Latest / Brian Thomas / Brigham McCown - Energy Policy - Charged Conversations

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Brigham McCown - Energy Policy - Charged Conversations · Brian Thomas

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Speaker 1: Happy one to you. Brian Towns. Welcoming back to the
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Speaker 1: fifty five krecy Morning Show hour energy policy expert Brigham
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Speaker 1: Account from the Hudson Institute. You can find the Hudson
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Speaker 1: Instute online at Hudson dot org. Going I recommend you
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Speaker 1: check that out regularly. Brigham Account, Welcome back, my friend.
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Speaker 1: I appreciate what you do. Charged Conversations is Brigham's podcast,
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Speaker 1: and I recommend you check out his podcast wherever you
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Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Welcome back, Brigham live from Las Vegas.
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Speaker 1: Jos Drecker awarded you the Wake Up Early Award. Congratulations,
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Speaker 1: thank you well, Brian.
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Speaker 2: It's great to be back on the show. We did
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Speaker 2: just put out a Charge Conversations about oil moving through
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Speaker 2: the Straits of Horror moves coming out this week, but
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Speaker 2: thank you. I decided very wisely when I got in
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Speaker 2: yesterday to stay on East Coast time. Yeah. Good for
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Speaker 2: thirty out here.
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Speaker 1: It's dark, yeah, I imagine it is. And I'm surprised
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Speaker 1: you're not at the roulette wheel or the blackjack table.
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Speaker 1: They're twenty four to seven. You never know what time
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Speaker 1: it is in Vegas when you're in a casino, Brigham Account,
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Speaker 1: you know I was up on this. Yes, people are
1:01
Speaker 1: angry about the price of gasoline going up. Locally. It's
1:03
Speaker 1: gone up about I don't know, maybe a buck or
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Speaker 1: maybe even more, depending on where you are, within the
1:08
Speaker 1: last several days. We're gonna talk about why they jumped overnight.
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Speaker 1: But I'm getting a kick out of it because everybody's
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Speaker 1: screaming about it. This is Donald Trump's fault. Donald Trump's fault.
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Speaker 1: Of course, when you engage in war, this does have
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Speaker 1: an impact on supply chain. Of course, when you shut
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Speaker 1: down the straight of hormones where eighty percent of the
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Speaker 1: world's oil flows through, you're going to have a spike.
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Speaker 1: Now you'll explain why it spikes immediately, but it cracks
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Speaker 1: me up. High price of gas Isn't that something Barack
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Speaker 1: Obama wanted and said we would have to deal with
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Speaker 1: because we're gonna chase our chails trying to limit carbon dioxide.
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Speaker 1: So if he does it through legislation, edicts, and mandates,
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Speaker 1: the price goes up, and it's a good thing. But
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Speaker 1: when it happens to happen as a consequence of sort
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Speaker 1: of naturally occurring events like supply chain disruptions, it's terrible
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Speaker 1: and it's awful and we all want our cheap gas back.
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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you're you're hitting it out on the head something. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I don't think we've talked about recently, but you're absolutely right.
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Speaker 2: Back during the Obama days, right, it was we have
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Speaker 2: to kick our addiction to oil. We have to get
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Speaker 2: off of it.
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Speaker 3: Everybody needs to it was over the beginning days, yes,
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Speaker 3: the good days. Everybody needs an ev everybody needs to
2:11
Speaker 3: turn their lights off, everybody needs to use less energy.
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Speaker 3: And how do you do that, Well, you text the
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Speaker 3: snot out of it more exsive artificially, yeah.
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Speaker 2: Yes, Or you make policies that you know it's picking
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Speaker 2: winners and losers. You make something really expensive, you subsidize
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Speaker 2: the snot out of something else to make it look
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Speaker 2: like it's actually cheaper. And that's exactly what was going
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Speaker 2: on back.
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Speaker 1: Then, exactly. I always like to just keep reminding people
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Speaker 1: of that it's a self inflicted wound when you're trying
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Speaker 1: to chase carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. And you
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Speaker 1: may call it a self inflicted wind when you engage
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Speaker 1: in war, but this is a normally happening occurrence. Now
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Speaker 1: I'll tell you what it's almost seven thirty five, So
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Speaker 1: I wanna pause. You're gonna explain why gas prices jumped
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Speaker 1: overnight because I know they were sitting on stockpiles of
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Speaker 1: oil and refined gasoline. So how is it that the
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Speaker 1: price of that went up immediately when they acquired it,
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Speaker 1: when the price was a lot cheaper. More with Brighamcowan
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Speaker 1: from the Hudson Institute right after I mentioned Cross Country Mortgage,
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Speaker 1: which is Sussette loads the camp's place and she is
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Speaker 1: licensed off from talk station seven forty fifty five krs
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Speaker 1: Detoxation from the Hudson Institute online at Hudson dot org.
