Latest / Brian Thomas / Brigham McCown - Energy Policy

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Brigham McCown - Energy Policy · Brian Thomas

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Speaker 1: W KRC Cincinnati and iHeartRadio Station Guaranteed Human fifty five
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Speaker 1: KRC D Talk Station, I Heart Radio seven oh six
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Speaker 1: Here fifty five KRC, the Talks Station. Very happy Friday
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Speaker 1: to you. Maybe extra special. We've got a good guest
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Speaker 1: in the studio. He's been here before. He's with the
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Speaker 1: Hudson Institute and he is our energy policy expert. The
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Speaker 1: fifty five KRS Morning Show Mine Joe Streckers and the
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Speaker 1: listening audiences energy policy expert. Bring him a gow and
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Speaker 1: welcome back to the morning show. It's always great seeing
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Speaker 1: you man.
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Speaker 2: Brian, Thanks so much for having me back. It's exciting
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Speaker 2: to be back here.
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Speaker 1: It's exciting to be back in the land of the
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Speaker 1: of civilizations. It was the California, which is where I
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Speaker 1: understand you just came back from.
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Speaker 2: Yes, been out there all week, but they did have
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Speaker 2: plenty of sunshine.
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Speaker 1: Now specifically, I understand you were in Silicon Valley.
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Speaker 3: I was absolutely so.
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Speaker 1: You weren't hanging out in downtown San Francisco dodging feces
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Speaker 1: and needles and things of that nature. You're actually in
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Speaker 1: I suppose it. Silicon Valley itself has not deteriorated or
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Speaker 1: fallen into the ocean. They're still, at least from a
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Speaker 1: visible standpoint, reasonably saying.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's it's completely different, far more laid back.
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Speaker 2: And you know, I always forget that when I go there, right,
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Speaker 2: you go to the South Bay area, San Jose, Santa Clara,
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Speaker 2: and it's just a totally different state practically. It's weird.
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Speaker 1: And I know you were there at in Nvidia, and
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Speaker 1: we can talk about your why you're with in Nvidia,
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Speaker 1: but that's allowed you to be surrounded by what I
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Speaker 1: think you described as a bunch of brilliant computer folks.
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Speaker 3: Yeah it is.
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Speaker 2: You know, it never disappoints to go out there because
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Speaker 2: it attracts some of the best and brightest from around
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Speaker 2: the country. And you know, it's almost like NASA back
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Speaker 2: in the sixties. They're all half of these people are
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Speaker 2: under thirty years old, and they're brilliant.
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Speaker 1: And we need to know, moving away from things technical
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Speaker 1: and energy related, which we will be talking about in
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Speaker 1: this hour, politically speaking and what was the did you
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Speaker 1: test the pulse of the politics with the folks that
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Speaker 1: you were surrounded by.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, I did you know you think of California obviously
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Speaker 2: you think of liberalism and progressiveness. And what really struck
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Speaker 2: me was most of these people that I interacted with,
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Speaker 2: they have their feet firmly planted on the ground. Their realists,
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Speaker 2: they're capitalists. And you know, occasionally you'd get comments like,
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Speaker 2: you know, gosh, I just I.
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Speaker 3: Wish we had a third political party.
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Speaker 2: I wish we had a party that stopped all the
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Speaker 2: crazy and just started governing.
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Speaker 3: Weird, I know, right.
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Speaker 1: A strange concept, yea. And I suppose I'd be curious
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Speaker 1: to know with their view of what crazy is, because
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Speaker 1: you know, I'm sitting here staring at what is a
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Speaker 1: growing perceived by some to be viable platform, the DSA,
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Speaker 1: and I and I want people to consider this. It's
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Speaker 1: a thought exercise, folks, what I'm gonna say right now,
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Speaker 1: So I want you to walk yourself through what the
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Speaker 1: world would be like if they got what they wanted
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Speaker 1: in terms of party platform. Abolishing prisons and abolishing the police. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I mean, and borders right well, and borders too, which
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Speaker 1: of course is going to compound the problems abolishing police
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Speaker 1: and and and and prisons. But how could we possibly
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Speaker 1: function in a world where there's no accountability for minding
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Speaker 1: the law, assaulting me, what is no longer a crime?
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Speaker 1: There's no mechanism to deal with the person who violated
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Speaker 1: my rights. Do we live in a society with no rights?
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Speaker 1: I mean that to me is crazy, batcrab crazy. So
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Speaker 1: I just one illustration of I guess what I want
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Speaker 1: to know what these reasonably feed on the ground? Can
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Speaker 1: I say capitalists?
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Speaker 3: Oh?
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, one hundred percent. And that's part of the difference.
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Speaker 2: And by the way, you know, let's let's look around
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Speaker 2: the world and show me a we don't even have
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Speaker 2: to go to communist show me a single successful socialist government.
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Speaker 2: The answer is there are none. But you know, hey,
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Speaker 2: let's try it again. So yeah, no, there's not. And
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Speaker 2: these these folks are well, they're realists, right, and they
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Speaker 2: don't do the culture wars. They don't do you know,
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Speaker 2: all the emotion. Somebody told me wh I was out there,
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Speaker 2: they kind of grant and said, well, you know, facts
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Speaker 2: don't have emotion.
