Energy News Beat
Highlights of the podcast:
00:38 – The New England grid
02:28 – The usual storms that cause damage
10:03 – The grid could be 100% renewables
11:19 – The sky is not considered renewable?
13:00 – The wind and solar
16:50 – The recommendation for a wind farm
18:56 – The government is going to take it away and put it in a repository
24:32 – The arguments that renewables boosters make
26:48 – The average person in New England
44:32 – The energy transition that morphed into the energy realities.
49:23 – The oil and gas workers
52:09 – The Portuguese utility.
53:45 – How is Germany going to generate this energy
55:38 – Micron wants to put this enormous chip building plant manufacturing plant in upstate New York
57:54 – The weight of the blades and other efficiency methods and technology.
Source: ENB
Shorting the Grid “The Hidden Fragility of our Electric Grid”
The Podcast Hosts for The Energy Transition
Armondo Cavanha LinkedIn:
Irina Slav, Energy Writer LinkedIn:David Blackmon, Consultant, Writer, speaker, podcaster, miner of absurdities LinkedIn:
Tammy Nemeth, Energy Consulting Specialists LinkedIn:
Stu Turley, CEO, Podcast Host, Legend in his own mind LinkedIn:
Blubrry Podcast:
Armando Cavanha [00:00:03] Energy Realities number 95 95 94 no 95. The North American Grid. 95. Good morning. Good afternoon. Irina Slav, Tammy Nemeth, David Blackmon, Stuart Turley. And please Tammy, uh, bring Meredith to our show.
Tammy Nemeth [00:00:24] Okay. Well, you know, look, we’re really excited and privileged to have with us today our first guest of the new year. And that’s Meredith Angwin. Meredith is the author of the most amazing book, Shorting the Grid, which uses a case study, an example of the New England grid, to understand the troubles facing various regions and aspects of electricity grids in the United States. And you know what she says out loud? What many of us have been thinking. Insiders rule the day and no one is accountable for failure. The result? A future of rolling brownouts and blackouts unless citizens change how things are done. And if I can just give a brief intro of, um, Meredith’s background. She’s a chemist by training who has worked on a number of projects over the years in renewable, traditional and unconventional energy like nuclear. She was finding ways to reduce emissions and increase the efficiency to help make those technologies safer. This expertise has evolved into studies and participation and understanding how grids function, how decisions are made, and how to improve governance and the reliability of grids. So from all of us, Meredith, welcome to the podcast.
Meredith Angwin [00:01:38] I’m so happy to be here, I really am. Thank you for the introduction. Oh and Stu. That’s great. You keep showing that book so people will run out and buy it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:48] Absolutely.
Irina Slav [00:01:49] Um, should.
Tammy Nemeth [00:01:51] I wanted to ask you a question, but I’d like to preface it a little bit first. And and that is, you know, like we all understand, there’s many variables and factors that could be used to understand the sort of current grid issues and not just in the United States, but in Canada, the UK and Europe, for example. There’s many new people connecting to the grid. They have more stuff they want to plug in. Now, policymakers are pushing everybody to put everything electric, including their heating and their cars. Um, and then we have the variable, um, key infrastructure getting old. And then there’s the usual storms that cause damage like I’m experiencing today in the UK. At the same time, reliable supply seems to be removed from the grid, and then before adequate replacements are in place and then adding unreliable generation or sometimes nothing at all because the records, the regulatory delays, um, seem to take forever to get anything done. So it, it seems like any time there’s a bit of a storm or it’s really cold or really hot, um, the grid falters and people are asked to reduce consumption. So despite all of these different factors, Meredith, can you maybe offer your views and insights on why are all these grids, why have they become so fragile?
Meredith Angwin [00:03:15] They’re becoming fragile, partially due to the idea that we have to have this, uh, very, uh, low, um, carbon grid, which would be okay if they were using a mixture of nuclear and natural gas, which would be a low carbon grid, you know, but they’re looking at like zero. And then they say, oh, and while we’re at it, we don’t want to use nuclear. And we also want to add every bit of, of, of, of usual thermal infrastructure to the, to be done by electricity. So in other words, they’re pushing the demand up while taking away the, uh, the more stable sources of supply. So of course it’s getting worse now. It gets worse faster, as I describe in my book, in the areas where it’s supposedly deregulated, it actually has tons of regulation in the deregulated areas. But the, um, I call those areas geo because in, in the United States, there are regional transmission organization areas to use. I don’t like the term deregulated because it makes everybody go like, oh, that’s great. We’re getting away from bureaucracy. And meanwhile we’re growing bureaucracy in those areas. Uh, we’re putting layers and layers of of bureaucracy on it and nobody accountable, which is, of course, how bureaucrats like it. But basically it is very bad. I also want to say one other thing about, uh, why is it becoming more fragile? Not only are we shutting down reliable sources, trying to replace them with intermittent sources and. Raising the demand. We’re also doing this all sort of simultaneously and, uh, I the fragility will increase. I, I’d like to say increasing fragility. You see what is increasing fragility? Uh, in, in in my life, in my life, if I, if I have a, uh, plastic water bottle, if I substituted drinking from a, um, an antique wine glass, that would be increasing the fragility of my water drinking. Okay, it isn’t that the plastic can’t break or the wine glass. Well, it’s just easier to break the antique wine glass. And similarly, you know, even a very sturdy grid can fail in a in a major like hurricane. The major landfall hurricane. Okay. But what I find very annoying, and it shows me this fragility is increasing, is that we end up with rolling blackouts in California on hot summer evenings. Really? California never had some evenings before, uh, you know, and, uh, um. And some of the, uh, you know, everybody, as the winter season approaches, everybody’s like, do we have enough or are we going to get through it? There’s a warning from the grid operator, please cut back. And I’m like, we never had cold weather before. I mean, honestly, it’s zero degrees here. When I moved here from, uh, California, I have to admit, I moved here from California when I moved here from California and I wanted to put in a garden, I looked up the, uh, the growing area designations and discovered that I was in a designation where if I wanted a perennial plant, it better be hardy to -30 Fahrenheit. Okay, so that was one not. Are we surprised? Sometimes it gets down to -15 here. Of course not. But somehow or other we have set up the grid so that anything that’s not like 70 degrees and beautiful is a danger. And I get quite upset about that because people need electricity. And I could go into a whole ranch about that. But I’m not going to I’m just going to say that if electricity were to fail for a month in any area of the country, there would be a lot of deaths.
