Can the Grid handle all these EVs? | Cody Smith, CA ISO, RC West
MotorTrend's Ed Loh & Jonny Lieberman sit down with Grid Operations Manager for California ISO/RC West - Cody Smith! The big question on everyone's mind - "Can the grid handle all these EVs?" Let's discuss...
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00:00:00Welcome to The Inevitable, a podcast by Motor Trend.
00:00:05Hi there, and welcome to another episode of The Inevitable.
00:00:18This is Motor Trend's podcast, our vodcast, about the future of the car, the future of
00:00:24mobility, and this is an episode I've wanted to do for a long time because it's about the
00:00:28present and future of the grid, that's right, the power grid.
00:00:32But before we get to it, Ed Lowe here, he's got a special message just for you.
00:00:37The Inevitable Vodcast is brought to you by the all-electric Nissan Ariya, inspired by
00:00:41the future, designed for the now.
00:00:44And before we get to our guest, I do have a question for you, Johnny, which is,
00:00:49how was that meat smoothie you had?
00:00:52It was actually the most delicious thing.
00:00:55Here's the setup.
00:00:57So last Friday, Chevy did this ridiculous thing to launch the Equinox EV.
00:01:05They paired up with the most expensive luxury celebrity grocery store.
00:01:10But also, they've never met a fitness fad, health fad, bogus scientific claim that they've
00:01:19never fully embraced and made gluten-free.
00:01:23Chevy joined up with AirJuan, which is this ridiculous grocery store.
00:01:28$19 smoothies, the base price of a smoothie.
00:01:31A smoothie is $19, and that's before you add powdered sea moss gel.
00:01:36Hang on, you're getting way ahead.
00:01:38You can do $40 smoothies.
00:01:40AirJuan is famous for a little container, like a six-ounce container of strawberries,
00:01:45costing like $35.
00:01:47But to Johnny's point, they also have packaged foods in there.
00:01:50Chevy and AirJuan joined up for one day only and did a smoothie called Equinox EV Electric Juice.
00:01:56Electric Juice.
00:01:57A limited edition wellness-inspired beverage inspired by the Equinox EV.
00:02:02It had, I don't know, what did it have in it?
00:02:04Blue spirulina.
00:02:05Yes.
00:02:06Oh, choco.
00:02:07The planet's most protein-rich plant source, and blue spirulina, the electric blue superfood
00:02:12that matches the Equinox EV's signature color.
00:02:14And I'm the schmuck who went down there and drove the Equinox EV and then drank it.
00:02:19So we had this hilarious conversation on our company Slack about,
00:02:22oh, somebody's got to go try this thing.
00:02:24And then somebody looked up the rest of the menu at AirJuan,
00:02:27and there was Dr. Paul's Raw Animal-Based Smoothie.
00:02:31Yeah, Raw Animal Smoothie.
00:02:33Which, $19, consists of raw kefir milk, beef organs,
00:02:39immuno milk, blueberries, honey, banana, sea salt, and maple.
00:02:43But before we get to that one, I had a Haley Bieber's Strawberry Glaze.
00:02:48How many smoothies did you have?
00:02:50I bought three.
00:02:51Well, I got the electric juice for free.
00:02:53What was the interest rate on the loan you took out to buy these smoothies?
00:02:56I bought the Haley Bieber, and I bought the Raw Animal.
00:02:59Haley Bieber, sugar bomb, kind of gross, filled with all kinds of nonsense.
00:03:04If you look that one up, it's the most nonsensical smoothie of all time.
00:03:07Organic unicorn farts.
00:03:08Yeah, exactly.
00:03:09But the Raw Animal with the beef organs, like, literally delicious.
00:03:14Okay, so what did it taste like?
00:03:15It tasted like creamy blueberries and bananas with honey,
00:03:20and then it had this unctuous, like, you know when you eat a lot of oysters
00:03:24and you're kind of like, or like a really good piece of meat?
00:03:28It was like that feeling.
00:03:30But not the flavor.
00:03:32It tasted like blueberries, bananas, and honey.
00:03:35It was absolutely delicious.
00:03:37So, I've lived in LA for 23 consecutive years.
00:03:40I've lived here most of my life.
00:03:41That was my second time ever going to an Erewhon.
00:03:45If I ever go back to an Erewhon, which is very doubtful,
00:03:47but I will be going back for that smoothie and that smoothie only.
00:03:50Did you see any beautiful people at the Erewhon?
00:03:53Yeah, I did see some, but the best part was this guy next to me in line,
00:03:57he's like, are you in film?
00:03:59I go, no.
00:04:00He goes, I'm in film.
00:04:01I'm a writer, director, producer.
00:04:03I have this new movie out.
00:04:04I put it on YouTube because I figured nobody wants to pay for streaming services,
00:04:07so just watch it for free, blah, blah, blah.
00:04:09And he tells me the name of it, but as he's telling me the name,
00:04:11he's like, I spelled, I'm not going to say what it is,
00:04:14but I spelled the big word wrong on purpose because, you know,
00:04:17everyone else will be looking for the right way it's spelled.
00:04:19Mine's spelled wrong.
00:04:20And I was like, genius.
00:04:22And then I went and I was trying to Google it,
00:04:24couldn't find it because I couldn't remember how to misspell the word.
00:04:26It's perfect.
00:04:27So, yeah.
00:04:28It was such an LA moment.
00:04:29So, the raw animal smoothie for $19.
00:04:32It was delicious.
00:04:33But just so we're clear, just so we're clear, it's not raw meat, right?
00:04:36They cook the liver?
00:04:37I have no idea.
00:04:38I don't know what it is.
00:04:39It's organs.
00:04:40I mean, I assume it's cooked.
00:04:42I don't know.
00:04:43It was delicious.
00:04:44Whatever it was.
00:04:45I'm still here.
00:04:46This was four days ago.
00:04:47Okay.
00:04:48The electric juice, though, tasted like, you know how David Chang sells cereal milk?
00:04:50Yeah.
00:04:51At Momofuku?
00:04:52It was like cereal milk, but like blue cereal milk.
00:04:55Okay.
00:04:56And it was supposed to be Chevy, their launch color for the Equinox EV is Riptide Blue,
00:05:00which is like a nice blue-blue.
00:05:02This was much lighter.
00:05:03Oh, it's like your hat.
00:05:04Yeah.
00:05:05Yeah.
00:05:06This was normal.
00:05:07It was much lighter than this.
00:05:08The energy juice was this color.
00:05:09Okay.
00:05:10And it was fine, but I drank too much of it, and I was too full to finish that delicious
00:05:14raw animal smoothie that I wanted.
00:05:16That's...
00:05:17Yeah.
00:05:18Yeah.
00:05:19Okay, great.
00:05:20So good, yeah.
00:05:21So raw animal smoothie...
00:05:22It's awesome.
00:05:23Great.
00:05:24Even better, our guest this week...
00:05:25Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:26He's much better.
00:05:27...who is Cody Smith.
00:05:28I don't know.
00:05:29Raw animal smoothie was really...
00:05:30Anyway, go ahead.
00:05:31Cody Smith.
00:05:32He is from California Independent Systems Operator.
00:05:33He's a grid ops manager.
00:05:36The dude is...
00:05:37It's great.
00:05:38It's an organic guest.
00:05:40I reached out to CAISO, California ISO.
00:05:43Because I told Ed to.
00:05:45Well, that's debatable, because we've wanted to talk to somebody about this age-old question.
00:05:50The dang grid.
00:05:51The dang grid.
00:05:52Hey, man, you guys keep pushing these EVs, but grid can't handle it.
00:05:56We reached out.
00:05:57We got connected to Cody, and the dude is awesome.
00:06:00He knows a lot about it.
00:06:02He spent his entire career working in various grids throughout the country.
00:06:06So, he can speak with authority on not just how California's doing, but how the Midwest...
00:06:10And, oddly enough, he would like to buy a beer for all the grid operators in Texas.
00:06:15Yeah.
00:06:16Despite all their challenges down there, which we get into.
00:06:18So, again, we debunk two really big myths on this episode of The Inevitable.
00:06:24Can the grid handle it?
00:06:26Probably the answer is yes.
00:06:27And coal-powered cars.
00:06:29You get this a lot from people.
00:06:30If he's like, yeah, I have an EV.
00:06:31They're like, oh, you drive a coal-powered car.
00:06:33So...
00:06:34Not necessarily.
00:06:35Let's get into it.
00:06:36Let's talk to Cody.
00:06:37All right.
00:06:38So, Cody Smith from California Independent System Operator.
00:06:43Let's just start there.
00:06:44What is CalISO or CAISO or however you say?
00:06:49CAISO, right?
00:06:50We usually just call it CAISO.
00:06:52Everything gets shorthanded.
00:06:53Okay.
00:06:54So, what's CAISO?
00:06:56California's version of an independent system operator, which is an industry term of these
00:07:02groups that get together for a coordinated power market between different companies.
00:07:05And this one was kind of forced upon California with deregulation.
00:07:09In 1998, right?
00:07:11Yep.
00:07:12Precursor to energy crisis.
00:07:14Didn't go perfectly right away, but we're doing much better at it now.
00:07:17What was the problem back then?
00:07:18Why did they need to deregulate what was essentially a private industry?
00:07:24Anything else like that with airlines, whatever, if there's not competition, everybody gets
00:07:299.8% back on anything you spend.
00:07:32So, you're really incentivized to spend as much as you can to get more back.
00:07:37And there's so many advantages of trading and regionalization.
00:07:42When you just look at California and Arizona, Nevada, when we have all the solar, we just
00:07:46have more sun.
00:07:47So, we want to connect.
00:07:48We want to be in a market with others because we don't always have sun.
00:07:51But if we can trade our sun for maybe some of your hydroelectric, your wind coming back,
00:07:57everybody's better off.
00:07:58Okay.
00:07:59But couldn't you, like, I want to ask the larger question, like, are we better off after
00:08:05deregulation?
00:08:06But, like, if it was all regulated, couldn't the central planners say, all right, Arizona,
00:08:11you're sending solar power to Wyoming, Wyoming, you're sending coal power back to Arizona
00:08:16in the winter?
00:08:17Like, that's not efficient?
00:08:20I suppose you could.
00:08:21No, it's not efficient.
00:08:22Okay.
00:08:23Bilateral schedules, it's not solving in real time, which our markets solve every five minutes
00:08:27now.
00:08:28Okay.
00:08:29Of what is the best dispatch solution right now that takes into account not only the market
00:08:33but constraints.
00:08:34Transmission lines can only flow so much.
00:08:36Right.
00:08:37So, let's run them right up to their limit as what's the cheapest energy to travel.
00:08:41And then we'll start redispatching around that with more expensive units.
00:08:44So, you get an optimized solution every five minutes.
00:08:48And that wasn't possible with a regulated power grid.
00:08:52No, they were selling maybe day ahead at best.
00:08:55Okay.
00:08:56In large block transactions.
00:08:58And how much of an efficiency improvement is it to do it every five minutes versus 24
00:09:03hours ahead?
00:09:04A guesstimate.
00:09:05I wish I knew the exact number, but I believe we've saved just our western energy imbalance
00:09:12market where people are only kind of dipping their toes into this idea of a large western
00:09:16coordinated market.
00:09:17But the savings, I believe, are around $6 billion.
00:09:21Per?
00:09:22For the last six years.
00:09:23Okay.
00:09:24Okay.
