02
The only thing I'd add is just that load growth is your friend,
38:05
right? If we accommodate load growth in
38:08
a way that uses all these modern technologies, then rates might
38:12
go down. Like, I think everyone is like
38:15
weirdly obsessed with making sure that rates don't go up as
38:18
fast. I don't think what they realize
38:20
is that if you follow this report, rates could go down,
38:25
right? I think that's pretty.
38:27
Awesome. But Jigger and, and let's
38:30
clarify that 'cause I think this is something that comes up a
38:32
lot. These two things that you and I
38:34
said are so related, right? They they are tied at the hip
38:39
because there are a bunch of people going around saying, Oh,
38:41
well, if we have more customers and we divide the amount of
38:44
money we have to spend by more customers, rates will go down.
38:47
It's simple math. That's true.
38:49
What has historically happened is when we bring in more
38:52
customers, the cost it takes to build infrastructure to bring
38:56
those customers in exceeds the benefit of having more
39:00
customers, right. So rates go up.
39:02
If you mandate or suggest or whatever you want to call it,
39:06
grid utilization, then you can do exactly what Jigger said,
39:10
which is, hey, we have a bunch more customers, but we're using
39:13
less of our infrastructure incrementally for each one of
39:16
those customers. No, I think that's exactly
39:19
right. Using modern technology to take
39:21
great utilization from roughly 40 to 50%, which is where it is
39:25
today for most utilities, up to 70%, which is where it was 30-40
39:29
years ago, right, is possible, right?
39:32
That doesn't mean that we don't have to build new generation.
39:35
It doesn't mean that we don't have to build really hard to
39:38
build long transmission projects.
39:40
We should do all of that stuff, right?
39:42
But right now, in this moment where everyone feels like we're
39:45
in a crisis, we have the tools, we've piloted them.
39:49
It's ready to, it's ready to be deployed.
39:52
And if we do it correctly, we can reduce rates for everybody.
39:55
Well, Arnab, like you were sort of our political guru, like
39:59
going back aways here and like still are.
40:03
There was a little fight that was started recently by Matt
40:06
Iglesias's New York Times op-ed that basically seemed to say
40:12
that we all need to be like pro oil and gas.
40:16
And you know, our friend Representative Sean Caston went
40:20
to town on Twitter on on that. Like, can you break that down
40:26
for us a little bit? Because I do think it matters
40:29
how, you know, folks are positioning themselves going
40:33
into the, you know, 2026 midterms and 2028.
40:38
Yeah, so I I think there's, there's two camps and you're
40:41
using, and I don't know if they're actually 2 camps, but
40:43
there's two different thoughts here, 1 represented by Matt
40:46
Iglesias and the other one represented by Representative
40:49
Caston. And what Matt Iglesias is
40:51
basically saying is like, hey, when we were all of the above,
40:54
like Barack Obama was, you know, we used to win elections and now
40:59
we don't win elections. And it's because we're a bunch
41:02
of climate sell. It's and I'm I'm over
41:04
overstating this. And John Cass's responses like,
41:08
yeah, the world is on fire. Like, and, you know, leading
41:12
isn't it's you know, it goes back to the old the old
41:15
statement. It's like there's those who read
41:17
polls and there are those who move polls and leadership is
41:20
about moving polls, right. And, you know, I think it's a
41:24
little bit of a false choice, this argument because, you know,
41:28
I, I think the reason why we won elections 15 years ago had
41:32
nothing to do with, you know, us supporting oil and gas and being
41:36
all of the above. I think it, there was a lot of
41:38
other reasons for it. I think the bigger thing here is
41:41
that we need to be more open minded and we need a new North
41:45
Star, right? And, and all of the above in
41:48
2026 doesn't necessarily mean cheaper, right?
41:53
And our North Star to help people every day is like, how do
41:56
we bring down their costs? So in 2012, that might have been
41:59
the case, but but trigger, we now know that the way to bring
42:03
down people's costs isn't necessarily opening up a new
42:05
natural gas plant. So, so my answer to the debate
42:09
is, you know, yeah, we we shouldn't, we should not
42:12
hideaway from climate because I think people still care about
42:15
climate. It's still popular.