David Blackmon [00:07:37] Yes.
Armando Cavanha [00:07:38] It’s interesting because, she said fragility, taking unnecessary risks to the game. Irina. Please, um, could you please come with your point?
Irina Slav [00:07:49] Well, I don’t know if I could add anything to what they said. She’s she’s absolutely right. Uh, especially want to highlight a point she made about everything happening simultaneously. Not is only everything happening simultaneously. But, uh, hydrocarbon power plants are being retired faster than replacements are being built. Even though these replacements are not up to scratch compared to the retired plants. And if I may mention, Germany is a case in point. Uh, I just checked electricity maps before I came into the post podcast. Uh, right now, Germany is producing most of its electricity from wind. But just a couple of days ago, it was producing most of its electricity from coal. Uh, here in eco. I don’t know why.
Meredith Angwin [00:08:52] No, you actually, you sound good to me.
David Blackmon [00:08:54] That’s not happening to the rest.
Armando Cavanha [00:08:56] That’s good.
Irina Slav [00:08:56] Oh, okay. Just me. Uh. That’s fine. So just a couple of days ago, it was producing most of its energy electricity from coal. It had higher. Emissions intensity, then Poland. So when I.
Meredith Angwin [00:09:11] Feel that I.
Irina Slav [00:09:12] Do when the wind blows.
Meredith Angwin [00:09:13] Yes, I found that that was really quite, uh. There was a, uh, a tweet that showed the map, and I retweeted it because I was like, no, they finally gone and done it. And, you know, Poland is planning to go to nuclear because Poland doesn’t like being the bad boy of Europe in terms of carbon emissions. But anyway, go ahead. Irina, I just I’m sorry.
Irina Slav [00:09:39] That was basically it. There’s an illustration. Here’s Germany’s, um, uh, you know, Germany state of, uh, the grid is becoming more fragile, and you still need hydrocarbons. In this case, you need a lot more of them. You balance your grid.
Meredith Angwin [00:09:57] Well, you people imagine that, uh. The grid could be 100% renewables. And if you, uh, if you look at some grids that have a lot of hydro, it’s pretty close to true. But most places don’t don’t allow hydro to be considered a renewable. I mean, it’s kind of funny around here, but big hydro in, in New England, uh, big hydro, it’s not considered a renewable. Well, burning trash is considered a reuse.
Irina Slav [00:10:30] Why?
Meredith Angwin [00:10:31] Well, because because all these decisions are made by people who want to get their own system, their own money, into their own system, into the money. You see what I’m saying? It’s basically I’m not I’m not saying they’re wrong to do that. I mean, if you set up, that’s what, um, that’s what, uh, uh, Charlie Munger meant when he said, tell me the incentives and I’ll show you the results and I’ll tell you the results. So in other words, I don’t blame the people who are trying to get their systems into the incentive gravy train. I’m just saying that. Why did we set up an incentive gravy train when water from the sky is not considered renewable? But burning refuse is I don’t I mean, the you could argue that the any of them should be or that both of them should be, but it’s just kind of weird.
David Blackmon [00:11:34] Yes.
Tammy Nemeth [00:11:36] Meredith, can I just jump in here for a minute? Because you said that, you know, there’s many jurisdictions that want to make renewables or I would say unreliable wind and solar and batteries to run the whole grid 100% on that. And there’s a major left wing publication in Canada that on the weekend wrote, while it’s true that renewables weren’t giving the grid the necessary boost, and this is they were talking about Alberta last week, they actually said no one expects them to in the dead of winter. So here you have a major left wing and pro-environmental group that’s been pushing 100% wind and solar batteries forever, coming out and saying no one expects them to run the grid in the dead of winter. Well, then what is that? Because Alberta and Saskatchewan don’t have enough hydro to do anything, and then to say that wind and solar, no one expects it to to work in the when it when you need it is just bizarre.
Meredith Angwin [00:12:40] It is bizarre. And it’s, uh, it’s kind of, uh. A kind of a double thing, you know, where it one part of you believes that you’re going to go to a whole, uh, wind and solar grid. And the other part of, you know, that’s not possible, and you believe both. And you, you push toward the wind and solar, and every now and again you think, oh, it might not work, but it it is, it is, uh, it it is that the only thing. I can say for that is that it’s a step toward reason compared to the straight up hypocrisy. Uh, we are going to use wind and solar and it’s going to be great. You see what I’m saying? In other words, it at least they wrote something. No one expects them to. Okay. What do you expect us to do? Freeze! Oh, you actually, uh, you know, there are too many people in Alberta and Saskatchewan. No, they’re actually, they’re very. But but what I’m saying is that, um. You know it is a step up. From just playing. It’s going to happen and it’s going to be great. It’s going to be wind and solar and it’s going to be fabulous.
David Blackmon [00:14:04] Right. Yeah. I had a LinkedIn user make that argument to me yesterday, actually. And I told him, you know, by making that argument, you are tacitly admitting that solar is unreliable and wind is unreliable. You can’t count on them to to generate electricity when we need it the most during severe weather events, you know. And then the other thing that that argument by them tacitly admits is that loading up a grid with wind and solar power automatically forces ratepayers to fund and finance two separate grids, one grid that makes liberals feel better about themselves, and another grid that keeps the lights on when the weather’s bad. Okay. I mean, you can’t have this both ways, folks. You just. Yeah. And but you know, you can’t. But then they just automatically dismiss you and change the subject and call you a climate donor. And so the arguments over at that point.
Meredith Angwin [00:15:04] Well, it’s almost as if you’re talking about how to make the grid work. And when the people who say that’s 100% wind and solar power back into a corner, they just switch the subject to. We have to save the climate and just, you know, and of course, the trouble is that doesn’t work as well with me because, um, my first book was all about the importance of nuclear. So I go into nuclear and then they’re like, oh, no, we can’t have nuclear. The the waste lasts for such a long time. I say, well, actually, we’re fairly short time after I last forever a nuclear waste.