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Speaker 1: See that's my view of life. But because they're yeah,
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Speaker 1: I was just going to say, because they're employed in
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Speaker 1: with really good jobs, they're well educated, and they've got
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Speaker 1: jobs to do. Yeah, they don't have time to be
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Speaker 1: engaging in nonsensical exercises like like protests, and I suspect it.
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Speaker 1: You know, maybe a large quantity of people that show
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Speaker 1: up with those protests just really don't have anything better
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Speaker 1: to do with their time.
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Speaker 2: Well, and I suspect these folks that are working seventy
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Speaker 2: hour weeks to your point, and they're working their butts off,
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Speaker 2: and they want to be compensated for what they're doing.
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Speaker 1: The expectation within Nvidia, I imagine is that you do
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Speaker 1: put in seventy hour work weeks and they do pay
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Speaker 1: you accordingly. I mean that's the way it was when
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Speaker 1: you're practicing law in Chicago. I usually it works seven
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Speaker 1: six days a week, sometimes seven. You put in ten
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Speaker 1: to fifteen hour days all the time. The partnership looked
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Speaker 1: down and expected that from its young associates who hopefully
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Speaker 1: someday would become partners, and they kind of in the
5:18
Speaker 1: back there was always that looming threat that well, if
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Speaker 1: you don't continue to work that hard, you're not going
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Speaker 1: to make it here. You worked that hard, it's just
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Speaker 1: what you did.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, for innovation and for startups, you
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Speaker 2: need that. And Jensen Wong is kept in video which
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Speaker 2: is now forty five thousand employees relatively flat lot. Most
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Speaker 2: people don't have titles, so they don't have offices. They
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Speaker 2: work in large spaces together and they don't call each
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Speaker 2: other sir or mister vice president. It's they just get
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Speaker 2: it done.
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Speaker 1: Get it done, all right. So in Video the Prime
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Speaker 1: we moved on to politics away from energy. Your main
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Speaker 1: reason for visiting in Video was to what end breaking
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Speaker 1: the gown?
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Speaker 2: So we took a group of Hudson scholars out there
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Speaker 2: to better understand both the US chip manufacturing as well
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Speaker 2: as Chinese manufacturing, the competition for AI, the concerns over
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Speaker 2: data centers, memory really and for me it was really
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Speaker 2: exciting because the number one limitation that a lot of
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Speaker 2: these folks are feeling is energy. And that's a US problem,
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Speaker 2: not a Chinese problem. Well, and it's particularly a California
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Speaker 2: problem more so than many other states because they have
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Speaker 2: you know, green new deals and carbon offset themselves into
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Speaker 2: a position where they well are closed down what oil
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Speaker 2: are gasoline production refineries, They get rid of the refineries,
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Speaker 2: They demonize the oil and gas industry, They pull up
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Speaker 2: the strings and they move out. There's no production, and
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Speaker 2: of course the price everything goes up. That on top
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Speaker 2: of the heavy taxation they have against things, well, fossil fuel, absolutely,
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Speaker 2: and if you know, California didn't look at redistribution of wealth,
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Speaker 2: didn't look at climate change and all these other subjective factors,
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Speaker 2: electricity would be a lot lower. Great, you want solar, great,
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Speaker 2: you want win great, But when you start picking winners
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Speaker 2: and losers, and you start demonizing others and holding your
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Speaker 2: preferred preference as a holy grail, it has an impact
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Speaker 2: on prices, clearly a huge impact.
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Speaker 1: Well, and are I guess in video that they're in
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Speaker 1: the manufacturing business.
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Speaker 2: You know what's interesting is they designed. They're in the
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Speaker 2: hardware and software business, but they don't actually make any
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Speaker 2: of their own stuff.
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Speaker 1: Oh they don't.
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Speaker 3: They don't.
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Speaker 2: I didn't realize that either until I got out there
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Speaker 2: no fabrication, it's all through third party partners.
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Speaker 1: So in Vidia as a company itself isn't really struggling
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Speaker 1: with an energy issue.
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Speaker 2: They're not, but obviously their chips use a lot of energy,
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Speaker 2: and they are focused on each new generation every two
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Speaker 2: years of reducing both the energy and cooling that is required,
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Speaker 2: because that's a huge issue.
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Speaker 1: And that's where the design work comes in, which they
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Speaker 1: ultimately then pass along to a third party manufacturer.
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Speaker 3: They do, they take.
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Speaker 2: So the third party is building Nvidia chips, right, and
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Speaker 2: we get we remember them. I remember them as a
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Speaker 2: graphics company, right, that's where they build your graphics card. Well,
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Speaker 2: now they produce sexual CPUs and GPUs and everything that
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Speaker 2: you need to really crunch big data.
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Speaker 1: And where are those chips manufactured.
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Speaker 2: In the US? In Asia, in Japan and Taiwan all over?
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Speaker 1: Okay, multiple manufacturing facilities? All right? Is this subject to
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Speaker 1: issues with the Chinese Communist Party in terms of stealing
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Speaker 1: technology and the availability of these types of chips for
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Speaker 1: their use.