42:16
It's not a forceful issue, but it's a popular issue.
42:19
But we need to address people's problems, not be like, oh, we're
42:23
for gas and oil versus we're for solar and wind.
42:26
That's not how people look at it.
42:27
They look at it as like, how much money did I spend on my
42:29
utility bill this month? Yeah.
42:32
I mean, when we were serving in office, I don't remember ever
42:36
vilifying the oil and gas industry.
42:38
So I don't think like there's any need to.
42:40
There are hundreds of thousands of extraordinary people who work
42:44
in that industry, who bring their whole selves to work
42:47
everyday. And frankly, some of them do
42:49
really dangerous jobs so that we can fly on airplanes and do all
42:53
the things that we want to do. That being said, what I
42:56
highlighted for them was that their stock price sucked, right?
42:59
That, like their stock price is a reflection of stock analysts
43:04
saying they're going to dividend out all of their profits for the
43:07
rest of time, and they just discount that back.
43:10
That's like Warren Buffett 101, like how you like measure stock
43:14
prices, right? They're not trading it like 50
43:16
times earnings. They're trading it like 12 times
43:19
earnings, right? Because people don't believe
43:21
that they're part of the future. They believe that their best
43:24
days are behind them. I don't know why they would want
43:27
people to believe that. And so I think that they should
43:30
use their extraordinary skills to unlock geothermal power,
43:33
figure out how to do carbon sequestration and storage,
43:36
figure out how to get nuclear power off the sidelines.
43:40
There's all sorts of things that they do that like, you know,
43:43
that they have the smartest applied engineers in our country
43:47
that they should be bringing to the table.
43:50
So their stock price goes up. I think in general like this
43:54
like 1 dimensional way of looking at energy bugs the crap
43:58
out of me right? Like I just think that our
44:01
country has the best technology in the world and the Department
44:05
of Energy has funded it all and it is sitting on shelves
44:09
gathering dust. It should be deployed at scale
44:13
as fast as possible to what you said, Arnab, to help people
44:17
reduce their energy bills and to help maintain energy abundance
44:21
for our country. Yeah, and look.
44:24
I think that that, you know, we, when we look at the oil and gas
44:30
industry and we see historically how they've tried to get
44:33
involved in more emerging energy technologies, the track records
44:37
not that great. I mean, I see right now they're
44:40
really leaning in the direction of petrochemicals and that's
44:43
really a lot of how they're making their money is plastics
44:47
essentially. So, you know, what would you say
44:50
to oil and gas executives at this moment looking back on, you
44:55
know, their foray into, for example, at solar?
44:57
You worked at BP solar jiggers. So maybe you have a perspective
45:00
on this. I know they have a a tremendous
45:03
workforce, very highly trained specialists.
45:07
You know, they could be putting their expertise to good use with
45:11
critical minerals, geothermal, nuclear, as you suggested.
45:15
Why not? Why are they leaning in the
45:17
direction of plastics? Well, plastics are profitable,
45:21
right? So that's why they're leaning
45:23
into plastics. And you know, like people are,
45:26
are addicted to a throwaway culture.
45:28
And I think we're going to have to work hard to figure out
45:30
figure that out. But but I do think that they are
45:33
also leaning into innovation. I mean, Devon Energy is an
45:37
investor in Fervo and I think continues to want to do that.
45:40
Darren Woods has stood up, I think to President Trump and
45:42
said we're going to still do our carbon sequestration projects.
45:45
We're still active in a lot of the other projects that we want
45:48
to do. And so I think and, you know,
45:51
he's the CEO of ExxonMobil. And so like, I think that
45:54
there's a lot of interest from the oil and gas sector to do
45:56
this. But I think that I think that
45:58
all of these arguments, and I think Third Way leaned in on
46:02
this as well, like are on the wrong playing field.
46:05
Like we should not be saying that these technologies are blue
46:08
and these technologies are red. To me, energy abundance and you
46:13
know, prosperity like are all like kitchen table issues.
46:16
Everybody wants this stuff to go away from the top two and three
46:20
issues and they want it to be a number 22 issue.