Armando Cavanha [00:15:48] Let’s turn the book.
Meredith Angwin [00:15:49] A couple thousand years or something. I mean, we’re terrible, so we’ve never encountered a waste that’s long lived. And they say, no, no, no, we’re used to waste. That is going to be there forever. Okay. We’re not used to waste that. You can put a time limit on even. It’s a long time limit. And then they go around and they’re like, oh she, she she’s really she’s nice. She’s just nuts, you know.
David Blackmon [00:16:13] Right.
Meredith Angwin [00:16:14] Because they answer to that.
Stuart Turley [00:16:17] Uh, Meredith, you’ve written, uh, I, I think you’re a national treasure, but, um, did I did I just say that? I’m sorry about that. But when we talk about the pricing models, uh, in your book, you talk about the balancing authorities, and you talk about how all of the pricing models nobody’s talking about, as David just said, he got in a fight or a discussion with somebody on LinkedIn. I got a couple discussions, uh, where they’re saying that renewables are cheaper. Um, and I’m like, time out, they’re buckshot. Um, when you taken the recommendation for a wind farm, I’ve found that the wind farms are never sustainable through fiscal responsibility. Uh, and that eight years is the max, that they could even survive on a fiscal with the tax and incentives. And then all of a sudden, the maintenance that’s even coming in beyond then they’re never going to last 20 years. They’re never going to last 30 years.
David Blackmon [00:17:16] No.
Stuart Turley [00:17:16] Um, but where do you see the pricing for reclamation ever coming in? Because it’s the rate payers. They’re going to have to pay for these things. And it’s not in accountability right now, but a 60 year, 70 year and 80 year nuclear reactor. Holy smokes. You can plan for that.
Meredith Angwin [00:17:39] Yes. No, I, I don’t know. I mean, you knew that nuclear, uh, reactors, um, uh, have to pay, uh, the government a certain, uh, amount per kilowatt hour that they generate. I think it’s a penny or something. And that is to go for taking care of the nuclear fuel. And also, uh, actually, there are two separate funds. One is for fuel and one is for decommissioning the plant. And the NRC is watching them to make sure that they put all that money in. And, uh, and, um, one of the things this was kind of interesting is that, um, a couple of years ago, uh, you know, the, the nuclear fuel thing is that the government said wouldn’t nuclear was set up. The government said, okay, you’re going to run the plants. But for nonproliferation and for other reasons, the government is going to, uh, enrich the fuel. So you’re going to get the fuel from somebody says the government is taking, uh, paying separately, you know, a company that enriches fuel. You’re going to get the fuel from them. And then when. When the fuel is spent, the government is going to take it away and put it in a repository. So you just build the plant and make the electricity, and others will be responsible for other parts of the fuel cycle, which is actually kind of reasonable if you think about it. You don’t usually have though. You can have a coal mine owned by the same company that owns the coal plant or whatever. I mean, they can be next door. But what the government had your decided this? Well, guess what, if the government never picked up the fuel and fuel and then and so the, uh, the, uh, the, the, uh, um. The plant owners, uh, kept the fuel on site in, in dry casks, which are very, very sturdy. I mean, you can hit them with a truck, you can hit them with a train, you can hit them with a rocket. They they they’re very sturdy. Okay. But nevertheless, that led to and I’ve seen it myself personally with my own eyes down here in Brattleboro, the idea that a nuclear fuel, uh, a nuclear plant, because it has the drive has storage on site is if it’s, um, a, uh, a fuel dump right here in our town, you see, it’s a fuel drop. And, uh, so. And then then, of course, they were going to they got another set up down in New Mexico, at which point the people began, uh, hiking around here saying, we don’t want to send our poisons down to the indigenous people in New Mexico. I mean, so anyway, you can’t keep it here and you can’t set it off, but, uh, you right, they do. So one of the things is a bunch of nuclear power plants got together and they sued the government, and they said, we don’t want to continue paying you. We’re not asking for our money back, but we don’t want to continue paying you a megawatt. If you’re not going to do anything with it, you’re not going to help us, you’re not going to live up to your obligation. And the court said, you know, you’re right. You don’t have to keep paying them. Well, all of a sudden, the whole thing about interim storage became very important to the government because all of a sudden there was a source of money, you know, that was going to disappear. And, uh, anyway, um, of course it wouldn’t have to disappear. They just pick up the fuel, but that they seem very unwilling to to do that. I, uh, very upsetting.
Armando Cavanha [00:21:39] Uh, let me before we go to the questions of Tammy on only a question from Brazil, because we have many Brazilians watching us at this time that matter that you probably not familiar with the grid in Brazil, of course, but we have more than 60% of hydro hydroelectric power in Brazil. It’s 60.
Meredith Angwin [00:21:59] Yeah, I. I’ve heard that. I’ve heard it,
Armando Cavanha [00:22:02] Yes. And it seems that the sources are becoming weak every day. Everyday. So, uh, what’s the degree of fragility we have? The fragility risk you can see in this system.
Meredith Angwin [00:22:16] I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand the question. You got 60% hydro. And what else do you have?
Armando Cavanha [00:22:24] Uh, is is too fragile. I mean, it’s too risky. The system with 60% of, uh, elec electric power.
Meredith Angwin [00:22:34] I wouldn’t think it would be terribly fragile, but, I mean, the the Pacific Northwest has always had a high percentage hydro and is very reliable, and so is, um, uh, so is, uh, Quebec, which has a lot of hydro. So I’m not sure. I think that if somebody comes and tells you that you hydro listen to what you want. What you want is wind turbines, uh, backed up by, um, by, uh.
Armando Cavanha [00:23:05] Natural gas.
