WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.080 --> 00:00:04.839 How'd you like to listen to dot NetRocks with no ads? Easy? 2 00:00:05.360 --> 00:00:08.560 Become a patron for just five dollars a month. You 3 00:00:08.599 --> 00:00:11.320 get access to a private RSS feed where all the 4 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:14.560 shows have no ads. Twenty dollars a month. We'll get 5 00:00:14.599 --> 00:00:18.440 you that and a special dot NetRocks patron mug. Sign 6 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:35.119 up now at Patreon dot dot NetRocks dot com. Welcome back, 7 00:00:35.200 --> 00:00:38.799 welcome back, Happy holidays to you, Happy New Year, and 8 00:00:39.000 --> 00:00:42.679 it's time for another amazing geek out first of the year, 9 00:00:43.079 --> 00:00:47.759 with yours truly and Richard Campbell. Mister Campbell, Hello, been 10 00:00:47.840 --> 00:00:50.359 working on this script for days and I am happy 11 00:00:50.359 --> 00:00:51.079 to be done. 12 00:00:51.520 --> 00:00:55.679 Yeah. Well, let's create a record of it, shall we? Yeah, 13 00:00:55.719 --> 00:00:56.640 why don't we. 14 00:00:57.200 --> 00:01:00.560 The Energy geek Out of twenty twenty four. But before 15 00:01:00.600 --> 00:01:02.799 we get started, I'm not going to do a better 16 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.640 NO framework. But I am going to roll the music, 17 00:01:05.719 --> 00:01:15.680 So do that. 18 00:01:14.400 --> 00:01:14.959 All right too. 19 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:17.519 Let's not a better NO framework, all right, And we're 20 00:01:17.560 --> 00:01:19.879 going to talk about the historical events for the year 21 00:01:20.000 --> 00:01:24.359 nineteen thirty one. Because one this is episode nineteen hundred 22 00:01:24.359 --> 00:01:29.719 and thirty one. So on January sixth Thomas Edison submitted 23 00:01:29.760 --> 00:01:31.480 his last patent application. 24 00:01:31.799 --> 00:01:32.799 I wonder how old he was. 25 00:01:33.120 --> 00:01:36.120 Yeah, I don't know. What do you think of Thomas Edison? 26 00:01:36.359 --> 00:01:38.040 Was he really like a kind of a thief and 27 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:42.280 a jerk? You know, he also created a lot of stuff. Yeah, 28 00:01:42.319 --> 00:01:47.200 so you get into a situation there, right, like, yes, 29 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:50.120 all of those things are true. Yeah, the whole battle 30 00:01:50.120 --> 00:01:53.760 between him and Tesla. Yeah, yeah, where he'd solved so 31 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.120 much in DC power, he'd figured out metering and billing 32 00:01:57.159 --> 00:01:59.439 systems and all this stuff, except for that part where 33 00:01:59.439 --> 00:02:02.879 you couldn' actually distributed very well, that was a minor detaility. 34 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:08.240 So I mean he literally orchestrated killing an elephant with 35 00:02:08.360 --> 00:02:10.879 AC power to meet people a frame. Remember, Like, that's 36 00:02:10.919 --> 00:02:16.319 not a nice guy, No, that's not no. And I 37 00:02:16.360 --> 00:02:18.039 also hear he stole a lot of patents and was 38 00:02:18.120 --> 00:02:18.719 kind of a jerk. 39 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:20.960 So but well, and that's sort of a running in 40 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:22.520 the act, Like who knows if he did or not? 41 00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:26.800 Oh maybe to eighty four. So he died in nineteen 42 00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:27.759 thirty one, all right. 43 00:02:27.840 --> 00:02:32.319 Continuing on February thirteenth, nineteen thirty one, New Delhi becomes 44 00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:36.199 the capital of India. February twentieth, the Congress of the 45 00:02:36.319 --> 00:02:40.400 United States approved the construction of the San Francisco Oakland 46 00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:45.319 Bay Bridge by the state of California. On March third, 47 00:02:45.360 --> 00:02:48.360 the United States adopts the Star Spangled Banner as its 48 00:02:48.479 --> 00:02:51.919 national anthem. And you thought it was all about the 49 00:02:51.960 --> 00:02:56.240 Revolutionary War, there you go. March nineteenth, gambling is legalized 50 00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:57.719 in Nevada, because why not? 51 00:02:58.000 --> 00:02:59.879 What else am I to do? 52 00:03:03.280 --> 00:03:06.840 Sit around and glow with the aliens. March twenty fifth, 53 00:03:06.840 --> 00:03:10.240 the Scottsboro Boys are arrested in Alabama in charge with rape. 54 00:03:11.199 --> 00:03:14.840 In March twenty sixth. On March twenty six Ho Chi 55 00:03:14.919 --> 00:03:19.479 Minh Communist Youth Union is founded in Vietnam. March thirty first, 56 00:03:19.479 --> 00:03:26.560 an earthquake destroyed Managua, Nicaragua, killing two thousand people. Also 57 00:03:26.759 --> 00:03:30.360 on that same day, twa flight five ninety nine crashes 58 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:34.520 near Bazaar, Kansas, killing eight, including University of Notre Dame 59 00:03:34.639 --> 00:03:40.319 head football coach Knute Rockney. There's a name for you. Canute. 60 00:03:41.039 --> 00:03:43.719 Wasn't Canute like one of the leaders of Sweden one 61 00:03:43.719 --> 00:03:44.360 of the Kings? 62 00:03:44.759 --> 00:03:48.240 Probably Norway? Yeah. 63 00:03:48.479 --> 00:03:51.919 April fourteenth, first edition of the Highway Code is published 64 00:03:51.960 --> 00:03:55.719 in Great Britain. May first, the Empire State Building is 65 00:03:55.719 --> 00:04:00.639 dedicated in New York City. May twenty ninth, Michelle's Scuru, 66 00:04:00.879 --> 00:04:03.280 a citizen of the United States, is executed by an 67 00:04:03.319 --> 00:04:08.800 Italian military firing squad for intent to kill Benito Mussolini. 68 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:13.080 June twenty third, Wiley Post and Harold Gaddy take off 69 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:16.560 from Roosevelt Field, Long Island in an attempt to circumnavigate 70 00:04:16.600 --> 00:04:19.759 the world in a single engine plane. And the reason 71 00:04:19.759 --> 00:04:23.120 why you haven't heard their names more pronounced than history 72 00:04:23.160 --> 00:04:26.879 is because they make it that happens. You know the 73 00:04:26.959 --> 00:04:32.439 keyword there is attempt attempt. July sixteenth, the Emperor of 74 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:38.519 Ethiopia called Emperor Hile Silassie signs the nineteen thirty one 75 00:04:38.560 --> 00:04:44.800 Constitution of Ethiopia called First Constitution of Ethiopia. July thirty first, 76 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:50.839 New York City experimental television station w two XAB now 77 00:04:50.879 --> 00:04:58.600 known as WCBSTV, begins broadcasts. August twenty fourth, France and 78 00:04:58.879 --> 00:05:04.319 the Soviet Union side a Neutrality no Attack treaty. August 79 00:05:04.399 --> 00:05:07.040 twenty eighth, France and the Soviet Union sign a treaty 80 00:05:07.160 --> 00:05:13.240 of non aggression. September eighteenth, the mukten incident gives Japan 81 00:05:14.079 --> 00:05:19.519 the pretext to invade and occupy Manchuria. October first, The 82 00:05:19.519 --> 00:05:22.240 George Washington Bridge, linking New Jersey in New York opens 83 00:05:22.920 --> 00:05:29.199 October seventeenth. Al Capone's convictive income tax evasion. October twenty fourth, 84 00:05:29.279 --> 00:05:34.639 George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic. November seventh, Chinese 85 00:05:34.680 --> 00:05:38.360 Soviet Republic is proclaimed on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. 86 00:05:40.079 --> 00:05:45.399 December ninth, the Constituent Cortes approves a Spanish Constitution of 87 00:05:45.480 --> 00:05:50.240 nineteen thirty one, which establishes the Second Spanish Republic. And finally, 88 00:05:50.279 --> 00:05:54.560 and I mean that, December eleventh, the Statue of Westminster 89 00:05:55.240 --> 00:05:59.680 Parliament of the United Kingdom British Parliament establishes legislative a 90 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:03.480 quality between the UK and the dominions of the Commonwealth 91 00:06:04.120 --> 00:06:11.680 of the Nation's Commonwealth, Australia, Canada, Dominion of newfound Newfoundland. 92 00:06:11.759 --> 00:06:13.399 I think that's what that means. 93 00:06:13.759 --> 00:06:16.680 That's it. That's all I got. You have anything to add? Yeah? Sure, 94 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:20.040 how about in nineteen thirty one, the very first commercial 95 00:06:20.079 --> 00:06:22.920 electric guitar went on sale or Rick and Baker A 96 00:06:23.199 --> 00:06:27.639 twenty two. Wow. You know we're in between Paul barth 97 00:06:27.680 --> 00:06:31.160 At African Baker and JOJ Bokche You know, there you go. 98 00:06:31.240 --> 00:06:32.160 That's another. 99 00:06:33.879 --> 00:06:38.360 Another example of things that we thought we being United 100 00:06:38.360 --> 00:06:41.079 States citizens, we thought we invented. You know, Les Paul 101 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:44.079 invented the electric guitar blah blah blah. He just kind 102 00:06:44.079 --> 00:06:44.800 of perfected it. 103 00:06:44.959 --> 00:06:47.279 Yeah, and this is the A twenty two was a 104 00:06:47.360 --> 00:06:50.480 lap steel guitar, right like the Yeah, a different, different 105 00:06:50.480 --> 00:06:53.920 style before you get into that, you know, semi hollow 106 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:56.560 body designs, those kinds of things like this is their 107 00:06:56.920 --> 00:07:00.160 early days nineteen thirty one. Yeah, very cool. As the 108 00:07:00.160 --> 00:07:05.199 first ballpoint pen, no kidding. Yeah, it wasn't Bick, was it. Nope? No, 109 00:07:05.279 --> 00:07:08.360 it was in the Auto Buddhapest See there you go. Yeah, 110 00:07:08.399 --> 00:07:10.839 all this time we thought Bick invented a ballpoint pen. 111 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:15.680 I think they may have scaled it substantially into everybody 112 00:07:15.680 --> 00:07:17.000 can have a ballpoint pen. They were not rare. 113 00:07:17.079 --> 00:07:19.360 And by the way, Bick is right down the street 114 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:21.839 from me. There you go, about an hour away. Okay, 115 00:07:21.879 --> 00:07:23.600 all right, shall we get started. 116 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:28.959 Yeah. I got a comment from last year's Energy geek out, Okay, 117 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:32.360 just around this time of year earlier. This comment comes 118 00:07:32.399 --> 00:07:34.560 from Pascal, who says, great show. I really enjoy the 119 00:07:34.560 --> 00:07:38.160 geek outs. I work for a virtual power plant company. 120 00:07:38.199 --> 00:07:40.800 In Canada, and i'd really like can know what Richard 121 00:07:40.839 --> 00:07:43.360 thinks about them. Do you think they're helpful to reduce 122 00:07:43.360 --> 00:07:45.639 the usage of peeker plants and do you think they're 123 00:07:45.720 --> 00:07:48.079 useful in general in the future. Thanks for all the 124 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:51.879 years of great content. I have a question, yes, sir, 125 00:07:52.120 --> 00:07:55.800 what is a virtual power plant? It's where you get 126 00:07:55.879 --> 00:07:59.560 virtual power, man, I guess so it's kind of like 127 00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:04.439 so here's the issue. The power industry is used to 128 00:08:04.480 --> 00:08:06.759 having a handful of very large power plants that they 129 00:08:06.839 --> 00:08:10.560 keep in synchronization and gear up and down to supply 130 00:08:10.639 --> 00:08:13.199 power is needed, and of course they're struggling in the 131 00:08:13.240 --> 00:08:16.040 modern day with more and more power demands and more 132 00:08:16.079 --> 00:08:19.600 and more variability, and so the business of virtual power 133 00:08:19.639 --> 00:08:23.240 plants grew up around being able to provide power to 134 00:08:23.279 --> 00:08:27.279 the utility based on resources that are small. So this 135 00:08:27.399 --> 00:08:30.959 is mostly a software problem, right. This is the ability 136 00:08:31.000 --> 00:08:35.759 to do things like run backup generator plants or little 137 00:08:35.840 --> 00:08:38.240 run of the river hydro electric like all these little 138 00:08:38.240 --> 00:08:41.720 power generations, small scale wind, that kind of thing that 139 00:08:41.799 --> 00:08:45.480 isn't necessarily directly controlled by the big utilities and may 140 00:08:45.519 --> 00:08:47.440 distribute power in a bunch of different ways, and has 141 00:08:47.440 --> 00:08:49.679 this ability to provide this sort of flexible load. 142 00:08:49.960 --> 00:08:54.000 So it's kind kind of like a proxy or a collection. 143 00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:57.879 Yeah, you're right, it's an entity. You know, this is software, 144 00:08:57.919 --> 00:09:01.159 mostly software to be able to in okay, turn those 145 00:09:01.159 --> 00:09:05.159 things on, connect them to the grid, let the utility 146 00:09:05.200 --> 00:09:07.600 know here they are. It's even more interesting when you 147 00:09:07.639 --> 00:09:09.919 talk about things like maybe vehicle to grid. You got 148 00:09:09.919 --> 00:09:11.840 an electric car, we make you a deal where you 149 00:09:11.960 --> 00:09:14.240 leave it plugged in, we charge your lower rate, but 150 00:09:14.320 --> 00:09:15.960 once in a while we're going to take power from 151 00:09:16.039 --> 00:09:18.799 the car because the grid's in trouble. I've even seen 152 00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:20.919 versions of this with just being able to turn down 153 00:09:21.080 --> 00:09:25.200 thermostats for heat or turn them up for cooling, because 154 00:09:25.679 --> 00:09:28.240 if you're able to do that on mass you can 155 00:09:28.320 --> 00:09:32.120 actually make a dent in power consumption. So, like I said, 156 00:09:32.200 --> 00:09:35.600 it's mostly a software problem. It's these distributed energy resources 157 00:09:35.639 --> 00:09:39.399 and being able to coordinate them. Now some energy companies 158 00:09:39.399 --> 00:09:41.320 are getting more savvy to this and being able to 159 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:44.440 do it. So, you know, to Pascal's question like what 160 00:09:44.519 --> 00:09:46.039 do you think they're going to look like in the future, 161 00:09:46.080 --> 00:09:49.840 it says, I think this is an interim stage where 162 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:52.960 the power companies are sort of catching up with essentially 163 00:09:53.039 --> 00:09:59.039 Internet technology distributed peer to peer mindsets and what their 164 00:09:59.080 --> 00:10:01.399 consumers are actually using them, what they're able to produce. 165 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:05.360 So in theory this should all consolidate someday. But you know, 166 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:10.240 the VPP appeared because it served serves a problem that 167 00:10:10.320 --> 00:10:13.559 exists today. Okay, So, Pascal, thank you so much your commentating. 168 00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:14.799 A copy of music code by It is on its 169 00:10:14.799 --> 00:10:16.360 way to you, and iview'd like a copy of music 170 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:18.000 code by. I write a comment on the website at 171 00:10:18.000 --> 00:10:19.919 don at Rocks dot com or on the Facebook. We 172 00:10:19.960 --> 00:10:21.440 publish every show there, and if you comment there and 173 00:10:21.480 --> 00:10:23.159 every reading on the show, we'll send you a copy 174 00:10:23.159 --> 00:10:23.919 of music Code. 175 00:10:23.759 --> 00:10:26.080 And you can also get yourself a copy of music 176 00:10:26.120 --> 00:10:30.360 to code By by getting us on the social media 177 00:10:30.360 --> 00:10:34.320 as we've been on ex Twitter forever at Carl Franklin 178 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:36.879 at Rich Campbell, and we're on blue Sky at those 179 00:10:36.919 --> 00:10:41.960 same handles, and also Masidon. I'm at Carl Franklin at 180 00:10:42.000 --> 00:10:43.360 tech dot Social. 181 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:45.519 And am Rich Campbell at masson social. There you go. 182 00:10:46.120 --> 00:10:51.120 So where did we start this long journey? Oh my goodness, friend, 183 00:10:51.279 --> 00:10:53.720 let me tell you. I A few things have happened 184 00:10:53.720 --> 00:10:56.960 this past year that were interesting for me. You know, 185 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:00.879 I've been doing versions of this geek out at conferences 186 00:11:00.919 --> 00:11:03.320 in an hour, and I tend to tune it to 187 00:11:03.480 --> 00:11:06.919 the local country that I'm in, sure, right, So I've 188 00:11:06.919 --> 00:11:09.000 talked about Portugal, and I've talked about the UK and 189 00:11:09.039 --> 00:11:12.559 talked about Norway and New South Wales and so on, 190 00:11:13.320 --> 00:11:14.960 which is really fun, you know. I get to read 191 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:18.080 government documents about power generation all the different places, like 192 00:11:18.159 --> 00:11:21.279 I have a weird version of fun. But I also 193 00:11:21.399 --> 00:11:25.840 ended up writing this year or in by the first 194 00:11:25.879 --> 00:11:28.320 time I did it was in August, was strictly an 195 00:11:28.360 --> 00:11:32.360 hour on nuclear power alone, just because it was it 196 00:11:32.399 --> 00:11:35.679 was only getting a few minutes in the general energy conversation, right, 197 00:11:35.879 --> 00:11:38.320 and folks wanted to know more. And my timing was 198 00:11:38.399 --> 00:11:40.519 right because suddenly all the tech giants jumped on to 199 00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:44.480 being interested in nuclear power too. Oh sure for cloud 200 00:11:44.639 --> 00:11:47.279 based AI stuff. Yeah, they want to build more data 201 00:11:47.279 --> 00:11:49.240 centers in the grid can support and so they're looking 202 00:11:49.279 --> 00:11:54.080 for more power availability, and so my knowledge jumped and 203 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:57.200 digging into that. But I work, you know, a lot 204 00:11:57.240 --> 00:11:58.440 of the work that I do on these end of 205 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:01.000 year geek outs ends up showing throughout the year and 206 00:12:01.039 --> 00:12:04.519 other content, and so this is My deepest dive is 207 00:12:04.559 --> 00:12:07.600 really reading up on all the latest and going over 208 00:12:07.799 --> 00:12:13.120 the IA's documentation and a number of other sources and 209 00:12:13.120 --> 00:12:16.399 onclude the links to where my readings for all of this. 210 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:19.159 And there's a few things that are really important, and 211 00:12:19.159 --> 00:12:22.200 one of the most that impacts energy across the board 212 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:24.799 is that the cost of money went up in the 213 00:12:24.840 --> 00:12:29.639 past year or so. The side effect of inflation was 214 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:33.080 raising of interest rates to counter that, and so suddenly 215 00:12:33.200 --> 00:12:34.960 lending policies have shifted. 216 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:37.480 You're not talking about just the United States because that 217 00:12:37.600 --> 00:12:39.639 was my experience here, but it's worldwide. 218 00:12:39.679 --> 00:12:43.080 Did interest rates go up worldwide everywhere? Yes? Absolutely? And 219 00:12:44.679 --> 00:12:45.600 would you say. 220 00:12:46.039 --> 00:12:48.200 America was the cause of that or were they just 221 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:50.559 a victim of globalization. 222 00:12:50.919 --> 00:12:54.240 It is normal economic policy, at least in the West, 223 00:12:54.519 --> 00:12:59.679 to counter inflating prices with an increase in interest rate 224 00:13:00.039 --> 00:13:04.039 and slow that down, which appears to have worked. Inflation 225 00:13:04.120 --> 00:13:08.000 rates have dropped. Admittedly prices haven't dropped and won't like 226 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:10.039 that's not generally a thing. In fact, it's dangerous to 227 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:12.679 try and reduce prices. That creates a thing called stagflation, 228 00:13:12.759 --> 00:13:16.679 which this is not the economic s geek outside you know, yeah, yeah, Yeah. 229 00:13:16.720 --> 00:13:19.720 Stagflation is what happens when people have money but don't spend. 230 00:13:19.440 --> 00:13:21.279 It right, Because if you think prices are going to 231 00:13:21.320 --> 00:13:23.919 go down, why wouldn't you wait right? Right? And that's 232 00:13:23.960 --> 00:13:26.840 just it's too dangerous to do that, right, So it 233 00:13:26.919 --> 00:13:29.600 makes more sense to have incomes rise to meet the 234 00:13:29.639 --> 00:13:32.039 current cost of them. Okay, again, this isn't it not 235 00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:34.960 an economic This is an energy show. Yes, but it 236 00:13:35.039 --> 00:13:39.480 had a big impact on energy because energy projects use 237 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:41.759 a lot of money. They do a lot of borrowing 238 00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:44.480 based on future returns. You spend a lot to build 239 00:13:44.480 --> 00:13:47.799 out infrastructure to generate electricity, and then you make it 240 00:13:47.840 --> 00:13:52.080 back over time. And these are expensive projects that can 241 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:54.559 easily go into cost overruns, and so the cost of 242 00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:58.440 borrowing is a sensitive thing, which is interesting. The interesting 243 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:00.639 part of this is also that you have the bank behavior. 244 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:02.639 There's one of those things where it's like, if you 245 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:05.440 owe the bank one thousand dollars, you have a problem, 246 00:14:05.720 --> 00:14:07.840 but if you own the bank a million dollars, the 247 00:14:07.879 --> 00:14:11.919 bank has a problem. Yeah. So, where when cost of 248 00:14:11.960 --> 00:14:14.919 lending was low and you could had rapid turnover, building 249 00:14:14.960 --> 00:14:16.840 small power projects made a lot of sense. It was 250 00:14:16.879 --> 00:14:18.559 cheap to borrow of the money, the returns were quick, 251 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:21.200 you could pay it down off you go right, and 252 00:14:21.320 --> 00:14:25.799 big projects struggled more. But now with the cost of 253 00:14:25.879 --> 00:14:29.240 lending being higher, big projects in some ways are protected 254 00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:32.960 because once you've borrowed a billion dollars for a project, 255 00:14:33.159 --> 00:14:35.120 you're kind of not willing to walk away from it. 256 00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:37.600 The bank's days in there's more money lens. In some ways, 257 00:14:37.639 --> 00:14:39.720 big projects are because they have these huge budgets are 258 00:14:39.720 --> 00:14:40.480 harder to cancel. 