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Speaker 2: Yes, I mean is there's some debate right there because
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Speaker 2: we didn't allow our better chips to go to China.
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Speaker 3: And I agree with that.
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Speaker 2: But what it's caused is China has within five or
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Speaker 2: six years, they've built their own domestic industry, and some
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Speaker 2: of it is through their own hard work, and some
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Speaker 2: of it is through stealing our stuff.
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Speaker 1: We know that it is a huge problem. Hacking and
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Speaker 1: the stealing of our or intellectual property happens a lot
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Speaker 1: in the military realm too, doesn't it, Brigham Acount, Yes
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Speaker 1: it does, Yes, it does. Well, let's pivot away from
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Speaker 1: the issues in California and the wild success and video
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Speaker 1: is and the fact that we do have capitalist stilling
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Speaker 1: out in California. To Ohio's electricity challenge. This is a
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Speaker 1: huge topic coming up in November, the fight against artificial
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Speaker 1: intelligence data centers, and on and on and on, but
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Speaker 1: the ever growing demand and need for more electricity as
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Speaker 1: well as infrastructure. We are way behind on infrastructure as well.
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Speaker 1: I know VV Ramaswami spoke about the need for well
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Speaker 1: streamlining processes and allowing for and inviting in cheaper energy
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Speaker 1: here in Ohio. I welcome that as a concept. Can
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Speaker 1: we bring it about more with Hudson Institute's Brigham account
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Speaker 1: our energy policy expert. After I mentioned Chimney Care fireplace
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Speaker 1: and stove old school warmth coming from a fireplace that
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Speaker 1: talk State seven twenty pick about krcity talk station bron
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Speaker 1: Thomas with Brighamcown from the Hudson Institute. He is here
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Speaker 1: in studio Hudson dot orgs where you find that organization.
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Speaker 1: Just go directly to Brigham when you want to talk
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Speaker 1: about energy policy, which is what we're diving on into today.
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Speaker 1: Let's pivot over to Ohio. Big issues with Ohio price
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Speaker 1: of energy is going up. Have you noticed that, Brigha mcgalan,
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Speaker 1: the price and Duke has just applied for a four
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Speaker 1: percent rate increase for the Public Utilities Commission. I guarantee
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Speaker 1: you they're going to get that approval.
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Speaker 2: My last month's bill was your bill last month up?
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Speaker 2: Mine was up a lot. Yes, yeah, they have been
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Speaker 2: since the beginning of the year. Yeah. Me.
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Speaker 1: Anyway, I've never seen bills as big as I've gotten. Yes, Smith,
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Speaker 1: with all things being equal, temperatures looking backward, Yeah.
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Speaker 2: You know it's interesting to me and off air, I
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Speaker 2: showed you a chart that Ohio electric prices are up
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Speaker 2: substantially more than the surrounding states.
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Speaker 1: Why why might that be here in Ohio as opposed
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Speaker 1: to you know, Pennsylvania.
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Speaker 2: Well, part of it is, let's see what is Pennsylvania's
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Speaker 2: up seventeen, but we're up twenty percent. West Virginia plus four,
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Speaker 2: Kentucky minus three, Indiana plus one. Why is that? Well,
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Speaker 2: we're a victim of our own success. I mean, you know,
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Speaker 2: the governor has made a priority of reindustrializing, bringing industry
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Speaker 2: back to Ohio. They all require large amounts of electricity.
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Speaker 1: So it's beyond ai. We're talking about just manufacturing generally speaking,
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Speaker 1: and people throw this out all the time. Unto facial
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Speaker 1: intelligence centers use enough electricity for you know, ten thousand
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Speaker 1: homes a day or whatever. But then you look at
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Speaker 1: the factory next door, and if you look at how
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Speaker 1: much power consumption they have, it's actually a lot more
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Speaker 1: than the data center would would would use. Like some
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Speaker 1: big welding manufacturing might be a smelter or whatever, come
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Speaker 1: up with their own energy heavy or energy intensive manufacturing.
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Speaker 1: So the success you're referring to is the demand on
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Speaker 1: the electric grid because of more business in Ohio.
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Speaker 2: Yes, so we're a victim of our own success because
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Speaker 2: for years electricity demand was fairly flat. And then remember
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Speaker 2: during a previous administration they wanted to electrify everything. Toss
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Speaker 2: out that gas water here, test, toss out this, toss
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Speaker 2: out that electric everything. Demand started growing and then you
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Speaker 2: had AI, which, to be fair, that caused a huge
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Speaker 2: spike in demand. And then the reindustrialization bringing businesses back,
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Speaker 2: chip manufacturers, advanced industries, welding shops, all of it. Demand
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Speaker 2: is out growing supply or growing more quickly than supply,
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Speaker 2: and we're in an electricity crunch. And then Brian you
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Speaker 2: put on top of it the early retirement of power
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Speaker 2: plants that didn't meet certain strict criteria of another administration.
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Speaker 2: We are dropping generation capacity, and we knew we were
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Speaker 2: going to have a crunch through the well twenty twenties,
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Speaker 2: and have not.