Meredith Angwin [00:23:06] Natural gas. Then you going to end up with fragile. By the way, I think one of the things I think people should look at more, I mean, is, is, uh, Norway, I mean, I, I really this it’s an important, uh, bellwether. We’re all looking at, uh, Germany, which is totally messed itself up and said, well, we don’t want to follow that path, but Norway has a lot of hydro and a lot of gas, and the prices are going up like crazy, because all of a sudden everybody’s looking to Norway to save their grid. They put in, uh, the, uh, what is the Viking lines like? North Sea Line, all these, uh, all these extra, um, transmission lines to go to, uh, England to go to, uh, Denmark, to go to Germany and the. Norwegians are sitting around, especially in the southern part where all these lines, uh, originate. He’s going like, what the heck happened to our tricity, Bill? They’re huge. That’s because they’re now bidding against the Germans for electricity.
David Blackmon [00:24:09] Right
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:09] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:24:10] Oh, yeah.
Armando Cavanha [00:24:12] Yeah. Tammy! Sorry I interrupt to you. Yeah. Please go ahead.
Tammy Nemeth [00:24:16] So we have a few, um, comments from the audience. Um, David, would you like to read them out?
David Blackmon [00:24:22] Sure. Um. Cyrus. Brooks. Hey, Cyrus. Good to see you, man. Uh, I noticed that exactly everything is about climate, regardless, of course, until you talk nuclear. And then they talk cost. And, of course, talking about the arguments that renewables boosters make. I mean, it’s like clockwork, really, these, these these circular arguments. You get into these with these folks. Uh, Tyler Minix, Tyler, we haven’t seen your name before. Thank you for contributing. Cost is also a slippery term. There are lots of knock on effects for certain portfolio mixes. Those costs are not easily understood. Always. Yes. Uh, and sometimes that’s because the government doesn’t want them to be easily understood.
Meredith Angwin [00:25:04] I agree with that. I agree with that. It’s a very it’s the system is Quebec and that’s, uh, a feature of it from the government’s point of view, not a bug.
David Blackmon [00:25:14] It certainly is in Texas, that’s for sure.
Tammy Nemeth [00:25:17] Well, Meredith, you know, you mentioned Quebec, and I was speaking to, um, an energy analyst from Quebec, and he was making the case that they’re actually running out of electricity because there’s only so many more places that they could build more hydro dams. And they’ve committed so much for export, and they now want to switch everything that’s currently propane or natural gas or whatever to electricity, that this is really going to have a profound effect on their grid, uh, making it more difficult to, uh, fulfill the the contracts and commitments that they have for, for exporting electricity. So his case, was that okay? Yeah. They have a lot of good hydro, but it’s kind of maxing out. And in Canada, the regulatory process for constructing anything, whether it’s hydro or natural gas pipelines or whatever, takes an eternity. So if they’re already thinking, gosh, I don’t know if we have enough, uh, who knows when they could ever, uh, produce, create more hydroelectricity in order to, to fulfill their grid.
Meredith Angwin [00:26:24] In, in a general rule. Uh, everybody thinks of Quebec as having, you know, so much electricity. And yet when you get right down to it, uh, like many, uh, anyway, Quebec encouraged people to heat with electricity way back when. So, Quebec, an average person in Quebec, uses about three times the amount of electricity that the average person in New England uses because of electricity. And they’re not actually, uh, and, and it’s heating with electricity way back in the day. So they’re talking about resistance heating rather than, uh, um, uh, heat pumps so that that’s even worse. Uh, but when you get right down to it, if you begin looking at the grid in, in this neck of the woods, you will find that. Quebec exports electricity in the summer, but it’s already gotten to the point where it usually imports electricity in the winter. Yeah, it imports from, uh, Ontario, which has a very high percentage of, uh, of, uh, nuclear. And uh, Ontario is, uh, oh, you know, a wonderful study in a way, because, uh, you know, Ontario used to be all coal, and now they’re, they’re they’re mostly nuclear. They have a very, uh, clean grid, and they export to Quebec in the, in the winter. I mean, you gotta you kind of give these guys a lot of credit. And I do hope that you’ll have Chris Keefer on on this show at one point. You know, he he’s been very active in, in, in, uh, in nuclear for Canada. So at any rate, um, but, uh.
David Blackmon [00:28:18] We’d love to do that.
Meredith Angwin [00:28:19] Yeah, yeah.
David Blackmon [00:28:21] Uh, LinkedIn user. I don’t know who you are, but thank you for joining. Don’t forget about oil and gas. And Norway is electrifying its production mostly by hydro power paid down, which is thus stolen from the nation, of course. And that allows the oil and gas industry in Norway to claim that their production is perhaps the cleanest in the world. Say it’s all a shell game.
Armando Cavanha [00:28:42] Yeah, perfect.
Meredith Angwin [00:28:44] Well, I wanted to say a little bit about about, uh, electrifying production. I mean, I don’t, I don’t I haven’t studied Norway’s move in this regard. Uh, but I do know what the move in Texas and David Blackmon can probably join in here very quickly, but they electrified, uh, transmission. They electrified the, um, the pumping stations, uh, and, uh, and it’s to move natural gas. Okay. And oddly enough, when they began having rolling blackouts, all of a sudden some gas plants weren’t getting the gas. So they I think they fixed that. You can set up rolling blackouts so that certain areas are protected from them. And they just had done that about the pumping stations. But nevertheless, if you begin talking about how are you going to electrify everything and you’re going to electrify the source of your electricity, and then if you have an electricity problem, you got, uh, a expanding electricity problem, because we’ve seen that already in Texas.
David Blackmon [00:29:51] Could I add A couple more.
Armando Cavanha [00:29:52] interrupt you to show a very, very short video about electrification from Scott Thinker? Oh, good.
Scott Tinker [00:30:01] For plastics, molecules for fertilizers, ammonia for fertilizers. The world needs both. We’re not going to electrify everything. That was for plant.
Armando Cavanha [00:30:11] Sorry. Sorry. I’m sorry.
David Blackmon [00:30:13] So that it. Can I just add a couple of things to what Meredith said and also pose a question to her? Because I think we’re getting into a really ripe space here. First, I think the best news out of last week’s freeze event in Texas is that none of those gas plants froze up, right? None of that transmission froze up. And why is that? Because of all the work that’s been done since February 2021. Uh, Uri. Winter storm Uri, uh, and Ercot didn’t cut off the electricity at all those compressor stations and all those production stations and all those pipelines. And so the gas flowed. Uh, the gas plants stayed online. We had plenty of electricity in Texas to get through that freeze event, so that’s good. Um, the second thing is, though, about electrifying everything. Um, Sam Altman had WEF last week. And, Meredith, I wonder if you saw these comments he made about the need for a quantum leap in techno new technology for renewables in order just to accommodate the energy, uh, consumption needs of AI. Right? And that’s on top of charging millions and millions more electric vehicles. And that’s on top of everything else. So I wonder what you thought about those remarks from Ted.