00:09:25That's some money.
00:09:26Yeah.
00:09:27And it started with just California ISO and Pacific Core being in Utah and Oregon, Wyoming,
00:09:32that area.
00:09:33So, as it's grown to more companies, that savings number keeps ratcheting up faster
00:09:37and faster and faster.
00:09:38LA's in there now.
00:09:40We have, I think, 70% of the load in the west.
00:09:43Okay.
00:09:44So, the benefits are stacking up much quicker.
00:09:47So, we're already, I think, three stories above most people's heads.
00:09:51ISO, Independent System Operator, you've essentially, this is a marketplace for energy to be more
00:10:00efficiently traded.
00:10:01And I think your question is, where's the efficiency?
00:10:03How come regulation can do it?
00:10:05This is a market.
00:10:06This is one of these capitalist terms, right?
00:10:09There's more incentive to-
00:10:12Save money.
00:10:13To save money by trading instead of operating in sort of a-
00:10:18Central planning.
00:10:19Right.
00:10:20In a monopoly.
00:10:21Top down, top down, top down.
00:10:22In a top down kind of way.
00:10:23Is that accurate?
00:10:24Yeah.
00:10:25Because markets do really work if they're a benevolent market.
00:10:28And we work really hard to have the transparency stakeholder input.
00:10:32We are a not-for-profit public benefit corporation.
00:10:36Right.
00:10:37So, we don't make money off of more transactions or electricity being more expensive, anything
00:10:43like that.
00:10:44And especially when you get to the idea of, how's the grid doing?
00:10:46Should we have more EVs?
00:10:48My stake is just keeping the grid running.
00:10:50Right.
00:10:51So, who are your customers?
00:10:52Our customers are the utility organizations.
00:10:55So, anybody who's building a new project and interconnecting to the grid, they're connecting
00:11:02within California, through California ISO.
00:11:04So, PG&E would be-
00:11:05A customer.
00:11:06Yeah.
00:11:07Con Edison.
00:11:08Con Edison, LADWP, SoCal Edison, all those guys.
00:11:11These are customers of CAISO.
00:11:14California ISO.
00:11:15Yes.
00:11:16And then when we look at that imbalanced market, we're going out to BPA in Washington, Northwest
00:11:21Montana, out of Billings, New Mexico.
00:11:25We have a huge footprint there.
00:11:28Okay.
00:11:29And so does our reliability coordinator service.
00:11:31Okay.
00:11:33We're just managing the reliability, make sure everybody gets along and we cover an even
00:11:37larger area.
00:11:38But it's all the Western interconnection.
00:11:40That's the RC West in your title.
00:11:42Yes.
00:11:43Okay.
00:11:44Okay.
00:11:45So, we each have a reliability-
00:11:46Reliability coordinator is another federal term that every asset needs to be in a reliability
00:11:54coordinator area.
00:11:55Okay.
00:11:56Because our job is to make sure that the individual assets get along.
00:12:00And then you were saying before we started recording, there's the Western, there's the
00:12:05Eastern, and there's Texas.
00:12:06Yeah.
00:12:07And Texas has its own special grid.
00:12:09Texas won't tie to anyone else because as soon as you do, you're interstate and you
00:12:14can be more regulated by the federal government.
00:12:16Right.
00:12:17God forbid.
00:12:18Yeah.
00:12:19So, there's reasoning behind why they don't want to do that.
00:12:22I don't want to throw them under a bus, but there's so much benefit of that regionalization
00:12:27and tying over a broader area that they're not realizing.
00:12:29And they've seen some-
00:12:30Like when it gets really cold and your citizens start dying because you're not tied into the
00:12:33rest of the grid?
00:12:34In 2021.
00:12:35Yeah.
00:12:36And it gets compounded because that area produces so much of our natural gas.
00:12:40Right.
00:12:41And pumps it across the country.
00:12:43So, if they start losing power to end-use customers and those end-use customers are
00:12:48producing natural gas, now you don't have the gas for your gas turbines.
00:12:53Right.
00:12:54And that's where it really became catastrophic there.
00:12:57Right.
00:12:58So, what do you do?
00:12:59That's a long, those are big groups.
00:13:02I kind of get the customers that Kaiso has, but what is your job, actually?
00:13:09Do you have a title beyond RCU West?
00:13:11Are you a director, a VP?
00:13:13No, you didn't get anybody that good.
00:13:15You got further down the totem pole.
00:13:18Down the trough, yeah, yeah.
00:13:20No, I jumped on this opportunity.
00:13:22So, that's why you got me.
00:13:23But I'm a grid operations manager.
00:13:24Okay.
00:13:25And there are four of us, and our role is really processes, procedures, a little bit
00:13:31of managing the actual operators.
00:13:33I was an operator for 14 years, a reliability coordinator for about eight.
00:13:38So, sitting on the desk, it's a 24-7 job of watching are things overloading?
00:13:43Do we have enough capacity on the grid in real time and reacting?
00:13:48What are you watching?
00:13:49Is it like a mission control?
00:13:50Is it like a winter screen?
00:13:51Oh, it looks like NASA.
00:13:52Oh, really?
00:13:53I can show you some pictures that are Google-able of what it looks like.
00:13:56Oh, wow.
00:13:57Yeah, the huge curved screen and then little horseshoe consoles everywhere.
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00:14:27Now, let me ask you this, though.
00:14:29With deregulation, like, you know, back when, I can't remember,
00:14:34are we currently signed on to the Paris Accords or not?
00:14:36But when we were signed on to the Paris Accords, like, you know,
00:14:39you kind of want to, like, stop with the coal, up with the renewables.
00:14:43Do you guys care at all or it doesn't matter?
00:14:46You just monitor everything.
00:14:47So we do care.
00:14:49Part of California ISO's mission statement is that we want to build
00:14:54the greenest, most cost-effective, most reliable power system.
00:15:00And all three of those together.
00:15:02So the environmental part is part of that statement.
00:15:06And it used to be sort of the triple constraint, like time, scope, and quality,
00:15:11where they were all fighting with each other.
00:15:13But now it seems the cheapest and most often reliable resources we have
00:15:17are the green resources.
00:15:19That's why we're building so many.
00:15:21Right.
00:15:22Because the cost of solar and wind is just going down and down and down.
00:15:24Straight down.
00:15:25Yeah.
00:15:26Right.
00:15:27And storage, which obviously vehicles had a big impact on.
00:15:29We didn't have really good batteries.
00:15:31Cheap batteries until we had electric vehicles.
00:15:34Right.
00:15:35And then they've applied that to the grid, and we have storage
00:15:38where we've never had storage before.
00:15:40Let me just provide a little more context here because you're in such
00:15:45an interesting position, but it's, again, it's so far out of the scope
00:15:49of what I think our audience normally has their heads wrapped around.
00:15:54You've been pretty modest so far.
00:15:56California as a grid is, at least from what I've Googled, pretty awesome.
00:16:01First of all, CAISO handles 80% of the electricity
00:16:05for the entire state of California.
00:16:07Is that accurate?
00:16:0870%, 80%?
00:16:09That's about right.
00:16:10And then if you include our imbalanced market, it's everyone.
00:16:12We have Imperial Irrigation District as part of that.
00:16:15They aren't part of California ISO as it's traditionally known,
00:16:18but they're in the market.
00:16:20LADWP is now in the imbalanced market.
00:16:23They're not part of California ISO.
00:16:25Because they're still public utility?
00:16:27Yeah, so they couldn't be forced in by Governor Brown back then to make them join.
00:16:32Right, but they're very reliable.
00:16:34Anyway, go ahead.
00:16:36So huge market, biggest market.
00:16:39I mean, California is the largest state by population and by cash.
00:16:46We're the sixth largest economy in the world.
00:16:48Fifth or sixth, I don't know.
00:16:50Fourth or fifth, actually.
00:16:51And then we lead the country in terms of renewable energy.
00:16:57I just checked the specs this morning.
00:17:02Most of it's natural gas, but second would be solar.
00:17:06That's like 16% or 17%.
00:17:08And then hydro and geothermal, I think.
00:17:11And wind.
00:17:12Sorry, wind and hydro around 10%.
00:17:14Yeah, and it's growing all the time.
00:17:17Okay.
00:17:18As far as the renewables.
00:17:19We've had, last I looked.
00:17:212.2%, coal.
00:17:22Small.
00:17:23Very little coal.
00:17:24And we can explain that, too.
00:17:25Colorado.
00:17:26Utah.
00:17:27Utah.
00:17:28Close, yeah.
00:17:30So just as far as we're progressing.
00:17:31Right.
00:17:32We've had, I believe it's 111 days so far this year.
00:17:34It's end of September.
00:17:36September, yeah.
00:17:37First day of October, right?
00:17:38Yeah.
00:17:39No.
00:17:40So 111 days where we've had at least one hour where we're producing more renewable energy
00:17:46than the whole grid is using in load.
00:17:49Right.
00:17:50So we're over 100% renewable.
00:17:52That's great.
00:17:53Anything else we're producing, we're exporting somewhere else.
00:17:55Again, benefit of coordinated markets being able to do that.
00:17:58Because you couldn't do it as an island.
00:17:59Right.
00:18:00It would be like a situation that Germany has where they're producing so much green
00:18:05energy, it just goes away.
00:18:06They just can't do it.
00:18:07They just shut it off.
00:18:08They're pissing away like 5.6-
00:18:10They need more batteries.
00:18:11Billion megawatts or something.
00:18:12It's a crazy number.
00:18:13Yeah, that's been the key to unlock it.
00:18:14And we've built so many batteries this year.
00:18:16Explain this.
00:18:17So how do EVs help-
00:18:19So here's-
00:18:20No, no, no, no, no.
00:18:21But the context for this is actually how we got connected is there was an article in the
00:18:28local LAist.com, had a radio article that said, hey, so far the last two summers, LA
00:18:35has not had a flex alert or a brownout because-
00:18:38I sent that article to you.
00:18:39No, I sent it to you.
00:18:40No, I sent it to Amos.
00:18:41I don't know.
00:18:42The history of the fuck I sent to you.
00:18:43Anyways.
00:18:44I didn't get it.
00:18:45We got to get a guy on from Kaiso because of this thing I saw, I heard.
00:18:50I actually heard on the radio, dude.
00:18:52I sent it to you, but whatever.
00:18:55And then I reached out to Kaiso and they're like, sorry, we don't have anybody for you.
00:18:59I remember that reaction.
00:19:00Go talk to your local utility.
00:19:02And I was like, this is crazy.
00:19:03Cal Energy Commission.
00:19:04Because they do those studies.
00:19:06So I can't tell you we can handle exactly this many EVs or this is how many we're projecting
00:19:11to connect to the grid.
00:19:12That wasn't my question.
00:19:13My question to the Kaiso person was, I want to hear about these storage batteries because
00:19:17that was what was referenced in the article as being the thing that's different from the
00:19:22previous, whatever, eight or 10 years when we were having flex loads and brownouts.
00:19:25So that's a context for, and then the great thing is you DM to me on Instagram saying
00:19:31I'd love to come on to the podcast, talk about it.
00:19:33I'm a, I'm a, I work for Kaiso.
00:19:35I was like, this is great.
00:19:36All right, Ed, let him talk.
00:19:37I saw the, I saw the email come through and yeah, I jumped on it saying, okay, there is
00:19:42more to the story.
00:19:43Right.