259 00:14:40.600 --> 00:14:44.240 You know, we we can't talk about the economics of 260 00:14:44.360 --> 00:14:50.480 energy without talking about what's expected to happen with the 261 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:58.519 next American presidency in America anyway, we anticipate that the 262 00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:02.399 cost of goods, you know, at your local best buy, 263 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:06.000 you know, Chinese made goods for example, is going to 264 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:10.039 go up. And so what do we do today? Just today, 265 00:15:10.399 --> 00:15:13.320 Kelly and I placed in order for a brand new 266 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:17.200 stacked washer and dryer because we needed a new one 267 00:15:17.879 --> 00:15:20.840 and we aren't going to wait. So the kind of 268 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:21.600 the time is now. 269 00:15:21.720 --> 00:15:24.000 Yeah, it's an interesting question of is that things are 270 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:26.000 things going to get cost more, costs less? It's hard 271 00:15:26.039 --> 00:15:29.360 to know, and so yeah. 272 00:15:29.080 --> 00:15:31.559 It's true, and it really is only going to be 273 00:15:31.600 --> 00:15:35.080 a problem if the tariffs go into effect because he's 274 00:15:35.200 --> 00:15:37.639 kind of using them as a threat right now. 275 00:15:37.720 --> 00:15:40.440 It seems like bullying to me, certainly from the Canadian 276 00:15:40.519 --> 00:15:44.759 side of things. But the issue here is project A 277 00:15:44.759 --> 00:15:47.000 lot of projects have shuffled, and it's not that unusual 278 00:15:47.039 --> 00:15:50.240 for power projects to have problems because they're expensive and 279 00:15:50.240 --> 00:15:55.000 they're large and so. And the one of the things 280 00:15:55.039 --> 00:15:57.559 I think that now that money has started to cost more, 281 00:15:58.279 --> 00:16:04.320 we're seeing that the small that new generation technologies like 282 00:16:04.559 --> 00:16:06.799 solar and wind, which are very granular you don't have 283 00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:08.480 to build the whole thing all at once. You can 284 00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:11.759 build just a portion of it, start generating money, and 285 00:16:11.840 --> 00:16:15.879 then add more to it over time, really benefited from 286 00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:20.159 low cost money, and the bigger projects didn't near as much. 287 00:16:20.279 --> 00:16:21.799 You know, you kind of have to build a whole 288 00:16:22.279 --> 00:16:24.320 nuclear power plant before it makes any power at all, 289 00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.759 and it's very difficult to build those. And the other 290 00:16:27.799 --> 00:16:30.480 part of this, it's become really interesting. And why these 291 00:16:30.480 --> 00:16:33.120 bigger plants are becoming more interesting when money costs more 292 00:16:33.639 --> 00:16:37.600 is that bigger plants tend to be more efficient. Sure, 293 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:42.600 so this idea in power generation called capacity factor, which 294 00:16:42.679 --> 00:16:44.799 essentially is like you're at one hundred percent capacity factor 295 00:16:44.799 --> 00:16:47.279 if you're running full power all over the time, right, 296 00:16:47.440 --> 00:16:51.639 and traditional power plants still need maintenance, So they talk 297 00:16:51.720 --> 00:16:55.360 about like what's the relative you know, utilization of it. 298 00:16:55.399 --> 00:16:59.279 A coal power plant back in the day when fifty 299 00:16:59.279 --> 00:17:02.120 to sixty percent of capacity factor that was considered good. 300 00:17:02.440 --> 00:17:05.720 The funny thing is has to become less popular and antiquated, 301 00:17:05.720 --> 00:17:08.680 their efficiency goes down and so their utilization is getting lower. 302 00:17:09.160 --> 00:17:12.880 That top of the line combined cycle natural gas plant 303 00:17:12.960 --> 00:17:15.240 sort of you're sort of go to plant if you 304 00:17:15.279 --> 00:17:19.880 want to make electricity quickly today is just under sixty 305 00:17:19.880 --> 00:17:22.880 percent efficient. Even a hydro electric dam. You're sort of 306 00:17:22.880 --> 00:17:27.480 the largest class of non carbon producing electricity thirty to 307 00:17:27.480 --> 00:17:30.400 fifty percent efficient. And this the want to I'm going 308 00:17:30.440 --> 00:17:34.920 to go back to this capacity factor issue as we 309 00:17:34.960 --> 00:17:36.880 talk about different methods, like I'm not going to talk 310 00:17:36.920 --> 00:17:39.519 a lot about hydro and coal and things. I'm going 311 00:17:39.559 --> 00:17:42.200 to talk about more of the newer stuff because these 312 00:17:42.240 --> 00:17:45.119 capacity factors come into play. So, I mean, let's start 313 00:17:45.160 --> 00:17:49.640 with solar, because solar had an unbelievably good year in 314 00:17:49.640 --> 00:17:53.799 twenty twenty four. It is staggering how much dolar soolar 315 00:17:53.799 --> 00:17:58.000 are installed, Almost six hundred gigawatts of new solar this 316 00:17:58.000 --> 00:18:00.240 this past year. I was I was one of them. 317 00:18:00.359 --> 00:18:03.200 Yeah you're not alone, right, which was like a twenty 318 00:18:03.200 --> 00:18:05.960 percent increase. Again, it was four hundred and sixty and 319 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:09.000 twenty three. It was two hundred and fifty and twenty two. 320 00:18:09.960 --> 00:18:12.279 More than half of what installed in twenty four was 321 00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.359 just in China. China was like an inexcessive half. And 322 00:18:15.359 --> 00:18:18.359 then the next four that represent about a third. Again 323 00:18:18.440 --> 00:18:21.880 where the US, India, Germany and Brazil and the IA 324 00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:25.279 talks about there's more than seven million people working in 325 00:18:25.319 --> 00:18:31.000 photovoltaics now, so that's between the manufacturing, distribution, all the 326 00:18:31.000 --> 00:18:34.440 production elements, and then the installations. This is both commercial 327 00:18:34.519 --> 00:18:38.160 as well as residential. It's a huge, huge business and 328 00:18:38.200 --> 00:18:41.880 it attracts a lot of talent. Australia has the highest 329 00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:47.240 amount of photovoltaic per capita. A. It's a low populated country. B, 330 00:18:48.319 --> 00:18:50.839 it has huge power demands and limited options, and it 331 00:18:50.880 --> 00:18:52.559 has a lot of sunlight, so they have one of 332 00:18:52.559 --> 00:18:55.839 the highest levels of residential solar anyway, you know, the 333 00:18:55.920 --> 00:18:59.519 number two is would be unexpended by kapita the Netherlands. 334 00:19:00.000 --> 00:19:04.400 Oh and again these like dense country windmills, right, and 335 00:19:05.119 --> 00:19:06.759 not a lot of area to cover and so forth. 336 00:19:06.839 --> 00:19:08.880 It was easy to put some solaring very quickly, and 337 00:19:08.920 --> 00:19:12.319 they did. But the capacity factors on solar are not 338 00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:15.440 that great. You know. You know that a given panel 339 00:19:15.480 --> 00:19:17.680 can generate a certain number of watts, but it doesn't 340 00:19:17.880 --> 00:19:20.359 all of the time. You know, depending on where you live, 341 00:19:20.400 --> 00:19:22.200 you're going to only get a ten to twenty five 342 00:19:22.200 --> 00:19:25.160 percent capacity factors. Yes, why we tend to overbuild solar 343 00:19:25.200 --> 00:19:26.720 just when we have it, we have lots of it. 344 00:19:26.839 --> 00:19:30.200 It's what makes variability. I think I told you Richard 345 00:19:30.400 --> 00:19:30.920 last year. 346 00:19:31.559 --> 00:19:34.000 We had just put our solar panels on when we 347 00:19:34.000 --> 00:19:37.200 did the energy geek out, and we went with a 348 00:19:37.240 --> 00:19:42.680 company that had a very interesting deal. So the government 349 00:19:42.759 --> 00:19:44.880 will give you subsidies if you want to buy solar 350 00:19:44.920 --> 00:19:47.960 panels and install them. You get some tax breaks and 351 00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:50.640 all that kind of stuff. We went with a company 352 00:19:50.759 --> 00:19:54.680 that says, no, we're going to take those benefits and 353 00:19:54.960 --> 00:19:59.319 we're going to lease the panels to you at a 354 00:19:59.359 --> 00:20:03.400 flat rate, which is going to come in under your 355 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:09.519 average electricity bill, way under it, right, and you basically 356 00:20:09.559 --> 00:20:12.400 you're the whole goal is that your bills will go 357 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:16.079 down to practically nothing. But you will have this fixed 358 00:20:16.799 --> 00:20:22.039 you know, monthly fee for twenty five years, and. 359 00:20:22.079 --> 00:20:23.640 It basically replaces your power bill. 360 00:20:23.680 --> 00:20:26.319 It replaces the power bill. And the thing I like 361 00:20:26.359 --> 00:20:29.839 about I don't know what happens in Canada, but down here, 362 00:20:30.480 --> 00:20:34.519 our power company can just make up whatever fees they want. 363 00:20:35.160 --> 00:20:37.400 You know, when you look at the bill. They raised 364 00:20:37.440 --> 00:20:40.880 the rates, they doubled the rates last year, last January, 365 00:20:41.880 --> 00:20:47.519 and they also add other fees as they want, and 366 00:20:47.599 --> 00:20:49.839 so you could end up with you know, one thousand, 367 00:20:50.000 --> 00:20:54.599 two thousand dollars monthly power bills and there's nothing you 368 00:20:54.640 --> 00:20:55.200 can do about it. 369 00:20:55.240 --> 00:20:58.640 Yeah. Generally, with regulated sources, they have to apply to 370 00:20:58.720 --> 00:21:02.000 the regulator to add fees where the regulator to proves 371 00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:04.160 them there they are. And you said there's not machine doo. 372 00:21:05.160 --> 00:21:07.240 So this was a good deal for us. Yeah, and 373 00:21:07.319 --> 00:21:09.160 it seems to be a fairly common model. Again, it's 374 00:21:09.160 --> 00:21:12.559 just playing games with how you lend money. Right. There's 375 00:21:12.559 --> 00:21:15.839 an upfront cost then dispersed over time based on the yield. 376 00:21:15.920 --> 00:21:19.480 And it shows the confidence in this system now that 377 00:21:19.720 --> 00:21:22.200 lenders are willing to put money into that system knowing 378 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:26.359 they're going to get a return over decades. Literally decade, 379 00:21:26.920 --> 00:21:29.119 and the solar panel business actually got really interesting this 380 00:21:29.200 --> 00:21:31.920 year because we're starting to finally have some breakthroughs in 381 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.920 improving panel efficiency. So we've been living on monocrystaline panels 382 00:21:36.960 --> 00:21:41.400 are the most popular kind by far. They're they're relatively expensive. 383 00:21:41.400 --> 00:21:43.480 There are thin film and pol crystalines that are cheaper, 384 00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:47.160 but they're slightly more efficient. The best thin films coming 385 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:51.240 at about twenty percent efficiency and the monocrystals are as 386 00:21:51.279 --> 00:21:53.880 high as twenty two. And then you get into some 387 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:56.319 weird options, right, there's some focus and so forth, but 388 00:21:56.359 --> 00:21:58.720 they all have questionable yields. But we've been talking about 389 00:21:58.799 --> 00:22:02.720 Proov's guide solar panels for years and years and year 390 00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:06.720 robs and the problem with perovskites, this is a particular 391 00:22:06.799 --> 00:22:10.759 kind of crystal growth is they are efficient, like they 392 00:22:10.799 --> 00:22:14.400 absorb more of the energy from the sunlight, but they 393 00:22:14.440 --> 00:22:17.599 don't last. They're fragile. The only way you make a 394 00:22:17.640 --> 00:22:19.640 deal for twenty five years in your solar panels is 395 00:22:19.680 --> 00:22:21.599 if you have a fairly good expectation at twenty five 396 00:22:21.640 --> 00:22:24.240 years and now those panels will still work. That being said, 397 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:28.079 Oxford PV has built a hybrid cell that is now 398 00:22:28.160 --> 00:22:31.240 actually for sale they're starting to install them into commercial 399 00:22:31.279 --> 00:22:35.200 solar sites that are running about twenty seven percent efficient, 400 00:22:35.559 --> 00:22:37.440 which that's not a good way to describe how much 401 00:22:37.480 --> 00:22:39.440 better these are. The better way you say, is twenty 402 00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:44.799 percent more efficient than monocrystaline panels. They say they've perfected 403 00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:49.640 a manufacturing technique to protect them from wear and decay, 404 00:22:49.839 --> 00:22:52.680 so they don't wear any faster than the monocrystaline, which 405 00:22:52.759 --> 00:22:55.200 all of these things do wear. They lose about one 406 00:22:55.319 --> 00:22:59.279 or two percent per year. They think we'll only know 407 00:22:59.559 --> 00:23:01.680 twenty five years from now for sure if these proscuts 408 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:03.079 are really going to last that long. But they they're 409 00:23:03.119 --> 00:23:05.440 pretty confident enough that they're actually putting it on the market, 410 00:23:05.960 --> 00:23:08.519 and they say they can improve efficiency further, they can 411 00:23:08.519 --> 00:23:11.480 get over thirty percent and what did what did you say? 412 00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:15.160 How that did they improve their durability or something? 413 00:23:15.359 --> 00:23:18.160 That's they they're confident that they've got they've solved the 414 00:23:19.680 --> 00:23:21.920 durability problem. Okay, they've come up with new ways to 415 00:23:21.960 --> 00:23:24.920 seal the material to stop it from decaying, so it 416 00:23:24.960 --> 00:23:28.680 should last enough that they have made it into commercial products. 417 00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:31.519 So and they're selling it not in residential sites so far, 418 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:35.559 just to commercial Okay, Well, there's the red well. I mean, 419 00:23:35.559 --> 00:23:38.359 commercial states tend to be on the ground standard layout, 420 00:23:38.599 --> 00:23:41.400 like very conventional and good to selling into the grid 421 00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:43.319 as opposed to residential, which is get figured more for 422 00:23:43.359 --> 00:23:46.400 just replying power to your house right right. Solar panel 423 00:23:46.440 --> 00:23:48.759 recycling has continued to expand. Last year I talked about 424 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:51.519 a company called solar Cycle in Texas who was able 425 00:23:51.559 --> 00:23:56.200 to take existing solar and use solar panels, take the 426 00:23:56.240 --> 00:23:58.960 metals off of them, cut the glass away, grind down 427 00:23:58.960 --> 00:24:01.079 the substrates so forth, pretty much be able to reuse 428 00:24:01.119 --> 00:24:04.200 the whole thing. They've opened additional facilities. Now they've got 429 00:24:04.240 --> 00:24:07.799 another facility in Georgia. They're also signing agreements with solar 430 00:24:07.839 --> 00:24:12.640 power companies both to take used panels and recycle them 431 00:24:12.680 --> 00:24:15.799 and to sell out materials those recycled materials back to 432 00:24:15.839 --> 00:24:18.119 the solar panel companies to make new panels with it. 433 00:24:18.799 --> 00:24:22.079 So we're heading towards this idea of a circular economy 434 00:24:22.079 --> 00:24:25.039 with solar panels. It's not a bad thing where a 435 00:24:25.160 --> 00:24:27.480 certain percentage of the material in a solar panel came 436 00:24:27.519 --> 00:24:28.839 from a previous generation solar. 437 00:24:29.079 --> 00:24:34.359 Yeah, are there any minerals or rare earth things that 438 00:24:34.480 --> 00:24:38.519 need to be mined to go into your typical solar. 439 00:24:38.160 --> 00:24:42.799 Panel, not very much. It's mostly silicon, which is the 440 00:24:42.839 --> 00:24:45.440 main substrate that they use, the monocrystal. It's mostly how 441 00:24:45.480 --> 00:24:48.039 you make the crystal that matters it. It really sets 442 00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:51.039 the quality of a certain amount of titanium, certain amount 443 00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:56.400 of aluminium. The glass is important, and it's got certain 444 00:24:56.440 --> 00:24:59.480 doping elements into it. But it's not like an electronics 445 00:24:59.519 --> 00:25:01.880 device that has a lot of the rare earths in it. 446 00:25:02.519 --> 00:25:06.880 Even the inverters are pretty straightforward electronics, so they don't 447 00:25:06.880 --> 00:25:08.359 need a lot of exotics here. We're not trying to 448 00:25:08.359 --> 00:25:11.359 make screens or CPUs or anything like that. Cool. I 449 00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:13.160 did put out the word when I was working on 450 00:25:13.200 --> 00:25:14.720 the street, which a minutedly. I put out the word 451 00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:16.039 a couple of weeks ago that I was working on 452 00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:18.559 the script and got some questions, and one of them 453 00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:21.920 came from Michael Zelenski, who asked, what are the options 454 00:25:21.920 --> 00:25:25.839 for excess residential solar power? Excess? You mean, what do 455 00:25:25.880 --> 00:25:28.680 you do with what you don't use? H yeah, okay, yeah, 456 00:25:28.720 --> 00:25:31.599 So you're generating more power than your house needs. The 457 00:25:31.799 --> 00:25:36.279 typical mechanism is the grid tie or the buy back, 458 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:40.160 so you have a deal with your utility that when 459 00:25:40.200 --> 00:25:42.799 you produce to at a certain level, you're going to 460 00:25:42.799 --> 00:25:46.200 get a certain amount back as a credit for that 461 00:25:46.319 --> 00:25:49.920 power and depending on the setup it but we already 462 00:25:49.960 --> 00:25:52.920 know that that power is of questionable utility because it's 463 00:25:52.920 --> 00:25:55.960 already stepped down to residential level. It doesn't necessarily flow 464 00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:00.200 the other way. This isn't water and so the the 465 00:26:00.319 --> 00:26:02.119 utilities don't really want to do this, which is why 466 00:26:02.160 --> 00:26:06.160 they never set these deals up. It's always governments mandating it. Right. Sure, 467 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:09.799 you know the utility, that's the thing they want, right, 468 00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:10.880 which is reduced to love. 469 00:26:10.960 --> 00:26:13.920 You don't get the energy, They just they sort of 470 00:26:13.960 --> 00:26:16.200 pay you for not taking it from them. That's right, 471 00:26:16.240 --> 00:26:17.920 You basically got it, so they can sell it to 472 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:18.519 someone else. 473 00:26:18.640 --> 00:26:22.640 But it's happening enough now that it's actually putting stress 474 00:26:22.640 --> 00:26:24.839 on the grid because it does. You know, that power 475 00:26:24.839 --> 00:26:26.720 does get as far as a transformer, it can create 476 00:26:26.759 --> 00:26:30.440 loads of the transformer. In places like Sydney, Australia, where 477 00:26:30.920 --> 00:26:33.880 residential solar is so common, they've actually had to put 478 00:26:33.880 --> 00:26:38.200 in mechanisms to disconnect you from the grid wow, to 479 00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:40.799 try it to stop from destabilizing the grid. Again. It 480 00:26:40.799 --> 00:26:42.960 does because it doesn't flow evenly back upwards with what 481 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:48.079 it's doing is overheating transformers. Yeah, sure, And so there's 482 00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:50.640 a big discussion about is there a better way to 483 00:26:50.799 --> 00:26:55.240 use your excess residential solar power? Now at the simplest level, 484 00:26:55.799 --> 00:26:58.079 if you've at least got some kind of monitoring going 485 00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:00.960 on and your house says, hey, you know we're making 486 00:27:00.960 --> 00:27:03.119 more power than we need, you can shift the load. 487 00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:05.160 Now is the time to wash the dishes or fire 488 00:27:05.279 --> 00:27:07.680 up the washing machine? Sure, run the dry like, just 489 00:27:07.759 --> 00:27:09.359 burn you more power if you. 490 00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:11.599 Know how to do that, right, if you have appliances 491 00:27:11.599 --> 00:27:13.400 that are smart enough to do that, yeah. 492 00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:17.000 Or you're present to do so. Yeah. Electric vehicle is 493 00:27:17.039 --> 00:27:18.920 a good one for this, Like, it's not that these 494 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:21.920 days we have smart chargers that can actually say, hey, 495 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:24.680 the power's free right now, it's coming from solar. Let's 496 00:27:24.759 --> 00:27:27.200 charge the car again. This is like, are you home 497 00:27:27.319 --> 00:27:29.720 during the day when you be able to do right? No, 498 00:27:29.880 --> 00:27:32.759 you get in. There are more expensive options, like there 499 00:27:32.839 --> 00:27:36.240 are smart hot water tanks and heating systems HVAC systems 500 00:27:36.279 --> 00:27:38.480 that we'll say, oh it's solar now, let's cool the 501 00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:41.720 house more or warm the house more, or yeah. 502 00:27:41.640 --> 00:27:45.160 Or store the energy as heat as hot water, right, 503 00:27:45.240 --> 00:27:45.880 it's hot water. 504 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:50.279 Yeah. And then finally the most expensive option, which is batteries. Yeah, right, 505 00:27:50.440 --> 00:27:53.559 your power walls, although there's a bunch of better battery systems. 506 00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:55.799 And I'll talk about energy storage as we get further 507 00:27:55.880 --> 00:27:58.160 down the path, and that gets into you doing even 508 00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:01.400 more power shifting, that you can store enough power from 509 00:28:01.400 --> 00:28:04.680 your free solar at your excess solar so that in 510 00:28:04.759 --> 00:28:07.559 the evening you don't have to consume any power from 511 00:28:07.599 --> 00:28:08.000 the grid. 512 00:28:08.079 --> 00:28:11.480 So we have a propane generator and like a five 513 00:28:11.559 --> 00:28:16.200 hundred gallon propane tank. And the salesman when they were 514 00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:19.599 talking to us about the solar panels, said, now you know, 515 00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:22.359 we also do sell a battery system. I think it 516 00:28:22.519 --> 00:28:25.240 was the Tesla wall probably, he says, But to tell 517 00:28:25.240 --> 00:28:29.359 you the truth, you have a generator, and you know 518 00:28:29.400 --> 00:28:32.119 you're you're going to get two weeks of power off 519 00:28:32.119 --> 00:28:35.559 a full tank twenty four to seven, right, whereas you're 520 00:28:35.559 --> 00:28:37.799 only going to get maybe a day or a day 521 00:28:37.799 --> 00:28:40.519 and a half out of the battery. 