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Speaker 1: We learned a lesson from the European Union, for God's sake,
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Speaker 1: apparently not. Now they closed down nuclear plants that were
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Speaker 1: fully functional and consistently providing electricity twenty four to seven
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Speaker 1: without the wind or the sunshining. They put up windmills
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Speaker 1: and solar farms, and now their economies coming to a screen.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they are reverse in course finally and slowly.
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Speaker 2: But you're right, it's kind of painful. And you know,
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Speaker 2: this is sort of the viewpoint embraced by some Americans
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Speaker 2: and the last administration also is let's get rid of coal.
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Speaker 2: Let's shut everything down. Don't worry that will cause pressure,
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Speaker 2: and they will figure it out. It's the reverse of
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Speaker 2: if you build it, they will come. And honestly, good
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Speaker 2: policy says, great, you want to retire higher emission plans,
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Speaker 2: that's cool. You don't turn that off until the new
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Speaker 2: stuff is online.
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Speaker 1: Thanks Brigham. That's a seemingly obvious point to be made.
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Speaker 2: You don't need to be an expert, right to hope
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Speaker 2: to figure that out. But yet apparently you do because
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Speaker 2: this was intentional poor public policy decisions over the last
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Speaker 2: ten years.
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Speaker 1: Intentional indeed intentional yep. And so what's the fairest reason
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Speaker 1: behind it? Could it be that they don't like success,
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Speaker 1: They don't like to see consumption, They don't like to
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Speaker 1: see more and better in terms of because a better
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Speaker 1: life is in most cases, by people's objective perception, better
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Speaker 1: equals more consumption.
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Speaker 2: It does. And if you read some of the reports,
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Speaker 2: and speaking of California, California System put out a report
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Speaker 2: on this a few years ago. They admit right in it, Hey,
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Speaker 2: you need to use a bicycle, you need to get
14:18
Speaker 2: a smaller house, you can't use as much electricity. That's
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Speaker 2: that's what they were going for.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, well, the creeping government control over all elements of
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Speaker 1: our lives. If you live in a free society, you
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Speaker 1: might want to build all I don't know, a four
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Speaker 1: thousand square foot house and have a big yard. That's
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Speaker 1: not allowed right in their in their vision of what
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Speaker 1: is utopia, you will be you will take what you
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Speaker 1: are allocated.
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Speaker 2: Period so it is the viewpoint of scarcity versus the
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Speaker 2: viewpoint of plentiful.
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Speaker 3: Right, it is a.
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Speaker 2: It is a is a poor mindset quite well.
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Speaker 1: The point I guess the nefarious reality is, and it's
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Speaker 1: for them as an nefarious where you have an abundance
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Speaker 1: of power, you have an abundance of what you and
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Speaker 1: I might logically consider prosperity. Let's just call it prosperity,
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Speaker 1: which usually equals consumption, none of which they want. So
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Speaker 1: because we have an abundance, we need to take away
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Speaker 1: the abundance. Let's create a problem where there isn't one.
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Speaker 1: Let's take away the solution that has worked so well,
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Speaker 1: because the solution continues us down the same path of well,
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Speaker 1: in their mind again, consumption.
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Speaker 3: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: And I don't know why we have to push people
15:28
Speaker 2: down instead of raising people up. Ro out right, this
15:30
Speaker 2: was the traditional Reaganism, like bringing people up, not pushing
15:35
Speaker 2: people down. And that's if you think of it from
15:37
Speaker 2: a macro level, that's really what this is about.
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Speaker 1: They don't want to raise people up though, Brigham, that's
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Speaker 1: the thing.
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Speaker 3: Why not?
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Speaker 2: Uh?
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Speaker 1: Because everybody along, right, trust me, I'm aware I don't
15:50
Speaker 1: get their mindset. But you know, again, they're the ones
15:53
Speaker 1: that have taken this ridiculous leap of faith that the
15:55
Speaker 1: powers that be can tell us how to live our
15:57
Speaker 1: lives and what we're allowed to have and not have,
15:59
Speaker 1: and we're all going to be comfortably happy with because
16:01
Speaker 1: you know what, nobody's got more than what the government
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Speaker 1: has allocated anyone. It's equality. It's misery equally distributed, misery
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Speaker 1: from government when it doesn't have to be that way.
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Speaker 1: We continue down the same path we've got. Hey, look,
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Speaker 1: nuclear plants produce an abundance of power that works. Oh no,
16:17
Speaker 1: we can't have that like three Mile Island or Chernobyl
16:20
Speaker 1: or something. Seven twenty six. We'll continue with Briging McGowan.
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Speaker 1: We've got more to talk about about Higo energy policy.
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Speaker 1: Of course, first though, oh, speaking of things electric constation
16:31
Speaker 1: seven thirty one. If any haveive KC detalk s tation.
16:33
Speaker 1: His name's Brigham mcgallan. He's with Hudson Insdot. He's an
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Speaker 1: energy policy expert and we talk energy matters and today
16:39
Speaker 1: it's in studio for a full hour to talk about
16:41
Speaker 1: Ohio's energy problems springing from his trip to California. We
16:44
Speaker 1: kind of went over that, but also the artificial intelligence centers.
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Speaker 1: We do have a challenge with electricity demands, he pointed out.