00:19:44We can talk about what we can talk about.
00:19:45How have EVs helped the California ISO or the grid in California?
00:19:51EVs have helped the grid by developing the battery technology and making the battery
00:19:56technology much cheaper that we actually do get to build it and put it on the grid.
00:20:00And what do you guys do or what energy companies do with this, these batteries?
00:20:05So we produce so much solar, other renewables, middle of the day that we can be a hundred
00:20:10percent renewable plus, and we used to just turn it off.
00:20:13It was just wasted.
00:20:14Right.
00:20:15And now we store it.
00:20:16So when the sun goes down, we still have power for another four hours.
00:20:19And that's really the peak, the peak energy happens a couple hours after the sun sets.
00:20:23Because everyone gets home, the house is hot, clothes are dirty, the dishes are dirty, got
00:20:28to cook, watch TV, all that stuff.
00:20:31So we used to have this incredible climb where the sun set and all of our power went away
00:20:36and load was going up at the same time.
00:20:38Right.
00:20:39So we're firing up all these small natural gas units, whatever we have available to try
00:20:44to make this peak demand.
00:20:46And now the batteries are just doing it based on market value price.
00:20:50Right.
00:20:51And responding, they charge when it's cheap, they discharge when it's expensive and leveling
00:20:55off everything.
00:20:57So just in round numbers, California ISO's load is about 50,000 megawatts at peak worst
00:21:03day in the summer.
00:21:05And we currently have, I think we're nearing 12,000 megawatts of installed battery capacity.
00:21:10Wow.
00:21:11So over 20%.
00:21:14What's the goal for installed battery capacity?
00:21:17I don't know.
00:21:18Okay.
00:21:19You just keep building it.
00:21:20And it might be a shifting goal.
00:21:21Right.
00:21:22Because EVs.
00:21:23Right.
00:21:24But more than EVs is AI and data centers and these other major loads.
00:21:28We'll get to that.
00:21:29So real quick.
00:21:30So we, you know, Motor Trend Group owns Hot Rod.
00:21:34And so I'm friends with all these guys.
00:21:36But I remember famously, I think it was in 2021, it was our last, it wasn't even a brownout,
00:21:41but they just said like, this alert went out and said, hey, California residents, Southern
00:21:45California residents, FlexAlert.
00:21:47If you could not, you know, wash your clothes, run your dishwasher, run your AC or charge
00:21:54your cars between, I want to say it was like four and 11 or something like that.
00:21:58Yeah.
00:21:59That sounds about right.
00:22:00Four and nine.
00:22:01That would help.
00:22:02And the anti-electric vehicle people were like, see.
00:22:06All of Orange County went nuts.
00:22:08They ignored the washing machine.
00:22:10They ignored the air conditioner.
00:22:11They ignored the, you know, they just said, see, you can't, you can't even charge electric
00:22:15cars.
00:22:16And it was like, no, no.
00:22:17First of all, people that own electric cars, you charge at night anyways, because it's
00:22:20cheaper.
00:22:21Right.
00:22:22But, but so, you know, and they were up in arms like the memes and the this and the see.
00:22:27And then as Ed just pointed out, like the last two years, none of that has happened
00:22:31during the summer.
00:22:32And you're saying this is directly because of the battery infrastructure you're able
00:22:37to build because he's unlocked cheap storage.
00:22:40Batteries are the biggest portion because we've built so many and we hadn't very little
00:22:45storage in the past.
00:22:46The other is just building more renewables.
00:22:48We've also built some gas plants, excellent program to keep a few old gas plants that
00:22:54we're going to get shut down on just for emergency purposes.
00:22:57Sure.
00:22:58And that was a state government plan.
00:23:00And usually you don't think so highly of those.
00:23:03And this one turned out great.
00:23:04It was a great idea because they existed.
00:23:05Let's just keep them if we need them a day or two.
00:23:07Right.
00:23:08And that's been helping to a lot of coordination with state government on, say, disconnecting
00:23:14ships that were docked in harbor and taking shore power.
00:23:17There were so many other things we hadn't really gotten into because we didn't feel
00:23:22we needed to until it crept up on us.
00:23:24By the way, I was the operator.
00:23:26The reliability coordinator is the highest responsibility and authority for maintaining
00:23:31the reliability of the electric power grid.
00:23:33Okay.
00:23:34And we have most of the West.
00:23:35Okay.
00:23:36And I was the lead RC on shift August 14th and 15th of 2020.
00:23:40The one time in 10 years we had to curtail.
00:23:43It was about 4% of California.
00:23:45The worst days we've had in 10 years was reducing 4% of California's load.
00:23:49Unfortunately, my house got shut off.
00:23:51Right, right.
00:23:52You make the order and then your wife texts you.
00:23:54Yeah, yeah.
00:23:55Why don't we have power?
00:23:56Don't come home tonight.
00:23:57Sorry.
00:23:58Sorry, that was me.
00:23:59Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:24:00Wow.
00:24:01Go find a hotel with power.
00:24:03Right.
00:24:04This massive failure.
00:24:05Right.
00:24:06Where the other question is, how much do you want us to build?
00:24:09Right.
00:24:10If it's an extreme hot weather event that we haven't seen anything like it in the past
00:24:15for the whole West to be this hot that we can't trade with our partners.
00:24:18Everybody needs their own energy.
00:24:20Plus you have a lot of these power plants are built in the 70s or 80s and they've been
00:24:27running full out nonstop for several days.
00:24:30Some of them shut down.
00:24:31Yeah.
00:24:32Some of them have issues and we lose them.
00:24:34So we're in a really extreme condition and we lose 4% of California's power for a couple
00:24:38hours.
00:24:39I think it was two hours each day.
00:24:41You're the expert, but yeah.
00:24:42Yeah.
00:24:43Okay.
00:24:44It's been a while.
00:24:45Yeah.
00:24:46I'm trying to forget about it.
00:24:47Let's say three hours.
00:24:48I didn't even know you were the guy.
00:24:49It turns out you're the guy responsible.
00:24:50You're the guy.
00:24:51So we can literally, if you're mad about that, you still got something.
00:24:53Your goldfish died because the tank got too hot.
00:24:55He was the guy.
00:24:56For two hours.
00:24:57I was.
00:24:58It's one of those career moments really, because that doesn't happen often.
00:25:01Okay.
00:25:02Right.
00:25:03But our goal is to make sure the whole power grid doesn't fail.
00:25:05Right.
00:25:06Right.
00:25:07And we do that sometimes by, we have to remove customer load as a resource.
00:25:11But that's the last step.
00:25:13That's the last thing.
00:25:15And actually in that case, the rules were at the time that you had to maintain an amount
00:25:21of running operating reserve.
00:25:23Right.
00:25:24So that if you did lose something, you could just bring that power up.
00:25:27It was like 4% or 3%, I think.
00:25:29It's complicated.
00:25:30We won't, but you're in the range.
00:25:323% of integrated hourly load plus generation.
00:25:36Oh God.
00:25:37You've lost me.
00:25:38Go ahead.
00:25:39Go ahead.
00:25:40Go ahead.
00:25:41Yeah.
00:25:42So now they say you could use load as a reserve.
00:25:45A hundred percent.
00:25:47So if you lose a resource, you can balance by just dropping the load.
00:25:50After you lose the resource, you don't need the generation available.
00:25:53Okay.
00:25:54So if we had the same rules we have today, then we wouldn't have had to shed the load.
00:25:59So we were still, we were on the margins.
00:26:01You had enough.
00:26:02And let me ask you this, now with the extra, the 12% or the 12,000 megawatts of storage
00:26:09capacity, would that have even happened?
00:26:11No.
00:26:12Okay.
00:26:13No, that's such a huge, we don't build 20% new power grid.
00:26:17Right.
00:26:18So in the past, it's been a really exciting change because they're so flexible too.
00:26:23They're fast.
00:26:24All right.
00:26:25So the big question, where are these, where, where do you get the batteries and where are
00:26:30they?
00:26:31I don't.
00:26:32Okay.
00:26:33Great.
00:26:34I don't know that much about where they're sourcing.
00:26:36I know a lot of them do use similar technology to EVs.
00:26:39Even Tesla's building these huge battery storage facilities, but people asked to get connected
00:26:45to the grid.
00:26:46We handle interconnection queue, we call it of getting you connected and then they're
00:26:51building it.
00:26:52They're operating it.
00:26:53They're bidding in their resource with, with prices.
00:26:56And we just dispatch them based on their bids.
00:26:58And so you look at a battery the way you would look at like a power plant.
00:27:01It's just another thing on the grid that connects to everything else that energy can go to or
00:27:05come away from.
00:27:06Yes.
00:27:07And normally it's always been energy going away from.
00:27:10Yeah.
00:27:11Right.
00:27:12So it has been a little bit of a new paradigm with they're taking huge amounts of energy.
00:27:15So we need to plan for that too.
00:27:17Right.
00:27:18But do you need, do you need like the, can the same cabling handle it?
00:27:21It's not, not a problem.
00:27:22You don't need like a separate return line or anything or.
00:27:25Nope.
00:27:26It, it goes both.
00:27:27Yeah.
00:27:28Just fine.
00:27:29Yeah.
00:27:30Okay.
00:27:31And it's, what's in it for these guys who are building these, these megawatt storage
00:27:34batteries is that they're playing the market too, right?
00:27:37They're going to buy or receive the power.
00:27:40When it's cheap.
00:27:41When it's cheap.
00:27:42And then send it back when it's three cents higher.
00:27:44Yeah.
00:27:45It's market arbitrage.
00:27:46Yeah.
00:27:47So high.
00:27:48So this is like building a bank basically.
00:27:50And this is, the spikes have gone down dramatically with batteries.
00:27:54We used to have really steep price spikes in the late afternoon and gas prices would
00:28:00go way up too.
00:28:01So we've leveled those off, which was really nice.
00:28:03But also we've leveled off where we used to have to, we would pay other States to take
00:28:08our solar power.
00:28:09Right.
00:28:10We will pay you $2 a megawatt.
00:28:11Please just take it.
00:28:12Wow.
00:28:13Really?
00:28:14So we're generating it and then.
00:28:15Paying people to take it.
00:28:16Paying people.
00:28:17Not even giving it away.
00:28:18Because they want the credits.
00:28:19Right.
00:28:20They want the energy credit that they produced a renewable.
00:28:22Right.
00:28:23So they would rather pay you to take that energy.
00:28:25Right.
00:28:26Than to shut it off.
00:28:27Okay.
00:28:28Yeah.
00:28:29And now if we can store it.
00:28:30Yeah.
00:28:31We're not paying to take.
00:28:32You're not paying Utah.
00:28:33As often.
00:28:34Yeah.
00:28:35But the price is still pretty low.
00:28:36But there's also been, I believe it's a state rule, that if you're going to build a new
00:28:39solar facility or wind facility, you also have to co-locate batteries because we have so
00:28:45much.
00:28:46Smart.
00:28:47Yeah.
00:28:48You can't build a solar facility unless it has a storage component.
00:28:50Right.
00:28:51Right.
00:28:52And that you also hear a lot of people that are for whatever reason, anti-renewable, like
00:28:56sun doesn't shine at night.
00:28:57It's like, yeah, but batteries, you put the energy into a battery and then you can use
00:29:00it at night.
00:29:01And that was such a problem.
00:29:02Yeah.