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Speaker 1: Bring him Acount at the Colony fifty five kr SE
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Speaker 1: Morning Show Energy Policy Expert, Energy policy Expert. He is
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Speaker 1: talking about the price of oil and why how is
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Speaker 1: it that it just immediately goes up? How the price
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Speaker 1: is store? It started going up on Saturday when we
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Speaker 1: started telling people in the world that we were dropping
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Speaker 1: bombs on the Iranians. I see futures up just under
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Speaker 1: eighty six dollars right now for at least some kind
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Speaker 1: of crude. I just typed in, So it's it's trending upward, Brigham,
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Speaker 1: And that does make some sense given the current instability,
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Speaker 1: the straight of horror moves issues, which we can elaborate
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Speaker 1: on a little bit. But why overnight, Brigham, Why is it?
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Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, first of all, fear moves the market first.
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Speaker 2: Prices rise on risk and uncertainty, not just confirmed shortages.
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Speaker 2: And that's kind of what we've seen number one, number two,
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Speaker 2: even though the United States doesn't really get much oil. Frankly,
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Speaker 2: it's negligible from the Middle East. If this were nineteen
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Speaker 2: seventy three again or two thousand again, you'd be paying
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Speaker 2: four fifty five dollars already.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's when OPEK had a lock on global oil
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Speaker 1: supply and we all thought there was a finite amount
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Speaker 1: of oil. We were dealing with peak oil and oh
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Speaker 1: my god, we're all going to die. They cut this
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Speaker 1: Pigott off and I remember the the pictures of wines
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Speaker 1: around the corner with people waiting, and well remember the
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Speaker 1: even odd license plate numbers. You could go to a
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Speaker 1: gas station if your license plate was even on one
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Speaker 1: day and odd on the other. Yeah, those were difficult times.
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Speaker 1: And of course we had the stagflation of the seventies
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Speaker 1: that made that thing even worse. We don't have that
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Speaker 1: problem anymore because we engage in above the above, all
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Speaker 1: of the above, including drill baby drill strategy. Now, isn't
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Speaker 1: that true? Brigham?
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Speaker 2: That is one hundred percent true. And even though since
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Speaker 2: have responded quickly, and the reason for that is you're
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Speaker 2: preparing to buy your next unleaded gasoline, your next diesel,
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Speaker 2: so your prices at the pump actually reflect what you're
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Speaker 2: going to pay to replace what's already there, and that's
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Speaker 2: why they move pretty quickly. But right now gasoline prices
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Speaker 2: are about where they were in twenty twenty four. So, yeah,
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Speaker 2: are they high? Yes? Do I think they're going to
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Speaker 2: go back down within two to three weeks? I do.
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Speaker 2: If you look at all the major conflicts and crises,
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Speaker 2: and at Hudson we've taken a look at that. These
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Speaker 2: spikes are what they call transit. They don't last very long.
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Speaker 2: When Iran and Israel got into it, most recently, when
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Speaker 2: the Persian Gulf War from the nineteen nineties happened, all
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Speaker 2: of these things reside relatively quickly in the big scheme
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Speaker 2: of things.
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Speaker 1: Well, that's because they're not permanent Brigham Like statutes, policies,
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Speaker 1: and the impactmans to using gasoline that the administration, I
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Speaker 1: would argue, like Obama to fariously put in place in
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Speaker 1: the name of oh my god, we're all going an
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Speaker 1: eye global warming one hundred and fifty years down the road.
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Speaker 1: Those don't go away very easily. They stay in place,
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Speaker 1: and in other words, the price of gasoline will stay
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Speaker 1: up because it was intended to do just that. Straight
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Speaker 1: of Horror Moves is going to open up at some point,
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Speaker 1: presumably bring it, and then they'll go back down again
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Speaker 1: because the economic realities of supply will have changed absolutely.
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Speaker 2: I mean, it's uh what we'd like say, economics one
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Speaker 2: oh one, supply and demand. You have too much supply,
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Speaker 2: price goes down. You have too much demand, price goes up.