Stuart Turley [00:31:29] Meredith, before we answer, I’d like to have a moment of silence for Greta Thunberg since she’s been thrown off and replaced by him. You know.
David Blackmon [00:31:42] One man.
Meredith Angwin [00:31:43] She’s, uh. She’s still around. You’re getting quite the, uh, the the eyeballs she used to. That’s that one. Uh, um. Getting back to the, uh, the question about AI, I think that’s a really important question, because what has been happening is that we have. Systems that can be run by the lowest form of energy, which is heat. What I mean by that is that heat is nothing but molecules moving fast. However, if it’s cold, they go slower. Actually, the same is true for me about when it’s cold at least. At any rate. So then this is not a very, um I mean, it’s useful, obviously. It keeps us warm. It can melt up, melt things to make things, uh, you know, and so forth and so on. But when you begin having people say, oh, we’re not going to use anything that just produces heat. Uh, we’re, uh, we’re going to use electricity for that, which is a very high level of, of, uh, energy. It can be used for so many different things. Okay. And it takes a lot of control. You know, you keep the the frequency, it’s the same rate you keep, the voltage is the same. You all of these things that are very different from just like, uh, the molecules are moving faster, at any rate. We’ve had all these people who, uh, have been pushing that we can’t use anything except electricity, uh, for heat. Okay. You know, your your car engine is basically a heat engine, but now it’s going to be an electrical engine. Your home is heated by a furnace. Now it’s going to be heated by a heat pump. We’re using electricity. You know, you’re you’re cookstove used to be natural gas, but nowadays it’s going to be, uh, electricity and so forth and so on. Um, but, uh. Then, now that we’ve got all these electricity, uh, plans, all the ways we’re going to use electricity to substitute for a lower level type of energy. There is a need for it to substitute for a very high level energy. That is elaborate. Um. Uh, computing. I mean, if you look at it, uh. The computing thing is gone in a kind of sine curve where first computers couldn’t do much, then big computers. You know, the Cray is going to do a lot, then great. Then little computers began to do as much as the big computers used to do. And now we feel out of the way where even little computers are going to be huge because we’ve got a new use for them. All of this is very high level energy and high level. I mean, it’s got a lot more than just a couple of molecules moving. It’s constrained. It’s usable in different ways, and it can be used in junk science anyway. So what I’m going to say is that if we’re going to go with AI and there’s not some kind of breakthrough on how much energy, uh, electricity, actually, we’re not going to be able to use electricity for all kinds of heat and heat engines at the same time. It’s just, uh, almost impossible to imagine.
David Blackmon [00:35:30] A simple Gen Gen Gen analysis using actual hourly Gen buy fuel. Time can show hundreds of hours of shortfall when removing dispatchable Gen with local fuel. Coal retirements are way too risky until the energy adequacy is demonstrated.
Meredith Angwin [00:35:47] I agree.
David Blackmon [00:35:49] I think I totally agree with that, yes. Thank you Tom.
Tammy Nemeth [00:35:53] Yeah. It’s like we’re replacing things. There’s like, we’re getting rid of stuff before there’s an adequate replacement there. And it’s like, if you have a job and you quit your job offer, you have another one lined up. It’s it’s a similar kind of situation.
David Blackmon [00:36:10] Uh, from SRB, would Meredith say a few words about natural gas supply to the New England region? In the USA, in particular, the purchase of LNG from non USA sources.
Meredith Angwin [00:36:23] Well, the the problem is very simply that we don’t put in pipelines. I mean, that’s the problem in a nutshell. We have a very large, um. Uh, natural gas ref reservoir not far from New England in the Marcellus. And, uh, there aren’t any pipelines to bring Marcellus gas to U. England. So without pipelines breaking Marcellus gas, you, England and New England is about 50% electricity is is, uh, natural gas and I think about 20% is imported. So, you know, those two are the big ones. Um, and there’s 20% more or less, uh, or from, uh, uh, nuclear, uh, though we’re very low on nuclear plants now with two left. But at any rate, um. I. I blame the Jones Act. Of course I do blame the Jones Act because it’s right there and it’s stupid and it’s easy to.
David Blackmon [00:37:33] It’s stupid. It’s so stupid,
Meredith Angwin [00:37:35] But the Jones act says that if you’re carrying a cargo of any kind between two U.S. ports, and if you pick it up on one board and you deliver it to another port, then that cargo has to be, uh, carried on a ship that was built in the U.S., staffed by people from the U.S. and carrying a U.S. flag. Well, it turns out that we are doing a lot of that building ship stuff in the U.S. anymore, and we certainly haven’t built any LNG carriers. So if LNG is delivered to the U.S., it is delivered by foreign flag carriers, and it is delivered from foreign countries, because even a foreign flag country carrier can’t go down to Texas and pick it up and deliver it to Boston, because then they would be violating the Jones Act. And I I’d like to say that I, I totally blame the Jones act, but I’m going to also say that the Jones act is just a. It’s a symptom of the fact that we we can’t build pipelines. We can’t build, um, we can’t build ships in the United States. High quality ships. Uh, and, uh, if you want to follow, um, uh, Jack Delaney’s, uh, vlogs, uh, about shipbuilding. Uh, I recommend it. Uh, he he worked for a shipbuilding company in Korea for many years. And, uh, anyway, so he he knows what he’s talking about, but, uh. Meanwhile, back to the LNG. Where’s it coming from? It’s coming mostly, um, from, uh, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela and it when you think about Venezuela, I’m going to tell you something funny and that is that, um, we have a small coal plant on the Merrimack River. It’s, uh, called Merrimack Station or the bow Bow Station because it’s in bow, New Hampshire. But anyway, um, I ran a course where we visited that coal plant, and it was really a revelation to me to be there and ask some questions. So I said, well, where does your coal come from? They said, well, we should get hard coal from Appalachia. Uh, but the seam that we got it from, it’s kind of worn out. So what we do now is we get some coal from Appalachia, and we get a whole bunch of coal from Venezuela by barge.