00:29:03And I, when I was in school, I have a master's degree in energy business and some people,
00:29:09well, you're just, you know, college educated.
00:29:12Of course you feel this way.
00:29:13I went to Tulsa.
00:29:14If you can find a more conservative university in the United States on energy, I'd be surprised.
00:29:20I've been to Tulsa.
00:29:21Tulsa's like 92% is, uh, works for the oil company there.
00:29:26It was an oil and gas education.
00:29:27What's the company's?
00:29:28Con, uh.
00:29:29Conoco?
00:29:30Conoco.
00:29:31I think 92% of the town is employed by Conoco.
00:29:33It was Conoco.
00:29:34I think even Texaco, I remember being big.
00:29:37Natural gas is huge there now, uh, but yeah, it was not, yeah, it was not a Berkeley energy
00:29:44education.
00:29:45Did you have an engineering degree before that?
00:29:46Or is this?
00:29:47No, I was going to school wanting to work for car companies, mechanical engineering,
00:29:52loved cars.
00:29:53Uh, grew up drag racing since I was 16 with my dad and a buddy of mine, Fox body five
00:29:58speed.
00:29:59Oh man.
00:30:00450 bucks.
00:30:01Yeah.
00:30:02Back then.
00:30:03Cause it'd been hit in the rear, but it still drove straight.
00:30:04Hey man.
00:30:05But I was in college in 2008 and they're all bankrupt and, uh, being owned by the government.
00:30:13Not hiring.
00:30:14Yeah.
00:30:15Not hiring.
00:30:16Right.
00:30:17Right.
00:30:18Right.
00:30:19And when you have college debt, huge concern.
00:30:20So I looked over and Bismarck North Dakota, where I grew up has a program called electrical
00:30:24transmission system technology as an associate's degree, it's 18 months.
00:30:28And the average was at the time, I think $70,000 cause you're running grids and stuff.
00:30:36And looking at that, like it's cheap, it's, or it's affordable, it's fast and I can go
00:30:42get a job.
00:30:43And it worked out.
00:30:44And, and at the time utilities were boring and I was just doing this as I can make money
00:30:48to do the things I want to do when I'm not at work.
00:30:50And now utilities are actually super interesting, right?
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00:31:29So what's your, what's your normal day like?
00:31:31My normal day is working with other companies on, if we have issues.
00:31:37So you go into an office.
00:31:39I go into an office.
00:31:40California ISO has a really nice office in Folsom that they built.
00:31:43You show up, show up at like nine o'clock, got a Starbucks in your hand.
00:31:46Usually, yeah.
00:31:47Okay.
00:31:48And you walk into fricking, it's like Defcon 5, like it's like the, it's like the NORAD
00:31:54for, uh, for energy distribution.
00:31:56A bit.
00:31:57My, my, I have a cubicle now outside of the control room, but I'm still right next to
00:32:02it.
00:32:03Okay.
00:32:04And usually go in.
00:32:05So you can run in and save the day if need be.
00:32:06Right.
00:32:07So we're talking to the operators about what, what issues and communicating that out.
00:32:11Our big goal, especially in my role is to make sure there's not 50 people coming in
00:32:16asking the operators what's going on.
00:32:18Are we going to be okay?
00:32:19Do we need to.
00:32:20And they would come in on like the hottest day of the year and the coldest day of the
00:32:23year or something like that.
00:32:24Or like when people read the weather, like, so I'm sure you guys like look at the weather
00:32:27report like crazy.
00:32:28Right.
00:32:29Oh yes.
00:32:30And we have our own meteorologists to forecast not only the weather, but are we going to
00:32:34have cloud cover?
00:32:35What time of day?
00:32:36I was playing with your app.
00:32:37They have a very cool app that, that, and I both downloaded, but I was like, who said
00:32:41it to you?
00:32:42ISO today would be.
00:32:43Yeah.
00:32:44ISO today.
00:32:45Yes.
00:32:46Okay.
00:32:47Yes.
00:32:48And full credit for sending me the app.
00:32:49But like, you know, we have this heat wave coming up, like it's going to be over a hundred
00:32:52degrees in October.
00:32:55And I was like, do they have a calendar?
00:32:56They do have a calendar and it's predicting what tomorrow's power consumption will be,
00:33:00which I thought was currently right now, current demand is 28,920 megawatts and 72% power consumption
00:33:07and 70% renewable serving demand.
00:33:08I don't know what that means.
00:33:09Yeah.
00:33:10Uh, well you just, you can only look at it really by scale.
00:33:13So if our peak is right above 50,000 and we're at 20,000, we're about half peak, which is
00:33:19normal.
00:33:20We have this time of day, this time of day, the sun, it shows the solar load from 6 AM
00:33:27nothing to now it's like peaked because the sun came up and it's dramatic.
00:33:32And at the same time, all these buildings have solar panels on them.
00:33:36My house has solar panels, so people are using less energy at the same time, right?
00:33:42So you used to have the opposite issue in the morning that you had in the evening.
00:33:45Suddenly load drops down, generation ramps up, and you're trying to just pull it back
00:33:49down.
00:33:50You got to, the only thing you can control there is the generation.
00:33:54We can't control what you're doing at your house yet.
00:33:57So we're pulling down that solar generation and now it's just the batteries are still
00:34:01yet in there.
00:34:02Yeah.
00:34:03Well, there's a lot of opportunities.
00:34:04Sure.
00:34:06I have like the, you know, a Nest thermostat and it makes decisions, you know, it, it,
00:34:10it decides, you know, based on what I told it to decide, but it, it sets its own temperatures
00:34:15a lot of the time.
00:34:16So I'm like, why is it so hot?
00:34:17Oh yeah.
00:34:18And we can see it too.
00:34:19If you, if you watch that too, if you come around, especially a really hot day, you'll
00:34:22see it at four or five and six where suddenly there's this big drop off in power demand
00:34:27because people's Nest thermostats or EVs, mine's set to shut off at three, uh, 3 PM.
00:34:31I have a Rivian too.
00:34:33So we can.
00:34:34Nice.
00:34:35I have the AT.
00:34:36Yeah.
00:34:37Yeah.
00:34:38All right.
00:34:39My man.
00:34:40The white interior.
00:34:41I love it.
00:34:42Yeah.
00:34:43I bought the same wheels as you, but in bronze.
00:34:44Well, I had to buy them.
00:34:45The black rhinos?
00:34:46Yeah.
00:34:47Yeah.
00:34:48Oh, nice.
00:34:49I'm guessing they sent them to you, but I had to go.
00:34:50They did send them to me.
00:34:51I got the prototype set.
00:34:52I only have four though, not five.
00:34:53All right.
00:34:54Now, hang on.
00:34:55Let's, let's, let's switch it to EVs.
00:34:56All right.
00:34:57So, uh, real famously, you know, uh, Governor Newsom, you know, boo his, there's a lot of
00:35:00people that are not watching this as say, uh, 2035, uh, no more gasoline cars can be
00:35:06sold in California.
00:35:0712 other States have latched onto that, uh, you know, legislation or, you know, whatever,
00:35:12they've made the same commitment.
00:35:13Uh, people that hate EVs or whatever doubt EVs.
00:35:17They say great.
00:35:18Can't handle it.
00:35:192035.
00:35:21Can the grid handle it?
00:35:22Can the grid handle it?
00:35:23And I know exactly what you mean.
00:35:25If you post anything about EVs online, the first comment is the grid can't handle EVs.
00:35:31And I go in there and I fight people on that too, you know, with my background.
00:35:37And I don't say that, but eventually somebody will comment back.
00:35:39You don't know a damn thing about the power grid because they don't know what I'm saying.
00:35:45Individual guys power off right then.
00:35:47Like if I was on the distribution system, yes.
00:35:53And that's the other.
00:35:54Well, okay.
00:35:55So first, let's go back to him.
00:35:56The grid handle it.
00:35:58When every new car sold in California, but in 2035 is an electric vehicle.
00:36:04Can the grid handle it?
00:36:05I strongly believe it will be able to.
00:36:07Are you hurting?
00:36:08You just want that.
00:36:09Yeah.
00:36:10And I have to back that up.
00:36:12Like I said, I curtailed power on the grid in 2020, sorry.
00:36:17And since then, from what I read, EV registrations are up five fold since that time.
00:36:26Yeah.
00:36:27And growing.
00:36:28Yeah.
00:36:29And our grid is greener.
00:36:31It's more reliable and we have all these new EVs.
00:36:36So are EVs really a problem?
00:36:38Well, the data over the last four years says we're actually building the grid faster than
00:36:43we're transitioning to EVs.
00:36:45Right.
00:36:46And if we have another 10 years to do so at the scale we're going at, we'll be fine from
00:36:53what I can tell.
00:36:54The bigger, nobody ever posts an article too about chat GPT released this new function
00:36:58and people are commenting the grid can't handle chat GPT, which is probably a larger concern.
00:37:05We can go, let's, let's get into that because there's two.
00:37:07So does AI use more energy than EVs?
00:37:11I don't, I don't know.
00:37:13Right now next to each other, the projections are huge and it's using more.
00:37:18We don't, I don't know if anybody has a good grasp on how much power it could demand.
00:37:22Right.
00:37:23I do.
00:37:24I do.
00:37:25I do.
00:37:26Okay.
00:37:27Oh, okay.
00:37:28Please.
00:37:29So, but before I get there, because wasn't there one prior to this, which was crypto?
00:37:32Crypto is huge.
00:37:33Crypto at its peak, and it's actually still there.
00:37:34It's kind of operating the service.
00:37:35No one's talks about it because Sam Beckman Freed went to jail, but crypto, the creation
00:37:42of the, the, the running of the algorithm is hugely energy intensive.
00:37:46Did you have to deal with that at like, you know, California again, led a lot on crypto,
00:37:51the Bay area in particular.
00:37:53Did you guys see any kind of, were you like trying to manage for crypto mining?
00:37:57Locational.
00:37:58As far as grid capacity, I don't know if it was that big of a, an issue.
00:38:02A lot of the times if we get to like a flex alert, they might go on their own power.
00:38:07These large data centers, they don't want to be curtailed.
00:38:10They don't want to shut off.
00:38:11Okay.
00:38:12So a lot of them have their own backup power.
00:38:14And I know a lot of crypto people, miners, you know, they were looking for like really
00:38:18cheap energy sources.
00:38:20So they were going to like, you know, Iceland, like you wrote you this geothermal energy
00:38:23that like, you know, there's only 150,000 people in Reykjavik and you're producing enough
00:38:27for a million, like let's power crypto with that.
00:38:31A Washington state.
00:38:32We talked to some central, central Washington entities that have this federal power contracts
00:38:37to go back to the seventies and their industrial rate is a 16th, you know, maybe 12th of ours.
00:38:45So why put it here when you can go to central Washington that still has good data connection.
00:38:51North Dakota has a great data system.
00:38:55I think it's a biggest per capita of capability and their power is cheap too.
00:39:00So in locations where they were building really fast and areas that didn't have that kind
00:39:04of growth, it became a local issue, but not really a grid issue.
00:39:09And yeah, we have seen that it doesn't seem to be as big, but at the time I was looking
00:39:14at it as the price of a Bitcoin should be in relation to energy.
00:39:19It is energy.
00:39:20Right.
00:39:21Yeah.
00:39:22That's its value.
00:39:23Sort of energy.
00:39:24Right.
00:39:25Yeah.
00:39:26Okay.