522 00:28:41.680 --> 00:28:45.119 And it's very expensive, as you said, and I mean 523 00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:47.720 addutedly pro paying costs money. Sure, So if you were 524 00:28:47.799 --> 00:28:51.720 charging that battery off of excess solar effectively free and 525 00:28:51.759 --> 00:28:56.119 then discharging it each night. You know you're saving a 526 00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:58.359 certain amount of electricity. The question is is does the 527 00:28:58.400 --> 00:29:01.240 earnout work. Those batteries are expensive, Like it could be 528 00:29:01.359 --> 00:29:03.799 longer than the battery lifespan before you actually pay for 529 00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:06.319 the battery for those few hours a day that you 530 00:29:06.319 --> 00:29:09.599 would use. Right, there's a difference between it being a 531 00:29:09.680 --> 00:29:13.240 power shifting tool where it's like my evening power consumption 532 00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:17.000 comes from my battery versus a backup tool where the 533 00:29:17.119 --> 00:29:21.000 mains are out and I need electricity. Right. Power shifting 534 00:29:21.079 --> 00:29:24.279 is really what those power walls were for, is to 535 00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:26.880 get you off the grid when the solar when it's 536 00:29:26.960 --> 00:29:29.480 nighttime and you're you know, cooking food and doing all 537 00:29:29.519 --> 00:29:31.440 the things in your house or a high consumption. I 538 00:29:31.480 --> 00:29:34.680 also have in our house a pellet stove which we 539 00:29:34.759 --> 00:29:38.759 put in in the basement. There was one here when 540 00:29:38.759 --> 00:29:41.640 the house was originally built, but the owners when they left, 541 00:29:41.680 --> 00:29:44.519 took it with them, So we got a pellet stove 542 00:29:44.759 --> 00:29:49.519 and in the wintertime it's always on. It's either on 543 00:29:49.880 --> 00:29:54.000 low at night or when it's warm, or you know, 544 00:29:54.039 --> 00:29:56.000 when it's really cold. They crack it up and we 545 00:29:56.079 --> 00:29:58.920 leave the door to the basement open and we get 546 00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:02.880 radiant fl heating because it heats the floor right and 547 00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:06.359 also comes through the through the door, So that's it's 548 00:30:06.440 --> 00:30:09.599 really nice. It's just good to have options. Yeah, that's 549 00:30:09.599 --> 00:30:13.440 the way I look. We burn wood for heat here 550 00:30:13.480 --> 00:30:16.720 by the ocean, not that we also have electric heat, 551 00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:18.720 but one of the reasons to do that is aar 552 00:30:18.880 --> 00:30:22.559 wood comes from our property, so that's effectively free. But 553 00:30:22.599 --> 00:30:25.839 the other one I've noticed is the heat from that 554 00:30:27.599 --> 00:30:31.519 cast iron stove is very dry and in especially in 555 00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:34.359 the wintertime here, it's damp, and as soon as you 556 00:30:34.480 --> 00:30:38.319 light the fire up, the house dries out, like you 557 00:30:38.400 --> 00:30:41.720 feel better. Yeah, it makes a huge difference, especially in 558 00:30:41.799 --> 00:30:43.519 the winter, to have that heat, and there's something special 559 00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:47.480 about a fire. I love fire. I read on Reddit 560 00:30:47.480 --> 00:30:49.880 when I was looking on other options for excess as 561 00:30:50.160 --> 00:30:53.000 solo there is a guy who's set up home assistant 562 00:30:53.319 --> 00:30:56.440 to crank up the temperature in his hot tub during 563 00:30:56.480 --> 00:30:59.599 the day when there's excess solar too hot to get in, 564 00:30:59.640 --> 00:31:01.279 but he's just I'm not going to get in until night. 565 00:31:01.359 --> 00:31:02.839 But normally I have to run the thing for an 566 00:31:02.839 --> 00:31:04.319 hour to make it warm enough to sit in, So 567 00:31:04.359 --> 00:31:07.039 if there's excess solar, I just overheat my hot tub 568 00:31:07.440 --> 00:31:09.160 and then by night time when we want to get 569 00:31:09.160 --> 00:31:11.640 in it, it's nice and warm. And it was for free. 570 00:31:11.759 --> 00:31:14.279 So we have a whirlpool tub. I'm talking all about 571 00:31:14.319 --> 00:31:17.119 my house here. Yeah, we have a whirlpool tub and 572 00:31:17.720 --> 00:31:21.960 it's it's it's big. You've seen it, and it's big, 573 00:31:22.319 --> 00:31:26.039 so big in fact, and it's indoors that the water 574 00:31:26.119 --> 00:31:29.680 heater doesn't have enough hot water in it to fill 575 00:31:29.680 --> 00:31:32.440 it with hot water. Right, how about that that's problem, 576 00:31:32.519 --> 00:31:35.079 isn't that? I mean, so we don't use it because 577 00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:35.759 what's the point. 578 00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:38.519 Yeah, Yeah, it's not hot, it's not fun. Yeah, it's 579 00:31:38.559 --> 00:31:40.319 not okay. I think it's also going to say about 580 00:31:40.359 --> 00:31:44.160 solar this year other than again, it's the banner year 581 00:31:44.240 --> 00:31:49.240 in terms of the non carmonymitting energy source, more solar 582 00:31:49.279 --> 00:31:52.519 than anything else, mostly because of Chila. Yeah. So moving 583 00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:55.160 on to wind power. So we expected to put in 584 00:31:55.160 --> 00:31:57.880 about one hundred gigawatts of wind in twenty three. We 585 00:31:57.920 --> 00:32:00.279 actually got one hundred and twenty and we're looking at 586 00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:03.440 about one hundred and thirty for twenty four. So the 587 00:32:03.480 --> 00:32:07.119 growth is consistent, it's going up slightly. Wind is a 588 00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:09.359 bit more efficient, and solar you get about twenty five 589 00:32:09.440 --> 00:32:13.039 to forty percent capacity factor, so still well behind traditional 590 00:32:13.079 --> 00:32:16.759 power plants, but you know, we're getting better doing more 591 00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:20.480 offshore wind. Yeah, the onshore seems to be kind of 592 00:32:20.519 --> 00:32:21.680 built out in a lot of ways. I feel like 593 00:32:21.720 --> 00:32:27.519 the wind industry is matured now. We're not seeing bigger 594 00:32:27.640 --> 00:32:29.960 wind turbines. They got bigger and bigger every year for 595 00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:31.480 quite a while, and they've seem to have topped out 596 00:32:31.519 --> 00:32:33.960 of somewhere around the fifteen megawatt range. It's a couple 597 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:36.839 of fourteens and a couple of sixteens. But they're getting 598 00:32:36.880 --> 00:32:40.480 to a point now where they're so large that the 599 00:32:40.559 --> 00:32:43.599 weight of the equipment is a problem and they're not lasting. 600 00:32:43.839 --> 00:32:48.200 We're starting to see gearbox issues where a gearbox system 601 00:32:48.240 --> 00:32:50.480 that was supposed to last for twenty years broke down 602 00:32:50.519 --> 00:32:54.680 in seven and needed major repairs. So these really big 603 00:32:54.720 --> 00:32:58.000 wind turbines are problematic. Yeah. I've talked about this before too. 604 00:32:58.039 --> 00:33:00.000 And if you come to my town, New London, Connecticut, 605 00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:03.319 you look out on the state here, there's just fuselage 606 00:33:03.519 --> 00:33:07.279 after fuselage, just these big white tubes because they assemble 607 00:33:07.400 --> 00:33:10.640 windmills here and they're they're doing an offshore project in 608 00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:13.559 Long Island Sound, and yeah. 609 00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:17.119 It makes and these those projects are primarily what we 610 00:33:17.240 --> 00:33:21.799 call near shore or fixed bottom systems, where they literally 611 00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:24.480 the works up to about fifty meters or water about 612 00:33:24.480 --> 00:33:26.759 one hundred and fifty feet. They put a casement into 613 00:33:26.839 --> 00:33:29.559 the water, down into the bottom. Then they pump the 614 00:33:29.599 --> 00:33:32.759 water out of the casement. Then they drill a big hole, 615 00:33:33.160 --> 00:33:35.640 fill it with concrete, and then put the post down. 616 00:33:35.680 --> 00:33:38.599 You know, it's it's kind of ironic that a hurricane 617 00:33:38.640 --> 00:33:42.319 could come through and really crank up those windmills. 618 00:33:42.319 --> 00:33:43.880 They'd be generating a lot of power. 619 00:33:44.279 --> 00:33:48.680 However, the hurricane could also knock the power lines down 620 00:33:48.720 --> 00:33:49.519 going to your house. 621 00:33:50.920 --> 00:33:53.880 And windmills run in a particular range of winds, so 622 00:33:53.880 --> 00:33:56.400 they actually shut them all off for extreme wind events 623 00:33:56.440 --> 00:33:59.200 like that. Yeah, they'll destroy themselves. I didn't know that 624 00:33:59.240 --> 00:34:02.400 they can't move that. Not far from you, there was 625 00:34:02.440 --> 00:34:09.400 a big wind project in New Jersey's waters and ended 626 00:34:09.440 --> 00:34:11.360 up being canceled this year, all. 627 00:34:11.320 --> 00:34:13.000 Them New Jersey. I just don't want to see them 628 00:34:13.159 --> 00:34:16.719 ugly windmills out there. Maybe this was more about financing. 629 00:34:16.760 --> 00:34:19.880 It was taking longer to build. Costs went up substantially. 630 00:34:19.880 --> 00:34:21.639 It was actually being built by a company called Orstev, 631 00:34:21.639 --> 00:34:24.039 which is a Danish company, like the Danes, being one 632 00:34:24.039 --> 00:34:26.480 of the most experienced groups for wind power anywhere in 633 00:34:26.519 --> 00:34:29.159 the world. One of the issues they ran into, and 634 00:34:29.159 --> 00:34:31.599 this is this one surprised me. I'd heard about it, 635 00:34:31.639 --> 00:34:33.679 but I didn't realize it would impact wind But the 636 00:34:33.760 --> 00:34:34.320 thing called. 637 00:34:34.119 --> 00:34:36.159 The Jones Law, I don't know about it. So the 638 00:34:36.280 --> 00:34:39.159 Jones Law almost goes back to the Revolution, and it 639 00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:44.719 was really about a ship that's servicing ports in the US. 640 00:34:44.840 --> 00:34:47.000 Going from one US port to another has to be 641 00:34:47.039 --> 00:34:51.760 registered in the US. Okay, that's the law, Okay. And 642 00:34:51.880 --> 00:34:55.079 so the fact that they needed a ship that went 643 00:34:55.159 --> 00:34:58.360 back and forth for maintenance from New Jersey out to 644 00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:02.480 the windmills and back again meant it had to be 645 00:35:02.519 --> 00:35:05.360 licensed in the US, which is very expensive. In fact, 646 00:35:05.360 --> 00:35:08.840 it is so expensive that the situations like shipping a 647 00:35:08.920 --> 00:35:13.880 liquefied natural gas from Louisiana up to New England, the 648 00:35:13.960 --> 00:35:15.639 US doesn't do it. It is cheaper for them to 649 00:35:15.679 --> 00:35:18.559 sell the gas from Louisiana to another country and then 650 00:35:18.679 --> 00:35:21.880 buy natural gas from another country to bring to New England. Okay, 651 00:35:21.960 --> 00:35:25.440 that's really strange. Because of the costs of licensing and 652 00:35:25.480 --> 00:35:31.280 operating ships in license in the US. Wow, so it's 653 00:35:31.320 --> 00:35:33.599 like a two hundred year old law. It probably needs 654 00:35:33.599 --> 00:35:37.760 some updating. I would think, Yeah, weird little impediments. I've 655 00:35:37.760 --> 00:35:39.639 a little highlights on wind before we get into the 656 00:35:39.760 --> 00:35:43.320 nitty gritty details. This year, for a few hours, Ireland, 657 00:35:44.119 --> 00:35:47.039 a very windy place, operated entirely on wind power. What 658 00:35:47.679 --> 00:35:50.960 the whole country, the whole country for a while for 659 00:35:51.000 --> 00:35:54.360 a few hours during a particularly windy time that all 660 00:35:54.400 --> 00:35:57.480 of the electrical generation was win. That's impressive. Yeah, it 661 00:35:57.559 --> 00:36:00.360 just shows how much when they've got the UK Land, 662 00:36:00.519 --> 00:36:02.920 they've gone big on wind. They've got lots of shallow 663 00:36:03.039 --> 00:36:05.119 water that they can put these wind turbines up on, 664 00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:08.199 and they build them big. The big business now for 665 00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:11.360 wind turbines. A lot of that easy area, those fifty 666 00:36:11.400 --> 00:36:15.719 meters or less waters largely are allocated and being built out. 667 00:36:16.039 --> 00:36:18.599 So wind growth is going to slow until we can 668 00:36:18.880 --> 00:36:22.920 really mature floating wind turbines. Right. They have their own 669 00:36:22.920 --> 00:36:25.679 problems in British Columbia. Here, our water's all too deep. 670 00:36:26.639 --> 00:36:30.079 I get past fifty meters inside of my house. The 671 00:36:30.119 --> 00:36:32.440 water is very deep here, and so you need to 672 00:36:32.480 --> 00:36:36.519 have floating wind turbines, and generally these rigs are good 673 00:36:36.559 --> 00:36:38.119 up to but at least three hundred and fifty meters 674 00:36:38.119 --> 00:36:41.119 of water and theory more. This is all oil rig technology, 675 00:36:41.840 --> 00:36:44.199 but it is more expensive, is more complicated to install, 676 00:36:44.280 --> 00:36:46.320 and it tends to be further away from land, and 677 00:36:46.360 --> 00:36:48.119 you kind of need electricity on land, and so the 678 00:36:48.119 --> 00:36:49.960 wiring going back gets costly. 679 00:36:50.559 --> 00:36:54.800 I'm just thinking about a floating wind turbine and the 680 00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:58.159 challenges that it would take. You would have to have 681 00:36:58.199 --> 00:37:01.880 some sort of ballast, their keel, something holding it down, 682 00:37:01.960 --> 00:37:06.119 otherwise it'll flop around in the wind and become really unefficient. Well, 683 00:37:06.159 --> 00:37:08.760 one of the benefits of a turbine is that it's rigid, Yeah, 684 00:37:09.000 --> 00:37:11.599 so when the wind blows across it, it doesn't fall over. 685 00:37:12.159 --> 00:37:16.039 So there's a bunch of different platform approaches, right. There's 686 00:37:16.119 --> 00:37:19.960 the barge approach, which is the simplest. Just imagine a 687 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:23.000 barge that you anchor it to. It's easy to toe 688 00:37:23.079 --> 00:37:25.719 to get into place. It gives you working area when 689 00:37:25.719 --> 00:37:27.800 you want to work on it. But it has the 690 00:37:27.800 --> 00:37:31.000 most motion, right, and we talk about six degrees of 691 00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:34.719 freedom when you're in the water. Heave yaw sway, surge, 692 00:37:34.800 --> 00:37:38.000 pitch and roll. So heave is going up and down, 693 00:37:38.559 --> 00:37:43.239 yaw is rotating side to side, sway is sliding back 694 00:37:43.280 --> 00:37:46.440 and forth. Surge is moving front to back, so the 695 00:37:46.440 --> 00:37:49.440 wind blows and it pushes it back. And then pitch 696 00:37:49.480 --> 00:37:53.119 and roll are both rotations and two different axises. So 697 00:37:54.039 --> 00:37:57.480 the anchoring process is important. And this is also a 698 00:37:57.559 --> 00:38:02.079 solved problem when you think about oil rigs. Right, So 699 00:38:02.320 --> 00:38:04.280 the bar just kind of the most primitive way to go. 700 00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:06.320 If you get into the oilry designs, you start talking 701 00:38:06.360 --> 00:38:10.880 about different spar and semi submersible designs. So one of 702 00:38:10.920 --> 00:38:12.920 the ones that's being tested thoroughly is is called a 703 00:38:12.920 --> 00:38:16.519 semi submersible spar so. This is three to five spars 704 00:38:17.320 --> 00:38:20.400 that can be filled with water. They actually are ballasting. 705 00:38:20.880 --> 00:38:23.039 One of those spars has the wind turbine on it, 706 00:38:23.079 --> 00:38:26.400 and then the others are ballasted to stabilize it. And 707 00:38:26.440 --> 00:38:30.119 then you have cables running onto the bottom, either in 708 00:38:30.199 --> 00:38:34.679 catenary or tension, that keep it essentially stay. And what's 709 00:38:34.719 --> 00:38:38.679 a spar so? Just imagine a cylinder, okay, right that, 710 00:38:39.400 --> 00:38:41.480 So take a bunch of cylinders, connect them with pipes, 711 00:38:42.360 --> 00:38:44.760 three to five of them, and so one of them 712 00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:46.320 has the wind turbines, so I has the most load 713 00:38:46.320 --> 00:38:49.079 on it, and the other ones at least two maybe 714 00:38:49.079 --> 00:38:53.239 more use water ballast to offset that mass and keep 715 00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:57.559 it alive. So there's a vertical yeah, verticaltical cylinder. Okay, 716 00:38:58.039 --> 00:39:00.599 there's single spar approaches where you literally you just put 717 00:39:00.639 --> 00:39:04.079 a floatation spar with the mast on it. They have 718 00:39:04.159 --> 00:39:07.199 more tipping problems, but they're very easy to build. And 719 00:39:07.239 --> 00:39:09.800 then the most complex one, the one that again comes 720 00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:12.360 to the oilery industry, is the one called tension leg 721 00:39:13.119 --> 00:39:18.199 where you're actually putting anchors into the bottom under tension 722 00:39:18.719 --> 00:39:22.880 to hold the mouths in place, so they're quite rigid. 723 00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.480 The problem is that it's not good with tides because 724 00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:31.360 it's kind of set to its depth, so you think 725 00:39:31.480 --> 00:39:33.760 kind of a minimal range of tide. They'll limit cinemarias 726 00:39:33.800 --> 00:39:36.840 you can put it in and they don't fail well. 727 00:39:37.239 --> 00:39:41.840 If one of those tension lines gives out for whatever reason, 728 00:39:42.719 --> 00:39:46.880 you're going to tip over. So part of this is 729 00:39:46.920 --> 00:39:51.519 start of figuring out what is the movement causes problems 730 00:39:51.519 --> 00:39:56.639 with generation. Right serge, especially when you lean into the wind, 731 00:39:56.719 --> 00:40:02.599 might actually speed up the turbine, but there there's dozens 732 00:40:02.599 --> 00:40:05.000 of test projects out there. They're not past the test phase, 733 00:40:05.119 --> 00:40:08.159 but they're real turbines generating real power, and they're learning 734 00:40:08.199 --> 00:40:13.000 how these things work. They're still relatively expensive comparative, about 735 00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:16.199 four times the price of near shore or fixed bottom. Okay, 736 00:40:16.239 --> 00:40:18.559 but the price. You know, the only reason that nearshore 737 00:40:18.639 --> 00:40:20.679 is as cheap as it is today is because we've 738 00:40:20.679 --> 00:40:22.239 built so much of it and we know exactly what 739 00:40:22.280 --> 00:40:24.480 we're doing. While we're in the experimental phase, is going 740 00:40:24.519 --> 00:40:27.760 to stay expensive, but as it matures, it should cut 741 00:40:27.800 --> 00:40:29.320 the price substantially. No. 742 00:40:29.679 --> 00:40:32.159 Last year, getting back to solar here for a minute, 743 00:40:32.199 --> 00:40:36.880 last year we talked about floating solar panel rafts out 744 00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:41.519 on reservoirs in places where has have there been any 745 00:40:41.559 --> 00:40:44.840 new projects in that regard because I have seen nothing 746 00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:46.800 over here Yea, where I live. 747 00:40:47.199 --> 00:40:49.199 It's it's more common, and it seems to be more 748 00:40:49.199 --> 00:40:53.599 common in Europe, but it's it's totally viable. It's just 749 00:40:53.639 --> 00:40:55.880 a question of can you get your grid tie. You've 750 00:40:55.880 --> 00:40:58.000 got to build all the infrastructure to actually use the power. 751 00:40:58.320 --> 00:41:00.639 What we're talking about, if you'd missed it, is that 752 00:41:01.000 --> 00:41:05.519 when you have evaporation in canals, let's say, or in reservoirs. 753 00:41:05.960 --> 00:41:08.960 Evaporation is money, right, I mean, when you lose water, 754 00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:12.039 that's water you can't drink if it's from a reservoir. 755 00:41:12.159 --> 00:41:17.559 So some of these countries and cities are making floating 756 00:41:18.119 --> 00:41:21.480 barges with solar panels on them that cover the area 757 00:41:21.679 --> 00:41:23.559 of the top of the you know, of the water, 758 00:41:24.239 --> 00:41:28.239 and they solve the evaporation problem and they generate energy. Yeah, 759 00:41:28.320 --> 00:41:29.840 and I just thought it was a brilliant idea. 760 00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.679 It is. I mean, in California, they started covering reservoirs 761 00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:39.719 with black plastic balls because they were primarily concerned about 762 00:41:39.719 --> 00:41:42.079 the evaporation. And that's a lot cheaper than putting in 763 00:41:42.079 --> 00:41:45.760 solar panels. True, but the solar panel approach has the 764 00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:48.119 additional advantage of generating electricity. You just got to be 765 00:41:48.119 --> 00:41:50.360 able to use that electricity. Yeah, so how do you 766 00:41:50.400 --> 00:41:52.440 tie it in? You know, this is where the reservoir 767 00:41:52.440 --> 00:41:54.760 model came in, where the excess solar then was used 768 00:41:54.760 --> 00:41:57.360 to pump water back into the reservoir, presuming you have 769 00:41:57.400 --> 00:41:59.280 a setup that works out. Yeah. So it's sort of 770 00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:01.119 a site by side situation. 771 00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:04.400 That idea doesn't seem to be taking off like we 772 00:42:04.480 --> 00:42:05.079 wish it would. 