David Blackmon [00:40:18] Oh my God.
Meredith Angwin [00:40:20] Oh, because the thing is, I wish I didn’t. Actually, even though I work on pollution control from coal, I didn’t realize that a coal plant is often optimized for a certain kind of coal. Just like we find reason.
David Blackmon [00:40:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Meredith Angwin [00:40:37] And so, I mean, I knew refineries were, but I was like, okay, coal plants, you know, but, uh, at any rate, uh, they, uh, they, they can either blend various kinds of coal or they can get something equivalent to what they used to use from Venezuela.
Armando Cavanha [00:40:53] Man.
Tammy Nemeth [00:40:54] Well, Meredith, in your book, you talk about, um, what people can do. And I think this question is, is in line with, um, with, with things you’ve said in your book.
David Blackmon [00:41:06] So we know the information is out there in regards to how costly renewables are and how unreliable they can be. How do we get this messaging out to the general public?
Meredith Angwin [00:41:15] Oh, I have tried. I have written a whole book about messaging, about nuclear, and I just. You got to just keep moving and you got to write a letter to the editor. You got to be willing to debate. You got to ask your local TV station. Uh, I’ve been on so many local TV stations. I mean, yeah, but, uh, you know, because the thing is, you can’t. It would be lovely if the New York Times would interview me. It would be lovely if, uh, Amazon would say, hey, we got to talk to Meredith, but all I can do is local. And so, I mean, that’s as far I mean, my ideas are national and even international. My book is relevant nationally, but my actual reach, you know, my eyeballs tend to be more local, and everybody is, because I, uh, when I first began, uh, crusading, uh, campaigning for nuclear energy, uh, I worked with a guy named, uh, Howard Schaefer. He’s he’s really retired now, but, uh, he had worked with Vermont Yankee. And, uh, uh, at any rate, one of the things he said to me is you are credible where you live. Where you live. You are credible. So if you are willing to take a stand. Where you live, that will be a great help. If you’re willing to write a letter to the editor saying it isn’t been reported here. But did you notice that the grid was in deep trouble January 22nd or whatever or. Yeah, I you’ve got you have to do that or you can. It’s a matter of fact, in my own newspaper, I was writing so many letters to the editor and they said, you know, I think you should have an op ed every month. I said, God, actually, you know, but. You just kind of move up there by having being visible.
Stuart Turley [00:43:20] Ma’am. May I make a comment? Uh, Cyrus. Hey. Sorry to cut you off there. I love Cyrus, he’s a cool cat. Uh, Meredith, you have. You’ve inspired, uh, so many people. But it’s the podcast. It is Armando. It’s Tammy and Irina’s Substack. And, like, I mean, it’s, uh, David Blackmon’s, uh, it’s you writing the book. It is, uh, so officially the podcast. It’s the alternative media that is finally breaking through. And I mean, Irene, a sense of humor is an international marvel of being able to break through a light topic. Uh.
Armando Cavanha [00:44:03] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:44:03] Uh, so. But anyway, uh, am I out of it now?
Meredith Angwin [00:44:09] I don’t know.
Irina Slav [00:44:11] I’m only saying myself. I don’t want to just see myself.
Armando Cavanha [00:44:14] No, Because, uh, Stuart mentioned you didn’t have a so, so, um, so.
Stuart Turley [00:44:19] It’s about the narrative, and, uh, Meredith, you bring out a great point. We all have destiny. I never thought my podcast would have the worldwide reach that it does. The energy transition that morphed into the energy realities. You all don’t realize, the reach you’ve lost. So that was a fantastic question. I didn’t mean to cut off Cyrus before that question got asked. Yeah,.
David Blackmon [00:44:48] Cyrus Uh, another question for solar. One advocate argued that because solar is generally predictable, perhaps more than wind, certainly more than wind, even though it predicts it’s only from about 9 to 5, depending on the season. Yes. Uh, is there some truth in this or what are the real challenges with such solar? Is there a reasonable amount of solar that could add to the grid with other firm resources? Right. Good question
Meredith Angwin [00:45:13] Yeah, it’s a really excellent question. And when I talk about my perfect grid that you could build like anywhere, I tend to imagine uh, 60% of, uh, the uh, maximum power being provided by nuclear and then the uh, uh, load following, uh, being uh, a mixture of like nuclear, solar gas and so forth. Uh, but you have to understand that people will say there’s no such thing as baseload, but, um, almost every grid, 50 to 70% of the power is power that has to be there 24 seven. And, uh, I and this man is a servant. I did a beautiful a study of this for New York. I haven’t seen studies of it other places because the, the the word that there is no such thing is baseload is all you hear. So, yes, solar can be helpful in long following. Okay. I mean I think it can the the problem is that we, we only we would only want to have a maximum of like 40% of solar on the grid so that it would be also at the peak. Okay. Um, and 60%, uh, more reliable sources. And so solar would be pushing gas off the grid rather than pushing, uh, nuclear or whatever. Uh, I think solar, depending on the grid can be helpful. And I, I’ve often thought it could be more helpful than wind because wind of a wind can be a high percentage of the grid. It is absolutely available when it isn’t needed.
David Blackmon [00:46:59] Exactly. Yeah. Can I make one point about the saracen’s point about solar being more predictable than wind? My cat Max is more predictable than wind. Okay, so that’s a very low.
Meredith Angwin [00:47:14] And if you had a god, that would be. Very, very good.
David Blackmon [00:47:17] Yeah, absolutely.
Armando Cavanha [00:47:23] Uh, yeah. Your your. Your cat. What’s what’s the name of the cat? Max.
David Blackmon [00:47:26] Max. He’s a big boy. He’s a good boy. Uh, Joanna Friebo for Bele. I’m sorry FrieBell, I think. Do you think the big tech for. Terms of the world electric guzzlers. Yes, like Bitcoin, miners should provide their own SMR’s for their own power. What a great question.