00:39:27So on AI, let's go back to the AI question.
00:39:28I looked it up this morning and this is a, this is a, was this ironic?
00:39:30I asked Google Gemini.
00:39:32Of course.
00:39:33So we have the AI answer and it says, you know, what's the cost?
00:39:37How energy intensive is artificial intelligence?
00:39:40Image generation, creating a single AI image can use 0.01 to 0.29 kilowatt hours of energy,
00:39:46which is similar to running a refrigerator for up to 30 minutes.
00:39:49So one single AI image, this is comparable to the energy used to mine cryptocurrency.
00:39:54Now text queries, text generation, generating text uses less energy than image generation
00:39:59with 1000 text generations using only about 16% of the energy needed to fully charge your
00:40:06smartphone.
00:40:07But if you think about the number of AI queries to make images.
00:40:12Once the, the Apple, uh, the iPhone 16 and that new iOS comes out, every search will
00:40:18be AI.
00:40:19Yeah.
00:40:20And we don't know what all the applications will be yet.
00:40:22Right.
00:40:23Oh, exactly.
00:40:24Right.
00:40:25Yeah.
00:40:26Well, people are gonna start making movies with AI.
00:40:27You know, you can already do songs in like two seconds.
00:40:28This podcast is actually AI generated.
00:40:29Yes.
00:40:30It's not real.
00:40:31And you were talking to RJ Scarron, the trucks have AI being built into them.
00:40:38So it's getting sent off somewhere as far as route planning, things like that.
00:40:41And I don't know if a lot of these are use cases where even, you know, comprehending
00:40:45of, we know cars, what other industries are using AI in a big way.
00:40:50The ending statement of this, of this search I did this morning was AI's energy consumption
00:40:54is expected to increase as models become more sophisticated and larger.
00:40:58Some estimate the AI sector could consume 85 to 134 terawatt hours of energy annually
00:41:04by 2027.
00:41:05Is that a lot?
00:41:06Is that a lot?
00:41:08That is.
00:41:09Yeah.
00:41:10It's kind of hard making that jump from a megawatt to real time output, like horsepower.
00:41:15Right.
00:41:16But then say horsepower per hour and then putting that over, you know, a calendar.
00:41:20But that's a massive amount.
00:41:21Well, how much energy does California consume in a year?
00:41:24Just to give me some baseline.
00:41:27Somebody might have to look that up.
00:41:28I don't know what the, we're probably in some gigawatt hour.
00:41:32Per year.
00:41:33Range.
00:41:34Yeah.
00:41:35So AI would be a thousand times that maybe.
00:41:36I think is the potential, but hopefully that's global.
00:41:39I did recently see.
00:41:40That's a lot of energy.
00:41:41In the total queues of people building new renewable projects was somewhere around 1.5
00:41:47terawatts.
00:41:48And then I guess you'd have to look at how many hours are there in a year to come up
00:41:51with what they want to build for new renewables.
00:41:54And it's really only being held back by connecting to the grid, maybe some project funding, but
00:41:58also the transmission lines.
00:41:59We need more lines for these projects because if you're going to put something out in New
00:42:03Mexico that you want to feed into California, you get the largest single energy infrastructure
00:42:09project in us history, which is currently going on.
00:42:12It's called sun Zia.
00:42:14And the line is massive.
00:42:17That's the biggest part of it.
00:42:19And that's, you said that it's going from Colorado to New Mexico, New Mexico to California.
00:42:23Well, it's ending in Arizona, but the goal is then to use the existing system to move
00:42:28it through to California.
00:42:29And what, what, what, what's so big about it?
00:42:31Doesn't sound that far to go from New Mexico to Arizona.
00:42:35It's expensive.
00:42:36I think it's $6 billion or something between producing power lines or what power lines
00:42:40plus a big wind farm.
00:42:41It's a 3000 megawatt capacity on the line, 3,500 megawatt wind farm.
00:42:49So when you look at the scale of load, you're at 8% of California's load potentially being
00:42:53served by this wind that's in New Mexico and another one's building in Wyoming at the same
00:42:57time.
00:42:58Right.
00:42:59Doing the same thing with wind and that geographical diversity of, you know, we have sun, we have
00:43:06wind, we need to trade with each other.
00:43:08So let me ask you this, cause I was, I was looking at the mix on the app of like the
00:43:12power in California.
00:43:13So, you know, it was, it was like 21% natural gas.
00:43:17It was like 18%, 17% renewables, you know, 2% coal, some percentage of, of nuclear.
00:43:25Um, you know, and so does nuke, like, does that, do we need to think about that?
00:43:32Like I heard that in Washington state, they're trying to do these like miniature reactors,
00:43:35like cause nuke is green.
00:43:37There's no carbon dioxide produced.
00:43:39Like what's going on with nuke?
00:43:41If I said no, everybody in the energy industry would send me a hate mail because everybody
00:43:45loves nuclear energy.
00:43:47Sure.
00:43:48Yeah.
00:43:49It's great.
00:43:50The problem it has right now is say Diablo Canyon are currently running nuclear power
00:43:53plants.
00:43:54It produces one amount all the time, right?
00:43:57It goes up to its top output and just stays there.
00:44:00Sure.
00:44:01So when power prices get very inexpensive or we're paying people to take energy, they're
00:44:06economic losers during that time, right?
00:44:08When we're short on energy, then they're making, unless you could, a battery.
00:44:13And actually the really interesting ones out in Wyoming where they're using just salt as
00:44:16a heat battery, right?
00:44:18So I think the unit puts out 500 megawatts, but if you don't want that much, you just
00:44:23heat salt.
00:44:25And then if you want more, you just put more salt to water and you get more steam.
00:44:29And it has a range, I think 300 to 800, something like that.
00:44:32So it's a dispatchable nuclear power plant with salt, which is cheap, easy, um, non-hazardous.
00:44:39And then, but if you don't talk about it, I know Bill Gates is behind it, but they're
00:44:42they're trying to, what's it called?
00:44:44Terra power, I believe.
00:44:45Terra power.
00:44:46Right.
00:44:47It's a small regional, uh, 99.9% recyclable, the waste, you know, you're not going to have
00:44:53like the drums of, of, of nuclear waste scattered around.
00:44:57Like it's, it's very efficient, modern.
00:44:59Is that coming?
00:45:00Is that happening?
00:45:01Even the goal of it using old nuclear waste as part of the fuel and then burning it down,
00:45:05they say like a cigarette.
00:45:06Yeah.
00:45:07So what you have at the end is far less than what you started with.
00:45:10Super exciting.
00:45:11Hope it can work.
00:45:12That one's at 2032 to come online.
00:45:16And if it does work and they can meet the cost, everything that they're targeting, we
00:45:21should have these everywhere.
00:45:22Cause then we can like get rid of natural gas, which I know natural gas producers don't
00:45:27want to hear, but like, that's a lot of CO2, you know, it's less, less than coal, but it's
00:45:31still a lot of CO2.
00:45:32It's about 30% of what coal puts out.
00:45:35The plants are super efficient, 60% usually on a combined cycle, but it's still putting
00:45:39out CO2.
00:45:40It still is putting out CO2.
00:45:41And we need to stop that.
00:45:42You know, California has reduced natural gas use this year by 30% over since last year.
00:45:48Good.
00:45:49That's massive for the utility industry to change that fast.
00:45:52Right.
00:45:53So again, is that continuing just because of the buildup of renewables?
00:45:57Like what we see?
00:45:58Yeah, we used to have that ramp that I, you know, where load goes up, sun goes down and
00:46:02we filled it with gas and now we're filling it with batteries.
00:46:05In an incredibly short amount of time that we've developed this far.
00:46:09And I think that's where that, the grid can't handle renewables argument comes from is people
00:46:13have this idea.
00:46:14We have a grid and that's all we got, right.
00:46:18And we can build more grid.
00:46:19If there's a location where we can't handle EVs due to a regional constraint and you get
00:46:24down into neighborhoods and there's other issues there that is below our purview, but
00:46:29let's fix it.
00:46:30Yeah.
00:46:31Right.
00:46:32Right.
00:46:33So that's been my attitude.
00:46:34Yeah.
00:46:35So let's, we can do that.
00:46:36Let's just do a quick recap and just provide some context.
00:46:37So let's go one, just a different direction slightly.
00:46:40You believe in the, you believe the good can handle it.
00:46:42Johnny set up the question about 2035 and all EVs.
00:46:45We're talking about California.
00:46:47So that's great.
00:46:50And part of it is, yes, we got batteries and we're adding all sorts of, we've have wind
00:46:54and solar are getting really efficient.
00:46:55We have a marketplace for this.
00:46:57So it's, it's sort of, it's incentivizing itself to operate at its highest efficiency.
00:47:03We have people who listen around the world, those around the country for sure.
00:47:06Colleagues in Michigan.
00:47:07What are they?
00:47:08Yeah.
00:47:09We have no grid.
00:47:10Now you, and you started in Tulsa and then off camera, you were telling me you were,
00:47:14you prior to being, you spent the last six years at Kaiso.
00:47:17You were in Minnesota, Minnesota.
00:47:19Yeah.
00:47:20For mid continent.
00:47:21ISO.
00:47:22How's the rest of the country?
00:47:23They're screwed, right?
00:47:24The rest of the United States is totally up a creek because California is awesome.
00:47:29You know what?
00:47:30We're actually, NERC came out with a report, North American Energy Reliability Corporation,
00:47:34who reports to FERC.
00:47:35Yes.
00:47:36Who reports to FERC.
00:47:37See?
00:47:38Learning.
00:47:39Yup.
00:47:40And they, they identify where they believe there's capacity issues.
00:47:42Okay.
00:47:43And the West was all clear.
00:47:45Which is.
00:47:46How far is West?
00:47:47I mean, West Mississippi.
00:47:48The Western grid.
00:47:49So it really, if you draw the line, if you look at a map and you start seeing there's
00:47:52no more houses here, that's what happened.
00:47:54We built the grid out from the West and the East and we're each reached their extent.
00:47:58You mean like Corona?
00:47:59And stopped.
00:48:00We have a dividing line.
00:48:01So I used to live in Rapid City, South Dakota, worked for Black Hills Power out there.
00:48:05That was my first.
00:48:06Was that East or West?
00:48:07Uh, they were West, but I lived on the East.
00:48:10Okay.
00:48:11My house was on the Eastern grid.
00:48:12You had to cross an enemy lines to get home.
00:48:14Oh, okay.
00:48:15Yeah.
00:48:16Is how close we were.
00:48:17Right.
00:48:18So that's, that's part of the barrier and it goes down through Nebraska, Kansas.
00:48:20So it has nothing to do with the Mississippi River.
00:48:22No, no.
00:48:23The Mississippi.
00:48:24Is a little bit more East of that.
00:48:27Yeah.
00:48:28And then Missouri would be on the, even on the Eastern side.
00:48:32Okay.
00:48:33Yeah.
00:48:34Okay.
00:48:35So you're saying, so in general, the grid nationally, except for Texas, haha, uh, we're
00:48:39good.
00:48:40Okay.
00:48:41Yes.
00:48:42And let me, we talked about Texas a little bit.
00:48:43The operators that were on that day are on my free beer for life list.
00:48:47If I run into you and you worked that day in Texas, I'm buying the beer.
00:48:52Really?
00:48:53Why?
00:48:54The grid should have failed.
00:48:55Their power grid had every reason to completely fail.