16:52
Speaker 1: And it's a great thing that our electric bills have
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Speaker 1: gone off, at least in sizable part because of the
16:57
Speaker 1: success of bringing manufacturing back to Ohio. But Brigham, you
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Speaker 1: know it, I know it. Nobody can deny it. Our
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Speaker 1: state has I guess one of the highest concentrations of
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Speaker 1: these data centers are we have sort of like number
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Speaker 1: four on the list of data centers in the country.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, we are.
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Speaker 2: And data centers want to go to where you know,
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Speaker 2: you have a smart population, where there's land, where there
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Speaker 2: is available electricity, where there is water. And because you
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Speaker 2: know AI data centers, part of the big demand is
17:24
Speaker 2: in cooling. And I'm sure Dave Hadder could talk more
17:27
Speaker 2: about this better than I probably can.
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Speaker 3: But that's one.
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Speaker 2: You know, data centers don't come without detractors and without downsides, all.
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Speaker 1: Right, And all those data centers that have been thus
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Speaker 1: far built presumably did not bring with them their own
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Speaker 1: electricity generation.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and now to what could help us in Ohio
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Speaker 2: is PJAM, which is an acronym for the Regional Electric
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Speaker 2: Grid Operator. And we have about I don't know eight
17:54
Speaker 2: or twelve of these grid operators around the country whose
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Speaker 2: job is to balance demand with supple. They've pretty much said, Hey,
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Speaker 2: if you're coming to anywhere in our service territory, which
18:05
Speaker 2: is Virginia to Michigan, you're going to have to bring
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Speaker 2: your own power because we are trying to build capacity,
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Speaker 2: but that capacity is lagging demand for the reasons we
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Speaker 2: talked about in the last segment.
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Speaker 1: All right, and I gave you an article which I
18:21
Speaker 1: saw the other day. I think it was I can't
18:24
Speaker 1: remember which way I pulled it. I think it was
18:26
Speaker 1: the New York Post. Anyway, inside the next gen nuclear
18:30
Speaker 1: power revolution in Idaho's desert, high tech developers and hyperscolars
18:34
Speaker 1: are financing nuclear renaissance and will mass produce portable reactors,
18:39
Speaker 1: not next decade, next year. That's the sub headline. And
18:43
Speaker 1: when I read the article, I was delighted that there
18:46
Speaker 1: are so many i'll call them startup companies, but they
18:49
Speaker 1: may have been around for a long time, but building
18:50
Speaker 1: these almost from scratch, small modular reactors designed to be
18:55
Speaker 1: built in large quantities, identical each of them, each one
18:58
Speaker 1: of the ones discussed in the article. I think they
19:00
Speaker 1: mentioned like six or ten of them or something individually developed,
19:04
Speaker 1: all of them created like within eighteen months or less
19:07
Speaker 1: and online, generating vast quantities of electricity in about unless
19:12
Speaker 1: or in about a year year and a half start to.
19:15
Speaker 3: Finish, and they work.
19:17
Speaker 1: And they've been putting these things in submarines and battleships
19:21
Speaker 1: now since the nineteen fifties.
19:22
Speaker 3: This is easy to do.
19:24
Speaker 1: So when you say bring your power with you, there
19:27
Speaker 1: is an answer to that demand or obligation. The problem
19:31
Speaker 1: is our government and the regulations won't allow that next step,
19:35
Speaker 1: in other words, putting the power online.
19:38
Speaker 2: Yes, now, I do think perceptions have changed, right, We've
19:44
Speaker 2: moved beyond nuclear power plants that were designed in the
19:49
Speaker 2: fifties building the sixties that have had issues three Mile Island, Chernobyl,
19:54
Speaker 2: et cetera.
19:55
Speaker 1: This isn't nineteen seventy or nineteen six. Now we learn
19:58
Speaker 1: from all that.
20:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you know how it works, the precautionary
20:04
Speaker 2: principle and people that are you know, we're if you
20:09
Speaker 2: want to stop something, you lead with emotion, right of course,
20:12
Speaker 2: but look what happened or we tried that in the
20:15
Speaker 2: nineteen eighties.
20:16
Speaker 3: You have, but that's not how the world operates.
20:18
Speaker 1: Right, it's not. And also we used to believe in
20:20
Speaker 1: the idea that we were going to run out of oil. Well,
20:24
Speaker 1: you know what, technology change that dynamic pretty dramatically too,
20:27
Speaker 1: didn't it.
20:27
Speaker 3: It sure did.
20:28
Speaker 2: I fell over some barrels trying to get in the building.
20:30
Speaker 1: They're everywhere, They're everywhere, And.
20:32
Speaker 2: So to your point, yeah, things have changed a lot.
20:34
Speaker 2: In the current advanced gen Gen four reactors that we're
20:38
Speaker 2: building today, they are nothing nothing like the old reactors.
20:43
Speaker 2: They're far safer. Do you know that we have a
20:46
Speaker 2: rule dating back to the Carter administration because we're concerned
20:49
Speaker 2: about nuclear proliferation, that we're not allowed to recycle spent
20:55
Speaker 2: uranium coming out of our own reactors, and.
20:58
Speaker 1: Now they're using that to power as a source of power.
21:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so waste, yes, the way, So we can
21:05
Speaker 2: recycle all of this, we don't have to store it.
21:08
Speaker 2: We can get around a lot of the issues that
21:11
Speaker 2: people want to raise up from thirty years ago.
21:13
Speaker 1: Well, and the other thing I've read about these SMRs
21:15
Speaker 1: and the new modern nuclear power is that there really
21:19
Speaker 1: is little to no waste anyhow.
21:21
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, that's right.
21:23
Speaker 2: The fuel is even different, the way their run is different,
21:27
Speaker 2: and you raised a very valid point. What we're trying
21:29
Speaker 2: to do is create something that could be carried on
21:31
Speaker 2: the back of an eighteen wheeler. You license it, and
21:34
Speaker 2: then you don't change it. Because this is the other problem.
21:37
Speaker 2: There are no two reactors in the United States that
21:39
Speaker 2: are identical. Each one has to be separately licensed by
21:43
Speaker 2: the NRC, who apparently has spent most of their life
21:46
Speaker 2: trying not to license a new reactor.
21:49
Speaker 1: So we get so one off custom manufacturer. It's like
21:53
Speaker 1: going out and getting the bespoke suit. They're going to
21:55
Speaker 1: measure you, they're going to make the suit for you,
21:56
Speaker 1: and that's the only one they're going to make. Yeah,
21:58
Speaker 1: that's a stupid way of looking at this. We have
22:00
Speaker 1: and I get again go to the SMRs in this
22:02
Speaker 1: article among with like all of the other material out there,
22:06
Speaker 1: they're built one size does fit all. They're like legos.
22:09
Speaker 2: Yes, and you can plug them together and what we
22:11
Speaker 2: call scale abit.
22:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.
22:12
Speaker 2: So just like remember the old battery experiments. You could
22:15
Speaker 2: take batteries and oh are they in parallel or cereal?
22:18
Speaker 2: It's the same thing. So you need more power, another
22:22
Speaker 2: truck shows up.
22:24
Speaker 1: Done. It's that simple. It is that simple, and it's
22:26
Speaker 1: available right now as we speak. Going back to my point,
22:30
Speaker 1: the only thing standing in the way of of AI centers,
22:33
Speaker 1: artificial intelligence and data centers and anything else that needs
22:36
Speaker 1: this kind of demand, they can bring it with them.
22:38
Speaker 1: We have the technology, we have the ability, except we
22:41
Speaker 1: have the regulatory burdens and impediments that standing away from
22:45
Speaker 1: that quick, simple solution.
22:48
Speaker 2: Yes, and at least the current administration is trying to
22:50
Speaker 2: remove a lot of those. So we'll see, we'll see.
22:53
Speaker 2: You know, government.
22:54
Speaker 1: Reform, we know it's not easy concept. Yeah, don't go
22:57
Speaker 1: away more with Briga McGowan. Its seven thirty seven right
22:59
Speaker 1: now five KRCD talk station fifty five krc.
23:03
Speaker 3: I'm Nitaturro probably No.
23:05
Speaker 1: Seven fifty five krcdtalk station talk an energy policy with
23:09
Speaker 1: our energy policy expert Brigham A. Goowan from the Hudson
23:12
Speaker 1: Institute them the I guess one of the things that
23:14
Speaker 1: you and I have not discussed, because we were speaking
23:17
Speaker 1: about nuclear the technological challenges I think have been overcome
23:21
Speaker 1: with small modular reactors boiling it down. There are multitudes
23:24
Speaker 1: of these different types out on the market. They're all
23:26
Speaker 1: as big as, or even a lot smaller than a
23:28
Speaker 1: shipping container. They are one size fits all, so you
23:31
Speaker 1: can manufacture multiples. You know, over time, you don't have
23:34
Speaker 1: to have specific regulations or approvals for each individual nuclear
23:39
Speaker 1: plant project like we do now. There was one company
23:41
Speaker 1: cited in this article that I was so taken with
23:43
Speaker 1: that was planning on by the end of the decade
23:45
Speaker 1: to be able to produce maybe up to ten thousand
23:48
Speaker 1: of these reactors annually as a product as production. Now
23:52
Speaker 1: they're small. You know, one might generate enough power for
23:55
Speaker 1: five thousand homes. But given how small they are, and
23:59
Speaker 1: as you pointed out, you can put them together in
24:01
Speaker 1: its series and then it's ten thousand or fifteen thousand,
24:05
Speaker 1: depending on how many you buy. We haven't talked about
24:08
Speaker 1: the cost. You know. One of the impediments under the
24:11
Speaker 1: old model one size doesn't fit all, each of them
24:15
Speaker 1: bespoke to any given region, is they came with multiple
24:19
Speaker 1: billion dollar price tags. I mean, I have to imagine,
24:22
Speaker 1: given the size and the manufacturing ability for these smaller reactors,
24:27
Speaker 1: the price has to be dramatically lower.
24:31
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah it is, and you know that's been.
24:35
Speaker 3: One of the big debates.
24:37
Speaker 2: A small modular reactor typical size is fifty to three
24:41
Speaker 2: hundred megawatts whereas a large reactor, you're talking about something
24:47
Speaker 2: that is, you know, five to ten times a size,
24:50
Speaker 2: so you get five to ten times the price, and
24:54
Speaker 2: they can more, yes, and they can they can't.