773 00:42:05.800 --> 00:42:07.800 I think it's very much. You've got to do the 774 00:42:07.800 --> 00:42:10.320 calculations in each location, and there's only so many folks 775 00:42:10.320 --> 00:42:13.679 who know how to figure these things out, so it's 776 00:42:13.880 --> 00:42:16.119 really you know, when those folks get to the project. Okay, 777 00:42:16.159 --> 00:42:19.360 but wrapping up on the floating wind project. So where 778 00:42:19.440 --> 00:42:22.599 are these pilot projects happening? Norway's big on this for 779 00:42:22.679 --> 00:42:26.920 two reasons. The first is their water's very deep, so 780 00:42:27.000 --> 00:42:29.320 they can't do nearshore. They're going to do wind at all, 781 00:42:29.360 --> 00:42:32.039 They need to do floating. They're also big on the 782 00:42:32.079 --> 00:42:34.800 oil platform stuff, right they know their way around it. 783 00:42:34.800 --> 00:42:36.199 They've done a lot of it. That's all that north 784 00:42:36.239 --> 00:42:38.920 sea work, and in fact one of their biggest projects 785 00:42:39.079 --> 00:42:43.039 right now is actually only providing power too deep sea 786 00:42:43.079 --> 00:42:47.480 oil rigs nearby as they develop and perfect the technology 787 00:42:47.480 --> 00:42:49.159 before they spend the money to send power all the 788 00:42:49.159 --> 00:42:52.159 way back home, because when you get that far off shore, 789 00:42:52.760 --> 00:42:55.880 transmitting the power back to the shore gets expensive and 790 00:42:55.920 --> 00:42:59.599 they have to experiment. They're switching from using AC transmission 791 00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:03.239 back to shore to DC transmission factor shore, which is 792 00:43:03.280 --> 00:43:06.079 not really proven as well in deep water like this. 793 00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:09.719 The UK is also doing a lot, mostly because they've 794 00:43:09.840 --> 00:43:11.960 used They've filled up most of their places for fixed 795 00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:14.440 bottom development, they've allocated them out, so they're starting to 796 00:43:14.519 --> 00:43:16.679 do more in deeper water. You also see this happening 797 00:43:16.719 --> 00:43:21.519 in France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Japan, China, Korea. The US 798 00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:26.440 does have a project called the Floating Offshore Wind Energy Shot, 799 00:43:26.599 --> 00:43:29.360 which is basically recognizing that that wind power is too 800 00:43:29.400 --> 00:43:31.280 expensive right now and they're trying to reduce the costs 801 00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:33.599 on it as part of the inflation production. Okay, all right. 802 00:43:33.760 --> 00:43:37.280 A section I hadn't talked about, you know, a couple 803 00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:40.559 of years, but sort of had a little resurgence, not big. 804 00:43:40.639 --> 00:43:46.039 Mostly experimental is wave power. Yeah, so wave power is 805 00:43:46.239 --> 00:43:48.880 an immature technology. It's been experimented in many ways. The 806 00:43:48.920 --> 00:43:51.800 ocean is remarkedly good at destroying things. This is trying 807 00:43:51.800 --> 00:43:56.360 to utilize the motion from waves and tides. Sure, their 808 00:43:56.480 --> 00:43:59.920 capacity factors are terrible, well, single digits, like less than temper. 809 00:44:01.039 --> 00:44:04.440 That's mostly because they barely function. But there's a group 810 00:44:04.519 --> 00:44:07.320 off the coast of Oregon called the Pack Wave Energy 811 00:44:07.360 --> 00:44:11.719 Project that is repurposing some older wiring already in place, 812 00:44:12.280 --> 00:44:17.039 part of a deal with Oregon State University to create 813 00:44:17.159 --> 00:44:20.920 sites to do experiments with wavepower. So part of the 814 00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:23.079 challenge if you want to build a wave power system 815 00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:27.320 is getting the onshore cabling in place and the instrumentation 816 00:44:27.519 --> 00:44:31.280 so forth. And so a couple of nautical miles off 817 00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:34.119 the coast of Newport, Oregon, they built out the site 818 00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:39.000 with the university to allow for prototype experimentation. So multiple 819 00:44:39.159 --> 00:44:43.440 bays essentially areas a few one hundred yards across that 820 00:44:43.519 --> 00:44:47.199 have both power wiring and control wiring, so that different 821 00:44:47.199 --> 00:44:49.480 groups can come in and test one of their wave 822 00:44:49.559 --> 00:44:52.599 systems without having to do all that infrastructure. It's kind 823 00:44:52.599 --> 00:44:56.000 of brilliant. And these are typically turbines, right, They sometimes 824 00:44:56.039 --> 00:44:59.920 turbines sometimes just like a boy that pumps oil, right, 825 00:45:00.159 --> 00:45:02.760 or even compresses air. So you fationed this boy is 826 00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:06.639 going up and down. Yeah, and it can build up pressure. Right. 827 00:45:06.639 --> 00:45:09.119 There's a couple of different techniques and the most common 828 00:45:09.119 --> 00:45:12.039 one in these days it is called a point observer absorber. 829 00:45:12.119 --> 00:45:15.320 So it's a sort of a linear process. The boy 830 00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:19.039 goes up, so it pull it creates some pressure and 831 00:45:19.079 --> 00:45:21.280 then as it comes down it pushes that pressure in 832 00:45:21.960 --> 00:45:25.599 and that you can turn into rotating motion to create power. Wow, 833 00:45:26.719 --> 00:45:28.679 there's been a you know, a zero was one of 834 00:45:28.679 --> 00:45:31.320 the ones I looked at that. They built a test 835 00:45:31.400 --> 00:45:35.079 unit on Hawaii making about twenty kilowatts of energy. But 836 00:45:35.360 --> 00:45:37.639 you know the problem here is, yes, it could make power, 837 00:45:37.920 --> 00:45:41.440 but it costs more than what the power's worth. Very 838 00:45:41.599 --> 00:45:44.239 really hard to make these things cost effective, and they 839 00:45:44.599 --> 00:45:50.280 don't last. The Life Skill Project in Sweden they built 840 00:45:50.320 --> 00:45:53.039 out eleven of these point observers with the generations they 841 00:45:53.039 --> 00:45:54.639 got to put about two undred and sixty kilowats and 842 00:45:54.679 --> 00:45:56.880 then a huge storm came through and destroyed them all. 843 00:45:56.960 --> 00:45:58.800 I imagine corrosion is a problem too. 844 00:45:58.960 --> 00:46:01.760 Yeah, the ocean always seems to win, right, just keeps 845 00:46:01.760 --> 00:46:05.000 pounding away. So the big news this year was that 846 00:46:05.079 --> 00:46:08.719 the Packwave South is going to open up a larger 847 00:46:08.760 --> 00:46:12.000 facility than the original Packwave North one in about seventy 848 00:46:12.039 --> 00:46:16.199 meters of water, so a little deeper that is already 849 00:46:16.199 --> 00:46:18.840 connected to the grid, so you can actually try selling 850 00:46:18.880 --> 00:46:21.079 power back if you want to do the experiments. If 851 00:46:21.119 --> 00:46:24.000 you read up on this, you'll hear that it's wired 852 00:46:24.039 --> 00:46:27.639 for twenty megawatts of power, which is true. They've got 853 00:46:27.880 --> 00:46:32.119 four five megawat conduits going to four bays, four tests berths. 854 00:46:32.920 --> 00:46:36.159 Nobody's making a mega wat of power with wave like 855 00:46:36.360 --> 00:46:40.480 that's just a ridiculously huge number. But I hope they 856 00:46:40.480 --> 00:46:45.039 get to that point five. But it's nice to see 857 00:46:45.039 --> 00:46:48.000 some experimentation going on here. It's just to recognize it. 858 00:46:48.199 --> 00:46:52.599 These are far away from commercial products. It's very difficult 859 00:46:52.800 --> 00:46:56.679 to operate in the ocean, and it's hard to get 860 00:46:56.679 --> 00:47:00.519 efficient utilization, and it's not consistent. Right. Sure, the waves 861 00:47:00.519 --> 00:47:03.239 are bigger, they're smaller. You know, there's high tides, there's 862 00:47:03.239 --> 00:47:06.039 low tides, so you can learn how to do them, 863 00:47:06.239 --> 00:47:08.960 but it's hard to make advantages. When we talked about 864 00:47:08.960 --> 00:47:12.119 this before, I talked about most of the tidal power 865 00:47:12.159 --> 00:47:15.880 systems we know of are actually flood management tools right 866 00:47:16.000 --> 00:47:20.159 that on the side also make electricity. I recently did 867 00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:23.519 a version of the Future of Energy talk in the 868 00:47:23.559 --> 00:47:27.679 Netherlands and we talk with who are flood management masters, 869 00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:32.559 and they're in the process of converting an existing flood 870 00:47:32.599 --> 00:47:37.440 management gait to install these little turbines one after the next. 871 00:47:38.000 --> 00:47:39.760 Be able to put forty of them in. But when 872 00:47:39.760 --> 00:47:43.960 they're done, it'll be ten megawats of power, like compared 873 00:47:44.000 --> 00:47:47.360 to a they're one, you know, the Netherlands one nuclear 874 00:47:47.400 --> 00:47:50.679 power print that produces a thousand megawats of power. Right, 875 00:47:50.719 --> 00:47:54.360 It's just wave power is small and incremental, even harder 876 00:47:54.400 --> 00:47:56.039 than wind in that respect. Yeah. 877 00:47:56.239 --> 00:48:00.599 Well, maybe next year we'll have some news about breakthrough. 878 00:48:00.719 --> 00:48:03.960 Well, you know, we will be fairly far along before 879 00:48:03.960 --> 00:48:06.719 we release you the news. Okay, let's take a break 880 00:48:06.760 --> 00:48:08.719 and then we'll talk about stories. Sounds good. We'll be 881 00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:10.440 right back after these important messages. 882 00:48:12.960 --> 00:48:15.880 Did you know you can easily migrate asp net web 883 00:48:15.920 --> 00:48:20.000 apps to Windows containers on Aws. Use the app to 884 00:48:20.119 --> 00:48:24.519 Container tool to containerize your IIS websites and deploy to 885 00:48:24.559 --> 00:48:30.280 AWS managed container services with or without Kubernetes. Find out 886 00:48:30.320 --> 00:48:34.639 more about app to Container at aws dot Amazon dot com, 887 00:48:34.760 --> 00:48:41.719 Slash dot net, slash Modernize, and we're back as the 888 00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:44.840 dot Net Rocks twenty twenty four Energy geek out with 889 00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:50.719 Richard Campbell. And as a reminder, how about this as 890 00:48:50.719 --> 00:48:53.920 a reminder, if you don't want these messages, you can 891 00:48:53.960 --> 00:48:57.000 become a patron at Patreon dot dot nerocks dot com 892 00:48:57.039 --> 00:48:58.920 five bucks a month to get you an ad free feed, 893 00:49:00.079 --> 00:49:05.559 and that list of patrons is growing. So what's next? 894 00:49:05.719 --> 00:49:11.039 Mister Campbell got a question from Kyle Nunnery on the twitters. 895 00:49:11.079 --> 00:49:13.679 I believe it was when he's asking about solid state batteries, 896 00:49:13.719 --> 00:49:17.519 and that just ties into power storage in general. Now 897 00:49:17.880 --> 00:49:21.039 we've heard about solid state batteries and then use for forever. 898 00:49:22.119 --> 00:49:23.679 It helps to try and to find what does it 899 00:49:23.760 --> 00:49:25.519 mean to be a solid state battery. This is the 900 00:49:25.599 --> 00:49:29.480 idea of having a solid electrolyte as opposed to a 901 00:49:29.519 --> 00:49:33.679 liquid or a gel or a lead acid battery uses 902 00:49:33.760 --> 00:49:38.239 lead as the cathode an anode, and the electrolyte is 903 00:49:38.280 --> 00:49:41.880 actually sulfuric acid. Right, don't get that stuff on your 904 00:49:41.880 --> 00:49:42.840 skin like it's bad. 905 00:49:43.519 --> 00:49:45.719 When they get corroded, you don't want to just put 906 00:49:45.719 --> 00:49:47.360 them in the garbage. And then when you get into 907 00:49:47.400 --> 00:49:49.800 more of the gel based batteries, like a lithium ion batteries, 908 00:49:49.800 --> 00:49:51.360 a gel based battery, one of the problems with the 909 00:49:51.320 --> 00:49:54.599 electrolytes they grow dendrites. They throw these little crystal instructures 910 00:49:54.599 --> 00:49:57.679 that will eventually damage the battery and decreasely use. Can 911 00:49:57.719 --> 00:50:01.280 it cause a fire? You hear about a companies constantly 912 00:50:01.320 --> 00:50:06.320 talking about they got solid state batteries soon. Hyundai says 913 00:50:06.360 --> 00:50:09.320 they've got a pilot production for a solid state battery 914 00:50:09.320 --> 00:50:11.119 and a car for twenty twenty five. So that's supposed 915 00:50:11.119 --> 00:50:12.960 to be next year, but when you dig further, you go, oh, 916 00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:16.000 it's actually just a pilot. The mass p actually would 917 00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:19.239 be till twenty thirty. RUSSI finding companies that sort of 918 00:50:19.239 --> 00:50:23.280 manipulate the term solid state. There was recently you could 919 00:50:23.280 --> 00:50:27.239 buy on Amazon a little battery charger unit, you know, 920 00:50:27.440 --> 00:50:30.360 the size of a toaster. It was supposedly a solid 921 00:50:30.360 --> 00:50:35.280 state battery, although it turned out yes, the electrolyte was solid, 922 00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:40.440 but there were other liquids that were in it. So, okay, how. 923 00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:44.800 Does the what is it the catalyst and the electrolyte, 924 00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:47.639 how do they How are they supposed to interact with 925 00:50:47.679 --> 00:50:50.239 each other? If they're both solid, it's supposed to be 926 00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:52.800 the electrons moving happily through a Rigis structure. 927 00:50:53.960 --> 00:50:56.360 If you know, there's a reason they still have a 928 00:50:56.440 --> 00:51:00.360 release and it's got all the snake oil features, right 929 00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:02.679 Like when they talk about they talk about solvecyse batteries, 930 00:51:02.719 --> 00:51:04.440 they say it's going to be safer, and it's going 931 00:51:04.519 --> 00:51:06.360 to be denser, and it's going to last longer, and 932 00:51:06.360 --> 00:51:09.440 it's going to charge faster. It's going to julien your 933 00:51:09.519 --> 00:51:11.840 fries and washing toilets, Like. 934 00:51:13.360 --> 00:51:16.239 Yeah, I remember graphine, Remember the promise of graphene that 935 00:51:16.320 --> 00:51:18.320 had a loss in that was going to be Yeah. 936 00:51:18.079 --> 00:51:20.320 But again, all of the people that we're talking about 937 00:51:20.320 --> 00:51:23.960 that were the researchers who were looking for money, right, Sure, 938 00:51:24.000 --> 00:51:26.440 and maybe they got some money and now they're actually 939 00:51:26.480 --> 00:51:28.639 building things. We're seeing products here and there. But it's 940 00:51:28.679 --> 00:51:31.440 just not that simple, right turning something from something you 941 00:51:31.440 --> 00:51:33.840 can build in a lab is something you can buy 942 00:51:33.840 --> 00:51:38.840 on Amazon. It's a long difficult path, especially when it's new. Yes. 943 00:51:39.400 --> 00:51:43.320 So on the storage side, residential power storage just ties 944 00:51:43.360 --> 00:51:44.840 back into the question of what to do with access 945 00:51:44.880 --> 00:51:48.039 solar is about the batteries. The good news is if 946 00:51:48.079 --> 00:51:49.599 you don't want to buy power wall, you don't want 947 00:51:49.599 --> 00:51:52.480 to buy Tesla, you don't have to. Lots of companies 948 00:51:52.480 --> 00:51:55.360 now are making very good whole house battery systems. I 949 00:51:55.360 --> 00:51:59.239 would look at Anchor and Ecoflow, but try Phase. There's 950 00:51:59.280 --> 00:52:03.039 a bunch like Get and Face pick one like. They've 951 00:52:03.079 --> 00:52:05.920 all got merit and they're compatible. They're comparable to what 952 00:52:06.360 --> 00:52:07.000 Tesla's doing. 953 00:52:07.119 --> 00:52:13.079 I remember talking about liquid methane and I remember hearing 954 00:52:13.119 --> 00:52:15.159 somebody on the radio a couple of years ago, now 955 00:52:15.320 --> 00:52:20.159 many two years ago now talking about how some sort 956 00:52:20.159 --> 00:52:22.000 of liquid. It might have been ethanol. It might have 957 00:52:22.039 --> 00:52:29.320 been methanol that can be generated by electricity and then 958 00:52:29.519 --> 00:52:31.239 used as a storage. 959 00:52:32.320 --> 00:52:37.320 Mechanism. Am I well, am I hearing things? No, there's 960 00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:40.039 lots of different storage strategies out there. I mean, methane 961 00:52:40.079 --> 00:52:43.280 is remarkably simple to make because it's just carbon and hydrogen, 962 00:52:43.480 --> 00:52:45.880 But then you take certain amount of energy to make that, 963 00:52:45.920 --> 00:52:47.480 and you're only going to get a certain amount back, 964 00:52:47.719 --> 00:52:51.400 Like when you get into power storage, returns are really challenging. 965 00:52:51.480 --> 00:52:53.000 Just wait, I'm going to talk about hydrogen and then 966 00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:54.079 returns on their shock. 967 00:52:55.039 --> 00:52:58.320 I think it was methanol that I was. Yeah, turn 968 00:52:58.360 --> 00:52:59.960 your excess energy into metha. 969 00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:03.519 So yeah, if you think about power storage for your home, 970 00:53:03.920 --> 00:53:06.199 think about batteries. I'm going to talk about it at 971 00:53:06.480 --> 00:53:09.800 other storage techniques, but they need size to work, and 972 00:53:09.880 --> 00:53:13.760 so it doesn't make sense to really. They wouldn't work 973 00:53:13.760 --> 00:53:15.760 at a home scale. They work at a grid scale. Okay, 974 00:53:15.920 --> 00:53:18.480 because you know, Elon did us all a favor when 975 00:53:18.519 --> 00:53:20.679 they did that bet with Australia and put a whole 976 00:53:20.679 --> 00:53:24.639 bunch of power walls down in Victoria Province. This help 977 00:53:24.679 --> 00:53:26.840 stabilize power which worked, which is that he proved that 978 00:53:26.920 --> 00:53:30.719 grid scale batteries even possible. It's just that lithium I 979 00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:34.480 own batteries are exceptionally bad at that job. You know. 980 00:53:34.519 --> 00:53:38.079 Those Those batteries were designed to be light and power 981 00:53:38.280 --> 00:53:41.639 dense and quick acting, which is all features you want 982 00:53:41.639 --> 00:53:43.679 in a car, but isn't important for the grid. They 983 00:53:43.679 --> 00:53:47.920 also have a habit of exploding sometimes and they're costly. Right. 984 00:53:48.320 --> 00:53:52.320 So a spin off of some folks left Tesla to 985 00:53:52.480 --> 00:53:56.719 make grid scale batteries in a company called Form Energy. 986 00:53:57.199 --> 00:54:01.239 Their battery uses an iron air to which is resually 987 00:54:01.239 --> 00:54:04.280 pioneered by NASA. Yes, you are storing energy in rust. 988 00:54:05.559 --> 00:54:09.079 They are about the tenth the price of lithium ion batteries. 989 00:54:09.800 --> 00:54:13.239 They are much heavier, they run hot, and they are large, 990 00:54:13.960 --> 00:54:15.719 all things that aren't a big deal if you're just 991 00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:19.320 building grid power. They also have a natural discharge cycle 992 00:54:19.400 --> 00:54:22.840 of one hundred hours, as opposed to lithium ions six 993 00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:26.880 hour discharge cycle. Wow, so you're talking running for days. 994 00:54:27.920 --> 00:54:31.239 I've talked about them before off of Rust on Trust. Yeah, 995 00:54:31.280 --> 00:54:33.440 it's hilarious, isn't it. So I brought them up a 996 00:54:33.440 --> 00:54:36.599 couple of times this twenty twenty four They actually broke 997 00:54:36.599 --> 00:54:39.519 ground on a power storage facility in Minnesota for Great 998 00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:41.719 River Energy. This will be a one and a half 999 00:54:41.840 --> 00:54:45.079 megawat storage system and because it runs for one hundred hours, 1000 00:54:45.119 --> 00:54:48.719 that means one hundred and fifty megawatt hours. That's real power, man, 1001 00:54:49.079 --> 00:54:52.079 that's not trivial. And it is expected to be operational 1002 00:54:52.079 --> 00:54:54.320 in twenty twenty five. It was supposed to be done 1003 00:54:54.320 --> 00:54:56.920 in twenty twenty three, but you know, everything takes longer. Sure, 1004 00:54:57.400 --> 00:55:01.559 they are raising hundreds of millions, so they're not a 1005 00:55:01.599 --> 00:55:03.239 little bit of money. They're making the kind of money 1006 00:55:03.239 --> 00:55:05.079 that allows them to build bigger factory. So they've been 1007 00:55:05.119 --> 00:55:09.599 built a larger factory in Virginia. They've got a new 1008 00:55:09.679 --> 00:55:13.840 project going into Maine that is supposed to be eighty 1009 00:55:13.920 --> 00:55:17.159 five megawatts, So from one point five in Minnesota to 1010 00:55:17.239 --> 00:55:21.639 eighty five that is much one of the largest power 1011 00:55:21.679 --> 00:55:24.199 storage systems ever built. Very exciting. 1012 00:55:24.400 --> 00:55:27.559 So I suppose you just need the space, right and 1013 00:55:27.719 --> 00:55:31.840 Maine's got some space some degree. It's they're not that big, right, 1014 00:55:32.519 --> 00:55:35.239 This is not as large as like a solar array. 1015 00:55:35.280 --> 00:55:36.840 It takes up a lot of area to make a 1016 00:55:36.840 --> 00:55:39.719 gig amount of power. These do days take a certain 1017 00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:41.519 amount of space. But this is a question of do 1018 00:55:41.559 --> 00:55:43.559 you have the offsets, do you need to store that 1019 00:55:43.599 --> 00:55:46.519 power then use it? How long do they last in 1020 00:55:46.599 --> 00:55:49.199 terms of years before they start failing. 1021 00:55:49.400 --> 00:55:52.760 Well, everything needs maintenance. But the lifespan on these iron 1022 00:55:52.760 --> 00:55:56.320 air browders is very good. But we don't really know 1023 00:55:56.360 --> 00:55:58.440 because we've never built them at this size before. We'll 1024 00:55:58.679 --> 00:56:00.360 not really know if they last twenty years. The last 1025 00:56:00.360 --> 00:56:03.519 twenty years, but the expectations are x iron air battery 1026 00:56:03.599 --> 00:56:07.320 is okay. There's also a concept called thermal power storage, 1027 00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:09.400 and this is one of these things that works at scale. 1028 00:56:09.760 --> 00:56:13.559 So the idea is when you have excess energy right 1029 00:56:13.599 --> 00:56:16.360 your solar or your wind or whatever power source you're 1030 00:56:16.440 --> 00:56:19.039 using that's that you can't just shut off on demand 1031 00:56:19.760 --> 00:56:24.519 is doing this thing. Then you heat up a substrate 1032 00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:31.360 sand sand, graphite. I've also seen etwos thermal storage unit. 1033 00:56:31.440 --> 00:56:34.599 So these just you literally have a box full of 1034 00:56:34.639 --> 00:56:37.039 sand with electrical heating elements in it and it'll get 1035 00:56:37.119 --> 00:56:39.559 up to hundreds of degrees centigrade and then you have 1036 00:56:39.559 --> 00:56:41.000 a set of pipes running through it that you either 1037 00:56:41.039 --> 00:56:44.519 pump air or water through to heat that up, make 1038 00:56:44.559 --> 00:56:48.280 steam to spin a turbine, or even just to provide heat. 1039 00:56:49.360 --> 00:56:52.599 The big one that's being built right now is in 1040 00:56:52.760 --> 00:56:57.679 Finland Polar Night Energy, and it is a megawatt storing 1041 00:56:57.719 --> 00:57:00.119 one hundred megawatt hour, so comparable to what we're talking 1042 00:57:00.119 --> 00:57:02.679 about a Minnesota with form energy, Except this thing is 1043 00:57:02.760 --> 00:57:05.960 just a silo right now. Admittedly it weighs a lot 1044 00:57:06.039 --> 00:57:08.960 to store a mega wat they're actually using crushed soapstone, 1045 00:57:08.960 --> 00:57:11.719 which is a byproduct of a factory nearby. So they're 1046 00:57:11.719 --> 00:57:15.920 taking waste, grinding it down into smaller pieces and piling 1047 00:57:15.960 --> 00:57:19.440 it into a silo that's thirteen meters high and fifteen 1048 00:57:19.480 --> 00:57:23.639 meters wide. Wow, that's the size of a house. But 1049 00:57:23.679 --> 00:57:26.719 it stores a mega want of energy and can discharge 1050 00:57:26.760 --> 00:57:29.599 you know, over days and days and days with about 1051 00:57:29.599 --> 00:57:33.320 a ninety percent efficiency. So you know, especially in some 1052 00:57:33.760 --> 00:57:37.400 in Finland's place that far north, bright sunny winters, but 1053 00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:39.440 they only you know, the days are short, so in 1054 00:57:39.480 --> 00:57:40.960 those days you collect a lot of sort of power. 