00:48:57And if that happens, they could have been out of power for days, catastrophe, but the
00:49:02desk would have been a hundred times without national.
00:49:05It would have been a massive response.
00:49:07What they did was incredible to save it.
00:49:10The largest load shed event ever in us history.
00:49:13What's a, what's a load shed.
00:49:14A load shed event is just curtailing customer use by directing it.
00:49:19We need thousands of megawatts off more plants, trip thousands of megawatts off.
00:49:23And we operate our grid based on frequency.
00:49:26It tells us how well our grid is doing.
00:49:27If we have too much power frequency goes up, not enough power frequency goes down and their
00:49:32frequency was terrible.
00:49:34And they, they did what they had to do, which is a scary thing to do.
00:49:36They dropped, I think 33% of customers in Texas, which wasn't good.
00:49:41Customers were out of power.
00:49:42The frequency was like this and they made it like that.
00:49:45They brought it back up to 60 or we want to be 60 Hertz.
00:49:48Okay.
00:49:49That keeps your wall clock on time.
00:49:51Okay.
00:49:52If our grid's moving slow, your dial clock on the wall actually slows down and we have
00:49:56to manage that and speed up the grid sometimes to correct your wall clock.
00:49:59This affects schools.
00:50:00Yeah.
00:50:01Time error correction.
00:50:02It's weird.
00:50:03Wow.
00:50:04Yeah.
00:50:05Wow.
00:50:06But they did save the grid.
00:50:07So I do, I know we give Texas crap for having the grid they have, but their operators were
00:50:11super heroic that day.
00:50:13Yeah.
00:50:14Huh.
00:50:15I love it.
00:50:16This is great.
00:50:17Because yes, because I like making fun of Texas.
00:50:18I like Texans.
00:50:19I just have a problem with like some of the legislatures is legislators and decisions
00:50:21that are made.
00:50:22Texans are great.
00:50:23Okay.
00:50:24They also have a ton of renewables though.
00:50:26They are.
00:50:27No.
00:50:28Yeah.
00:50:29Right with California.
00:50:30Yeah.
00:50:31Yeah.
00:50:32Yeah.
00:50:33Let's talk about, this is great.
00:50:34Let's talk about renewables just for a second.
00:50:35Um, so we're in agreement that wind farms cause cancer, right?
00:50:36And the noise they make drives people crazy and it's a big tinfoil hat.
00:50:39Interesting.
00:50:40Okay.
00:50:41That you feel that way.
00:50:42Yeah.
00:50:43And how about, uh, solar fields and Joshua trees?
00:50:46Any issue there?
00:50:47Like we should be just mowing down more and more Joshua trees.
00:50:50I believe there was a project like that and that is too bad because how many parking lots
00:50:54and rooftops and things do we have?
00:50:56We have so, uh, canals, do you see that project where they're putting solar over canals?
00:51:00So it stops evaporation.
00:51:01Over the aqueduct.
00:51:02Brilliant.
00:51:03Maintaining California water.
00:51:04Yeah.
00:51:05Yeah.
00:51:06Huge concern.
00:51:07That's brilliant because I, I, we, when I moved into my house, we have a fountain and
00:51:10like I, and I found myself like having to put water in it and a friend of mine is an
00:51:13environmental engineer.
00:51:14He's like, he's like the literal worst thing you can do for the environment is to have
00:51:17a fountain.
00:51:18It's like you just burning water and I filled it in with dirt cause I was like, I don't
00:51:22want to, I don't want to, you know, deal with this.
00:51:24Yeah.
00:51:25Awesome idea.
00:51:26Okay.
00:51:27Love it.
00:51:28What about can like, you know, you were flying LA and you know, this looks like 50% of Los
00:51:33Angeles is just flat warehouses with white roofs.
00:51:37What about like, Hey, stick solar panels on those or is it, we don't even need that.
00:51:41So we lease a building like that for my wife's business, but we're leasing it, right?
00:51:47So we have no incentive to put a solar panel on.
00:51:50I'm saying the government stepping in and say, Hey, if you go to a big roof in LA,
00:51:54they could incentivize the building owners in some way.
00:51:59Maybe they can force them, but at least incentivize them.
00:52:01Like a new house in California has to be built with solar.
00:52:04Right.
00:52:05Thank God.
00:52:06Yeah.
00:52:07Why not?
00:52:08I don't know why not commercial spaces because they have better roofs for it generally.
00:52:09Well, let's talk about that.
00:52:10And I was kidding.
00:52:11I was obviously kidding about wind cause wind farms causing cancer, but let's talk, let's
00:52:15talk a little about solar.
00:52:16I'm going to circle back to, to you, you on the internet, I'm getting into fights.
00:52:22You're part of a nonprofit, but still a, it's a government agency, right?
00:52:27Yeah.
00:52:28Yeah.
00:52:29And so we're trying to pull back from that a little bit just so we can get past the caliphobia
00:52:33because there's so much of it where we want to work more with Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico,
00:52:40and they have very real reasons why they wouldn't want to turn over any control of their power
00:52:45grid.
00:52:47To an agency whose board of directors is appointed by Gavin Newsom.
00:52:50Well, just because we're going to force them to get, you know, gender reassignment surgery
00:52:53at a homeless camp.
00:52:54Doesn't mean it.
00:52:55Sorry.
00:52:56Go ahead.
00:52:57Yeah.
00:52:58That's, that's not the concern.
00:52:59Right.
00:53:00Oh, that's not the concern.
00:53:01Okay.
00:53:02But it should be.
00:53:03But I can also understand where they're coming from.
00:53:05I want to be more independent.
00:53:06We can work better with you if we are more independent.
00:53:08So we are working towards that.
00:53:10It's another thing.
00:53:11If you're really geeking out, it's called the pathways initiative.
00:53:13I've heard of that.
00:53:15Where we've already turned over, or sorry, we've already agreed to turn over the oversight
00:53:20of the regional market, the broader market to its own board of directors, basically.
00:53:25Which would mean people from a lot of Western states.
00:53:28Yes.
00:53:29Yeah.
00:53:30So we're moving that out from under California ISO and there's plans to further grow that
00:53:33independence just because we know this is good and it's going to be beneficial.
00:53:38So really we're taking something we built and saying, you know, we need to, we need
00:53:43somebody else to really manage this so that it's fair for everyone.
00:53:47Got it.
00:53:48Got it.
00:53:49Got it.
00:53:50So Cal ISO or CAISO started in 98 and this is still fairly young and you were talking
00:53:55about how you've, you've gone, you've done so much growth and get people to understand
00:53:59how it works and why they should contribute or be a part of this system.
00:54:04It all sounds awesome.
00:54:05But as we're talking about solar, what do you tell the guy?
00:54:09And we have actually a good guy on our staff, Scott Evans did it himself, put solar on his
00:54:13roof.
00:54:14It's a giant pain in the ass.
00:54:15Like why is, why is solar such a problem for just the average guy on the street?
00:54:21The average Joe.
00:54:22Lizzie, is there?
00:54:23I don't know.
00:54:24My house was built with solar.
00:54:25It was great.
00:54:26I actually know in our last house, I, I hired a company to put up a patio cover in the backyard
00:54:33and I had it built to put solar panels on cause I bought the Rivian and I needed more
00:54:37energy to stay net neutral and it was kind of flawless.
00:54:42But I think that might be part of the reason an energy company knows the hoops, the barrels,
00:54:47the paperwork.
00:54:48Cause I, I mean, I've told this story a hundred times when I have my panels put on a, I signed
00:54:54the paperwork like around Thanksgiving.
00:54:56I said, when will it be on?
00:54:57They said, worst case scenario, last week of December, first week of January in April,
00:55:02I'm on the phone saying now I'm paying for solar and electricity cause you guys keep
00:55:07failing inspection.
00:55:09And you know, we have a program for that, you know, so, so the industry seems really
00:55:13bad.
00:55:14I've heard, I've heard, I had a great experience, but I've heard stories like yours where people
00:55:20have a terrible experience and I think it's, it's a growing market.
00:55:23So a lot of people jump in and say, we're experts.
00:55:26And so I remember like when we failed the fourth inspection and then this time was,
00:55:31they ran a conduit up the side of my house to the roof and the, the law is it has to
00:55:36be four or six inches away from a corner and they put it right on the corner.
00:55:40And I'm sitting there shouting at the guy, like, how do you not know this?
00:55:43The guy literally turns around and looks at me and goes, we're a bad company.
00:55:47And I said, okay, cool.
00:55:48That makes sense.
00:55:49So I also have the benefit, my dad's a master electrician.
00:55:53So when these things come up, you can call, I'm also sending him photos.
00:55:56I put my, when we moved, I moved my Rivian charger and installed it on my wall and wired
00:56:00it on FaceTime.
00:56:01I know enough to hurt myself, but he knows enough for me to not get hurt.
00:56:07He's saying, okay, this is what you want.
00:56:09This is the order of steps you want to do and how to do it.
00:56:11And we're fine.
00:56:12So is it in Kaisa's interest that every Californian put solar on every square inch of their property
00:56:20and give energy back to the grid?
00:56:22Is that in Kaisa's interest or not?
00:56:26Would it lower?
00:56:27It's not something we're saying to do.
00:56:30If that's what the market wants, which is really the great thing about the way we're
00:56:33approaching it is when you look back at, you talked about the Paris accords, clean power
00:56:38plan, things that we're not part of, but we're greening faster than those goals, right?
00:56:44Because the market, not just on price of these resources, but the consumers want it too.
00:56:50So when those things line up, that's just a direction growing 95% of new projects that
00:56:56are in the queue to interconnect or renewable, leaving 5% that aren't in zeros, coal.
00:57:03I can't imagine anybody even trying to submit one.
00:57:06It's just, it's one of those things.
00:57:07And you know, when you actually sit down and do the math, like, you know, to charge a Rivian
00:57:12at night in California, you know, it's about, it's 20 to 25 bucks, something like that.
00:57:18And to fill up a gas powered big pickup truck is a hundred bucks.
00:57:22Like you just, you can't escape those numbers.
00:57:24You know what I mean?
00:57:26I think a lot of people, whatever they feel, eventually they talk to someone who says,
00:57:30you realize it's like 80% cheaper to drive this way.
00:57:34Yeah.
00:57:35And it also is helping the grid.
00:57:37Just what you said that you are charging at night mindset to turn off.
00:57:42It won't charge from 3 PM to midnight because that's a rate decision.
00:57:45It's more expensive during those hours.
00:57:47So as long as we have the right rate structure around this too, and consumer knowledge, which
00:57:53I'd say mostly the EV owners, they're, they're concerned about these things.
00:57:58Does that know?
00:57:59Cause my, my understanding was that I'm DWP, I don't know what power company you are.
00:58:03PG&E.
00:58:04Okay.
00:58:05So my understanding was 8 PM to 10 AM is the cheap power.
00:58:08Is that, is that DWP specific or am I wrong?
00:58:12I would look up your rate plan because I have a specific rate plan because I have solar
00:58:15and an EV.
00:58:16So the cheapest power is from midnight to 3 PM.
00:58:20Three to four, it jumps up four to nine.
00:58:24It's most expensive.
00:58:25Four to 10 is a step down.
00:58:26It's actually a three-tier.
00:58:27Oh.
00:58:28So maybe I'm right.
00:58:29And what can I ask what you're paying?
00:58:30Do you know?
00:58:31I don't.