24:57
Speaker 3: Yes. Yeah.
24:59
Speaker 2: In fact, the latest full size nuclear reactor that went
25:02
Speaker 2: online down in the Southeast, first new reactor to come
25:07
Speaker 2: online in decades, ended up costing two or three times
25:12
Speaker 2: its original component. Now, some of that is self inflicted,
25:15
Speaker 2: of course, it is inflation. Some of that is just
25:18
Speaker 2: taking too long, but litigation, yeah, yeah, it is easier
25:23
Speaker 2: to build the smaller ones and then add as you go,
25:26
Speaker 2: And then we have microreactors, which are even smaller than
25:29
Speaker 2: a small modular reactor, which could bring reliable power to
25:33
Speaker 2: remote villages, military bases, etc.
25:36
Speaker 1: Let's give Ge credit. They have jet engines that they've
25:40
Speaker 1: converted into electric generation plants, mini electric plants. They're awesome.
25:46
Speaker 1: I had a buddy of mine that used to go
25:47
Speaker 1: around the world installing these things in little villages, and
25:51
Speaker 1: sometimes quite often funded by drug dealers who wanted the
25:53
Speaker 1: local community to be very happy and have lots of power.
25:56
Speaker 1: So the local communities embraced the drug dealers who could
25:59
Speaker 1: afford these little power generation plans. Made them all happier
26:03
Speaker 1: improve their lifestyle. But then again, they had to at
26:06
Speaker 1: least recognize that the drug dealers were in the neighborhood.
26:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's true. And you know, we the
26:13
Speaker 2: truth is, we we do need a little bit of
26:15
Speaker 2: all the above. We need different It's not like a
26:19
Speaker 2: toolbox where a hammer can do everything. You need different
26:21
Speaker 2: tools for the job. But for the vast majority of applications,
26:25
Speaker 2: nuclear power gives you the cheapest kilowatt per hour electric
26:30
Speaker 2: cost over the long haul. It's just that if you
26:33
Speaker 2: want to build. You know, in Ohio we're thinking about
26:35
Speaker 2: going back and allowing the utilities to once again get
26:39
Speaker 2: into the generation business. Well, you know, you can spend
26:42
Speaker 2: twelve to fifteen billion dollars to build a single plant.
26:46
Speaker 2: That could threaten a lot of company's balance sheets, of course,
26:50
Speaker 2: but it doesn't have to be that way, correct Now.
26:53
Speaker 1: The problem? Okay, I'm a fan of ev Ramaswami. He
26:56
Speaker 1: is the kind of guy who would embrace this technology.
26:59
Speaker 1: He wants to bring cheaper energy to Ohio, and I
27:01
Speaker 1: think he's all of the above strategy type of guy
27:03
Speaker 1: from everything I've heard from him. Where's the problem? If
27:06
Speaker 1: there was a governor of the state of Ohio, who
27:08
Speaker 1: could ignore the legislative process, wave a magic wand or
27:12
Speaker 1: sign an executive order declaring that there is no longer
27:15
Speaker 1: any regulatory impediment to let's say, pick my target here,
27:20
Speaker 1: small modular reactors AI, you bring your own, We're going
27:22
Speaker 1: to make it easy for you to do it to Ohio.
27:24
Speaker 1: He still couldn't do it. We got the federal government.
27:27
Speaker 1: That's the main problem, isn't it, Brigham.
27:28
Speaker 3: That's true.
27:29
Speaker 2: You've got the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, which took
27:32
Speaker 2: over for the Atomic Energy Association, and you know, traditionally
27:39
Speaker 2: they have taken a very cautious outlook of moving forward,
27:43
Speaker 2: which has constrained us. Now it's kept us safe, right,
27:45
Speaker 2: we haven't had a nuclear incident. We weren't going to
27:48
Speaker 2: have a nuclear incident, especially after changes to reactor designs
27:53
Speaker 2: after Three Mile Island. But now the current five commissioners
27:58
Speaker 2: are trying to move forward much more quickly with approvals.
28:04
Speaker 3: Which.
28:06
Speaker 1: Is unlike be prior administration.
28:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, and to be fair, unlike almost all of the
28:13
Speaker 2: previous Yeah.
28:14
Speaker 1: Well, because technology has given us the actual I mean,
28:18
Speaker 1: there's a light right there, right, I mean, we can
28:20
Speaker 1: almost reach out and put our hand into the sunlight. Yes,
28:23
Speaker 1: it's that last mile or feet that we have to
28:26
Speaker 1: go in terms of removing these barriers that have been
28:28
Speaker 1: in place for so damn long.
28:30
Speaker 2: But that would be like the Department of Transportation saying, well,
28:34
Speaker 2: I know you've got a brand new Mustang, but I'm
28:37
Speaker 2: regulating you in accordance with what the sixty six Mustang
28:41
Speaker 2: could do.
28:41
Speaker 1: There you go, and that's and some of those rules
28:43
Speaker 1: still they do exist. Bringing out there, we'll do one
28:46
Speaker 1: more and we'll catch ourselves as a crime stopper. Bad
28:48
Speaker 1: guy coming up next. Don't go away, green, thank you again.