1055 00:57:41.000 --> 00:57:44.960 You heat up this sand, and then you have power 1056 00:57:45.039 --> 00:57:48.840 available to you in storage with you know, minimal moving parts, 1057 00:57:48.880 --> 00:57:54.079 nothing being burned. It's just a big container of powdered soapstone. 1058 00:57:54.119 --> 00:57:56.159 Now, I haven't seen your notes, and I don't know 1059 00:57:56.159 --> 00:57:57.880 if you're going to talk about this or not, but 1060 00:57:58.480 --> 00:58:03.840 there's always seems to be people talking about using landfill 1061 00:58:04.280 --> 00:58:10.480 mass to burn and clean burn. That's the key, maybe 1062 00:58:10.519 --> 00:58:14.320 at such a high temperature that smoke doesn't get out 1063 00:58:14.679 --> 00:58:18.119 and pollute. I seem to hear about this, you know, 1064 00:58:18.199 --> 00:58:20.760 every once in a while, But I have no idea 1065 00:58:20.800 --> 00:58:25.880 what the state of this potential energy sources. 1066 00:58:26.239 --> 00:58:29.000 I hadn't planned on talking about biomass burning. I do 1067 00:58:29.079 --> 00:58:30.719 talk about it in the Future of energy talking. You 1068 00:58:30.760 --> 00:58:34.239 can find that on YouTube. Biomass tends to be an 1069 00:58:34.320 --> 00:58:41.159 opportunistic power generation source. So you have waste biomass like 1070 00:58:41.360 --> 00:58:47.000 you are a wheat pool, and so as you clean, 1071 00:58:47.400 --> 00:58:49.400 remove the wheat from the chaff, and so forth, you 1072 00:58:49.440 --> 00:58:51.840 get the wheat packaged up to be shipped. You have 1073 00:58:51.920 --> 00:58:54.239 all of this agro waste that comes out of it. 1074 00:58:54.800 --> 00:58:57.599 You can take that agro waste and burn it to 1075 00:58:57.639 --> 00:58:59.960 boil water and spend a turbine and make a little 1076 00:59:00.039 --> 00:59:04.320 with electricity. They're small and they're localized. The technique you're 1077 00:59:04.320 --> 00:59:07.480 talking about that has the minimum emissions is called pyrolysis. 1078 00:59:08.159 --> 00:59:10.480 Typically there's two weight approaches to it. You either use 1079 00:59:10.519 --> 00:59:13.239 a digestion process where you use bacteria to change the 1080 00:59:13.320 --> 00:59:16.559 material so it doesn't mean as much carbon dioxide, or 1081 00:59:16.639 --> 00:59:18.719 you burn it a very high temperature so that the 1082 00:59:18.760 --> 00:59:20.920 carbon is blown off the oxygen and you end up 1083 00:59:20.920 --> 00:59:25.880 with graphic individuals they're not Pyrolysis is hot, and so 1084 00:59:26.199 --> 00:59:31.559 it tends to use more energy than it emits. So 1085 00:59:31.840 --> 00:59:33.840 it's it's one of the reasons these things haven't taken off. 1086 00:59:33.920 --> 00:59:37.280 They're just not that easy. The fuel matters and biomass 1087 00:59:37.280 --> 00:59:38.400 tends to be irregular. 1088 00:59:38.519 --> 00:59:41.639 I have a fire pit. It's a Solo brand, a 1089 00:59:41.719 --> 00:59:45.960 solo stove, it's called, and it has just a mechanical design. 1090 00:59:46.039 --> 00:59:49.360 There's I mean, it's just a it's just the shape 1091 00:59:49.360 --> 00:59:52.719 of it works in such a way that once the 1092 00:59:52.760 --> 00:59:56.719 fire gets going, the smoke is like sucked in through 1093 00:59:56.840 --> 00:59:59.159 holes either in the bottom or the top or something, 1094 00:59:59.519 --> 01:00:03.119 and it gets it's burned again, and it literally is 1095 01:00:03.239 --> 01:00:06.239 smokeless when it starts. Of course you have all sorts 1096 01:00:06.239 --> 01:00:08.920 of smoke, but when that thing gets going, you don't 1097 01:00:09.119 --> 01:00:11.480 see smell anything. 1098 01:00:11.719 --> 01:00:14.760 I mean, it's still emissions, they're just not particulate, right, 1099 01:00:14.880 --> 01:00:18.400 So yeah, hot fires burn cleaner. Yeah, all right, let's 1100 01:00:18.599 --> 01:00:19.159 finish up. 1101 01:00:19.239 --> 01:00:21.920 So the idea is, you know, landfills are full of 1102 01:00:21.960 --> 01:00:25.719 crap that isn't going to biod grade, and you know, 1103 01:00:25.840 --> 01:00:29.519 people talk about burning that stuff in some sort of 1104 01:00:29.880 --> 01:00:35.119 really high hot, high heat manner so as to not 1105 01:00:35.239 --> 01:00:36.000 be as polluting. 1106 01:00:36.519 --> 01:00:39.079 But anyway, it's going to cost a lot of energy. 1107 01:00:39.159 --> 01:00:41.639 It's all. If we had access energy, it's possibility. It's 1108 01:00:41.639 --> 01:00:42.840 a way to clean up the mass, but it's not 1109 01:00:42.840 --> 01:00:45.320 a way to make power. Okay, all right, finishing up storage. 1110 01:00:46.239 --> 01:00:50.000 China put online the largest flywheel energy storage system in 1111 01:00:50.039 --> 01:00:53.920 the world in ding Lundon. It's one hundred and twenty 1112 01:00:53.960 --> 01:00:57.920 flywheels able to generate about thirty megawatts of energy. So 1113 01:00:57.960 --> 01:00:59.760 what are we talking about? Yeah, what does that imagine 1114 01:00:59.760 --> 01:01:03.480 is cylinder about two meters across and six meters long, 1115 01:01:03.559 --> 01:01:07.840 buried in the ground with a large metallic cylinder inside 1116 01:01:07.880 --> 01:01:10.119 of it that you spin up with electricity and it 1117 01:01:10.159 --> 01:01:12.119 has so much momentum that you can then tap that 1118 01:01:12.159 --> 01:01:16.599 electricity back off of it again. Okay, just a spinning flywheel. 1119 01:01:16.639 --> 01:01:17.920 This is one hundred and twenty of them. They're buried 1120 01:01:17.960 --> 01:01:20.000 in the ground for a reason. When they come apart, 1121 01:01:20.239 --> 01:01:23.079 they fly, so you keep them in the ground to 1122 01:01:23.159 --> 01:01:26.440 keep them safe. They don't start power for very long. 1123 01:01:26.519 --> 01:01:29.880 They're good for stabilizing the grid, so if you're switching, 1124 01:01:30.119 --> 01:01:32.599 you know solars coming down because it's night and you're 1125 01:01:32.639 --> 01:01:35.920 powering up your other plants. As the power gets a 1126 01:01:35.920 --> 01:01:38.960 little unstable, these flywheels really come into play. It's the 1127 01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:41.320 largest in the world. The second largest, the one that 1128 01:01:41.360 --> 01:01:43.480 it beat out was actually in Stevens Style in New 1129 01:01:43.559 --> 01:01:47.360 York Beacon Power. It's a twenty megawat system. So these 1130 01:01:47.360 --> 01:01:51.199 are not that weird. They but they don't scale particularly 1131 01:01:51.199 --> 01:01:53.440 well and they don't start power for long. They're great 1132 01:01:53.519 --> 01:01:57.159 for the several minutes where you need to stabilize the grid. 1133 01:01:57.199 --> 01:02:00.239 They're not designed to run for days. Got it. Power 1134 01:02:00.280 --> 01:02:03.079 storage The largest in the world is pump tydro right, 1135 01:02:03.159 --> 01:02:05.000 that's pumping water uphills so you can let it flow 1136 01:02:05.079 --> 01:02:08.119 back downhill. Has about an eighty ninety percent efficiency ratio. 1137 01:02:08.559 --> 01:02:11.639 Today there's about one hundred and twenty five gigawatts of 1138 01:02:11.719 --> 01:02:14.599 pumped hydro in the world. There was a great study 1139 01:02:14.599 --> 01:02:17.719 I talked about last year from the Australian University about 1140 01:02:17.719 --> 01:02:20.199 how how many pumped hydro sites exist in the world 1141 01:02:20.280 --> 01:02:23.199 that could be built is the place different from a 1142 01:02:23.280 --> 01:02:25.239 hydro electric site where you need to have flowing water 1143 01:02:25.239 --> 01:02:26.960 at the top of a hill and you control it 1144 01:02:27.000 --> 01:02:28.360 going down to the bottom of a hill, and that 1145 01:02:28.400 --> 01:02:30.119 makes power. This is I have flowing water at the 1146 01:02:30.119 --> 01:02:32.400 bottom of a hill, right, so I put the reservoir 1147 01:02:32.440 --> 01:02:33.920 at the top of the hill, pump the water up there, 1148 01:02:33.960 --> 01:02:35.360 and bring it back down when I need it. There's 1149 01:02:35.400 --> 01:02:38.519 lots more sites for that. There are about two hundred 1150 01:02:38.519 --> 01:02:43.599 gigawatts of pump hydro indevelopment, so almost double what already exists. Wow. 1151 01:02:43.960 --> 01:02:47.000 So we're catching on to different ways to store power. 1152 01:02:47.000 --> 01:02:51.480 It's not just about batteries. There's thermal, there's gravity, lots 1153 01:02:51.519 --> 01:02:56.039 of choices for stormpower. Nice. All right, Let you wanted 1154 01:02:56.039 --> 01:02:58.000 to talk about poweralysis, It is probably a good time 1155 01:02:58.000 --> 01:03:01.320 to talk about hydrogen because hydrogen involves paralysis. Now, all right. 1156 01:03:02.559 --> 01:03:05.079 You get a lot of noise about hydrogen these days, 1157 01:03:05.199 --> 01:03:07.280 and there's a very good reason for it. It's good for 1158 01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:10.719 the oil and gas industry. Why why does the oil 1159 01:03:10.719 --> 01:03:12.800 and gas industry like hydrogen. I see the writing on 1160 01:03:12.840 --> 01:03:16.039 the wall that the pressure's on to burn less hydrocarbons, 1161 01:03:16.599 --> 01:03:20.000 But they own all these pipelines and things, and hydrogen 1162 01:03:20.079 --> 01:03:22.960 can be piped too, so instead of pumping natural gas 1163 01:03:22.960 --> 01:03:24.920 through those pipes, you could be piping through hydrogen. Not 1164 01:03:25.000 --> 01:03:28.880 that it's easy, hydrogen is remarkably good at escaping and 1165 01:03:28.920 --> 01:03:33.480 it's not particularly efficient, but they still it's an option 1166 01:03:34.119 --> 01:03:36.159 for them to keep running the infrastructure. So when you 1167 01:03:36.159 --> 01:03:39.239 hear about hydrogen economies, just remember that's because the oil 1168 01:03:39.239 --> 01:03:41.159 and gas industry likes it the most, because it's got 1169 01:03:41.239 --> 01:03:44.719 lots of problems. Now, it's not like we don't use 1170 01:03:44.800 --> 01:03:47.760 hydrogen today. It's used in industrial processes. We don't use 1171 01:03:47.760 --> 01:03:50.599 it for energy generation, we use it for industrial processes. 1172 01:03:50.639 --> 01:03:54.159 It's how you hydrogenate soybean oil. You need hydrogen, and 1173 01:03:54.239 --> 01:03:56.880 so the mechanism that's used to make the majority of 1174 01:03:56.920 --> 01:04:01.039 hydrogen today is called steam reformation, which is typically you 1175 01:04:01.079 --> 01:04:05.679 take methane and you blast it to blow the carbon 1176 01:04:05.719 --> 01:04:07.480 off the hydrogen. You store the hydrogen, you let the 1177 01:04:07.519 --> 01:04:11.480 carbon go as carbon dioxides. So for every ton of 1178 01:04:11.840 --> 01:04:15.880 hydrogen gas you make, it takes about six megawatt hours 1179 01:04:15.880 --> 01:04:19.440 of electricity, and you produce a ton of hydrogen at 1180 01:04:19.440 --> 01:04:22.639 about nine to twelve tons of carbon dioxide. It's a 1181 01:04:22.679 --> 01:04:25.800 messy process, but it works. And so again we will 1182 01:04:25.800 --> 01:04:29.480 only make a certain amount of hydrogen today for industrial processes. 1183 01:04:29.920 --> 01:04:31.320 But if we want to scale it up for the 1184 01:04:31.360 --> 01:04:34.360 so called hydrogen economy, we need to get more efficient. 1185 01:04:34.440 --> 01:04:36.880 That one is to get rid of the carbon dioxide. 1186 01:04:36.920 --> 01:04:40.079 So if you up the power consumption four times to 1187 01:04:40.119 --> 01:04:44.559 about twenty five megawatt hours, you can do methane pyrolysis. 1188 01:04:45.400 --> 01:04:49.559 So now you're blowing the oxygen, the hydrogen and carbon apart, 1189 01:04:49.880 --> 01:04:51.599 but you're not allowing oxygen to bind to it because 1190 01:04:51.599 --> 01:04:53.639 the energy levels are too high. So you get out 1191 01:04:54.079 --> 01:04:57.920 a ton of hydrogen and about three tons of graphite, 1192 01:04:58.239 --> 01:05:01.719 carbon powder and barry. If you want to secure the 1193 01:05:01.760 --> 01:05:05.159 carbon that way, it's questioning or use the graphite like 1194 01:05:05.199 --> 01:05:07.960 it's up to you. It just takes a lot of energy. Right. 1195 01:05:08.119 --> 01:05:10.320 The one that everybody wants, the one everybody loves, the 1196 01:05:10.440 --> 01:05:14.360 so called green hydrogen. The other steam reformation being gray 1197 01:05:15.039 --> 01:05:19.880 and making it water. It's making from water electrolysis, electronity. 1198 01:05:20.719 --> 01:05:23.679 So this is you've seen these experiments in your in 1199 01:05:23.719 --> 01:05:26.480 your science labs. Pretty easy. You can take a battery 1200 01:05:26.519 --> 01:05:28.599 and put two leads in water and you'll get bubbles out. 1201 01:05:28.599 --> 01:05:30.159 One of the bubbles will be hydrogen, the other one 1202 01:05:30.199 --> 01:05:33.559 will be oxygen. Beautiful. To do electrolysis at scale to 1203 01:05:33.639 --> 01:05:37.239 make a ton of hydrogen gas, you need about sixty 1204 01:05:37.480 --> 01:05:42.480 megawatts megawatt hours of energy. Okay, so ten times what 1205 01:05:42.599 --> 01:05:45.000 it costs to make an energy what it takes to 1206 01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:47.639 make a ton of hydrogen with steam reformation. You'll also 1207 01:05:47.639 --> 01:05:50.280 make eight tons of auction. But nobody minds that, right, 1208 01:05:51.000 --> 01:05:54.800 and so it's just too costly. Like here's the here's 1209 01:05:54.800 --> 01:05:56.679 the other equation. So I have this hydrogen gas and 1210 01:05:56.719 --> 01:06:00.320 I want to make electricity from it. So the most 1211 01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:03.960 efficient way to make energy from hydrogen right now is 1212 01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:06.400 in a fuel cell R right. We use these on 1213 01:06:06.440 --> 01:06:10.039 the Space Shuttle. They're pretty expensive and finicky machines. 1214 01:06:09.679 --> 01:06:15.039 Reverse osmosis, I think, right, what's that reverse osmosis machine? Yeah, 1215 01:06:15.159 --> 01:06:15.559 kind of thing. 1216 01:06:16.159 --> 01:06:18.880 It's a little more. Yeah, there's a protein exchange membrane. 1217 01:06:18.920 --> 01:06:21.639 You're basically forcing the hydrogen and auction back together. You 1218 01:06:21.719 --> 01:06:25.719 make water, you get electricity from it for a Typically 1219 01:06:25.719 --> 01:06:28.639 from a fuel cell, you'll get three point three six 1220 01:06:28.719 --> 01:06:31.960 megawat hours of electricity for one ton of hydrogen. You 1221 01:06:32.079 --> 01:06:35.159 pull the oxygen from the atmosphere. So that's about fifty 1222 01:06:35.239 --> 01:06:38.039 percent of the energy that it costs to break out 1223 01:06:38.079 --> 01:06:43.320 that hydrogen with steam reformation. It's five percent of the 1224 01:06:43.400 --> 01:06:45.679 energy that it costs to get it from electrolysis. So 1225 01:06:45.760 --> 01:06:46.880 this is a loser. 1226 01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:50.800 It's a loser, especially when you consider electric cars are 1227 01:06:50.840 --> 01:06:55.039 already here and they're already efficient, and why would you 1228 01:06:55.440 --> 01:06:58.440 just add all these extra steps to put hydrogen in 1229 01:06:58.480 --> 01:07:02.360 a car. It's such a loss. Yeah, and it's hard 1230 01:07:02.440 --> 01:07:05.719 to store, all right, Hydrogen wants to escape. It goes 1231 01:07:05.719 --> 01:07:11.119 through most metals. It's the smallest atom, so it's very tough. Also, 1232 01:07:11.239 --> 01:07:14.679 it's tough to pump because it's a low density gas. 1233 01:07:15.239 --> 01:07:17.239 You've got to pump a lot more of it to 1234 01:07:17.280 --> 01:07:19.559 move the same amount of energy. Like methane is way 1235 01:07:19.599 --> 01:07:22.599 more efficient in every respect. Oh, there's another problem with hydrogen. 1236 01:07:23.039 --> 01:07:24.159 It goes boom. 1237 01:07:24.199 --> 01:07:27.519 Well, so does methane. Right, we can cope with that, 1238 01:07:28.159 --> 01:07:29.000 but it's. 1239 01:07:28.840 --> 01:07:32.079 Not that Yeah, Well, trying to trying to contain it 1240 01:07:32.159 --> 01:07:35.559 and keep it safe. You know, if you get into 1241 01:07:35.599 --> 01:07:39.559 an accident in a gasoline powered car, Yeah, you have 1242 01:07:39.639 --> 01:07:42.840 the gasoline kind of burns slow, right, so it doesn't 1243 01:07:42.880 --> 01:07:44.199 necessarily explode. 1244 01:07:44.199 --> 01:07:44.559 But if you. 1245 01:07:44.559 --> 01:07:47.199 Puncture a hydrogen tank, game over, man. 1246 01:07:47.239 --> 01:07:50.920 Well it'll it depends. Yeah, it's not that. It's not 1247 01:07:51.000 --> 01:07:54.440 a fast explosive. So right now it costs about five 1248 01:07:54.440 --> 01:07:56.800 thousand dollars to make a mega to make a ton 1249 01:07:56.880 --> 01:08:00.800 of hydrogen about five bucks a kilo. They Department of 1250 01:08:00.880 --> 01:08:04.239 Energy is working has an initiative none of these shot 1251 01:08:04.280 --> 01:08:06.920 things called the hydrogen shot where they're trying to get 1252 01:08:06.960 --> 01:08:08.679 it down to a dollar keel or about a thousand 1253 01:08:08.719 --> 01:08:11.880 dollars and stuff. They don't have any way of actually 1254 01:08:11.920 --> 01:08:16.720 doing that. They're just trying, so it's a challenging project. 1255 01:08:16.800 --> 01:08:19.199 One of the areas where electrolysis kind of gets interesting 1256 01:08:19.239 --> 01:08:21.079 here is when you get back to that excess solar 1257 01:08:21.119 --> 01:08:24.840 thing or even excess wind, I mean, any of these 1258 01:08:24.840 --> 01:08:29.039 power generation methods where they we can't control when they generate. 1259 01:08:29.079 --> 01:08:31.399 They just generate. If you have access power, you could 1260 01:08:31.439 --> 01:08:34.720 be doing electrollsy essentially for free, but you do have 1261 01:08:34.800 --> 01:08:38.479 to store the hydrogen and move it and none of 1262 01:08:38.479 --> 01:08:43.399 that is free. Mm so, but it's still understanding that 1263 01:08:43.399 --> 01:08:45.800 the electrolysis is the most expensive part. It just consumes 1264 01:08:45.840 --> 01:08:48.720 a lot of energy. It's one of the possibilities. 1265 01:08:48.079 --> 01:08:51.720 Well, and also given the fact that you know that 1266 01:08:51.840 --> 01:08:54.720 electricity could be just going right to the grid to 1267 01:08:54.760 --> 01:08:58.760 power electric vehicles and other things that require electricity. 1268 01:08:58.319 --> 01:09:02.520 Yeah, or stored in batteries or thermal like strain batteries. Yeah, exactly, 1269 01:09:02.560 --> 01:09:06.840 it's just why do the hydrogen conversion? Exactly? That's my position. 1270 01:09:07.039 --> 01:09:11.439 All right, let's move on from hydrogen to geothermal cool 1271 01:09:11.560 --> 01:09:14.720 We're now getting into the area where geothermal power plants. 1272 01:09:14.800 --> 01:09:19.159 The ones that work traditional they're really efficient, like stunning 1273 01:09:19.199 --> 01:09:23.199 the capacity factors ninety percent. Wow, they're not big. There's 1274 01:09:23.199 --> 01:09:25.000 not a lot of geothermal in the world for a reason. 1275 01:09:25.439 --> 01:09:30.079 Most geothermal power comes from geysers Iceland, for example. So 1276 01:09:30.159 --> 01:09:33.439 you're looking for interface points in the earth where you 1277 01:09:33.640 --> 01:09:39.800 have a wet system being heated by the rock underneath it. Yea. 1278 01:09:40.000 --> 01:09:43.800 So places like Iceland, Indonesia, New Zealand, where they have 1279 01:09:44.319 --> 01:09:47.479 quite a lot of volcanic activity, they've got these geyser 1280 01:09:47.520 --> 01:09:53.039 basins think Yellowstone, Yeah right, so weird colored pools, occasional 1281 01:09:53.079 --> 01:09:55.039 spouting guysers, that kind of thing. This stuff, by the way, 1282 01:09:55.079 --> 01:09:58.560 all over New Zealand too. But they realize the energy 1283 01:09:58.600 --> 01:10:01.800 potential of it. Years ago, and so they drill into it, 1284 01:10:01.880 --> 01:10:05.239 put pipes down to bring that hot water up, spin 1285 01:10:05.239 --> 01:10:08.000 a turbine and then pump back down. It does destroy 1286 01:10:08.119 --> 01:10:10.279 the guys are bed in the process. These systems are 1287 01:10:10.359 --> 01:10:13.199 very fragile, and so as soon as you mess with 1288 01:10:13.199 --> 01:10:16.239 them in any way, they go away. Like one would argue, 1289 01:10:16.279 --> 01:10:19.600 they're more valuable as amazing tourist destinations than they are. 1290 01:10:19.720 --> 01:10:21.520 New Zealand destroyed a bunch of them. It's one of 1291 01:10:21.560 --> 01:10:23.720 the reasons that Yellowstone is so heavily protected because the 1292 01:10:23.760 --> 01:10:27.760 experience of any country trying to tap that power that 1293 01:10:27.840 --> 01:10:31.439 way is it's an industrial site after that, and they 1294 01:10:31.439 --> 01:10:34.399 do fail. Like you disrupt that water flow, sometimes that 1295 01:10:34.439 --> 01:10:37.319 water goes away. I just go right into a volcano. 1296 01:10:37.680 --> 01:10:40.159 You know, well, yeah, he's coming to Mount Saint Helens. 1297 01:10:40.520 --> 01:10:45.760 So there's the traditional geothermal is what call a wet 1298 01:10:45.840 --> 01:10:48.279 rock model. So you already have voids in the rock 1299 01:10:48.359 --> 01:10:50.159 that build up steam so that you can take that 1300 01:10:50.199 --> 01:10:52.479 power and so forth. But we know there's lots of 1301 01:10:52.720 --> 01:10:55.600 dry rock right that's very hot. It just doesn't have 1302 01:10:55.720 --> 01:10:58.119 water in it right, right, And you can't really pump 1303 01:10:58.159 --> 01:11:01.720 water into it because it's essentially in perma. So what's 1304 01:11:01.760 --> 01:11:03.439 happened in the past few years, and again I've talked 1305 01:11:03.439 --> 01:11:07.600 about this before. The companies have gotten together using fracking techniques, 1306 01:11:08.000 --> 01:11:12.600 so horizontal drilling combined with vertical drilling to make wet 1307 01:11:12.680 --> 01:11:16.479 rock structures. So they use horizontal drilling and fracking to 1308 01:11:16.560 --> 01:11:20.319 go into a dry rock bed. The fracking actually creates 1309 01:11:20.359 --> 01:11:22.119 the voids to give you a place to water. Then 1310 01:11:22.159 --> 01:11:24.800 you have vertical pipes coming down on one side of 1311 01:11:24.840 --> 01:11:27.119 that void to pump the water in, and vertical pipes 1312 01:11:27.159 --> 01:11:28.800 on the other side to take that hot water back 1313 01:11:28.840 --> 01:11:32.439 out and spinder and this we talked about this last year. 1314 01:11:33.279 --> 01:11:38.920 Fervo in Nevada and Utah built test plants, megawatt sized 1315 01:11:38.920 --> 01:11:41.960 power plants using this technique, and the big thing they 1316 01:11:42.039 --> 01:11:44.800 pointed out was that they even had one of them 1317 01:11:45.079 --> 01:11:47.000 break right then. One of the things happens when you 1318 01:11:47.039 --> 01:11:49.359 slam cold water down on hot rocks is those rocks 1319 01:11:49.439 --> 01:11:52.520 move and the water stop flowing. But they were able 1320 01:11:52.560 --> 01:11:56.359 to use the horizontal drilling method to re establish the bed. 1321 01:11:56.760 --> 01:12:00.880 So it's got possibilities and they've raised a ton of money. 