Meredith Angwin [00:47:42] I think that would be a great idea. And I think many tech firms are looking into it because, you know, one thing is that depending on how high tech, huge what high tech think you’re doing, you really can’t afford an interruption in electricity. Yeah. And people don’t realize that, you know, in other words, if the power went out over here, I’d be like, oh, inconvenient man. If it was out for an hour, if I was a chip maker, it would be disastrous.
Stuart Turley [00:48:13] Yeah. David, I want to give a shout out to the Bitcoin mining, uh, that has helped EMP operators from making stranded natural gas that would have been flared, turning it into a revenue source for those folks to drive the price down lower. So Meredith’s point of having SMR’s for, uh, bitcoin miners is great. And data centers, they need that. But let’s also not just rule out Bitcoin miners for taking stranded, uh, energy sources and heat where it wouldn’t otherwise be used. So. Wow. I said something smart.
David Blackmon [00:48:54] You did?
Meredith Angwin [00:48:57] I mean, he’s great. Uh, he’s not much known outside this area, but he just wonderful, uh, studies of the grid in New England. And he he’s come on to say that the solar panels have been covered in snow for days out here.
David Blackmon [00:49:14] So when that doesn’t work, does it? That makes them less predictable, I think.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:18] Well, the solution in Canada is that that’s part of the just transition. And the oil and gas workers can be the ones who go out there and clear off the solar panels.
Irina Slav [00:49:28] Oh, what about those green jobs?
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:31] That’s a green job.
Irina Slav [00:49:32] Yeah.
Armando Cavanha [00:49:33] Yeah.
David Blackmon [00:49:34] Yeah, yeah, you can spray those solar panels down with antifreeze like they do to to, uh, unfreeze the wind turbines
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:42] Wind turbines. Which they use helicopters to do. Uh, well, they can have electric.
David Blackmon [00:49:46] Yeah.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:46] Yeah.
Stuart Turley [00:49:47] I got a comment for those guys wanting that as a green job. You first. I bet they wouldn’t get out of their mom’s basement.
David Blackmon [00:49:55] Yeah, I don’t have the clothes for it.
Tammy Nemeth [00:49:58] Here’s one more question from a LinkedIn user.
David Blackmon [00:50:01] Regarding heat production for district heating. What about using already irradiated nuclear fuel, not burned up to its regulatory and design limits from commercial like water power reactors? Holy moly. That’s beyond my Ken.
Meredith Angwin [00:50:16] Well, it would be useful. I’m just saying that the regulatory burdens of doing something like that are almost totally immense. I mean, I really didn’t want to go there, but I would say that, you know, that that if you what we do now is use nuclear fuel is, uh, is is kept in, um, water to cool off, uh, because it is quite radioactive, but it, you know, it it’s there could be a way for a water, water heat exchanger so that it was used for, um, district heating, but I don’t know. And I don’t think that it’s, uh, it’s not a low hanging fruit because that stuff is very radioactive for about three years.
Armando Cavanha [00:51:02] Yeah. That’s right. Stuart, could you please show, uh, the, uh, book covers again?
David Blackmon [00:51:11] Here We go. Uh, here’s your first one. Campaigning for clean air by the, uh, national treasure, Meredith Angwin. And then here is shorting the grid. And this one is really an eye opener. And I highly recommend it, because, uh, as you can tell, I have, uh, burned through the book incorrectly.
Tammy Nemeth [00:51:38] This look like my books with all the sticky notes. Oh my goodness.
Armando Cavanha [00:51:41] Uh. Very good, very good. Let’s go to the headlines.
David Blackmon [00:51:47] Oh, boy.
Armando Cavanha [00:51:53] Irina, please
Irina Slav [00:51:54] Yeah. So that’s, uh uh uh uh, race and Headland thing last week, was it? Anyway, uh, Europe’s energy project stalled before the finish line. Uh, utilities CEO says that’s the CEO of Google, the Portuguese utility. And his problem is that permitting takes too long. But basically. So the European Union has been trying has been talking about streamlining the permitting process for wind and solar, has been doing this for a couple of years now. And apparently, according to the CEO of valve, it still takes an eternity to go through the whole permitting process. Uh, I don’t know what’s going to happen, but after all the effort that the EU has put into streamlining, into shortening these procedures initially, these are still not happy. I don’t know what these people want, but they’re unhappy.
Meredith Angwin [00:52:56] And it’s a lot of that.
Armando Cavanha [00:52:58] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:53:01] This is my absolutely favorite. It’s an opinion piece. Let’s bear that in mind. Germany should go big on nuclear fusion energy.
David Blackmon [00:53:12] You don’t say.
Irina Slav [00:53:13] In this story, the author makes the argument that Germany has the R&D potential. To pursue nuclear fusion and make a breakthrough. From what I know about nuclear fusion, which is not a lot. It needs huge amounts of energy. There have been a couple of recent breakthroughs. One in the US, one in China, most recently, if I remember correctly. But, uh, it requires an immense amount of energy. How is Germany going to generate this energy that is necessary, assuming it can spare the money to invest in, uh, the tokamak to pursue this research and development? Uh, this is the answer that interest, uh, the question that interests me. But I suppose the author doesn’t have an answer. And let’s not forget that Germany just got rid of its last operating nuclear reactors. Germany does not like nuclear. Uh, what is the German government?
Stuart Turley [00:54:16] Well, they they led the world, Irina. So well on, uh, renewable energy. We ought to follow them off that cliff following fusion.
David Blackmon [00:54:26] Yeah.
Irina Slav [00:54:27] It’s just.
Stuart Turley [00:54:28] Vision.
Irina Slav [00:54:29] Uh, and the centric idea. That’s an amusing one. I thought
Tammy Nemeth [00:54:34] that’s a good one.
David Blackmon [00:54:36] And it’s crucial to point out that even with the breakthrough at Livermore Labs, it was announced in December of 2022 that that technology, as it’s being developed out there, Livermore is still 25 years into the future at best before commercialization. So. So people need to understand that.