28:51
Speaker 1: We'll be looking for her, get her off the street
28:53
Speaker 1: and prove society. That's what you do when you call
28:55
Speaker 1: crime stoppers three five, two thirty forty, bring them to go,
28:58
Speaker 1: and you do some concluding. But before we do that,
29:01
Speaker 1: mister energy policy expert, he also have to remind folks
29:04
Speaker 1: Charged Conversations, that's his podcast, produced by the one and
29:09
Speaker 1: only producer of podcast, Joseph Strecker. Charge Conversations. Wherever you
29:13
Speaker 1: find your podcast, you can find what Brigham has to
29:15
Speaker 1: talk about. And it's a worthy endeavor to do that
29:17
Speaker 1: you haven't done one for a little while, but you're.
29:19
Speaker 2: New for we've had a little bit of a summer break.
29:21
Speaker 2: But Joe, we're gonna be on it quickly.
29:24
Speaker 1: Here there you go, So a new one coming up
29:26
Speaker 1: very soon. Concluding thoughts you had mentioned, I said, well,
29:31
Speaker 1: we need to focus people's attention on the federal government,
29:33
Speaker 1: the rules and regulations which impede the creation of power generation.
29:38
Speaker 1: But you made another point off air. It's worse than
29:41
Speaker 1: just the impediments with the power generation. It's also just
29:44
Speaker 1: building anything.
29:46
Speaker 3: It is.
29:46
Speaker 2: It is the regulatory framework, as we say in Washington, DC,
29:51
Speaker 2: creates substantial lag because, if you think about it, regulations
29:54
Speaker 2: are designed to slow things down. Hey let's be sure,
29:58
Speaker 2: let's be safe, let's speak cautions and changing regulations can
30:02
Speaker 2: take years, and in this case, we have permitting laws
30:07
Speaker 2: that date back to the sixties and seventies, largely that
30:11
Speaker 2: require us to analyze everything to death. It takes longer
30:16
Speaker 2: to build a new transmission line than it did to
30:19
Speaker 2: win World War Two. It takes longer to build a
30:22
Speaker 2: pipeline than it did to go to the moon. This
30:25
Speaker 2: has got to stop, because we don't have time to
30:28
Speaker 2: take ten to twelve years to figure out whether to
30:32
Speaker 2: build something. And if the answer is don't build it, fine,
30:34
Speaker 2: but it doesn't take twelve years to get there.
30:36
Speaker 1: Well, no question about that. But see, that's the other
30:39
Speaker 1: nefarious element we've got here. I keep thinking about the
30:42
Speaker 1: availability of the electricity, at least in terms of its generation.
30:46
Speaker 1: You know, in the back of my head, I'm always thinking, well,
30:48
Speaker 1: it's always going to arrive at my house. But we
30:51
Speaker 1: are way behind in our grid. The transmission lines themselves
30:54
Speaker 1: are in desperate need of upgrading an.
30:56
Speaker 2: Expansion we are. And then the questions who pays for that?
30:59
Speaker 2: To the viper scalers pay for that? Do the data
31:02
Speaker 2: centers pay for that? Do we all pay for that?
31:05
Speaker 2: Is a little bit of a mixed bag. I mean, look,
31:07
Speaker 2: I live in an area where it storms and I
31:09
Speaker 2: lose power every single time. That shouldn't happen in this
31:12
Speaker 2: day and age.
31:13
Speaker 1: Well, in one of the arguments I guess against artificial
31:15
Speaker 1: intelligence data centers, even if they bring their own power.
31:18
Speaker 1: Municipalities typically with new construction, will be the ones responsible
31:22
Speaker 1: for bringing the utilities to the building, right, which would
31:26
Speaker 1: be sewer water and then also electricity lines.
31:30
Speaker 2: Yes, although I do think a lot of the developers
31:34
Speaker 2: pay should be paying a portion of that, right, Oh,
31:37
Speaker 2: no question about it. That's yes, there is a requirement
31:40
Speaker 2: to provide service, but you know a lot of these
31:43
Speaker 2: smaller towns they just don't have You just don't have
31:45
Speaker 2: the money to do that.
31:47
Speaker 1: And so also, which is I guess the answer to
31:50
Speaker 1: people who don't want it in their neighborhood looks and
31:51
Speaker 1: if you neighborhood can't afford to provide that kind of stuff,
31:54
Speaker 1: that means the data center itself is going to have
31:56
Speaker 1: to bring all that stuff and pay for it themselves.
31:58
Speaker 1: Your cost element is sort of taken out of the equation.
32:00
Speaker 2: It is, and sometimes in our zealousness to bring new things,
32:04
Speaker 2: we offer all these tax a bank rates, which is
32:06
Speaker 2: actually what's there to pay for the new infrastructure.
32:09
Speaker 1: Right. So that's my point on yeah, the utilities being
32:12
Speaker 1: brought in Briga. Mccalan, it's always interesting talking with you
32:15
Speaker 1: identifying the problems. I guess we have identified the enemy
32:18
Speaker 1: and they are us.
32:19
Speaker 2: Yes,