46:22
Again. They want to not think about
46:24
their electricity bill. They don't want to think about
46:26
their heating bill. They don't want to think about
46:28
these things, right? And we have the technologies to
46:30
do that. So I think the playing field we
46:33
should be on is why is it so damn hard to do big things in
46:36
our country, right? Like when you think about the
46:39
fact that we only have 5% / 6% of our rooftops with solar on
46:43
it, why don't we have 40% like Australia has, right?
46:46
When you think about just how hard it is to figure out how we
46:51
actually have sufficient housing in our country, like we can make
46:55
manufactured houses now in a factory and we can drop ship
46:59
them places, beautiful houses for like $300,000 all in
47:03
delivered. Why don't we have those things?
47:05
Because things are regulated at the local level and they don't
47:08
want you to do that and the local home builders are against
47:11
it. Like I think we've got to figure
47:13
out why it's so hard to do things.
47:16
And I think that if we actually had a good reason for why we can
47:21
actually solve that problem, I think everyone would be super
47:25
excited. And look, I actually do think
47:30
there are people that are trying to figure that out.
47:32
I think a lot of our problem is the discourse, which sort of
47:35
goes back to the question that, you know, we had about Matt
47:38
Iglesias versus Sean Caston. It's it, you know, I think on
47:42
one end, Matt Iglesias is right and that like we shouldn't
47:45
demonize other sectors that provide value to society.
47:49
And, and whether you are a climate activists or not, like
47:52
the oil and gas industry has provided a lot of value to
47:55
society. Like, if we go back to that 2012
47:58
era, you know, one of the reasons why we were successful
48:01
in the Obama years is because, you know, natural gas kept
48:05
energy prices down, which kept inflation low, and we were able
48:08
to build a very strong economy, right?
48:11
I think what's changed, and I think where I disagree with
48:13
that, is that he now says, like, oh, well, we need to be all the
48:16
above in support oil and gas. Like it may not make the same
48:18
economic sense it did 15 years ago.
48:21
It most certainly doesn't. I mean, just to be clear, if we
48:23
build all of these natural gas power plants that everyone wants
48:26
to build, we'll use 10 billion cubic feet of gas a day to power
48:32
those gas plants. That will most certainly raise
48:35
the price of making stuff in our country.
48:38
Like we should be using the cheap natural gas that we have
48:42
to out compete Saudi Arabia and Europe and all these other
48:46
places for manufacturing, right? Whether you're manufacturing
48:49
solar panels or you're manufacturing batteries or
48:51
you're manufacturing other things, you often times use
48:54
natural gas to like, you know, help provide process heat to
48:58
provide other services, right? The fact that we can get that
49:02
for the equivalent of a penny a kWh, right?
49:05
The our cost of natural gas is roughly a penny a kWh
49:08
equivalent, right? That's awesome.
49:11
I'd like to keep it that way. I'd like to make sure that we
49:15
benefit from all the cheap natural gas that we have in our
49:17
country. I don't know why there's a bunch
49:19
of people out there that are like, hey Jigger, let's double
49:22
the price of natural gas in our country.
49:24
Really, I don't think we should double the price of natural gas
49:27
in our country. I get the fact that a lot of oil
49:29
and gas people would like that because they'd be a lot more
49:31
profitable, but I don't see how that's good for affordability.
49:35
So recently, the Climate and Community Institute argued that
49:39
when voters were asked to rank abstract issues, climate seems
49:43
to lose to cost of living. No surprise there.
49:46
But the real question is whether voters want policies that tackle
49:50
climate change while delivering material benefits.
49:52
They say that the evidence is yes, and they implicitly push
49:57
back on messaging that hides the word climate.
50:00
I know this has been a conversation with a lot of folks
50:03
in my industry. Do we talk about, do we bury
50:07
that messaging? Do we lean on other benefits
50:10
right now? You know, what's your viewpoint
50:13
on this? Our knob at this political
50:14
moment in time? Yeah, So I'm going to start by
50:18
going back in time on some some research I did as a grad student
50:22
with a with a man by the name of Tony.
50:24
Lisarez for which graduate degree?
50:28
For for the forestry school or now the environment school,
50:32
School of environment. But good question.
50:34
That's you don't do research in Business School Jigger.