1322 01:12:00.880 --> 01:12:03.560 In fact, Utah has now got this new project could 1323 01:12:03.560 --> 01:12:07.560 call Operation gigawatt where they want to start scaling out 1324 01:12:07.560 --> 01:12:10.640 geothermal and nuclear power to provide a farm or energy. 1325 01:12:11.119 --> 01:12:15.239 So they've licensed Fervo to build out a two gigawatt 1326 01:12:15.319 --> 01:12:20.520 geothermal power plant in Utah that would be as much 1327 01:12:20.640 --> 01:12:23.920 geothermal has has ever been built in the US. Wow. 1328 01:12:24.079 --> 01:12:27.079 Like you're really talking about doubling it. Wow, And they 1329 01:12:27.119 --> 01:12:29.279 are bringing the kind of money that's supposed to work. 1330 01:12:29.720 --> 01:12:34.039 On a previous show, I mentioned microwave drilling. So traditional 1331 01:12:34.159 --> 01:12:39.199 drilling uses diamond headed tips and casements and mud. So 1332 01:12:39.279 --> 01:12:41.279 you drill down in the ground and you're grinding up 1333 01:12:41.319 --> 01:12:43.079 the rock and that rock gets in the ways you 1334 01:12:43.119 --> 01:12:45.840 grind it up right, so you pump down a slurry 1335 01:12:45.920 --> 01:12:48.800 mud that helps lift that rock out of the pipe 1336 01:12:48.840 --> 01:12:51.520 so that you can keep drilling down. Eventually headwear is out. 1337 01:12:51.560 --> 01:12:53.359 You got to back all the way out, use casements 1338 01:12:53.359 --> 01:12:55.119 to stop the hole from classes. Like, drilling is a 1339 01:12:55.159 --> 01:12:57.880 complicated set of technologies. And don't even get me started 1340 01:12:57.920 --> 01:13:00.840 on horizontal drilling where they actually turn corners and things 1341 01:13:00.840 --> 01:13:04.439 with these casements. It's astonishing technology which the US leads 1342 01:13:04.439 --> 01:13:07.000 the world. Well, we should talk about fracking before we 1343 01:13:07.239 --> 01:13:09.039 wrap up here. I don't know if now it's the 1344 01:13:09.119 --> 01:13:11.720 right time, but we should talk about it. Sure, I 1345 01:13:11.800 --> 01:13:15.000 know that based on what I've learned in the last 1346 01:13:15.079 --> 01:13:19.399 few years, mostly from talking to you, fracking kind of 1347 01:13:19.439 --> 01:13:23.960 reinvented the energy boom of the United States. The US 1348 01:13:24.039 --> 01:13:26.479 is now export back one of the largest in the world. 1349 01:13:26.640 --> 01:13:29.880 Yeah, also has its critics, I believe it or not. 1350 01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:35.560 My family is intimately involved in my bigger family. One 1351 01:13:35.600 --> 01:13:38.359 of my cousins out in Pennsylvania was the guy in 1352 01:13:38.399 --> 01:13:43.520 Bradford County who has that YouTube video of famously lighting 1353 01:13:43.560 --> 01:13:44.720 his tap on fire. 1354 01:13:44.960 --> 01:13:48.359 Right, his methane was coming through his water's block, correct. Yeah. 1355 01:13:48.399 --> 01:13:51.960 And the oil industry did fracking very sneaky, right. Instead 1356 01:13:51.960 --> 01:13:54.119 of the big companies doing it, they had little groups 1357 01:13:54.199 --> 01:13:57.000 develop it so there was nobody to sue and they 1358 01:13:57.079 --> 01:14:02.079 experimented on people essentially. Yeah, they've now learned not to 1359 01:14:02.159 --> 01:14:05.239 drill into a water table. Yeah, but you know the 1360 01:14:05.359 --> 01:14:09.920 essence of this technology is to drill into non permeable 1361 01:14:09.920 --> 01:14:14.680 oil bearing rock, frack it to loosen the oil and extract, yeah, which. 1362 01:14:14.560 --> 01:14:18.399 Means fracture, fracture it, and then extract the gas. And 1363 01:14:18.760 --> 01:14:22.520 there's also critics who say that it causes earthquakes. 1364 01:14:22.520 --> 01:14:24.640 What do you say about that. I think it absolutely does. 1365 01:14:24.880 --> 01:14:27.920 But they're small and they're not fault line earthquakes. They're 1366 01:14:27.920 --> 01:14:30.239 not going to continue. But the bottom line is, when 1367 01:14:30.279 --> 01:14:34.840 you move rock to free oil, that's an earthquake. By definition, 1368 01:14:35.079 --> 01:14:37.920 you equaked the earth. Yeah, I guess you're right there. 1369 01:14:38.199 --> 01:14:42.279 And so do you see fracking in the United States 1370 01:14:42.319 --> 01:14:47.479 continuing and expanding and perhaps being exported elsewhere. 1371 01:14:47.680 --> 01:14:51.119 Well, other countries have rejected it, other countries have embraced it. 1372 01:14:51.680 --> 01:14:54.720 The US is a net oil exporter for a reason 1373 01:14:54.760 --> 01:14:58.039 that technology works. You've noticed this not in the news 1374 01:14:58.119 --> 01:15:01.880 much so they've largely resolved the issues. But I don't 1375 01:15:01.920 --> 01:15:06.239 know an administration in recent history that didn't say drill, baby, drill. 1376 01:15:07.119 --> 01:15:10.319 And it's certainly changed the geopolitics of the world to 1377 01:15:10.359 --> 01:15:14.560 have the USB and net petrochemical exporter, so it doesn't 1378 01:15:14.600 --> 01:15:18.079 seem like it's going away. Last year I mentioned microwave drilling. 1379 01:15:18.119 --> 01:15:20.600 The company is called Quay's Energy, where they had this 1380 01:15:20.760 --> 01:15:23.680 high frequency microwave that would drill into the ground by 1381 01:15:23.720 --> 01:15:28.359 melting the rock. Very cool, very science fiction, very demoable, 1382 01:15:28.680 --> 01:15:33.319 not particularly practical. It's a tremendous amount of energy The 1383 01:15:33.399 --> 01:15:36.520 idea here was that you vaporized the rock with microwaves 1384 01:15:36.520 --> 01:15:39.000 and that rock would embed itself to become its own casement, 1385 01:15:39.039 --> 01:15:41.640 which is a cool idea. It just doesn't work at depth. 1386 01:15:42.399 --> 01:15:45.239 Then you need to pump more and more pressurized air 1387 01:15:45.399 --> 01:15:50.239 in as you're doing that, which takes more energy. It's problematic. 1388 01:15:50.319 --> 01:15:52.520 So it's and then looking at their funding and what's 1389 01:15:52.560 --> 01:15:55.279 been currently going on, I think everybody's figured out it's 1390 01:15:55.279 --> 01:15:58.439 not going to go anywhere, So okay, it's not a thing. 1391 01:16:00.039 --> 01:16:04.520 Matt Furder asked on one of the social media's about 1392 01:16:04.600 --> 01:16:08.600 volcanic geo thermal, which hearkens back to the super Volcano 1393 01:16:08.680 --> 01:16:12.479 show we did fifteen sixty four back in July twenty eighteen. Yeah, 1394 01:16:12.520 --> 01:16:14.239 and I just said, why not just stick a pipe 1395 01:16:14.239 --> 01:16:16.640 into Mount Saint Helens to see what happened. This wouldn't 1396 01:16:16.640 --> 01:16:19.399 be my first choice. It's kind of a messy place. 1397 01:16:19.479 --> 01:16:22.560 Look all of the geo thermal it exists in the US, 1398 01:16:22.600 --> 01:16:27.880 which is in California, Nevada, Utah is volcanic geothermal. Right, 1399 01:16:28.319 --> 01:16:33.039 there's called errors is young immature volcano. Magma buds all over. 1400 01:16:33.079 --> 01:16:34.640 That's what's heating up the water on the rock in 1401 01:16:34.680 --> 01:16:38.359 the first place, relatively close to the surface. There was 1402 01:16:38.399 --> 01:16:40.680 the reason I did that super volcano show is that 1403 01:16:40.720 --> 01:16:44.359 I had read the paper from NASA about how to 1404 01:16:44.399 --> 01:16:50.520 defeat the Yellowstone supervolcano. Right that the Yellowstone super volcano 1405 01:16:50.520 --> 01:16:53.479 has erupted every six hundred thousand years for the past 1406 01:16:53.640 --> 01:16:57.079 two point four million years, and the last eruption was 1407 01:16:57.119 --> 01:17:00.560 six hundred thousand years ago, which is yeah, twice the 1408 01:17:00.680 --> 01:17:04.760 duration that humans have existed on the planet. What would 1409 01:17:04.840 --> 01:17:06.359 we do if we knew it was going to happen. 1410 01:17:06.399 --> 01:17:10.000 We're pretty good at understanding volcanic behavior now, So if 1411 01:17:10.039 --> 01:17:15.279 they Yellowstone Caldera was to start rising, aka magma pressure 1412 01:17:15.319 --> 01:17:17.680 is building up, what could we do about that? Because 1413 01:17:17.720 --> 01:17:20.319 that a volcano erupting a super volcano is hard to 1414 01:17:20.319 --> 01:17:24.239 conceive of it's several kilometers across. Would literally drop ash 1415 01:17:24.560 --> 01:17:27.199 in a swath going east all the way to the 1416 01:17:27.239 --> 01:17:33.239 Atlantic Ocean, several hundred kilometers across, Like it would be bad. Yeah, 1417 01:17:33.279 --> 01:17:36.439 And so the idea was put a series of pipes 1418 01:17:36.479 --> 01:17:39.359 down around the cult ara, not in it, but near 1419 01:17:39.439 --> 01:17:42.399 the hot rock, and pump the heat away by making 1420 01:17:42.439 --> 01:17:45.800 electricity with it so that it never melts its way 1421 01:17:45.840 --> 01:17:49.600 through the crust. You just extract enough heat. Now would 1422 01:17:49.600 --> 01:17:52.199 we win that battle? That's a good question, because the 1423 01:17:52.239 --> 01:17:53.680 other side of this is you're going to make that 1424 01:17:53.720 --> 01:17:56.319 plug stronger and stronger as you're stucking that heat away 1425 01:17:56.640 --> 01:18:00.039 until it does blow even bigger. But you're also and 1426 01:18:00.119 --> 01:18:02.079 you'd also destroy the park in the process. But if 1427 01:18:02.079 --> 01:18:05.479 the choice is between destroying the country and destroying a park, 1428 01:18:05.520 --> 01:18:06.720 I think the park's going to lose. 1429 01:18:06.920 --> 01:18:10.560 And when you say destroy the country, it probably would 1430 01:18:10.560 --> 01:18:13.520 be a little bit bigger circumference than just the country. 1431 01:18:13.760 --> 01:18:16.479 Well, you know, you think depending on the scope of 1432 01:18:16.520 --> 01:18:19.680 the eruption. Yeah, I mean you remember Mount Pinituba rupted 1433 01:18:19.720 --> 01:18:21.800 in ninety one. It lowered the average temperature on the 1434 01:18:21.840 --> 01:18:23.920 planet by half a degree for a year. It sent 1435 01:18:24.159 --> 01:18:28.039 ash all the way around the world. When Krakatoa erupted 1436 01:18:28.079 --> 01:18:30.079 in the eighteen hundreds, they called that the year without 1437 01:18:30.079 --> 01:18:33.560 a summer, So a super volcanic eruption. The last one 1438 01:18:33.600 --> 01:18:37.840 was more than sixty thousand years ago. Mount Taupo could 1439 01:18:37.880 --> 01:18:41.960 easily create the equivalent of a nuclear winter, several years 1440 01:18:42.039 --> 01:18:45.760 of darkness, plant death all over the world. But the 1441 01:18:45.800 --> 01:18:48.960 ash fall even from a smaller version of that eruption 1442 01:18:49.159 --> 01:18:53.600 would be several feet deep, a few hundred miles across, 1443 01:18:54.039 --> 01:18:59.560 running from Wyoming to Boston right through Connecticut. That's a 1444 01:18:59.560 --> 01:19:03.399 lot of economic destruction. And you know, who knows how 1445 01:19:03.399 --> 01:19:05.640 wide that band would be. So there's a case for 1446 01:19:06.479 --> 01:19:08.600 could we do this now? A minutely, this was the 1447 01:19:08.720 --> 01:19:11.479 Planetary Defense Group. The guys were also dealing with how 1448 01:19:11.520 --> 01:19:14.279 did we stop asteroids the planet? So forth? So this 1449 01:19:14.399 --> 01:19:18.640 was another project and very speculative, but not out of realms. 1450 01:19:18.680 --> 01:19:20.920 You know, the old joke is the dinosaurs died out 1451 01:19:20.920 --> 01:19:24.159 because they didn't have a space program, right, yes, right, right. 1452 01:19:25.399 --> 01:19:28.239 If we knew that there was a possibility of that volcano, 1453 01:19:28.319 --> 01:19:31.560 that super volcano erupting, would we want to try and 1454 01:19:31.600 --> 01:19:35.680 stop it? Is that feasible? I wouldn't say anybody other 1455 01:19:35.720 --> 01:19:38.800 than Americans would even consider it and take it seriously, 1456 01:19:38.880 --> 01:19:42.279 but it would be possible. Yeah, all right, what's next? 1457 01:19:42.399 --> 01:19:45.199 I've talked about all that because it was the easy stuff. 1458 01:19:45.239 --> 01:19:47.920 Because now we get to talk about the hard stuff. Okay, 1459 01:19:48.039 --> 01:19:52.000 it's time to talk about nuclear. Nuclear. So again I've 1460 01:19:52.000 --> 01:19:54.880 been doing talks on nuclear I've gotten a lot of 1461 01:19:54.880 --> 01:19:57.279 feedback from a lot of people. I've read deeper than 1462 01:19:57.279 --> 01:20:01.760 ever I come to appreciate how complex the industry actually is, 1463 01:20:01.840 --> 01:20:04.520 or at least understand more about it. You know, we 1464 01:20:04.560 --> 01:20:08.000 talk about the nuclear industry being stagnant, but at the 1465 01:20:08.039 --> 01:20:11.800 same time it kept improving in subtle ways like that 1466 01:20:11.920 --> 01:20:15.279 are not that obvious. Three Mile Island really stopped nuclear 1467 01:20:15.359 --> 01:20:19.279 development in the US, and in Chernobyl that was seventy nine, 1468 01:20:19.319 --> 01:20:22.439 and in Chernobyl, you know, arguably one of the large, 1469 01:20:22.520 --> 01:20:24.159 one of a significant cause of the fall of the 1470 01:20:24.199 --> 01:20:28.399 Soviet Union, and then Fukushima and twenty eleven, you know, 1471 01:20:30.239 --> 01:20:33.920 that being said, this year a new nuclear power plant 1472 01:20:33.920 --> 01:20:37.399 went online in Georgia and Waynesboro at the Vaugdeal site. 1473 01:20:38.159 --> 01:20:41.199 Was it a traditional nuclear power plant or it is 1474 01:20:41.399 --> 01:20:45.279 absolutely Did it have any modern upgrades. It's an AP 1475 01:20:45.479 --> 01:20:47.520 one thousand, which is a Gen three plus. So the 1476 01:20:47.560 --> 01:20:51.199 Vaugdeal site had its original reactors, which are all both 1477 01:20:51.239 --> 01:20:54.079 Westinghouse reactors built in the eighties. They went online in 1478 01:20:54.119 --> 01:20:57.800 eighty seven and eighty nine, one point two gigawatts each. 1479 01:20:58.600 --> 01:21:00.760 They just got their license extended. They're in good shape, 1480 01:21:00.760 --> 01:21:02.920 so they expect to run them till twenty forty seven 1481 01:21:02.960 --> 01:21:07.439 and twenty forty nine, respectively. So in two thousand and nine, 1482 01:21:06.960 --> 01:21:11.760 the Volacteal group applied to add two more reactors, which 1483 01:21:11.760 --> 01:21:13.600 is unusual in the US. It's always just been a 1484 01:21:13.640 --> 01:21:16.079 pair of reactors in each site. Other parts of the 1485 01:21:16.079 --> 01:21:20.119 world have more. They'll do four or eight. Chernobyl was four. 1486 01:21:20.399 --> 01:21:21.880 It was a reactor for that blew up. 1487 01:21:23.439 --> 01:21:25.479 So they applied for two more in two thousand and nine, 1488 01:21:25.479 --> 01:21:29.680 reactors three and four. They were the first, well they 1489 01:21:29.680 --> 01:21:31.920 applied earlier. Now they started construction in two thousand and nine. 1490 01:21:31.960 --> 01:21:35.199 Was the first new reactor since three Mile Island. So 1491 01:21:35.239 --> 01:21:37.199 they and this was this what they call the EP 1492 01:21:37.279 --> 01:21:39.359 one thousand designs. So this is also Westinghouse like the 1493 01:21:39.359 --> 01:21:41.319 reactors already there, but this is a newer generation. One 1494 01:21:41.319 --> 01:21:43.239 of these is a Gen where they called Gen three plus, 1495 01:21:43.279 --> 01:21:45.760 certified in two thousand and five. And the whole point 1496 01:21:45.800 --> 01:21:48.479 here was that reactors had gotten really expensive to build, 1497 01:21:49.079 --> 01:21:53.760 and so the eight one thousand design was to reduce costs. 1498 01:21:54.359 --> 01:21:57.359 The big one was passive shutdown. The thing that caused 1499 01:21:57.359 --> 01:21:59.840 all the problems in Fukushima when they lost the generators 1500 01:22:00.199 --> 01:22:02.439 that the reactors needed water pumped through them all the 1501 01:22:02.479 --> 01:22:05.479 time to stop from overheating. There were actually six reactors 1502 01:22:05.520 --> 01:22:07.560 in Fukushima. We never hear about five and six because 1503 01:22:07.560 --> 01:22:10.479 they did have this passive shutdown capability, so it didn't 1504 01:22:10.479 --> 01:22:11.840 matter y had no power to them. They cool down 1505 01:22:11.840 --> 01:22:13.760 on their own. So the eight one thousands are about 1506 01:22:14.319 --> 01:22:17.159 not only that they passively cool down so they're safe, 1507 01:22:17.159 --> 01:22:18.800 but it means you don't need a lot of the 1508 01:22:18.880 --> 01:22:22.720 complexity in the reactor. They're talking about half as many 1509 01:22:22.800 --> 01:22:26.439 safety valves and eighty percent less piping on the safety systems, 1510 01:22:26.720 --> 01:22:30.840 a third fewer pumps, eighty five percent less control wiring 1511 01:22:30.920 --> 01:22:34.279 and sensors, a smaller reactor building that reduces the amount 1512 01:22:34.279 --> 01:22:35.159 of concrete used. 1513 01:22:35.159 --> 01:22:37.520 Like there's all about reducing Why didn't anybody think of 1514 01:22:37.560 --> 01:22:39.119 this in the seventies, Well. 1515 01:22:38.920 --> 01:22:41.399 They did, That's why they had the design. They worked 1516 01:22:41.439 --> 01:22:43.760 on design for ages and they finally got it certified 1517 01:22:43.760 --> 01:22:45.359 in two thousand and five. So, I mean it's been 1518 01:22:45.439 --> 01:22:48.560 twenty years since this design was improved to again to 1519 01:22:48.760 --> 01:22:52.520 reduce the price of building a nuclear reactor. I remember 1520 01:22:53.319 --> 01:22:55.720 build the safety It sounds like two thousand and nine, right. 1521 01:22:57.880 --> 01:23:01.199 This design was actually lie to the Chinese in two 1522 01:23:01.239 --> 01:23:05.119 thousand and eight, and within ten years they built four 1523 01:23:05.159 --> 01:23:08.399 reactors with it. Okay, I hope you see the setup 1524 01:23:08.439 --> 01:23:10.399 that I'm getting to here. They only paid for one. 1525 01:23:10.720 --> 01:23:12.520 Oh no, they've paid for all four of them, and 1526 01:23:12.560 --> 01:23:14.920 they've actually improved on design. They're mailing one point five 1527 01:23:14.920 --> 01:23:17.640 and one point seven giga wat reck Wow Cool under license. 1528 01:23:18.479 --> 01:23:22.199 So two thousand and nine, the estimate is fourteen billion 1529 01:23:22.239 --> 01:23:25.920 to build Unit three and four. By twenty twenty three, 1530 01:23:26.000 --> 01:23:28.920 it was up to thirty four billion when the first 1531 01:23:29.119 --> 01:23:30.920 Then when we unit three was done, we haven't got 1532 01:23:30.960 --> 01:23:34.119 the budget yet for Unit four because it got it 1533 01:23:34.199 --> 01:23:37.079 went up and it came online in April of this year, 1534 01:23:37.199 --> 01:23:44.439 twenty twenty four. So bankrupted the construction company bankrupted Westinghouse 1535 01:23:44.880 --> 01:23:50.560 geez right, like wow, they went into bankruptcy and recovered, right, 1536 01:23:50.640 --> 01:23:53.079 they got additional financing and so forth. But I want 1537 01:23:53.199 --> 01:23:55.359 just to understand these this is quite a disaster, and 1538 01:23:55.479 --> 01:23:58.960 the story of Ougdall is long. It has a lot 1539 01:23:59.000 --> 01:24:00.640 to do with the fact that they're hadn't been any 1540 01:24:00.680 --> 01:24:03.039 construction for twenty years, so a lot of the most 1541 01:24:03.239 --> 01:24:06.359 knowledgeable people about how to build reactors and how to 1542 01:24:06.520 --> 01:24:10.760 certify them. Those people didn't exist anymore, and so everything 1543 01:24:10.800 --> 01:24:14.199 took longer, cost more. There were foolish mistakes and it 1544 01:24:14.359 --> 01:24:16.760 just cost a fortune, and it doesn't have to be 1545 01:24:16.960 --> 01:24:19.640 that way. I would also now compare this to the 1546 01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:26.439 Kashizaki Krawa reactors in Japan. These were advanced boiling water reactors, 1547 01:24:26.479 --> 01:24:30.119 also generate three designs, where they started construction in nineteen 1548 01:24:30.159 --> 01:24:33.279 ninety two and finished in ninety six, operational in four years, 1549 01:24:33.760 --> 01:24:37.960 Like it is possible to build full size reactors in 1550 01:24:38.079 --> 01:24:40.399 a reasonable length at time comparable to any other kind 1551 01:24:40.399 --> 01:24:43.800 of large scale power plant. Wow, the Chinese didn't let 1552 01:24:43.960 --> 01:24:47.000 in ten the first time they ever built AP one thousands, 1553 01:24:48.359 --> 01:24:50.680 and they still got it done. Now admitutedly the Chinese 1554 01:24:50.680 --> 01:24:53.039 will cut corners, but that the Japanese can do it 1555 01:24:53.119 --> 01:24:56.159 in four years, admittedly on a site that already had 1556 01:24:56.239 --> 01:25:00.119 reactors on a design that they understood pretty well. Like, 1557 01:25:00.279 --> 01:25:04.920 it's doable. It just has gotten little nuts out there. 1558 01:25:06.399 --> 01:25:09.560 So that brings us to small modular reactors, which is 1559 01:25:10.479 --> 01:25:16.439 the most common question. Andrew Clark, jen Artowski Peter Luiz piqued, 1560 01:25:17.039 --> 01:25:19.079 all these folks are like, hey, tell us where we 1561 01:25:19.159 --> 01:25:23.000 are at small reactors? So why why do we want 1562 01:25:23.039 --> 01:25:25.399 small reactors at all? And in fact, it's got to 1563 01:25:25.479 --> 01:25:28.600 the point now where in some jurisdictions in Illinois they 1564 01:25:28.640 --> 01:25:31.239 actually vetoed a pro nuclear bill because there's pro nuclear 1565 01:25:31.279 --> 01:25:35.239 bills coming out these days. They vetoed the bill because 1566 01:25:35.239 --> 01:25:37.640 it allowed for large reactors to be built, not just small, 1567 01:25:37.760 --> 01:25:40.760 which is silly, like why do you care about the design? 1568 01:25:40.920 --> 01:25:43.800 Like just you know, nuclear has got is having a 1569 01:25:43.840 --> 01:25:45.479 renaissance right now in a lot of ways. And I'll 1570 01:25:45.520 --> 01:25:48.760 talk about more of the stuff that's going on, but yeah, 1571 01:25:48.880 --> 01:25:51.119 it's California plast If you want to build a nuclear 1572 01:25:51.119 --> 01:25:53.479 power plant in California has to be small, modular, even 1573 01:25:53.520 --> 01:26:00.039 though none exists. Right, So why first question is the 1574 01:26:00.119 --> 01:26:02.279 first reactors that we built back in the fifties and 1575 01:26:02.279 --> 01:26:04.920 sixties were small. They were two hundred and three hundred megawatts. 1576 01:26:04.920 --> 01:26:07.479 Why did we scale them up in the first place. 1577 01:26:07.520 --> 01:26:10.199 Why didn't we just stay Well, the reason is that 1578 01:26:10.880 --> 01:26:14.800 it made them better. They were more thermally efficient, for 1579 01:26:15.279 --> 01:26:20.760 you needed fewer people and machines per megawak produced. They 1580 01:26:20.800 --> 01:26:24.880 were the same size as existing power plants generation. And 1581 01:26:25.079 --> 01:26:28.960 so you get into the situation now where SMRs would 1582 01:26:28.960 --> 01:26:33.600 become a nuclear engineering solution to a political and pr problem. Well, 1583 01:26:33.880 --> 01:26:35.079 last time we talked about them. 1584 01:26:35.359 --> 01:26:39.159 You talked about some of the benefits being that they're 1585 01:26:39.239 --> 01:26:44.600 less dangerous because there's less waste and the waste is 1586 01:26:44.640 --> 01:26:49.520 more manageable or something like that. And also having distributed 1587 01:26:49.600 --> 01:26:52.880 power is just better for the grid than having everything 1588 01:26:52.920 --> 01:26:54.119 in one central location. 