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Speaker 2: And we're already seeing some things. So Saudi Arabia has
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Speaker 2: a pipeline, it's actually two pipelines. They're massive. They can
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Speaker 2: move up to six million barrels a day. Right now
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Speaker 2: it's doing a little under two. They're getting that thing
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Speaker 2: back up and running. So they're going to push six
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Speaker 2: million out of the twenty million that the Persian Gulf
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Speaker 2: pushes out every day over to the Red Sea to
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Speaker 2: bypass the straight at Horror Moves altogether. So that's going
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Speaker 2: to come online pretty quickly, I think within the next
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Speaker 2: five to seven days. Number one. Number two, the United
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Speaker 2: States has given a thirty day relief for countries to
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Speaker 2: purchase some stranded Russian oil on the market. Don't like it,
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Speaker 2: but needs to happen in the short term, so that
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Speaker 2: will reduce pricing. And then according to Admiral Connell of
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Speaker 2: my United States Navy, it's very proud of what they've
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Speaker 2: been doing out there. Tax Ballistic missile launches, drone launches
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Speaker 2: are down by ninety percent. We've now hit over thirty
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Speaker 2: of their Iranian naval vessels. They pretty much have no
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Speaker 2: functioning maybe at this point, including overnight, we destroyed a
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Speaker 2: drone tearing aircraft carrier, an American World War two carrier.
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Speaker 2: So I think this is going to resolve itself, and
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Speaker 2: this part of it is going to resolve itself.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, they reduced the missile strike down like by ninety
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Speaker 1: and the drone strikes down any low eighty percent reduction,
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Speaker 1: So just a little bit left and we blow up
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Speaker 1: more of the manufacturing facilities and continue attack the mission
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Speaker 1: launching sites. The problem in the Strait of Horror moves
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Speaker 1: may solve itself. Simply because the Iranians have nothing to
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Speaker 1: do by way of blowing up ships going through it.
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Speaker 1: I also noted Brigham that some of the ships are
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Speaker 1: taking are just taking the risk and going through on
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Speaker 1: their own.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, some are still going through. And it really comes
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Speaker 2: back to war risk insurance. You know you have insurance
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Speaker 2: on your car. Well, the ship has insurance, the cargo
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Speaker 2: has insurance. And whether or not you're willing to pay
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Speaker 2: a very high price to get that done, or some
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Speaker 2: ships are just going through even if they can't get
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Speaker 2: the right insurance. President Trump has announced the US will
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Speaker 2: also offer insurance and has suggested that perhaps the Navy
8:41
Speaker 2: will get involved. Well, we'll see if that's necessary, and
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Speaker 2: we'll see how that moves. But there are hundreds of
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Speaker 2: ships tied up wanting to leave right now. And again,
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Speaker 2: that oil doesn't come to us. You know, the main
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Speaker 2: beneficiary of that oil are Asian nations, including some friends
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Speaker 2: like Japan and South But in large percentage that oil
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Speaker 2: Brian goes to China.
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Speaker 1: So well, you point it out before the oil is
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Speaker 1: a global market. Price of oil is established based upon
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Speaker 1: the quantity that's available in the world, not necessarily because
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Speaker 1: we don't have our own, but it's just a defined
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Speaker 1: sort of an economic fact that we have to deal with.
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Speaker 2: It is it is, and it's always been a global market,
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Speaker 2: and it's risk. And you know, whether you're for or
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Speaker 2: against what the current administration is doing, at the bottom
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Speaker 2: line is you've got a regime that has attacked ships
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Speaker 2: for forty seven years, has said they would close the golf,
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Speaker 2: which again you're not allowed to do. It's an international passageway.
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Speaker 2: So you know, dealing with this once and for all,
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Speaker 2: I think will lead to longer term stability. If that's
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Speaker 2: the goal, well.
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Speaker 1: I think that's an excell employee double down on. If
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Speaker 1: you hadn't an engaged militarily in trying to topple the Iranians,
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Speaker 1: then they are and were in a position at any
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Speaker 1: in time to shut down the Straight of Horror moves.
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Speaker 1: Because they have all the rockets and missiles there, it
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Speaker 1: can announce it to the world any ships going through,
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Speaker 1: we're gonna blow them up. And that sounds like a
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Speaker 1: totally Iranian thing to do based upon their past history.
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Speaker 1: So maybe in the future they'll never be able to
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Speaker 1: do it again, and that'll bring about so much global stability.
10:15
Speaker 1: The price of gas will go below fifty bucks a
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Speaker 1: barrel or something like that. Brigha mcaal, We've got a
10:19
Speaker 1: lot more to talk about. At seven forty six, we'll
10:21
Speaker 1: bring Brigham back and we'll ultimately we're gonna end up
10:24
Speaker 1: talking about Ohio utilities owning nuke plants. This is gonna
10:29
Speaker 1: be a good thing. I think Brigham will enlighten us
10:31
Speaker 1: on his position on that. But if you're dealing with cracks, stains,
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Speaker 1: slippery spots, I'm talking about concrete moves. This war risk
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Speaker 1: insurance you mentioned, and I understand that you get a
10:42
Speaker 1: policy of insurance, and of course actuaries determine what the
10:45
Speaker 1: risk is and the premium is determined on it. But
10:47
Speaker 1: when you got a war right there next to where
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Speaker 1: the insured vessels are going back and forth, insurance companies
10:54
Speaker 1: act in their best interest and cancel it. Donald Trump
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Speaker 1: suggested maybe the United States would act as the insure
11:00
Speaker 1: of last resort or something like that. I kind of
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Speaker 1: question whether Donald Trump has the ability to just immediately say, yeah,
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Speaker 1: we're going to shoulder the burden of ensuring your vessels
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Speaker 1: are going to get through.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, there is that's a good point, and there is
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Speaker 2: a US Finance and Development Corp. I'm probably not getting
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Speaker 2: the name exactly right. That could possibly be the vehicle
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Speaker 2: for that. But you know, when I first heard about
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Speaker 2: war risk insurance, I thought, oh, this only happens during war. Well,
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Speaker 2: actually they carry war risk all the time.