50:36
You know that. But so, so Tony Lacerowitz is a
50:40
climate communications expert and him and I looked at one
50:44
question in the General Social Survey, which is how are you
50:48
willing to pay more to protect the environment?
50:51
Yes, no, you know, maybe it's a, it's a pretty standard question.
50:55
They've asked it for like 70 years.
50:57
And it, this is important because it's this, it's not the
51:00
aggregate numbers. Anytime there's a Democratic
51:03
president and we found statistical significance from
51:05
controlling for variables, etcetera on all this.
51:07
Anytime there's a Democratic president, that that willingness
51:10
to pay, that the answer to that goes down over the course of the
51:13
presidency because the thinking is that there's actually a lot
51:16
of environmental work being done.
51:19
And people are like, we may not need as much of this.
51:21
And then as soon as there's a Republican president, that that
51:25
willingness to pay goes up and people are willing to do more.
51:29
And I think we're going to be in the moment over the next two or
51:33
three years where people are going to be mad about, you know,
51:36
not having Environmental Protection.
51:38
And to completely eliminate that from our discourse as we talk
51:42
about this is foolish. Yeah, I mean, didn't they just
51:45
roll back like the mercury rule for coal?
51:48
Like, as if pregnant women want to not be able to eat fish
51:51
anymore because we have all these thermometers getting
51:54
broken and, you know, putting our mercury in into our water.
51:57
Streaming, it's wild, it's wild. And overturning the endangerment
52:01
finding very bad couple of weeks for climate policy.
52:05
Just absolutely gutting. I mean, I would push back on you
52:09
a little bit or not, because my viewpoint on whether we talk
52:12
about climate is that you always, you always customize the
52:16
message to the audience. And there are some rooms where
52:19
climate works as a message and a lot of rooms where it doesn't.
52:22
I have to say that most of my family's Republicans, I grew up
52:26
in a very red rural area of Maryland.
52:29
And talking about Environmental Protection and reducing
52:33
pollution and conservation opens open lands, like all of that
52:39
plays so much better than talking about climate because in
52:44
certain rooms it is so politicized that you just lose
52:47
people. And so for me, I'm like, do you
52:50
want to be right or do you want to be effective?
52:52
And so I guess, you know, our good friends at Third Way pushed
52:56
back on on kind of this message from the Climate and Community
53:01
Institute. And they actually tweeted and
53:05
said if climate and community wants to talk more about climate
53:08
change, that's their prerogative but will be over at the winner's
53:11
table. Yeah, that.
53:14
And. I think that is narrow minded
53:18
and, and, and here's why I, I agree with you, Jamie, I think
53:22
affordability is the number one issue.
53:25
And you know, that's where the focus should be.
53:28
But there are people who care about different things in this
53:31
country. And you're going to need all the
53:33
people who care about affordability and how clean
53:36
energy addresses affordability, plus all the people who care
53:40
about climate change. And you need them to vote for
53:42
the same things. So to exclude one of those
53:45
groups, that's subtraction. And that's not how politics
53:48
works. I think Third Way should know
53:50
better. So, you know, I'm not
53:53
disagreeing with what you're saying, but the way you win is
53:56
by bringing everyone into a big tent.
53:59
And sometimes you talk about climate, sometimes you talk
54:02
about affordability. You probably talk about
54:04
affordability with more people, but you shy away from one of
54:08
the, you know, most, the biggest, one of the biggest
54:11
issues facing humanity where there is a small but powerful
54:15
consent constituency behind it. You basically lose the passion
54:20
of those of those voters and those constituents and, and
54:22
that's not smart either. So.
54:25
Don't you think those voters in those constituents get it,
54:27
though, and that they're like this?
54:30
We're not talking about it this way right now, but we know
54:33
what's actually behind all of this.
54:36
I mean, I do think that, like, I mean, at least from all of the
54:40
speeches I've given, I mean, I really lean in on the economic
54:44
message just because I think that's my natural state.
54:48
But I don't lean back from the emotion behind my views on
54:53
climate, right? I mean, I do think we're two
54:55
storms away from Florida being fully uninsurable.
54:59
We're already close to Florida being uninsurable.