Irina Slav [00:54:55] Yeah. That’s the that’s the the the refrain. When it comes to fusion, it’s always a couple of decades in the future. It takes a lot of time. It’s not going to solve anyone’s problems right now. It’s not going to.
Tammy Nemeth [00:55:08] That’s precisely right. I mean, what what what they can do in a lab is years and decades away from commercializing it or bringing it up to scale in that that’s just a given. But they make it sound like, oh my gosh, it’s right here. Why aren’t they just going harder?
Armando Cavanha [00:55:26] Uh huh. Um. This one’s David I suppose. Yes.
David Blackmon [00:55:31] Oh, yes. The micron story. Meredith. Um, I just love this story, because that’s micron wants to put this enormous chip building plant manufacturing plant in upstate New York. And the managers, the ISO out there comes in and says, well, you know, we love that opportunity, but we just don’t have enough generation on the grid right now to accommodate it. I mean, isn’t that kind of a comic becoming an increasingly common issue around the country now?
Meredith Angwin [00:56:02] I think it is. I mean, I, I, I don’t necessarily track it, per se, but, you know, uh, New York has a, um, has a chipmaking facility that they basically, uh, won a bid against, uh, New England to get and uh, uh, that was, uh, quite a few years ago. But, um, anyway, that’s uh, but yeah, yeah.
David Blackmon [00:56:30] I mean, it’s just it’s it’s so impossible really to bring all this manufacturing back home that we want to bring home when we’re we’re taking all the reliable generation and retiring it and replacing it with all this stuff you can’t predict and can’t rely on. Now, how are you ever going to accomplish that?
Meredith Angwin [00:56:47] Well, it’s a it’s like I say, it’s doublethink in one way. You say we want we want jobs and we want people to be employed and so forth. And then the other thing, we don’t want too much energy. Okay, fine. You’re not going to make you take your choice. Certainly you’re not going.
Armando Cavanha [00:57:05] Yeah. David, go and put your second.
David Blackmon [00:57:09] Uh oh. Well, I already brought that one up and that’s been asked and answered, but I just I just love that story. So awesome.
Armando Cavanha [00:57:16] Perfectly. So let’s go ahead, Stuart.
Stuart Turley [00:57:20] Oh, you can’t buy this kind of entertainment first. You know, the same. And, uh, went out and said, uh uh oh. By the way, um, we had, uh, lost billions of dollars, but, uh, he also goes out has something that was a great quote in there. Let me read this quote because it’s so good, you just can’t get it wrong. Um, I believe that for a while, customers need to accept higher pricing. And then they may there may be innovation about the weight of the blades and other efficiency methods and technology. So then the cost can go down. But the point is, if there’s no profit pool in an industry, why should that industry innovate?
Tammy Nemeth [00:58:09] Oh my God.
Irina Slav [00:58:12] He’s right. He’s absolutely right.
Meredith Angwin [00:58:15] Oh my God, why.
Irina Slav [00:58:16] Should they innovate? But wasn’t wind cheaper than anything else already?
David Blackmon [00:58:23] It isn’t. Yes.
Irina Slav [00:58:24] Why do you need higher prices?
Stuart Turley [00:58:27] That’s exactly point. That was exactly that great. LinkedIn’s question, that person’s question. The narrative is it’s always cheaper, it’s always cheaper, it’s always cheaper. But it’s because of the alternative folks, uh, getting the word out. Anyway, I really got a tickle out of this one.
Armando Cavanha [00:58:45] Yeah. Very good. Uh, the another one.
David Blackmon [00:58:49] Is this 80 so of people had died. And so my point for this, ah, this article was very simply, uh, we have a great national treasure that if you don’t design the grid, has said if you don’t design the grid correctly, people die. Uh, I believe that’s in a sub line in, uh, shorting the grid. And so you have to have a quality lead design grid anyway. Otherwise death happens.
Armando Cavanha [00:59:18] Yeah,.
David Blackmon [00:59:19] It’s kind of important.
Armando Cavanha [00:59:21] Oh, that’s. This is me. Uh, answer, trying to answer the last podcast question. Uh, yes. In Brazil, offshore wind has a rhythm of stability much more than other places in the world. Brazil ranks and fourth position. Wow. Wind energy. Yes. Strong. Uh, and the second is the following, uh, Brazil, where Petrobras is strongly thinking, analyzing, uh, investments in wind energy. Uh, uh, I would like to ask Stuart if you were Larry Fink and have $1 trillion to invest. How much would you invest in wind energy? Stuart, please.
Stuart Turley [01:00:03] Zero. Uh. Uh. Well, actually, let me let me back.
David Blackmon [01:00:08] On the subsidies, doesn’t it?
Stuart Turley [01:00:10] Uh, yes. Uh, I would actually, though, invest all in the carbon capture and carbon tax credits, because I believe that that is the best way to transfer wealth from Larry Fink to Larry Fink.
David Blackmon [01:00:26] Uh, without war as the middleman. Right. Oh.
Irina Slav [01:00:31] Through blended finance. Right.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:33] Right. Absolutely.
Armando Cavanha [01:00:37] Uh, thank you so much, Meredith.
Meredith Angwin [01:00:41] Um. And I’m happy beyond.
Armando Cavanha [01:00:43] Fantastic.
Tammy Nemeth [01:00:45] Thank you. Meredith. Thank you.
Meredith Angwin [01:00:46] Thank you.
Armando Cavanha [01:00:46] But I would like to conclude with, uh, 10s of video, and we finalize the process here. Uh, this, uh, this one from Scott Tinker that I love his thoughts.
Scott Tinker [01:01:00] Ands can live together. But if we remove doubt from science, it becomes religion.
David Blackmon [01:01:09] Touchdown.
Meredith Angwin [01:01:10] That’s great.
Armando Cavanha [01:01:12] We thank you so much.
Stuart Turley [01:01:14] Everybody on the hour and just played that 1 10 second clip. Well done. .
David Blackmon [01:01:20] That’s right. Okay. God bless.
Armando Cavanha [01:01:22] It’s a great pleasure. Thank you so much.
Irina Slav [01:01:26] Thank you Everyone.
Meredith Angwin [01:01:26] Thank you.
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