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Speaker 1: You're there.
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Speaker 2: That's how long we've been dealing with this. And remember,
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Speaker 2: let's rewind the tape to nineteen eighty seven, nineteen eighty
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Speaker 2: eight Operation Ernest Will. We reflagged a bunch of foreign
11:39
Speaker 2: tankers under US flags and escorted them with navy ships
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Speaker 2: through the straight of foreign news because I guess who
11:46
Speaker 2: was threatening them, Brian your Audians. Yes, oh, how'd you know?
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Speaker 1: Cocking? Yeah, so's the country goes right there. I mean,
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Speaker 1: it is on top of the strait we're talking about.
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Speaker 2: It is, this is, this has been going on for
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Speaker 2: a very long time. And uh, you know, so to
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Speaker 2: your point, now what the good news is. But we're
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Speaker 2: not seeing are cargo is being canceled. The ships are there,
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Speaker 2: they're waiting, they're waiting to load, or they're already loaded
12:14
Speaker 2: waiting and you know, the prevailing spots seem to be
12:18
Speaker 2: that one to two weeks max on this that we'll
12:22
Speaker 2: see they could be.
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Speaker 1: Wrong, little tea leaf reading. I like the optimism on
12:25
Speaker 1: that one, though, but the direction everything is going, the
12:27
Speaker 1: limitation of the number of missile strikes, and the uh well,
12:30
Speaker 1: the evisceration of the Iranian military generally speaking, and the
12:34
Speaker 1: destruction of their navy, all of it can lead to
12:37
Speaker 1: a short duration of this shutdown. So all right, we
12:42
Speaker 1: got that positive going for us, But you know, I
12:43
Speaker 1: got to observe bring before we part company and bring
12:45
Speaker 1: you back after the top of the internew to talk
12:47
Speaker 1: about nuke power here in Ohio. All those ships are
12:50
Speaker 1: still in the Gulf there, right, I mean there you
12:53
Speaker 1: can see in parked. I've seen the maps. Those are
12:55
Speaker 1: not outside of the reach of Iranian missiles either. Just
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Speaker 1: because the Strait of Horror moves is that really arrowed,
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Speaker 1: daringgerous spot that you have to creep through, it doesn't
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Speaker 1: mean they're without harm or potential for harm.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, they're definitely within harm's reach and they're just sitting there.
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Speaker 2: So if iron had the capacity to strike them, I
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Speaker 2: guess as they would. And you're right, the strait it's
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Speaker 2: narrow by I don't know shipping terms, it's about twenty
13:22
Speaker 2: one nautical miles it's about twenty four land miles wide,
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Speaker 2: but there are two transit quarters. They're only two miles
13:28
Speaker 2: wide each, so you can pick them off there when
13:31
Speaker 2: they're moving. But right now they're all sitting there at
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Speaker 2: anchor and nothing's happening.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. I bring that up to point that out. It
13:37
Speaker 1: could happen right now, not in the strait. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: thankfully it's not, which suggests your optimism I think is
13:44
Speaker 1: well placed. Bring mccount will bring it back live from
13:47
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, live at the Sphere. Metallica is opening for him.
13:51
Speaker 1: He's bringing mccut from the Hudson ins too. We'll talk
13:52
Speaker 1: nuke policy coming up out the top of the our news.
13:54
Speaker 1: Don't go away. What's happening over there.
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Speaker 2: Cannot be ever allowed to have nuclear weapons.
14:00
Speaker 1: SI fifty five krs DE talks station behind Thomas here
14:03
Speaker 1: on a Friday, which I love my Friday, and I
14:05
Speaker 1: love when we had Brigham accoun from the Hudson Instituto
14:07
Speaker 1: and you can find one line at Hudson dot org
14:09
Speaker 1: our energy policy expert. All right, we're walking through the
14:11
Speaker 1: crazy reality of gasoline. Yes, the price goes up immediately
14:15
Speaker 1: straight up. Our moves a problem which will probably be
14:17
Speaker 1: ironed out in relatively short term, so you should expect
14:19
Speaker 1: the gas to go back down, so sayth Brigham accown,
14:22
Speaker 1: and I'm with him on the optimism Along those lines.