55:02
I think we're two storms away from every single company,
55:05
including the backstop insurance provider from the state being
55:09
fully bankrupt, right? I think people who live in
55:13
Florida want to live in Florida. I think they like Florida, but
55:16
like they will be unable to live in Florida soon, right?
55:19
And I think that is a climate change issue, right?
55:21
I just think that in general, when you think about just how
55:26
emotional this can get really quickly, like people's lives
55:30
will be turned upside down very soon because of climate, right?
55:35
And I think they. Are turned upside down.
55:37
They're already turned upside down for sure.
55:39
Yeah. I mean, and I just think that
55:41
like, so I don't lead with that argument almost ever, but I
55:45
certainly am fluent in the argument and believe very
55:48
strongly in the emotional purchase of the argument.
55:51
I mean, Jamie, I'll give you an example of a different topic,
55:54
but I think has a similar arc. So if you go back to the
55:58
Affordable Care Act, generally the most popular provision was
56:01
that people under 26 could be under their parents insurance.
56:05
And one way to talk about it would be like, we're only going
56:08
to talk about that, right? And and that's got like 70%
56:12
approval. But I think the folks that did
56:15
that work and knew that this is something that people are going
56:17
to remember for generations. And for people to remember that
56:21
you need to talk about the moral benefit of what's going on.
56:25
And new look, the Affordable Care Act, not that popular.
56:28
When it was passed, we talked about how people who wouldn't
56:31
have insurance would get insurance.
56:33
And over time, it's become very popular.
56:36
Part of that's because we won the moral argument.
56:38
So I think you can lead with the most popular thing, and in this
56:42
case I think it's affordability. And I think everyone's going to
56:44
benefit from from clean energy bringing down people's costs
56:48
over time. But I think if you want this to
56:51
be a generationally changing issue, you also have to include
56:54
the moral argument. And call it Obamacare.
57:00
I mean, I think it depends if if we're are we talking about
57:04
national messaging splashed on every front page and in a
57:07
national ad campaign, that's one thing.
57:09
But I mean, this is a tale as old as time.
57:12
It's not new. When I was at the solar energy
57:15
technologies office and we were all shocked the day that Donald
57:19
Trump won in 2016 and we thought we we were preparing for a
57:23
Clinton administration. We were like having meetings
57:26
talking about how we would execute on her solar rooftop
57:31
bowl. So we were shocked.
57:32
And then I spent the next three months rewriting every single
57:37
piece of communication, like completely redesigning the
57:41
identity deck, the might, the top line talking points for the
57:44
office, the website to be Republican friendly.
57:48
And I mean, the messaging hasn't changed.
57:50
Jobs, economic competitiveness, national security, like you do
57:54
not lead with climate. And so I guess I've been in this
57:58
work and you know, I worked, I worked under the Trump
58:02
administration for a couple of months before I left.
58:05
But I don't really care. I just want to win.
58:08
So I, I think I'm on I'm, I'm taking a page out of third ways
58:11
book here. And I think that our
58:14
technologies are superior and we are winning.
58:18
And it's inevitable. It's going to take time, but
58:21
it's inevitable. And I don't need to talk about
58:24
climate for this technology to, to win on on, you know, an even
58:28
playing field. And so as long as we get where
58:31
we're going, I don't really care what we call it.
58:34
Well, Arnab, like I think that like you are going to be able to
58:37
keep coming back on to this podcast to continue this
58:40
conversation. So like as the second friend of
58:44
the pod, you will be back. But you know, look, I it it,
58:47
it's obviously not settled, right?
58:50
You know, the Matic Lasis versus Sean Caston, the third way
58:53
talking points. People are going to keep talking
58:56
about this. But either way, I feel like
58:58
deploy action has cemented its role in, you know, moving the
59:01
ball forward, which I think is fantastic.
59:03
So thanks very much for joining us, Arnab.
59:06
Thank you guys for having me. Well, we ended pretty spicy
59:15
there, Jamie, and you know, like, I like it.
59:18
We did. I think I had some of my first
59:21
hot takes. So I'm proud of myself.
59:23
I I'm a baby podcaster so I'm I'm growing.