00:58:32I think it's 16 cents on the cheapest part.
00:58:34Ours is 20.
00:58:35DWP is the cheapest is 20.
00:58:36I want to say.
00:58:37But my, I think mine goes up to something like 40.
00:58:39Yeah.
00:58:40I think I'm 36.
00:58:41That's peak.
00:58:42Okay.
00:58:43Yeah.
00:58:44Although I've just found something.
00:58:45I texted to my wife last night.
00:58:46I was like, look at this.
00:58:48I'm like, DWP, if you're an EV owner, they do some cockamamie thing where it's like 2.5
00:58:53cents a kilowatt hour or something.
00:58:54It's like to try and get people on the EVs.
00:58:57That I love those programs.
00:58:59Yeah.
00:59:00I had one in Minnesota.
00:59:01It was a separate meter.
00:59:02And that meter.
00:59:03It's a separate meter.
00:59:04Right.
00:59:05Exactly.
00:59:06It would only turn on during those hours.
00:59:07Right.
00:59:08So they could control that you were not charging.
00:59:09No, screw that.
00:59:10If I want to charge, I'll pay the money.
00:59:11But yeah.
00:59:12So mine plugged into the wall.
00:59:14Ah, right.
00:59:15So I just moved the plug over.
00:59:16Sure.
00:59:17Yeah.
00:59:18And I got it.
00:59:19Right.
00:59:20At the time.
00:59:21I had a C-Max.
00:59:22Ford C-Max, baby.
00:59:23Yeah.
00:59:24That's what got me into.
00:59:25I related to the George Strait song, Don't Take the Girl.
00:59:27I'll have to take your word for that.
00:59:29Go ahead.
00:59:30Okay.
00:59:31That's a famous song.
00:59:32He starts out saying, take anybody fishing, but the girl.
00:59:36And that was my view towards EVs.
00:59:37Right.
00:59:38And I got the C-Max because it was a nearly free lease deal.
00:59:40It was so cheap because they were just trying to get rid of them.
00:59:42Price of a cell phone.
00:59:43Yeah.
00:59:44Yeah.
00:59:45And the interior was amazing.
00:59:47It was comfortable.
00:59:48They built an ugly car around a great interior.
00:59:49It was a dorky looking car that actually drove okay.
00:59:52Yeah.
00:59:53Yeah.
00:59:54Dynamics were fine.
00:59:55Right.
00:59:56And as soon as the engine would turn on.
00:59:57I'm just going to look this up.
00:59:58I'm just going to look this up.
00:59:59As soon as the engine would turn on in that car, I hated it.
01:00:01Right.
01:00:02It was so much better as an EV.
01:00:03Right.
01:00:04Oh, thank you.
01:00:05I've been making this point.
01:00:06People are screaming at me.
01:00:07Yes.
01:00:08Yes.
01:00:09Yeah.
01:00:10The engine turned on.
01:00:11You're like, ugh, it's so harsh.
01:00:12Yes.
01:00:13It's terrible.
01:00:14It's like a previous crime.
01:00:15The engine turns on.
01:00:16It's not a Porsche hybrid starting or something like that.
01:00:19Right.
01:00:20Right.
01:00:21Can I find this?
01:00:22I can't find it.
01:00:23Okay.
01:00:24So what are you, what, when you're on the internet fighting with people, what is the
01:00:27biggest one you, what's the biggest misconception you always run into and then you, then you
01:00:31have to correct.
01:00:32The biggest problem with that is the explanation of the grid can handle it is not a simple
01:00:36explanation.
01:00:37Right.
01:00:38It's many different things.
01:00:39It's that whole story of where we are with EVs compared to four years ago, that there's
01:00:42more, we're more reliable.
01:00:43We're outpacing EV demand with grid build out.
01:00:47We're doing fine.
01:00:48And we're doing it more renewably where the other side is, uh, and it's that simple to
01:00:56them.
01:00:57Right.
01:00:58Right.
01:00:59Right.
01:01:00You're wrong.
01:01:01Right.
01:01:02Because somebody told me I can't work.
01:01:03Yeah.
01:01:04So you have to really get into it.
01:01:05And then at the end, you're like, I'm such a loser for typing this much on an internet
01:01:07post.
01:01:08I do all the time.
01:01:09Look, I said, what am I doing?
01:01:10I get into this all the time with people.
01:01:11You know, a lot of people are like, Oh, you just, you just, you know, coal powered car.
01:01:14And you know, my thing is like, you know, I, I, I actually, you know, read some studies
01:01:18about that.
01:01:19And like, even if it's a hundred percent, it's still less CO2 than burning gasoline.
01:01:25And that's worst case scenario.
01:01:26Yeah.
01:01:27Worst case scenario.
01:01:28I think it's 30,000 miles.
01:01:29Coal breaks even.
01:01:31Yep.
01:01:32And we're not at worst case scenario.
01:01:34Nobody's at worst case scenario, right?
01:01:35We're actually, we're as close to best case scenario.
01:01:37If you are cognizant of reducing your CO2 impact, you don't need to be 100% green either.
01:01:45We're already so much better that it's a massive improvement.
01:01:49But if you just charge in California over solar hours, you're nowhere near that carbon
01:01:56intensity.
01:01:57You could be many hours, totally renewable.
01:02:00Other hours, let's say you're 70% renewable, 30% gas, gas is 30% of coal.
01:02:06What are we down to now?
01:02:07Now 9% of the worst case scenario, it's, we're in a great spot and we're only getting better.
01:02:15And my big plug on this is when we look at these big power outages we have, the major
01:02:22power disturbances always correlate with extreme weather.
01:02:27We have millions of people out in the Southwest right now because we have the hottest Atlantic
01:02:31sea surface temperatures I think ever recorded.
01:02:34And that's where we get our load from.
01:02:37That's why it's always these peak hot days, peak cold days.
01:02:40Most of our load is heating and air conditioning.
01:02:42It's not electric vehicles.
01:02:45So this idea that we're going to forego the EV transition and continue producing more
01:02:51and more greenhouse gases is not a long-term solution to grid reliability.
01:02:57If we truly care about keeping the grid on, we have to decarbonize all industries.
01:03:04Or else we're going to keep having worse and worse storms, more extreme weather up
01:03:08and down.
01:03:09Do you think that what happened, I mean, I was looking at some photos of what's going
01:03:12on in North Carolina, like, you know, beyond heartbreaking, like just like towns gone.
01:03:17Like, do you think that's a tipping point, like politically, to get people to say like,
01:03:21boy, like storms actually are getting worse.
01:03:24Like the weather's getting worse and, you know, if you listen to any climate scientist,
01:03:30look at any climate model, it's predictable that as the amount of carbon dioxide in the
01:03:34atmosphere goes up, this is going to keep getting worse and it's really killing people
01:03:38now.
01:03:39Like, do you think this could be a tipping point?
01:03:41I don't know.
01:03:43You'd love to believe.
01:03:44So I'm, I'm, I'm more optimistic than most people.
01:03:49And I still have trouble because you see, you know, Louisiana and Florida coastline
01:03:54going away and what their voting tendencies are.
01:03:58Yeah.
01:03:59It's crazy.
01:04:00Yeah.
01:04:01And you would think this might change it, but I'm, I'm not sure.
01:04:05There's gotta be a, there should be a tipping point and it should have happened already.
01:04:07Cause it's crazy.
01:04:08Like I was, I was reading something the other day, like, you know, we're losing six times.
01:04:13I'm going to get the number wrong, but way more glaciers are melting than we're losing
01:04:18rainforest.
01:04:19Like, it's like six times the amount or something like that.
01:04:22Like it's a, and you know, I remember what a glacier is, it's, it's snowfall over thousands
01:04:26of years.
01:04:27And so it's just thousands of years of water is just being released into the ocean.
01:04:32And changing the chemistry of the ocean, the temperatures, like I said, and sea surface
01:04:37temperatures drive hurricanes.
01:04:39And actually when we get a hurricane on the East, that's typically when we have these
01:04:42heat events on the West during summer, because it keeps the heat kind of building as an oven
01:04:47over the Western side of the United States.
01:04:49So we're feeling the same impact.
01:04:51So we're about to enter October.
01:04:52I was looking like this weekend, October 5th and six is 200 degree days in a row in LA
01:04:57back to back in October, which is bad.
01:05:02I was just doing a training on our forest fire monitoring, which is a huge thing to
01:05:07coming out West.
01:05:08I was like, okay, fires and transmission lines, whatever, you know, this comes up maybe never.
01:05:12And it's all the time.
01:05:13Yeah.
01:05:14Right.
01:05:15The huge impacts.
01:05:16And, and that's part of the reason we do end up anything in 22 with some flex alerts is
01:05:20we lost a bunch of transmission lines to forest fires.
01:05:23So again, that was, it wasn't a capacity issue.
01:05:25It was a extreme weather causing more fires.
01:05:30What I found was you look back at around 1989, 1990, well, which would have been a
01:05:34really extreme fire year by the trend, like that's the year that spikes up would correlate
01:05:38to a really good fire year now.
01:05:40Right.
01:05:41That was the low year in comparison.
01:05:43So our whole scale has changed, but at some point I'm worried people get accustomed to
01:05:48the change.
01:05:49Fire season.
01:05:50Yeah.
01:05:51It's the frog in the boiling water versus heating up the pot.
01:05:55Okay.
01:05:56Speaking of boiling frogs.
01:05:57I want to ask you about this because I drove to Vegas over the weekend and back.
01:06:01That insane solar installation where they've got the mirrors that shoot the light up to
01:06:06the boiling thingy boppers and roast birds at 900 degrees.
01:06:11Are those good?
01:06:12Cause like, like it seems like there's a lot of land out in the desert to put installations
01:06:15like that.
01:06:16Like what, what, what does that call in there?
01:06:18How do we feel about that?
01:06:19Direct solar voltaic I think was a interesting idea to direct.
01:06:24It's like the ISR on out there.
01:06:26You have all these mirrors reflecting.
01:06:28Computer controlled mirrors that capture the sun and bounce it to a.
01:06:31Onto a ball of salt.
01:06:32Yeah.
01:06:33So it's a heat battery.
01:06:34So the good thing was, the idea was it was going to last after sunset.
01:06:38Right.
01:06:39Engineering thought process, whatever.
01:06:42Let's try it out.
01:06:43Yeah.
01:06:44I don't think they, they call them streamers when a bird flies through the death ray.
01:06:48Yeah.
01:06:49Cause it's like 900 degrees.
01:06:50Right.
01:06:51Yeah.
01:06:52And they just.
01:06:53And it's bugs and things too.
01:06:54It must smell good.
01:06:55I've been trying to find ways to mitigate that with things like noise, ultrasonic, reducing
01:07:00it.
01:07:01Another interesting one is wind turbines.
01:07:02There's this worry about bats.
01:07:05And it's not, they don't get hit by the blades.
01:07:07Oh, it just messes up their solar.
01:07:08They just have to get near them and the air pressure behind the blade is so low.
01:07:13It kills them.
01:07:14Huh?
01:07:15What?
01:07:16Yeah.
01:07:17Really?
01:07:18Those things, the tip of a wind turbine can be moving about 170 miles per hour and it's,
01:07:22it's crazy.
01:07:23What's your four megawatts about when you convert that to horsepower?
01:07:27That's like 6,000, 6,200, 6,200 horsepower out of like, it's, I use that.