14:25
Speaker 1: I'm also Brigha McCown. Finally we appear to have come
14:27
Speaker 1: to a point in time where nuclear power will be embraced.
14:30
Speaker 1: Thank you to artificial intelligence, love it or hated. The
14:33
Speaker 1: huge demand and the building of all these AI facilities,
14:37
Speaker 1: which seems to be the obvious wave of the future,
14:39
Speaker 1: use up massive quantities of power, and oh my god,
14:42
Speaker 1: is AI the solution to this ridiculous climate religion? Brigham McGown,
14:47
Speaker 1: Are we finally solving the problem?
14:51
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's certainly exacerbated its downfall. And Brian,
14:55
Speaker 2: you know even the Europeans. You're coming back to two
14:57
Speaker 2: key principles. One, the world has never used less energy,
15:01
Speaker 2: only more. Two I'm gonna add a third one two.
15:05
Speaker 2: If there is an energy transition, it's to a new
15:08
Speaker 2: power source that gives you more power, not less.
15:11
Speaker 1: Right and reliable, reliable too, Brigham, don't forget that it's
15:16
Speaker 1: gotta work.
15:18
Speaker 2: Yes, it's got to be accessible, available, and affordable. The
15:22
Speaker 2: key definition of energy security, which was the third point
15:25
Speaker 2: I was going to make, which is, if you don't
15:27
Speaker 2: have energy, it ruins your economy, it ruins your national security.
15:33
Speaker 2: It is the magic that makes everything run. And people
15:37
Speaker 2: are starting to realize that is finally figuring that out,
15:39
Speaker 2: and I think AI has precipitated that a little more quickly.
15:42
Speaker 1: You know, I got to be the first person, not
15:45
Speaker 1: the first person to point it out. But I think
15:47
Speaker 1: that's the nefarious reality behind this whole global warming thing.
15:50
Speaker 1: I think it was intentionally designed to undersigned undermine our
15:54
Speaker 1: consumptive economy. That was the purpose. It's not really that
15:58
Speaker 1: we're exhaling ourselves into oblivion, and is that we just
16:01
Speaker 1: consume too much here in America as with other developed
16:04
Speaker 1: Western countries, so go right for the jugular cut off
16:07
Speaker 1: their electricity supply, and their consumption necessarily goes down because
16:10
Speaker 1: their economies collapse.
16:13
Speaker 2: I certainly think there is a guilt complex in many
16:18
Speaker 2: Western societies where people are guilty of what we've achieved.
16:22
Speaker 2: And you know, why do you think everybody wants to
16:25
Speaker 2: come to America or Europe? Because they want they want
16:30
Speaker 2: a better life. They you know, our system ain't perfect,
16:35
Speaker 2: but it's better than all the others.
16:36
Speaker 1: Well, that's why I call it religion. You know, quite
16:39
Speaker 1: often religion will cause people to feel guilty about filling
16:42
Speaker 1: the blank in your world, whatever that happens to be. Yeah, well,
16:45
Speaker 1: if you're out breathing, living, consuming, you need to feel
16:48
Speaker 1: guilty about it all day long. I just it's truly. Truly,
16:52
Speaker 1: Again I say nefarious. I just that's all I can conclude.
16:56
Speaker 1: You're intentionally harming yourself by engaging in uh in legislative activities,
17:02
Speaker 1: regulatory activities that make us less secure and cause our
17:06
Speaker 1: energy to cost more. That sounds like a recipe for
17:09
Speaker 1: it is stupidity in action. But nonetheless, that's the road
17:12
Speaker 1: we went down. So pivoting back over to nuclear power.
17:15
Speaker 1: First off, for all the people who are wed to
17:17
Speaker 1: the religion and still think that carbon dioxide's a bad thing,
17:19
Speaker 1: they don't excel expel carbon dioxide, brig them. Well, there's
17:23
Speaker 1: a problem solved right there.
17:25
Speaker 2: They don't. They don't do any of that. And people say, well, wait,
17:29
Speaker 2: nuclear waste. But we've talked about this, I think before.
17:33
Speaker 2: Is that if you gathered up all the nuclear waste
17:35
Speaker 2: in the country, it'd fit on a football field. It
17:37
Speaker 2: is not. It is not as big as one thinks.