59:27
I'm looking forward to a lot more hot takes, I mean, but I
59:30
will say that I was consumed in the last couple weeks by the
59:34
Olympics, watched all of the like events and all the gold
59:37
medal races. The the hockey performance was
59:41
extraordinary. I love the fact that at the very
59:43
end the guy was like missing 2 teeth and you know, like
59:47
bleeding out of his mouth, which is like totally prototypical
59:50
hockey. So amazing.
59:53
The Olympics have been on constant rotation at my house,
59:57
and I have to admit my daughter was homesick with strep last
1:00:01
week on the best day because it was the day of the women's
1:00:04
figure skating final. I don't know if you know this
1:00:06
about me, but I very briefly was a figure skater.
1:00:10
I did that for a couple of years.
1:00:12
So I've. Got I didn't know about this.
1:00:14
Can you do a triple Axel? No, I, I actually participated
1:00:22
in a related sport. They call it synchro now, but
1:00:24
it's basically synchronized ice skating and a team kind of like
1:00:28
synchronized swimming. And there is a campaign to make
1:00:32
it an Olympic sport and it's so cool.
1:00:34
So I really do hope that it comes to the Olympics.
1:00:36
But I have to tell you that Alyssa Lou has got me picking my
1:00:39
ice skates back up. I've been going ice skating.
1:00:41
So thank you to the Olympics for the inspo.
1:00:46
I mean, I have to say that like I was fascinated by the fact
1:00:51
that she has like teeth jewelry. She does.
1:00:55
She did her own piercing and she obviously has that very unusual
1:01:01
hair, hair color situation. I mean, I just think she's very
1:01:06
cool. She's in, there's not a lot, a
1:01:08
ton of opportunity to really express yourself very
1:01:11
differently. But she really leaned into it.
1:01:13
And yeah, I think she's a great role model.
1:01:16
So I've really enjoyed watching that with my daughter, as well
1:01:19
as all the other just badass women on the on the US team.
1:01:22
And of course, I've been very closely monitoring Lindsey
1:01:26
Vonn's injury recovery. I don't know, have you have you
1:01:29
been paying attention to that? I'm a big Lindsey Vonn Stan.
1:01:33
I'm not like, I like Lindsey Vonn, but Lord Almighty, like, I
1:01:37
mean, I mean, I'm all for geriatric skiing, but come on.
1:01:43
Like, I mean, like, that seems like a sport for young people.
1:01:46
Like, I'm not going out there like 40 something years old.
1:01:51
Absolutely. I definitely, the last time I
1:01:54
went skiing a few years ago, I think my husband threw out his
1:01:56
back the next day and we were done.
1:01:59
That being said, Lindsey Vonn and I are the same age, so she's
1:02:03
like a major inspiration. I love seeing people in their
1:02:07
40's the top of their game because not that I'm about to do
1:02:10
that, but still like knowing that it's possible is very
1:02:14
comforting. I have a rule that I use with
1:02:18
all my friends which is that like at my age which I am very
1:02:22
active, you have to give a solid 85% right?
1:02:27
You cannot be giving 100% at this age, right?
1:02:30
That's how you create all of these injuries, right?
1:02:33
Like, so like, I'm not saying you shouldn't be active.
1:02:35
And I love Lindsey Vonn to be clear, like she's an
1:02:37
inspiration. But like, I'm just saying give
1:02:40
85%, right? Like do yourself a favor and
1:02:43
don't like RIP a muscle or like tear a tendon or all the things
1:02:49
that people do when they give 100%, you know, like I'm happy
1:02:52
to lose. I just want to sweat.
1:02:54
I want to like, you know, enjoy the sport.
1:02:56
I don't want to like, you know, like be in a hospital bed for
1:03:01
like 2 weeks. Sure.
1:03:02
I think that's very good advice for like the pickleball court.
1:03:06
I don't know if it works as well for the Olympics, but I I hear
1:03:10
you. Well, thank you so much.
1:03:13
It was so great to see our knob. And this is another edition of
1:03:19
Energy Empire. You can find us wherever you
1:03:22
find your favorite podcasts on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify,
1:03:28
absolutely. On YouTube you got to smash that
1:03:30
subscribe button as my son likes to say, and we will be back with
1:03:35
you next week.