1589 01:26:54.640 --> 01:26:57.920 And those things are true. I mean, first off, once 1590 01:26:57.960 --> 01:26:59.600 you get to a Gen three reactor, you have all 1591 01:26:59.640 --> 01:27:02.279 the safety systems, right, they are passively cool down. They 1592 01:27:02.319 --> 01:27:05.960 don't need any of that complexity. We've matured that. In fact, 1593 01:27:06.359 --> 01:27:10.000 the small modulars are utilizing the same technology. They are 1594 01:27:10.000 --> 01:27:16.199 also passive shutdown, and so okay. The the problem is 1595 01:27:16.239 --> 01:27:21.600 that when you have twelve reactors, you need twelve monitoring systems. Yeah, right, 1596 01:27:21.680 --> 01:27:24.960 and you need people to watch them all, so that 1597 01:27:25.119 --> 01:27:28.920 increases costs. Actually, now, the idea of having a central 1598 01:27:29.000 --> 01:27:32.159 place to build the reactors and move them around is 1599 01:27:32.199 --> 01:27:36.239 a good one because it simply separate the operation of 1600 01:27:36.319 --> 01:27:39.960 reactors from the refueling process. But that hasn't been built 1601 01:27:39.960 --> 01:27:43.520 out yet, right, We're still doing testing on this. The 1602 01:27:43.640 --> 01:27:49.199 point being the battle here is that small modular is 1603 01:27:49.279 --> 01:27:52.680 going to cost more than per megawatt than conventional reactors 1604 01:27:52.720 --> 01:27:56.680 of the other day, and insights where you need less power. 1605 01:27:56.840 --> 01:27:59.119 Not everybody needs a giga want of power. You couldn't 1606 01:27:59.319 --> 01:28:02.119 put one of these plants anywhere in Africa, for example, 1607 01:28:02.319 --> 01:28:05.239 because you can't use the power. Smaller reactors would make 1608 01:28:05.239 --> 01:28:06.560 a lot of sense, but in a place where you 1609 01:28:06.640 --> 01:28:09.840 need a lot of power, fewer, larger units do make 1610 01:28:09.960 --> 01:28:13.159 sense if you manage them well and it takes fewer 1611 01:28:13.199 --> 01:28:16.279 people to do so. So there's a case for if 1612 01:28:16.319 --> 01:28:19.279 the main goal was to get as much nuclear online 1613 01:28:19.279 --> 01:28:22.399 as quickly as possible, why wouldn't you go with the 1614 01:28:22.640 --> 01:28:27.359 known design. The modularity parts important, but couldn't we do 1615 01:28:27.560 --> 01:28:31.119 more of that modularity with a conventional reactor design? Stop 1616 01:28:31.239 --> 01:28:34.439 building them so Bespoke build more of them in components 1617 01:28:34.479 --> 01:28:37.159 and factories, build and build them at scale. The fact 1618 01:28:37.159 --> 01:28:39.119 that you you know, part of the problem with VAUG 1619 01:28:39.199 --> 01:28:42.199 TELL three and four is there's only two of them, right, 1620 01:28:42.399 --> 01:28:46.720 If you were building twenty, then there's then that you 1621 01:28:46.840 --> 01:28:49.039 have a bigger team. Folks kind of know what they're doing. 1622 01:28:49.119 --> 01:28:51.520 They move from site to site like you can start 1623 01:28:51.560 --> 01:28:54.840 to work at larger scale. Now that being said, I 1624 01:28:54.920 --> 01:28:57.239 don't just want to poopoo on SMRs because they're definitely 1625 01:28:57.359 --> 01:29:02.800 being built right China has has had the Linglong one, 1626 01:29:02.920 --> 01:29:05.159 which is an ACP one hundred small reactor abou one 1627 01:29:05.199 --> 01:29:08.840 hundred twenty five megawatts, started construction in twenty one. Their 1628 01:29:08.880 --> 01:29:12.079 pressure vessel went in in twenty three. They expect to 1629 01:29:12.119 --> 01:29:15.079 be in operation in twenty six, so they're the furthest 1630 01:29:15.119 --> 01:29:21.560 Along with this smaller design, the US has a demonstration 1631 01:29:21.760 --> 01:29:24.720 reactor that technically qualifies as an SMR, but it's a 1632 01:29:24.760 --> 01:29:26.520 little different than this is an oak Ridge. This is 1633 01:29:26.600 --> 01:29:30.800 the Keros Hermes Low Power Demonstrator. It's not for making electricity. 1634 01:29:31.199 --> 01:29:34.760 It's actually what they consider a generation for reactor as 1635 01:29:34.800 --> 01:29:37.039 opposed to the EIGHTP one thousand, most the s martial 1636 01:29:37.159 --> 01:29:41.560 Generation three. This is next generation and this is fluorine salts. Ah. 1637 01:29:41.840 --> 01:29:43.680 So I knew we were going to get to since 1638 01:29:43.760 --> 01:29:46.520 the Oak Ridge experiments of the sixties, right, the thorium 1639 01:29:46.600 --> 01:29:49.800 reactors in Staffe. Nobody in the US has built a 1640 01:29:49.920 --> 01:29:52.600 thorium reactor or molten salt reactor of any kind. This 1641 01:29:52.680 --> 01:29:55.079 is a molten salt reactor. So it's a small modular 1642 01:29:55.199 --> 01:29:58.119 and molten salt and molten salt. Yeah, but again it's 1643 01:29:58.159 --> 01:30:00.880 a demonstration reactor. It's just for testing. It's been licensed, 1644 01:30:00.920 --> 01:30:03.000 so it's under construction. It's going to become a thing 1645 01:30:03.439 --> 01:30:04.439 that's exciting. 1646 01:30:04.279 --> 01:30:08.279 That's cool, and so if that goes well, do you 1647 01:30:08.399 --> 01:30:14.920 see molten salt moving into larger scale reactors nuclear plants. 1648 01:30:15.039 --> 01:30:17.600 Yeah, and let me get there, because we're used doing 1649 01:30:17.680 --> 01:30:19.640 more stuff of malt salt all the time. Cool, but 1650 01:30:19.720 --> 01:30:22.760 most mall modulars are stuck with light water because it's known, 1651 01:30:23.199 --> 01:30:25.279 right we've got a knife variables. They're trying to stay 1652 01:30:25.279 --> 01:30:28.000 simple and that fits with what Canada is doing with 1653 01:30:28.159 --> 01:30:32.880 the SMR which is in the Darlington site. So they 1654 01:30:33.680 --> 01:30:36.520 have now prepared for four reactors on that site. This 1655 01:30:36.640 --> 01:30:38.640 year they got the preparation on the site, so construction 1656 01:30:38.720 --> 01:30:42.279 starts next year. They expect to They expect to be 1657 01:30:42.359 --> 01:30:44.000 up and running in twenty twenty eight. They will probably 1658 01:30:44.039 --> 01:30:46.279 miss that date because it is a first of a 1659 01:30:46.359 --> 01:30:48.920 kind and so of course they're going to be problems. 1660 01:30:49.000 --> 01:30:54.479 But yeah, SMRs are coming, but the problem here is 1661 01:30:55.119 --> 01:30:58.439 they shouldn't be coming strictly the exclusion of everything else. Sure, 1662 01:30:58.680 --> 01:31:00.720 you know there's a case for the Ape one thousand 1663 01:31:00.760 --> 01:31:02.680 and that you could build those at scale and get 1664 01:31:02.720 --> 01:31:05.039 a lot more power. You know, as we're starting to 1665 01:31:05.119 --> 01:31:06.880 have governments have these missions where it's like we need 1666 01:31:06.960 --> 01:31:10.199 to bring thirty gigawatts of nuclear online in the US 1667 01:31:10.279 --> 01:31:12.399 one of their mandates. Well, do you want to do 1668 01:31:12.520 --> 01:31:15.399 that three hundred megawatts at a time or one point 1669 01:31:15.479 --> 01:31:18.680 two gigawatts at a time? Right, right, depending on the location. 1670 01:31:18.840 --> 01:31:24.960 So there's cases for both. Right, let's talk about thorium. Yeah, 1671 01:31:26.520 --> 01:31:29.720 Peter Lewis asked about those. Folks are always interested At 1672 01:31:30.600 --> 01:31:33.079 Shanghai Institute had a test reactor put together in twenty 1673 01:31:33.119 --> 01:31:35.760 twenty one. It's a two megawatt reactor, and last year 1674 01:31:35.800 --> 01:31:39.199 they got the license a permit to build a ten 1675 01:31:39.279 --> 01:31:44.479 megawatt tests reactor. That site got identified this year. Construction 1676 01:31:44.520 --> 01:31:47.600 starts next year. So thorium reactors are on their way 1677 01:31:48.199 --> 01:31:50.880 in China. Very cool, and again tell us what the 1678 01:31:51.000 --> 01:31:54.680 benefit of thorium is over lightwater. So we talked about 1679 01:31:54.680 --> 01:31:58.039 this on the Thorium molt Salt Reactor Show because it's 1680 01:31:58.039 --> 01:32:01.640 a combination of three things. It's using thorium instead of uranium, 1681 01:32:01.920 --> 01:32:04.560 it's using molten salt instead of solid fuel, and it 1682 01:32:04.760 --> 01:32:08.159 was supercritical carbon dioxide. I believe for the turbine technology 1683 01:32:08.720 --> 01:32:11.399 because when you go molten salt your temperatures go way 1684 01:32:11.399 --> 01:32:13.920 way out. They're much hotter, and so thorium is safer 1685 01:32:14.000 --> 01:32:17.159 than uranium. Is that the idea or not really? What 1686 01:32:17.399 --> 01:32:21.199 thorium is five times more plentiful than uranium. Okay, but 1687 01:32:21.520 --> 01:32:23.840 to use thorium in a reactor, you actually have to 1688 01:32:23.960 --> 01:32:28.720 breed it into uranium. So you bombard it with a neutron, 1689 01:32:29.479 --> 01:32:32.680 and that neutron sticks and then has a beta decay, 1690 01:32:32.760 --> 01:32:38.800 so it becomes protectium. And then you which is AUM. Yes, 1691 01:32:39.399 --> 01:32:43.399 it's a real thing. So thorium is atomic weight ninety 1692 01:32:43.680 --> 01:32:45.680 so that means that has ninety protons and the number 1693 01:32:45.680 --> 01:32:47.760 of protons tells you what element it is, right, So 1694 01:32:47.880 --> 01:32:50.760 you hit it with a neutron. Neutron gets bored, turns 1695 01:32:50.800 --> 01:32:52.319 into a proton. I know, it's weird, but it's the 1696 01:32:52.359 --> 01:32:55.800 thing baited again. So now it's protectinium atomic weight ninety one. 1697 01:32:56.319 --> 01:32:58.800 Then it happens again, another pro neutron flips and it 1698 01:32:58.880 --> 01:33:01.680 becomes ninety two, and that's your UM two thirty three. Okay, 1699 01:33:01.880 --> 01:33:04.479 that's what you're running the reactor. Now you combine it 1700 01:33:04.600 --> 01:33:08.880 with fluorine to make uranium and a fluoride and you've 1701 01:33:08.960 --> 01:33:13.079 got you've got a liquid that is only it only 1702 01:33:13.119 --> 01:33:15.720 becomes liquid at four degree centigrade, so it's hot, but 1703 01:33:15.840 --> 01:33:18.199 it doesn't boil until fifteen hundred degrecentigrade. So you have 1704 01:33:18.279 --> 01:33:21.119 a huge working range, right, almost one thousand degrees. You 1705 01:33:21.199 --> 01:33:24.279 work it as supposed to water, which is one hundred right, right, Sure, 1706 01:33:24.960 --> 01:33:27.119 that big working range means you can deal with heat, 1707 01:33:27.159 --> 01:33:29.079 and as it gets hotter, it expands, so it tends 1708 01:33:29.079 --> 01:33:33.239 to slow down the reaction. It's moderated by graphite, so 1709 01:33:33.520 --> 01:33:36.159 you don't there's no water involved any of this. Now. Admittedly, 1710 01:33:36.439 --> 01:33:41.479 urinium fluorides are dangerous, like this stuff is corrosive. It's toxic, 1711 01:33:42.159 --> 01:33:43.560 but it turns to a solid as soon as it 1712 01:33:43.600 --> 01:33:45.960 cools down. And it sounds like you can control it more, 1713 01:33:46.359 --> 01:33:48.760 can you not? Well, it has some It definitely has 1714 01:33:48.840 --> 01:33:52.720 some advantages. Okay, it's not. Nothing is simple, or we'd 1715 01:33:52.760 --> 01:33:56.880 all be doing it for sure. Right, while it's in 1716 01:33:56.920 --> 01:34:01.079 the while it's in the graphite moderator, fission going on, right, 1717 01:34:01.199 --> 01:34:04.000 So this is uranium atoms are being broken apart into 1718 01:34:04.079 --> 01:34:12.199 different elements, and if it leaves the graphite, it cools down. 1719 01:34:12.520 --> 01:34:15.119 So one of the passive safety systems is you have 1720 01:34:15.199 --> 01:34:17.359 a salt plug at the bottom of the containment vessel, 1721 01:34:17.680 --> 01:34:19.399 and if it gives two hot say have over a 1722 01:34:19.479 --> 01:34:22.840 thousand degrees or so, that's all plug melts and the 1723 01:34:23.079 --> 01:34:27.560 fluid runs out into containment vessels that aren't graphite, and 1724 01:34:27.600 --> 01:34:31.000 the reaction just stops. They had this system at Oakridge 1725 01:34:31.520 --> 01:34:33.279 in the sixties when they're experimenting to do this, and 1726 01:34:33.279 --> 01:34:34.640 they do that on the wheat so they didn't have 1727 01:34:34.640 --> 01:34:37.079 to work on the weekends. They just melt the salt plug, 1728 01:34:37.399 --> 01:34:39.319 let the fluid run out, the whole thing would cool down, 1729 01:34:39.720 --> 01:34:43.840 and on Monday they would electrically heat the fluid back 1730 01:34:43.880 --> 01:34:46.159 up till the material uptil was a fluid again and 1731 01:34:46.199 --> 01:34:47.840 then pump it back in the reactor with a replaced 1732 01:34:47.840 --> 01:34:50.560 salt plug and continue running. Yeah, that's pretty cool, pretty safe, 1733 01:34:50.920 --> 01:34:53.640 and it's got some strengths. It also you can run 1734 01:34:53.680 --> 01:34:56.199 the reactor. You can keep the reactor running and add 1735 01:34:56.279 --> 01:34:57.920 new fuel to it as opposed to having to shut 1736 01:34:57.960 --> 01:35:01.640 a reactor down to change fuel rods. And it's there 1737 01:35:01.680 --> 01:35:04.640 are chemical processes you can run in line to remove 1738 01:35:05.600 --> 01:35:10.000 by products. So one of the issues you have with 1739 01:35:10.119 --> 01:35:12.920 solid fuels is that gases are made from some of 1740 01:35:12.920 --> 01:35:16.239 the transmutations like xenon and krypton, and they cracked the rods, 1741 01:35:17.079 --> 01:35:19.000 and so eventually I have to stop using those rods. 1742 01:35:19.079 --> 01:35:21.760 You don't want to crumble. That would be bad, and 1743 01:35:22.039 --> 01:35:24.840 so you take them out and you reprocess them, or 1744 01:35:24.880 --> 01:35:26.239 in the case of the United States, you store them 1745 01:35:26.279 --> 01:35:30.520 in polls them for decades because you stopped fuel reprocessing 1746 01:35:30.560 --> 01:35:33.920 in the nineteen seventies. It's really kind to turn around. Well, 1747 01:35:33.960 --> 01:35:35.960 that was the believe it or not, and it's relevant 1748 01:35:36.159 --> 01:35:39.960 the day we're recording this. That was the Carter versus 1749 01:35:40.760 --> 01:35:45.680 Ford election, a Carter one on nuclear nonprofilation, and it 1750 01:35:45.760 --> 01:35:48.800 was Ford that shut down fuel reprocessing in because it's 1751 01:35:48.840 --> 01:35:53.399 how we got plutonium and they've never restarted it. Rest 1752 01:35:53.439 --> 01:36:00.239 in peace Hunters yesterday, extraordinary man from this recording. So 1753 01:36:02.279 --> 01:36:05.439 the gases on naturally bubble out of the fluorium the 1754 01:36:05.520 --> 01:36:08.079 fluorine salts. Now that's a plus and a minus. One 1755 01:36:08.159 --> 01:36:10.319 is they're not in the way. The other is you've 1756 01:36:10.319 --> 01:36:13.119 got to keep it contained, right, So your containment vessel 1757 01:36:13.159 --> 01:36:16.239 is now accumulating these radioactive gases in the top of 1758 01:36:16.279 --> 01:36:18.880 the vessel. But fluorine salts also don't need to be 1759 01:36:18.960 --> 01:36:21.880 under pressure, so you're not running a high pressure vessel 1760 01:36:21.960 --> 01:36:25.039 like you do are with water reactors, where they're pressurized 1761 01:36:25.079 --> 01:36:28.479 to have enough heat the heat exchanging. We're getting better 1762 01:36:28.520 --> 01:36:31.439 at using these kinds of molten salts non radioactive versions 1763 01:36:31.439 --> 01:36:33.760 because they store a lot of heat, so it's really 1764 01:36:33.800 --> 01:36:37.039 a good way to move heat, make steam shpin turbines 1765 01:36:37.199 --> 01:36:40.600 or even try other turbine technologies like supercritical cover docs afterly, 1766 01:36:41.159 --> 01:36:43.680 so there's a lot we're getting some value out of 1767 01:36:43.760 --> 01:36:48.600 salts even without getting into the react radioactive versions. Relating 1768 01:36:48.640 --> 01:36:51.279 to this is Copenhagen Atomics, which are out of Denmark, 1769 01:36:51.720 --> 01:36:54.039 who are building a molten salt reactor that fits in 1770 01:36:54.119 --> 01:36:58.720 a set of containers so it could be shipped by truck. Again, 1771 01:36:58.800 --> 01:37:01.359 this sounds like science fiction, an unfundable and so forth, 1772 01:37:01.399 --> 01:37:03.760 but they've actually raised enough money that they are now 1773 01:37:03.920 --> 01:37:08.239 building a non They've built a pair of non fissionable 1774 01:37:09.199 --> 01:37:12.760 reactor prototypes, so they've got no radioactive materials because Denmark 1775 01:37:12.800 --> 01:37:15.800 doesn't allow it. But they are using both nitrate in 1776 01:37:15.880 --> 01:37:18.560 florian salts and they're heating up their reactor with electricity 1777 01:37:18.600 --> 01:37:22.560 to show that their fluid systems work right to the 1778 01:37:22.600 --> 01:37:25.399 point now where They expect the next year to scale 1779 01:37:25.479 --> 01:37:28.720 up to a one megawatt thermal a non fisional prototype. 1780 01:37:29.119 --> 01:37:31.199 Then they have to find a way to make it 1781 01:37:31.359 --> 01:37:33.720 legal to start working with fissional materials, which is a 1782 01:37:33.760 --> 01:37:36.199 problem in Denmark, or they'll get a license in another 1783 01:37:36.279 --> 01:37:39.920 country to do this. But they're basically proving out their models, 1784 01:37:39.920 --> 01:37:43.560 so they are bending metal and building things around this. 1785 01:37:44.159 --> 01:37:49.079 So again I'm combining two different technologies. Thorium is interesting 1786 01:37:49.720 --> 01:37:53.279 in certain places because it's more plentiful in uranium, but 1787 01:37:53.319 --> 01:37:55.800 there's lots of uranium were do not have any shortage uranium. 1788 01:37:56.279 --> 01:38:00.439 But India is very interested in thorium for the reactors 1789 01:38:00.479 --> 01:38:04.560 that are developing their own because India has thorium in 1790 01:38:04.640 --> 01:38:06.960 the ground there, they don't have uranium, so rather have 1791 01:38:07.039 --> 01:38:11.359 to buy uranium from another country like Russia or Australia. 1792 01:38:11.960 --> 01:38:14.600 If they can mature the thorium technology enough for themselves, 1793 01:38:14.760 --> 01:38:17.840 that's their own indigenous power system. Yeah, the US has 1794 01:38:17.880 --> 01:38:19.600 that would be good for them. The US has lots 1795 01:38:19.640 --> 01:38:22.039 of thorium, doesn't have an uranium, but Canada's got uranium 1796 01:38:22.199 --> 01:38:24.880 and we're buddies, you know, at least for now for now, 1797 01:38:25.960 --> 01:38:30.479 so that works out just fine. So, but the maturing 1798 01:38:30.520 --> 01:38:32.880 the thorium fuel chain is not a trivial problem, and 1799 01:38:33.039 --> 01:38:34.880 in the end you're only just the important thing to 1800 01:38:34.920 --> 01:38:38.079 understand about armies. You make it into uranium. Making molten 1801 01:38:38.159 --> 01:38:41.239 salt reactors is a different thing, and it's also valuable. 1802 01:38:41.279 --> 01:38:43.000 You could run out any kind of uranium you want. 1803 01:38:43.039 --> 01:38:46.359 Two thirty three to thirty five, thirty eight is fine. 1804 01:38:46.840 --> 01:38:49.039 You just got to mature all of the fuel processes. 1805 01:38:49.239 --> 01:38:52.840 There's some material challenges for the toxicity of the fluorines, 1806 01:38:53.039 --> 01:38:56.319 and you've got to do the extraction systems. But one 1807 01:38:56.359 --> 01:38:58.399 of the things that Copenhagen Comics bushes on is this 1808 01:38:58.600 --> 01:39:02.399 is a fuel wave burner. But the nature of molten 1809 01:39:02.479 --> 01:39:05.199 salt reactors is that you can leave the actinides in 1810 01:39:05.319 --> 01:39:08.760 the loop until they all break down and you run 1811 01:39:08.800 --> 01:39:12.000 a solid fuel and a light water reactor. Typically a 1812 01:39:12.079 --> 01:39:14.039 given rod is going to be the reactor for six years, 1813 01:39:14.039 --> 01:39:16.560 so it'll every two years you'll move it around, but 1814 01:39:16.680 --> 01:39:18.479 after six years it's run as far as it can. 1815 01:39:19.000 --> 01:39:21.000 But the vast majority of the uranium that went in 1816 01:39:21.079 --> 01:39:24.479 that rod is still in there right, It's just contaminated 1817 01:39:24.479 --> 01:39:26.560 with other things. And so if you're the French. You 1818 01:39:26.680 --> 01:39:29.119 reprocess that fuel and take the uranium back out of 1819 01:39:29.159 --> 01:39:31.720 it and make new fuel runs. Right. This is also 1820 01:39:31.720 --> 01:39:34.520 where you get the plutonium, and they've also learned to 1821 01:39:34.520 --> 01:39:36.399 put the plcunium back in the fuel rod and burn 1822 01:39:36.520 --> 01:39:38.479 that as well. In a molten salt reactor, you don't 1823 01:39:38.479 --> 01:39:40.920 need to take them out and reprocess them. You reprocess 1824 01:39:40.960 --> 01:39:43.119 them in line. This is the technology. It isn't mature, 1825 01:39:43.439 --> 01:39:44.760 but this is one of the things you'd learned to 1826 01:39:44.800 --> 01:39:46.359 do with the molten salt reactor. So the whole time 1827 01:39:46.399 --> 01:39:49.159 you're making electricity, you're also removing materials, and you're breaking 1828 01:39:49.239 --> 01:39:52.439 down the actinides, the radioactives until there's virtually none left. 1829 01:39:52.640 --> 01:39:55.840 And so the promise is we don't have all this 1830 01:39:56.000 --> 01:39:58.720 nuclear waste, that we have less nuclear waste, and we 1831 01:39:58.800 --> 01:40:01.960 have short life a few hundred years versus tens of 1832 01:40:02.039 --> 01:40:05.159 thousands of years, right, So I would see arguably we'd 1833 01:40:05.239 --> 01:40:06.800 end up as soon as we get a molten salt 1834 01:40:06.840 --> 01:40:08.960 reactor mature, we'll probably put it down beside our light 1835 01:40:09.039 --> 01:40:12.119 water reactors and take it's their old fuel and use 1836 01:40:12.199 --> 01:40:16.760 it up to make electricity and clean up they waste 1837 01:40:16.800 --> 01:40:17.920 from the light water reactors. 1838 01:40:18.079 --> 01:40:21.680 Is there any chance of taking the spent rods out 1839 01:40:21.760 --> 01:40:24.239 of the ground wherever they are and using those in 1840 01:40:24.279 --> 01:40:25.319 a molten salt reactor. 1841 01:40:25.600 --> 01:40:28.920 Probably, devatrication is not a trivial problem, and it's going 1842 01:40:28.960 --> 01:40:31.359 to be cheaper materials, but you know that's one of 1843 01:40:31.399 --> 01:40:31.920 the options. 1844 01:40:32.119 --> 01:40:34.479 Well, also, most importantly, just to get rid of the 1845 01:40:34.920 --> 01:40:38.399 waste million year price tag on it or whatever it is. 1846 01:40:39.279 --> 01:40:41.720 Let's move on to another reactor design that actually broke 1847 01:40:41.880 --> 01:40:44.720 ground in the US this year, and it is based 1848 01:40:44.800 --> 01:40:48.920 on a liquid sodium reactors. The company is Terror Power. 1849 01:40:49.000 --> 01:40:52.760 The reactor is called Natrium, Natrium being the Greek word 1850 01:40:52.880 --> 01:40:57.680 for sodium. That's why the atomic name is na. It's 1851 01:40:57.760 --> 01:41:02.359 for Natuah. Okay, Now, there's liquid sodium reactors around since 1852 01:41:02.439 --> 01:41:04.680 the beginning of the atomic age. The Russians run a 1853 01:41:04.720 --> 01:41:08.439 few of them. What are we doing here, Well, it's 1854 01:41:08.479 --> 01:41:10.760 a very different kind of reactor when you use water 1855 01:41:11.159 --> 01:41:15.960 with solid fuel. The water serves a few different purposes. 