01:07:34I've done some things at schools where I show up and okay, here's a Corvette.
01:07:37Here's a wind turbine in pictures.
01:07:39Which one makes more power?
01:07:40They're like, well, we know why you're here.
01:07:41It's got to be the wind turbine.
01:07:42It's like, but would you guess it's like eight times the Corvette or three, you know, Penafreen
01:07:48and Batista's.
01:07:49Yeah.
01:07:50And they look so docile sitting out there, but yeah.
01:07:52Also the, they are killing bats and, uh, they've done so much to so many new things.
01:07:57That's the thing.
01:07:58Anytime.
01:07:59These are all new problems, so we can solve them, but it takes a minute.
01:08:03They found painting one out of the three blades black reduces that by like 70%.
01:08:07Really?
01:08:08So we're going to, yeah.
01:08:09It just, it gives them a visual identification.
01:08:10I mean, the latest thing I've heard about wind farms, the conspiracy is that they're,
01:08:15they're not recyclable.
01:08:16They're fiberglass.
01:08:17So you got to bury them and it's their fiberglass.
01:08:19I don't know either.
01:08:20So it'll last forever.
01:08:21It's sand.
01:08:22Yeah.
01:08:23It returns to sand.
01:08:24Oh yeah.
01:08:25You know, that's a glass.
01:08:27It's just silica.
01:08:28Right.
01:08:29Sand.
01:08:30And would you rather have your house built on old coal bottom ash waste that's radioactive
01:08:34mercury or, you know, there's all sorts of, or on top of fiberglass, right.
01:08:38I will gladly build my house on top of fiberglass, Phil, whatever.
01:08:41It's not harmful.
01:08:42Right.
01:08:43Okay.
01:08:44Well, look, this has been awesome.
01:08:45Uh, I want to, you came, you again, this was great.
01:08:50We connected on Instagram.
01:08:51You're like, I'd love to come and talk to you guys.
01:08:52Cause I'm also huge fan of the show, huge car guy.
01:08:56So let's, let's talk about that.
01:08:59Let's, you're very passionate about what you do.
01:09:02You're also, you also love cars.
01:09:05When you're arguing on Facebook or Instagram and, and you, as you do, as you do, how do
01:09:11you, how do you talk, what, look into the camera or you look, speak into the mic and
01:09:17talk to that, that guy who still is, there's a $450, uh, Fox body drag racer.
01:09:23Yeah.
01:09:24And like, you know, cause you, I was going to ask you like, do you actually, do you believe
01:09:28in climate change?
01:09:29It's very clear.
01:09:30Like you're talking about, you know, this is, this is a, you have an informed opinion
01:09:33and you're in a profession that is actively working towards decarbonizing and, you know,
01:09:39towards the goal of reducing the impact of carbon, uh, climate change.
01:09:43A lot of people out there listening are like, I don't care, man.
01:09:44I just want to drive my, my V8 Mustang for as long as I can.
01:09:49Like why do I, why do I care?
01:09:51Why should I care about any of this?
01:09:53What do you tell them?
01:09:54Well, I think that works well for me that not only do I have Rivian R1T, but I also
01:10:00have a 57 Continental Mark II.
01:10:02Nice.
01:10:03Which was also super cool walking.
01:10:04I went to the Peterson yesterday since I'm in town and right outside was a Mark II and
01:10:08a Rivian.
01:10:0958, right?
01:10:1057.
01:10:11Is the one of the Peterson is a 58, isn't it?
01:10:13They made them in 56 and 57.
01:10:15I'm not sure which that one is, but mine's the 57 they made 577 that year and you got
01:10:20the better carburetor, a little more compression, but, uh, that car has a super cool story.
01:10:24Um, anyway, I have that and a 64 Mercury convertible.
01:10:27I've had a bunch of old, mostly Fords, um, and I'm from North Dakota, right?
01:10:33So when you're trying to relate to people, I think I throw them off that I'm not the
01:10:37person they expect to be as the California EV owner.
01:10:40Right.
01:10:41Um, but I also have this other side of hobbies and experience and, uh, I love the Rivian.
01:10:46That's, it's just a great car.
01:10:48It's a good product.
01:10:49Yeah.
01:10:50And you get people who are skeptics and you just put them in there and you raise and lower
01:10:54suspension floor at 900 pound feet of torque hitting instantaneously.
01:10:59Oh, you got the old one, the new one, you know, it was like 11, I know, I know, but
01:11:03the price, I know, yeah, I know.
01:11:06I do.
01:11:07I hear it.
01:11:08I've listened to this RJ scarage podcast and he's selling it.
01:11:11He's doing a good job trying to make me want it, but I can't, they really are good, but
01:11:16yeah, I know I'm still making it's fantastic.
01:11:18My wife right before that had a, a Range Rover sport, maybe a 14 and just, it's faster, functionally
01:11:26better.
01:11:27The interior I think is nicer.
01:11:29The Range Rover people said to me, like they got one and they said like, we can't believe
01:11:34how, and I thought they were going to say how good it is off road because it's Range
01:11:36Rover.
01:11:37And then literally the head of engineering for Range Rover goes, we can't believe how
01:11:39good the interior is.
01:11:40How did they make such a high quality interior?
01:11:42It's their first product.
01:11:44Everything about it is just a vehicle.
01:11:46As an enthusiast, uh, I had to get a truck kind of for my wife's business, tons of boxes
01:11:52and things like that to move around.
01:11:53And it was the only truck I wanted.
01:11:56If it hadn't been coming out, I would have resisted far more, but since it was there,
01:12:01it was.
01:12:02And I actually put the deposit on the cyber truck and the Rivian at the same time.
01:12:06And I'm so glad.
01:12:07Yeah.
01:12:08Same.
01:12:09Same.
01:12:10I love the way that I did.
01:12:11Yeah.
01:12:12Same.
01:12:13Same.
01:12:14Yeah.
01:12:15I told my wife, cause she says, I hate this thing.
01:12:16I'm like, they're going to have to make it more mainstream.
01:12:17By the time it hits a market, it can't look exactly like that.
01:12:19And then they did.
01:12:21And I was bewildered.
01:12:22The only one I've seen that I liked is somebody put two big googly eyes on the front of one
01:12:26and it just softened it in the perfect way.
01:12:28I saw one towing yesterday.
01:12:29I thought that was pretty cool.
01:12:31I saw that video.
01:12:32Yeah.
01:12:33Big trailer.
01:12:34Well, they should be able to.
01:12:35No.
01:12:36You can tow 11,000 pounds.
01:12:37I just haven't seen it before.
01:12:38Right.
01:12:39For a short distance, which is the other thing you run into, but.
01:12:40Yeah.
01:12:41Well, you know, some people.
01:12:42So the way, so the way to the heart of, uh, in your mind is just that you're super relatable
01:12:46car guy that loves internal combustion, but you have this perspective on how the grid
01:12:52is actually, I think that's in my mind, the summary of this episode.
01:12:57It's not perfect, but it's doing fine.
01:12:59And we have.
01:13:00It's doing great.
01:13:01We have a lot of upside still to come.
01:13:03Like we're, we're still growing and learning and doing things like adding giant storage
01:13:09batteries.
01:13:10So we didn't get into where the batteries are from and all that whole mess, but we have
01:13:12other battery experts.
01:13:13We're going to talk to.
01:13:14Which is also getting better all the time.
01:13:15Right.
01:13:16Yeah.
01:13:17Well, that's the fundamental takeaway that I have about all of this.
01:13:19Like the people who poop on EVs and all this, it's like, guys, you're comparing an industry
01:13:25that is in its infancy to 125 years of internal combustion in this, in this country alone.
01:13:31Yeah.
01:13:32Like a mature market.
01:13:33We know all the answers to internal combustion, but all this stuff on EVs, including charging,
01:13:37including the grid, all this stuff is only, it's just starting to ramp up.
01:13:41Yeah.
01:13:42And look, I mean, you know, we've made this point a few times on this podcast, but like,
01:13:45yeah, right now maybe, you know, you're putting out CO2 when you're building, uh, EV batteries,
01:13:50but you know, they could be made with a hundred percent green energy and you could put a hundred
01:13:54percent green energy into your electric vehicle with gasoline.
01:13:58You just burn gasoline forever.
01:13:59It never changes.
01:14:00It can't improve.
01:14:01And you also only burn it once.
01:14:02Yeah.
01:14:03You go through all this work of producing it, pulling it out of the ground and refining
01:14:07it and all this.
01:14:08And it lasts for a blink of an eye, a blink of an eye.
01:14:10And now it's in our atmosphere forever, forever.
01:14:12Yeah.
01:14:13Where that's the argument with batteries is yes, they, they take energy too, but you keep
01:14:18using it.
01:14:19And our grid is so much cleaner that you do have that break over point.
01:14:22Um, yeah, I work with, I, from anywhere else I've worked a couple of places in the industry,
01:14:28California ISO, fantastic company of these super optimists, genius people.
01:14:34I know, I know myself as a sharp guy and to walk into a room of 10 people and be like,
01:14:39I'm the dumbest one here is a fantastic thing, actually, from my perspective, because I can
01:14:43see what we can do.
01:14:44Yeah.
01:14:45That happens to me all the time.
01:14:46That makes me very optimistic because they're doing it.
01:14:49They're doing things that I was told were impossible.
01:14:51Right.
01:14:52And now, no, we're only in the middle of that.
01:14:53Right.
01:14:54You know, and it's going to keep, and we got to, it can't be just a power grid.
01:14:57It can't just be EVs.
01:14:58We got to decarbonize, you know, top to bottom.
01:15:01So you make a good point with the batteries too.
01:15:03We can do it.
01:15:04Right.
01:15:05Talking to a great guy who was working on lithium sulfur and he's ready to go to commercial
01:15:08production.
01:15:09They have passed all their stuff and it's 100% recyclable.
01:15:12It's just a foil.
01:15:13You just pull it back out, put it in a new one.
01:15:15It doesn't degrade.
01:15:17Yeah.
01:15:18So once you mine it, it's there forever.
01:15:20Yeah.
01:15:21It's going to become more energy dense, cheaper, lighter, everything as you talk about that.
01:15:25I want, I want a more impractical EV too, as a car guy.
01:15:30They seem to start with the idea of let's make the most practical vehicle ever and then
01:15:33try to put some fun back into it.
01:15:36And if you started with like my Mark II is a very impractical vehicle, but an EV chassis
01:15:41should let you do that.
01:15:42But they could also make it like, give me a 2,800 pound fast EV.
01:15:46Yeah.
01:15:47It was like the McMurdy is like the only thing in that realm.
01:15:50But if the batteries get that light, why not?
01:15:52Weight is the final frontier.
01:15:54That's for sure.
01:15:55So.
01:15:56Well, great.
01:15:57Yes.
01:15:58This was fun.
01:15:59Awesome.
01:16:00So thank you, Cody.
01:16:01Cody Smith of the Kaiso RC West for coming in.
01:16:04That was an awesome education about how the grid works and how we were pretty optimistic
01:16:10about its future.
01:16:11Yes.
01:16:12And if you're out there saying the grid can't handle it, we appreciate your concern and
01:16:16we're doing fine right now.
01:16:17Awesome.
01:16:19Well, thank you so much.
01:16:43The Inevitable Vodcast brought to you by the all-electric Nissan Ariya.
01:16:47Inspired by the future.
01:16:49Designed for the now.