17:40
Speaker 2: Does it last very long time? Yes, which is why
17:43
Speaker 2: we need to build building advanced generation reactors that use less,
17:49
Speaker 2: that create less byproducts. Oh and by the way, it
17:52
Speaker 2: will be recyclable, so folks that are into that, we
17:56
Speaker 2: won't have the waste that we had, say from the
17:58
Speaker 2: nineteen sixties or seven.
18:00
Speaker 1: Well, with small modular reactors, I understand the quantity of
18:03
Speaker 1: waste after it's gone, after it's been used up over
18:06
Speaker 1: its useful life, which is really a long time twenty
18:09
Speaker 1: plus years or even longer for SMR. So by the
18:13
Speaker 1: time you let a couple of decades, three decades, even
18:15
Speaker 1: four decades pass and it becomes waste, there's not that
18:19
Speaker 1: much of it, even less so than that than the
18:22
Speaker 1: reactors that we used to use.
18:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's very little, and it is amazing, and
18:29
Speaker 2: you know, it's technology that is finally coming full circle.
18:33
Speaker 2: Civilian nuclear actors and again I hate but this is
18:36
Speaker 2: a problem with Iran Civilian nuclear actors require three to
18:39
Speaker 2: five we'll say, even ten percent enriched uranium. So when
18:43
Speaker 2: you talk to the roundings, you're like, hey, hey, guys,
18:45
Speaker 2: why are you doing this? I we just want clear
18:48
Speaker 2: a few well, why are you enriching it to sixty percent?
18:51
Speaker 2: I don't know, why are you doing it one hundred
18:52
Speaker 2: feet underground? I don't know. What we need here in
18:58
Speaker 2: the US is three to five, maybe ten if you're
19:02
Speaker 2: using some medical stuff percent enrichment. It's not weapons grade
19:07
Speaker 2: stuff out there all.
19:09
Speaker 1: Right, Before we get to the regulatory challenges that one
19:13
Speaker 1: faces if they choose to build a reactor or otherwise
19:16
Speaker 1: embrace this technology, do we have sufficient quantities of uranium
19:21
Speaker 1: at our disposal? I mean, there was all that concern
19:24
Speaker 1: some years ago that we sold our uranium. I basically
19:28
Speaker 1: sold our uranium rights off to the Russians, And I'm
19:30
Speaker 1: just kind of wondering where we are in terms of
19:31
Speaker 1: uranium supply.
19:34
Speaker 2: We're spinning back up, but we're certainly behind the eight ball.
19:36
Speaker 2: We were the world's largest producer of uranium or not. Now.
19:40
Speaker 2: After the Soviet Union fell, we bought up all of
19:43
Speaker 2: their leftover stuff, including idly enriched eighty ninety percent for
19:48
Speaker 2: I E. Bombs, and we down blended it, and we
19:51
Speaker 2: had decades of fuel, and we let our domestic industry
19:56
Speaker 2: atrophy and basically go away. And so now we are
20:01
Speaker 2: needing to rebuild Canada, we can ever sort that deal out.
20:04
Speaker 2: Canada has uranium we can get, We can produce uranium.
20:08
Speaker 2: We used to make it here in Paducah and Pike, Paduca,
20:12
Speaker 2: Kentucky and Pike in Ohio. That was the world EPA
20:14
Speaker 2: center for enriching uranium. And we're starting to spend that
20:19
Speaker 2: back up literally with new generation centrifuge enrichment machines, which
20:25
Speaker 2: is the way to do it now.
20:27
Speaker 1: Well, not in my backyard is a refrain from folks
20:30
Speaker 1: that you know, are maybe facing a new nuclear power
20:33
Speaker 1: facility being built in their neighborhood or general area. But
20:36
Speaker 1: in terms of going after the uranium itself, can that
20:39
Speaker 1: be done safely? I imagine a lot of people might
20:41
Speaker 1: have some concern about just mining this stuff close to
20:44
Speaker 1: where they live.
20:46
Speaker 2: Well, like rare earth minerals mining it. It's in such
20:49
Speaker 2: rare concentrations, there's some radioactivity and all the earth around us,
20:54
Speaker 2: right and you go out and look around you. It's
20:57
Speaker 2: the processing of it and it requires vast amounts to
21:02
Speaker 2: shift out all the impurities to actually make it you know,
21:06
Speaker 2: high more highly enriched. And so that's that's totally safe
21:12
Speaker 2: process and I wouldn't be concerned about that. I think
21:16
Speaker 2: the question is do you want to live next to
21:18
Speaker 2: a nuclear power plan? And I think a lot of
21:20
Speaker 2: supporters of nuclear power like it. But the NIMBI thing
21:24
Speaker 2: is real.
21:25
Speaker 1: It is. But see, I'll go back to and again
21:28
Speaker 1: our listeners are going to I know where he's going
21:30
Speaker 1: on this one. You know the idea that we've been
21:31
Speaker 1: using these small reactors in our military ships since the
21:35
Speaker 1: late nineteen fifties without incident. Hell, our sailors and our
21:40
Speaker 1: navy work literally right next to these things. I've never
21:43
Speaker 1: heard anybody complain about, you know, glowing in the dark
21:45
Speaker 1: after working on them. And there they are. They fit
21:48
Speaker 1: inside of a ship. So what is the footprint with
21:51
Speaker 1: that concept in mind, what's the size? What's the footprint
21:54
Speaker 1: of a small modular reactor? How much space it takes
21:57
Speaker 1: because you don't need one of those giant cooling tower things.
22:00
Speaker 1: Are multiples of those. They're not nearly as big as
22:03
Speaker 1: the old schools, say three mile island type reactors that
22:05
Speaker 1: they build at one time.
22:09
Speaker 2: They're not. They are a couple eighteen wheeler, you know, trailers,
22:14
Speaker 2: fifty fifty three foot trailers is sort of the size
22:17
Speaker 2: we're talking about. But you know, we also need to
22:20
Speaker 2: keep constructing large nuclear reactors because the SMRs are great,
22:24
Speaker 2: but they are they produce less power obviously, although you
22:27
Speaker 2: can hook them up in parallel.
22:29
Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, I was thinking, you know, if the artificial
22:32
Speaker 1: intelligence facilities are required now to generate their own power,
22:36
Speaker 1: that seems to be the most logical direction to go,
22:38
Speaker 1: unless you're next to maybe hydro power or something else
22:41
Speaker 1: that can provide twenty four to seven power. So maybe
22:43
Speaker 1: they'll have enough to give the neighborhood its own source
22:46
Speaker 1: of electricity. I mean, if they've met their own needs
22:49
Speaker 1: and they're generating more power than they need, there you go,
22:51
Speaker 1: We've got access to more and that sounds like a
22:53
Speaker 1: good thing.
22:55
Speaker 2: You know, it is a good thing. And unfortunately, again
22:57
Speaker 2: because of prior administrations prematurely retiring coal fired and other
23:02
Speaker 2: fossil fuel power plants, we're in a bit of a
23:06
Speaker 2: crunch right now. We have a lot that is being projected.
23:09
Speaker 2: I think ten years from now we're going to be great,
23:12
Speaker 2: but right now we don't have enough power, and many
23:15
Speaker 2: utilities are telling their commercial customers AI data centers, do
23:20
Speaker 2: you best get your own power behind the meter? We're
23:23
Speaker 2: not going to be able to do it right now,
23:24
Speaker 2: and that's a huge problem, and it's a direct result
23:27
Speaker 2: of poor policy by previous administrations.
23:29
Speaker 1: Well, that allows us to stumble onto the next one,
23:32
Speaker 1: the Ohio proposal about utilities owning nuclear generation. I think
23:37
Speaker 1: maybe we've run into another regulatory challenge, the debate centering
23:41
Speaker 1: on whether electric utilities that deliver power should also be
23:44
Speaker 1: allowed to own their own power plants. That sounds me
23:47
Speaker 1: like somebody had a regulation and that says they can't.
23:50
Speaker 1: We'll let bring them explain that one to us when
23:52
Speaker 1: we get back. It's eight sixteen IF fifty five KRCD
23:54
Speaker 1: talk station fifty five KRC the talk station A twenty
24:03
Speaker 1: fIF you do have kcdtalk station Brian Timins with Brigha McCown.
24:06
Speaker 1: He's calling in from Las Vegas, Nevada. We're talking energy policy.
24:09
Speaker 1: Hudson Dot orgers where you find the Hudson Institute, Briga McCown.
24:12
Speaker 1: The traditional utility model, the power companies generated the power,
24:17
Speaker 1: coal plant, gas plant, nukes, whatever, and then they delivered
24:20
Speaker 1: it and that's what we paid for. Why did we
24:22
Speaker 1: restructure that model and how did it not inure to
24:25
Speaker 1: our benefit? In the nineteen nineties and where do we
24:27
Speaker 1: need to go today, Brigha McCown.
24:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ohio separated electric generation from delivery in nineteen ninety
24:35
Speaker 2: nine when it to restructure the power sector under a
24:38
Speaker 2: Senate bill, and since then, you know, electric power systems
24:42
Speaker 2: have two distinct roles. First, you have generation and these
24:45
Speaker 2: companies build and just operate power plants. They take on
24:49
Speaker 2: the costs. The revenue comes from selling that electricity wholesale
24:53
Speaker 2: onto the markets. The second traditional utility company we think
24:57
Speaker 2: of it is transmission and distribution, and the these companies
25:00
Speaker 2: own the poles, the wires, the substations, and they're regulated
25:04
Speaker 2: by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio. And so back
25:08
Speaker 2: in ninety nine they separated these two mainly so that
25:12
Speaker 2: the public wasn't going to be on the hook for
25:15
Speaker 2: developing power plants. And nuclear power plants operate under very
25:20
Speaker 2: different different economic models. They're very expensive to build, and
25:24
Speaker 2: I think that's the current push to smush everything back
25:27
Speaker 2: together against I'll pause there, Brent.
25:30
Speaker 1: Expensive to build? Are they really truly expensive to build?
25:34
Speaker 1: Or do we make that expensive to build? Because first off, again,
25:38
Speaker 1: small modular reactors are like legos, one size fits all.
25:41
Speaker 1: Once you have a design model that works. You just
25:43
Speaker 1: pull up that trailer you were talking about. Plug it
25:46
Speaker 1: in and I know I'm boiling it down to simplicity,
25:48
Speaker 1: but plug it in and it's done. The reactors that
25:51
Speaker 1: they have been building since they started building, and what
25:53
Speaker 1: the exception of the military are all these giant one
25:56
Speaker 1: off one size does not fit all. So it takes
25:58
Speaker 1: a lot of design development and regulatory approval, blah blah blah.
26:01
Speaker 1: It takes forever to even get one started. I mean
26:04
Speaker 1: to lay the first brick in the ground on one.
26:07
Speaker 1: So we're not there anymore. So it does it really
26:10
Speaker 1: need to be expensive going down this road?
26:13
Speaker 2: Well, to really do this and to transition us over
26:16
Speaker 2: to nuclear power, we need both. We need big reactors
26:19
Speaker 2: and we need smaller reactors. The key is that we
26:24
Speaker 2: make them exactly the same. And of the big reactors
26:27
Speaker 2: around the country, no two of them are alike, No
26:31
Speaker 2: two of them are the same. This is the the
26:34
Speaker 2: idiocy Franklin of the industry in the past is guys,
26:39
Speaker 2: So you wonder why every single one has to be
26:42
Speaker 2: licensed from scratched. Stop changing things mass produce a car,
26:47
Speaker 2: you know, it's not that hard. Yeah, So that so
26:54
Speaker 2: there's a Westinghouse design that is, and it's been the
26:57
Speaker 2: government's been reluctant, I think the industry and reluctant to
27:00
Speaker 2: just say, okay, we're going to build one type. Well, okay, fine,
27:05
Speaker 2: licensed three or four and small, medium, large, micro, whatever,
27:10
Speaker 2: and that's what we get. That would cut the cost
27:12
Speaker 2: down significantly, because a large nuclear actor costs ten to
27:16
Speaker 2: twenty billion dollars to construct, but once if you built
27:21
Speaker 2: it could operate for sixty or seventy years with these
27:24
Speaker 2: very low fuel costs. So the challenge has been financing
27:27
Speaker 2: that initial construction. And if Ohio puts it all back
27:32
Speaker 2: together again, the concern is the rate payers i e.
27:36
Speaker 2: You and I and everyone else listening. We're going to
27:39
Speaker 2: be asked to finance this project as opposed to the
27:44
Speaker 2: utility company going out into the private market and finding financing.
27:49
Speaker 1: Is that financing impossible to find? If we go back
27:51
Speaker 1: maybe to the old way, will there will there be
27:53
Speaker 1: a market for financing.
27:54
Speaker 2: This, Well it's not, but you know private financing, and
28:01
Speaker 2: there is public financing available. Department of Energy has financing
28:06
Speaker 2: available to the government. But you know when institutional lenders
28:11
Speaker 2: lend money, they're very particular. There's a lot of oversight,
28:15
Speaker 2: more oversight, frankly than the Public Services Commission, who's like, oh,
28:18
Speaker 2: you need more money, it costs more, Okay, I'll pass
28:21
Speaker 2: another rate hike through. So there is some concern that
28:25
Speaker 2: we're going to get stuck with the end with people
28:27
Speaker 2: being inefficient and this thing costing too much, which is
28:30
Speaker 2: what happened to the last reactor we just brought online down.
28:33
Speaker 1: In Georgia, Briga McCowan Hudson at dot org. I appreciate
28:36
Speaker 1: your willingness to come in the morning show, even when
28:38
Speaker 1: you're out of town. I know you've got stuff to
28:39
Speaker 1: get to right away, so I'm going to let you
28:41
Speaker 1: go and appreciate the time. Like I said, I hope
28:43
Speaker 1: you have a wonderful weekend. Safe travels back Brig, and
28:45
Speaker 1: we'll get you back on asap. Thanks, Brian, appreciate it,
28:49
Speaker 1: My pleasure. Take twenty five