1856 01:41:16.079 --> 01:41:19.039 One is that it is the moderator. It slows the 1857 01:41:19.119 --> 01:41:22.079 neutrons down. Neutrons coming off of uranium are moving very 1858 01:41:22.520 --> 01:41:24.479 giving a fraction of the speed of light, and when 1859 01:41:24.479 --> 01:41:28.479 they're going that quick, they're hard to collide with, so 1860 01:41:28.840 --> 01:41:31.279 having them run through water it slows them down to 1861 01:41:31.359 --> 01:41:33.199 what they call thermal neutrons, so they have a higher 1862 01:41:33.239 --> 01:41:36.119 impact rate. Although the upside about being fastest when you 1863 01:41:36.239 --> 01:41:39.800 do hit things, you break them, and so more atoms 1864 01:41:39.920 --> 01:41:44.359 fission quicker. So the light rotter reactor fuel process. When 1865 01:41:44.520 --> 01:41:46.800 uranium two thirty eight is hit with a thermal neutron, 1866 01:41:47.199 --> 01:41:49.720 it keeps that neutron and it becomes a proton and 1867 01:41:49.800 --> 01:41:52.399 that's how you make plutonium, right, Okay, But if you 1868 01:41:52.520 --> 01:41:55.359 hit it with a fast neutron, you'll break it. You'll 1869 01:41:55.439 --> 01:41:57.680 pull it apart of thecom variant and krypton or something. 1870 01:41:57.760 --> 01:42:00.479 There's a bunch of different combinations it'll turn into. And 1871 01:42:00.600 --> 01:42:03.880 so the using fast neutrons in a reactor has been 1872 01:42:03.920 --> 01:42:06.520 a key thing for a long time. And sodium is 1873 01:42:06.600 --> 01:42:10.560 transparent to neutrons, so it's your ability to move heat 1874 01:42:10.600 --> 01:42:13.239 around with liquid sodium, but it doesn't stole the neutrons around. 1875 01:42:13.279 --> 01:42:16.239 So you have a very fast, running, very hot reactor 1876 01:42:16.840 --> 01:42:20.279 using liquid sodium. Again, they have been around for a 1877 01:42:20.319 --> 01:42:23.319 long time. The problem is it's liquid sodium. Yeah, And 1878 01:42:23.359 --> 01:42:25.960 the problem with liquid sodium is that it volatile. It 1879 01:42:26.199 --> 01:42:29.399 burns in the air and it explodes in water. Yeah okay, 1880 01:42:29.920 --> 01:42:32.000 and it's not transparent, so when you want to look 1881 01:42:32.039 --> 01:42:35.399 in the reactor, you can't see anything. And so the 1882 01:42:35.520 --> 01:42:37.800 process of actually cleaning out a reactor do maintenance on it, 1883 01:42:37.880 --> 01:42:39.319 you have to get every bit of sodium up. It's 1884 01:42:39.319 --> 01:42:41.840 not that easy to do. The fire problem is so 1885 01:42:41.960 --> 01:42:44.319 prevalent that in Russia, where they still operate a couple 1886 01:42:44.319 --> 01:42:46.319 of these sodium reactors, they just plan for the fires. 1887 01:42:46.560 --> 01:42:50.039 It just happens. Yeah, it's a thing, regular sodium fires. 1888 01:42:50.079 --> 01:42:51.800 Don't worry too much about that smoke. Don't breathe that 1889 01:42:51.840 --> 01:42:56.479 it's bad. Yeah, it's bad. Meantime, Natrium has gotten a license, 1890 01:42:56.520 --> 01:42:58.399 so they've broke around in twenty twenty four. The reactor 1891 01:42:58.439 --> 01:43:01.159 design is not approved, but the salt parts. So what 1892 01:43:01.199 --> 01:43:06.319 they've done is they've separated the design into the radioactive 1893 01:43:06.319 --> 01:43:09.640 parts the reactor parts, and they are going to use 1894 01:43:09.760 --> 01:43:13.800 that molten sodium that's gotten hot from the reaction to 1895 01:43:14.720 --> 01:43:17.640 heat up fluorine salts, which are then pumped to a 1896 01:43:17.800 --> 01:43:20.319 tank that it then has the separate area with all 1897 01:43:20.359 --> 01:43:23.000 the power generation and so forth. So they have a 1898 01:43:23.079 --> 01:43:25.520 license for that now. This is similar to what Copenhangan 1899 01:43:25.560 --> 01:43:30.319 Atomics doing with their non fissioning reactor design. These guys 1900 01:43:30.359 --> 01:43:34.079 are building all the non fission parts first. Because they're 1901 01:43:34.079 --> 01:43:36.640 actually going to store a lot of that molten salt, 1902 01:43:37.720 --> 01:43:40.800 it allows them to have surge power. So the initial 1903 01:43:40.840 --> 01:43:44.199 reactor design is only about three hundred and fifty megawatts, 1904 01:43:44.720 --> 01:43:46.279 but they should be able to bump up to five 1905 01:43:46.359 --> 01:43:48.239 hundred megawats for a few hours because they have enough 1906 01:43:48.399 --> 01:43:51.359 hot molten salt stored that they can run that use 1907 01:43:51.399 --> 01:43:54.399 that salt to flash steam more than the reactor can 1908 01:43:54.439 --> 01:43:56.479 actually generate, so you can you now have a sort 1909 01:43:56.479 --> 01:43:58.439 of power dynamic. This is an interesting thing to add 1910 01:43:58.520 --> 01:43:59.880 to almost any power source. 1911 01:44:00.119 --> 01:44:03.039 Yeah, it seems complex, but it sure solves the problem 1912 01:44:03.399 --> 01:44:03.680 it does. 1913 01:44:03.800 --> 01:44:07.279 It stabilizes power. It's recognizing that power is heat, right, 1914 01:44:07.399 --> 01:44:09.600 and so it's just if you're using these molten salts, 1915 01:44:09.600 --> 01:44:13.640 which you need to use anyway, you to build out 1916 01:44:13.720 --> 01:44:17.840 high temperature steam and possibly better generator designs because you 1917 01:44:17.880 --> 01:44:19.920 have so much heat. This opens the door to that. 1918 01:44:20.039 --> 01:44:26.479 This is how the newer Helio Stat power plant in Morocco, 1919 01:44:26.520 --> 01:44:29.640 which is just reflecting mirrors onto a post. Yeah right, 1920 01:44:29.800 --> 01:44:31.600 runs twenty four hours a day even when the sun's down, 1921 01:44:31.640 --> 01:44:33.920 because they heat up so much molten salt. The salt 1922 01:44:34.159 --> 01:44:37.760 keeps the generators running through the night. So admittedly nuclear 1923 01:44:37.800 --> 01:44:40.399 actors run twenty fours a day. That's their advantage. But 1924 01:44:40.560 --> 01:44:44.279 this actually gives you some surge ability anyway. They've actually 1925 01:44:45.760 --> 01:44:48.479 they've got enough money. Gates is kicked in over a billion. 1926 01:44:49.000 --> 01:44:52.680 The Department Energy skicked in some more. The site's been selected. 1927 01:44:52.720 --> 01:44:56.600 It's in Camera, which is in Wyoming, a place that 1928 01:44:56.760 --> 01:44:59.600 has a uranium mines is actually an old coal mine 1929 01:44:59.640 --> 01:45:02.039 site that they're using. So it already has the power 1930 01:45:02.119 --> 01:45:05.960 cables and stuff pulled in and it's already a space. Wow. 1931 01:45:06.600 --> 01:45:11.920 The challenge with used making liquid sodium reactors is you 1932 01:45:12.000 --> 01:45:15.479 need a different fuel. It's still uranium, but it's more 1933 01:45:15.680 --> 01:45:19.000 highly enriched. It's what they call halo HALO fuel for 1934 01:45:19.600 --> 01:45:23.079 high SA low enriched uranium, high enriched uranium, meaning stuff 1935 01:45:23.079 --> 01:45:28.680 you use in bombs, normal solid fuel reactors and light 1936 01:45:28.760 --> 01:45:33.159 water reactors. They the fuel rods about three percent enriched, 1937 01:45:33.239 --> 01:45:35.560 so it has three percent you two thirty five in 1938 01:45:35.600 --> 01:45:39.159 it along with mostly you two thirty eight pitch blend. 1939 01:45:39.199 --> 01:45:41.560 The raw uraniumy dig out of the ground is about 1940 01:45:41.600 --> 01:45:44.439 zero point seven percent thirty five need more to thirty 1941 01:45:44.479 --> 01:45:48.479 five because it's the fissionable product, right, It makes everything 1942 01:45:48.560 --> 01:45:51.560 else work, and so you enrich it to get it 1943 01:45:51.680 --> 01:45:54.800 up to three percent or up to five percent. Right, 1944 01:45:55.319 --> 01:45:59.319 And what's the percentage for a bomb, one hundred percent? Okay, 1945 01:46:00.079 --> 01:46:03.000 So the halou can go up to about nineteen percent. 1946 01:46:04.399 --> 01:46:08.000 And there's only so much enrichment capability in the world, right, 1947 01:46:08.039 --> 01:46:10.720 It's part of the challenge. And we talk about enrichment. 1948 01:46:10.720 --> 01:46:12.600 They talk about this thing called a separative work unit 1949 01:46:12.720 --> 01:46:18.279 or how much it takes, how much uranium? How much? 1950 01:46:19.800 --> 01:46:22.640 How many times can you take one hundred kilos uranium 1951 01:46:23.039 --> 01:46:26.479 and make ten kilos of enriched uranium from it? Okay? 1952 01:46:26.680 --> 01:46:28.399 That a work unit is that basically measure take a 1953 01:46:28.479 --> 01:46:30.720 hunred kilos making in ten kilos of five percent enrich 1954 01:46:30.760 --> 01:46:35.880 the stuff you use in nuclear reactors. The largest sites 1955 01:46:36.079 --> 01:46:40.960 would be from Russia. Rossotom makes about twenty seven million 1956 01:46:41.640 --> 01:46:46.159 swus China's got about ten million. Irana, which is a 1957 01:46:46.239 --> 01:46:49.079 conglomerate of the US, UK, Germany, France, Netherlands makes about 1958 01:46:49.079 --> 01:46:52.920 seven point five million. Rangco, which is also a conglomerate 1959 01:46:52.920 --> 01:46:56.359 of the UK US Germany is eighteen million, so the 1960 01:46:56.399 --> 01:47:00.720 West can make about twenty five million, SWU use Russia 1961 01:47:00.760 --> 01:47:03.319 to a twenty seven million China ten million. In fact, 1962 01:47:03.399 --> 01:47:05.600 when it comes to HALU, which is this highly enriched 1963 01:47:05.640 --> 01:47:09.479 they want to use for natrium, only rostotom makes it right. 1964 01:47:10.399 --> 01:47:13.000 So one of the challenges with them actually building the 1965 01:47:13.079 --> 01:47:16.359 reactor side of this thing is you're supposed to buy 1966 01:47:16.399 --> 01:47:19.359 fuel from Russia. Yeah, so they're kind of going to 1967 01:47:19.439 --> 01:47:23.680 need to mature HALU production in America if they're actually 1968 01:47:23.680 --> 01:47:24.960 going to make a go of this. But you know, 1969 01:47:25.079 --> 01:47:27.359 they've got the money, so they're going in with them. Sure. 1970 01:47:28.199 --> 01:47:31.560 One more other kind of reactor design being built in 1971 01:47:31.680 --> 01:47:35.479 the US is a company called x Energy in Texas 1972 01:47:36.039 --> 01:47:39.960 and they are building a pebble bed reactor. Pebble bed. Yeah, 1973 01:47:40.319 --> 01:47:43.359 we talked about these two case we did. So this 1974 01:47:44.199 --> 01:47:48.840 depends on a fuel called Triso. So here's the interesting 1975 01:47:48.920 --> 01:47:52.760 idea behind a Triso fuel. Instead of building a rod 1976 01:47:53.359 --> 01:47:57.000 coded in the zircanadum of enriched uranium. And when I 1977 01:47:57.039 --> 01:47:59.039 build those rods, I have to put them into assemblies 1978 01:47:59.079 --> 01:48:03.239 that then go inside of a pressurized tank with a 1979 01:48:03.279 --> 01:48:04.960 big structure around it and so forth, they got to 1980 01:48:05.000 --> 01:48:07.800 manage the radiation. Right, But the trisop fuel, I make 1981 01:48:07.960 --> 01:48:12.800 spheres that have granules uranium in them, but the moderator 1982 01:48:12.880 --> 01:48:16.199 graphite is embedded in the fuel and then it's coated 1983 01:48:16.239 --> 01:48:20.319 in silicon carbide, so it's essentially indestructible and on its own. 1984 01:48:20.359 --> 01:48:22.560 You could hold one of these in your hand, right, 1985 01:48:22.680 --> 01:48:24.159 you won't do anything. But if you get a bunch 1986 01:48:24.199 --> 01:48:27.840 of them together, they neutron start to paying between them, 1987 01:48:27.840 --> 01:48:29.960 and they heat up and they get really hot. And 1988 01:48:30.000 --> 01:48:31.920 when they get too hot, they start to expand and 1989 01:48:31.960 --> 01:48:34.239 they slow themselves down. The reaction slows down because they 1990 01:48:34.239 --> 01:48:39.520 get bigger, so they can't burn. They're structurally sound, they're 1991 01:48:39.520 --> 01:48:42.600 self contained. It's pretty cool, right, it's interesting. They're safe. 1992 01:48:43.079 --> 01:48:44.840 And so the idea would be you basically have a 1993 01:48:44.880 --> 01:48:47.079 high temperature hopper that you put a bunch of these in. 1994 01:48:47.319 --> 01:48:51.199 It gets really hot, You pump helium through that. It 1995 01:48:51.279 --> 01:48:54.880 superheats the helium. You pump that helium out, flash steam, 1996 01:48:55.079 --> 01:48:57.960 run a turbine, right, right, I remember this. 1997 01:48:58.199 --> 01:49:02.359 Then the problem with helium is it's hard to manage them, 1998 01:49:02.520 --> 01:49:04.600 hard to contain and hard to manage. 1999 01:49:04.760 --> 01:49:10.520 Now that's trivial and it's not mature. These spheres eventually age, 2000 01:49:10.840 --> 01:49:13.119 so you do need to get them out and rotate 2001 01:49:13.159 --> 01:49:15.399 them and put newines in, so they're sort of rotating 2002 01:49:15.439 --> 01:49:18.359 through there. Sometimes they jam. There was one case in 2003 01:49:18.439 --> 01:49:20.960 experimental pebble bed where the casement cracked and they got 2004 01:49:21.000 --> 01:49:24.640 wedged in there, and that's a problem. The fuel is 2005 01:49:24.760 --> 01:49:31.399 expensive to make and it's very hard to reprocess. Now 2006 01:49:31.560 --> 01:49:33.920 the reason X Energy is doing this project is actually 2007 01:49:33.960 --> 01:49:37.560 working closely with now Chemical because now has a big 2008 01:49:37.720 --> 01:49:40.560 industrial plant in Texas right beside where they're going to 2009 01:49:40.560 --> 01:49:43.159 build this reactor, and they want the heat for their 2010 01:49:43.199 --> 01:49:46.279 industrial process, so not just electricity being generated, but it's 2011 01:49:46.319 --> 01:49:49.600 a huge byproduct of a lot of heat. And right 2012 01:49:49.680 --> 01:49:53.000 now the Dow plant they have to burn natural gas 2013 01:49:53.119 --> 01:49:55.399 to make that heat. So having a reactor that you 2014 01:49:55.439 --> 01:49:57.399 can take both the heat and the energy off of 2015 01:49:57.600 --> 01:50:00.159 is interesting. So they're helping to fund a bunch of that. 2016 01:50:00.640 --> 01:50:04.840 But the Triso fuel needs to be matured. The fuel 2017 01:50:04.840 --> 01:50:08.079 production is being built in Oakridge, Tennessee, so that's back 2018 01:50:08.199 --> 01:50:09.279 the same location again. 2019 01:50:09.399 --> 01:50:11.840 So after hearing about all these different types of reactors, 2020 01:50:12.560 --> 01:50:17.399 I fully remember coming to the same conclusion on all 2021 01:50:17.520 --> 01:50:21.920 of these nuclear talks that you've done. Yeah, Now, the 2022 01:50:22.079 --> 01:50:25.880 thorium salt reactor seems to be the favorite. The thorium 2023 01:50:25.960 --> 01:50:28.119 has all certain benefits supposed to be clear. Light water 2024 01:50:28.199 --> 01:50:32.000 reactors are the way to go because they're mature. Right, 2025 01:50:32.039 --> 01:50:34.479 there's sort of a known technology. 2026 01:50:35.079 --> 01:50:39.640 If your goal is to decarbonized power generation by twenty 2027 01:50:39.640 --> 01:50:43.520 to fifty, knowing it takes at least five years, ten years, 2028 01:50:43.960 --> 01:50:46.119 maybe as much as ten years to build these reactors, 2029 01:50:46.680 --> 01:50:48.760 building what you know at scales, so you can actually 2030 01:50:48.760 --> 01:50:51.640 get them done on time. As the important party researching 2031 01:50:52.079 --> 01:50:56.479 is research. Reactors are a problem, right because you don't know, 2032 01:50:56.800 --> 01:50:58.000 you don't know when you're going to be done. You 2033 01:50:58.039 --> 01:51:00.880 don't know if it's going rite. Like at least you 2034 01:51:00.960 --> 01:51:04.159 look at those EIGHTP one thousands, they're certified for fifty years. Yeah, right, 2035 01:51:04.399 --> 01:51:06.000 Like you could get them done and know you have 2036 01:51:06.079 --> 01:51:09.399 power for quite some time. Right. The salt is worth 2037 01:51:09.520 --> 01:51:13.640 maturing because it can deal with the waste and it's efficient. Yeah, 2038 01:51:13.680 --> 01:51:16.520 So that's a research project separate from you dealing with 2039 01:51:16.640 --> 01:51:18.880 the I need the power and I need it now, right, Okay, 2040 01:51:19.720 --> 01:51:21.800 I meantime. Now you've got the Microsofts and the Amazons 2041 01:51:21.800 --> 01:51:23.680 and the Googles all wanted to build these data centers. 2042 01:51:23.720 --> 01:51:27.680 So Microsoft now licensed three mile Island reactor one. Yep, 2043 01:51:27.800 --> 01:51:30.920 hearn about that, right, And they're starting to fund more 2044 01:51:31.079 --> 01:51:34.319 SMR development because the small reactor would actually make sense 2045 01:51:34.479 --> 01:51:36.840 for data centers. Data centers don't want to giggle out 2046 01:51:36.840 --> 01:51:41.760 of power. They want a few megawatts, so so Dominion 2047 01:51:41.920 --> 01:51:43.800 smaller reactors would actually make sense for them. 2048 01:51:44.000 --> 01:51:47.439 So Dominion that owns Millstone Nuclear power plant, which is 2049 01:51:47.560 --> 01:51:50.680 at the opposite end of my town on the water, 2050 01:51:52.119 --> 01:51:55.800 they well, a company wants to build a data center 2051 01:51:56.520 --> 01:52:00.840 adjacent to Millstone. I don't know what it is, but 2052 01:52:02.279 --> 01:52:06.399 but yeah, and so the local people, I think most 2053 01:52:06.479 --> 01:52:08.880 of them don't want it, of course. 2054 01:52:09.720 --> 01:52:12.760 But I don't see that as a bad thing. DWE 2055 01:52:12.800 --> 01:52:16.720 centers an't particularly obnoxious, you know. They right now they 2056 01:52:17.000 --> 01:52:19.319 want to build more data centers and is power available? Right? 2057 01:52:19.479 --> 01:52:21.880 The next problem will be water available, because they use 2058 01:52:21.880 --> 01:52:23.920 a fair about of water to keep data centers cool. 2059 01:52:24.119 --> 01:52:28.840 So yeah, you know, Nimby is a thing. They do 2060 01:52:29.000 --> 01:52:31.920 provide jobs. Like there's there's a whole question around whether 2061 01:52:31.960 --> 01:52:34.159 this makes sense. You just got to press all the details. 2062 01:52:34.520 --> 01:52:36.600 Don't just say no, make sure you get the things 2063 01:52:36.680 --> 01:52:39.399 you need to make it make sense. Yeah, but you're right. 2064 01:52:40.039 --> 01:52:41.960 I've talked about a lot of different techniques. You know, 2065 01:52:42.239 --> 01:52:45.039 the sodium reactor has the advantage of being a good 2066 01:52:45.079 --> 01:52:48.359 fuel burner too, much like molten salt. It has more 2067 01:52:49.880 --> 01:52:52.319 it's been built more times than molten salt reactors have, 2068 01:52:53.159 --> 01:52:57.000 but also had had way more problems. But that's also 2069 01:52:57.119 --> 01:52:59.319 you know, it's just they've never found a real nobody's 2070 01:52:59.399 --> 01:53:01.159 run them for very long except the Russians who don't 2071 01:53:01.159 --> 01:53:05.800 care about the consequences. So, you know, fluorine salts. Because 2072 01:53:05.840 --> 01:53:07.680 of the ability of reprocess fuel and you're actually talking 2073 01:53:07.680 --> 01:53:09.800 about taking the waste products and using them, like turning 2074 01:53:09.800 --> 01:53:12.119 them into using the product. That's a lot of straight 2075 01:53:12.199 --> 01:53:16.119 to them, alt attractive to me. There's another tryso reactor 2076 01:53:16.319 --> 01:53:19.199 in development for the US military. It's a product. It's 2077 01:53:19.239 --> 01:53:22.840 called Project Pelee Pelea. I think it was a character 2078 01:53:22.920 --> 01:53:26.960 from Hawaiian mythology. It was like the god of the volcano. Yeah, yeah, 2079 01:53:27.239 --> 01:53:31.840 volcano god or something. Yeah. Yeah. They got it's the military, 2080 01:53:31.880 --> 01:53:33.359 So they got the funding. It's a half They got 2081 01:53:33.359 --> 01:53:36.680 a half a billion dollars to build out a reactor 2082 01:53:36.720 --> 01:53:41.039 that fits in four twenty foot containers, so shipable. One 2083 01:53:41.119 --> 01:53:43.000 of those containers would actually be the reactor. The rest 2084 01:53:43.119 --> 01:53:45.079 is like pumps and generations and all that sort of stuff, 2085 01:53:45.560 --> 01:53:48.880 using highly enriched fuel triso fuel, which the military is 2086 01:53:48.880 --> 01:53:52.079 allowed to do so rich to nineteen percent I presume 2087 01:53:52.119 --> 01:53:53.720 because it's the US military, they're going to figure how 2088 01:53:53.720 --> 01:53:56.199 to make that fuel themselves and not buy it from 2089 01:53:56.239 --> 01:53:59.479 the Russians. But it would be a high temperature gas reactor. 2090 01:54:00.560 --> 01:54:03.399 You think about we talked about this before, the amount 2091 01:54:03.399 --> 01:54:08.399 of money that the US spent in Afghanistan shipping fuel 2092 01:54:09.159 --> 01:54:13.039 from Pakistan and a continuous convoy of trucks to burn 2093 01:54:13.119 --> 01:54:16.720 in generators to operate their bases. Small reactors like this 2094 01:54:16.800 --> 01:54:19.239 would make a huge difference. I mean, so with space 2095 01:54:19.279 --> 01:54:20.920 based power, but that would be more than half a 2096 01:54:20.960 --> 01:54:25.880 billion dollops And so, I mean the upside to the 2097 01:54:26.079 --> 01:54:29.399 US bringing PLA too into existence is it will make 2098 01:54:29.439 --> 01:54:31.680 a market for triso fuel, which then opens the door 2099 01:54:31.760 --> 01:54:35.159 to more pebble by discussions as a reactor design. The 2100 01:54:35.199 --> 01:54:37.039 fuel already exists, that makes it a little bit easier 2101 01:54:37.039 --> 01:54:39.960 to deal with. That being said, you know, nineteen percent 2102 01:54:40.079 --> 01:54:43.920 enriched geranium is got a proliferation risk. It's fine if 2103 01:54:43.960 --> 01:54:45.359 the military control of it. I don't know if you 2104 01:54:45.359 --> 01:54:49.039 allow commercial entities to control that fuel, right where five 2105 01:54:49.079 --> 01:54:51.439 percent really doesn't have the same risks at all. Yeah, 2106 01:54:51.960 --> 01:54:55.199 all right, a little bit on fusion. You know, I 2107 01:54:55.239 --> 01:54:56.640 don't spend a lot of time on fusion these days 2108 01:54:56.640 --> 01:55:00.840 because I've really come to appreciate their research projects. They're 2109 01:55:01.039 --> 01:55:03.439 a long way away from being real. That being said, 2110 01:55:03.560 --> 01:55:06.800 my favorite fusion project of them all is Commonwealth Fusion. Okay, 2111 01:55:07.079 --> 01:55:12.840 that's the one that's the one in Mit that they're 2112 01:55:13.000 --> 01:55:16.039 trying to build a they're trying to build a Takamat 2113 01:55:16.199 --> 01:55:21.319 reactor based on reb Co semiconductors. So these are the 2114 01:55:21.399 --> 01:55:26.279 high temperature cooled liquiditrogen superconductors. They've got enough funding, Like 2115 01:55:26.680 --> 01:55:28.640 they went real quiet, and I said years ago when 2116 01:55:28.680 --> 01:55:30.199 they went real quiet, its because they got enough money. 2117 01:55:30.199 --> 01:55:32.039 They're just trying to build a thing. That's basically what's happened. 2118 01:55:32.079 --> 01:55:34.399 They've scaled up their factory. They've had eight hundred people 2119 01:55:34.399 --> 01:55:37.079 working on it. They react to their building. It's called Spark, 2120 01:55:37.600 --> 01:55:40.399 which is their test reactor. They're supposed to have first 2121 01:55:40.439 --> 01:55:44.119 plasma in twenty twenty six, so they're well, they're reactor 2122 01:55:44.159 --> 01:55:46.319 buildings in full assembly right now. There's been a little 2123 01:55:46.319 --> 01:55:48.479 bit of an update. They're pretty quiet, they don't need 2124 01:55:48.520 --> 01:55:51.880 to talk, but the destruction and I bring up because 2125 01:55:51.920 --> 01:55:53.920 this year they also announced the site of their full 2126 01:55:53.960 --> 01:55:58.159 scale reactor, the ARC Reactor, being in Virginia. Wow. So 2127 01:55:58.399 --> 01:56:00.680 I think it's a bit speculative. I don't like it 2128 01:56:00.800 --> 01:56:02.239 when they say, hey, we know we're going to build 2129 01:56:02.239 --> 01:56:04.199 a full scale reactor before you built the prototype, Like, 2130 01:56:04.279 --> 01:56:06.680 you don't. You're so confident it's going to work, you're 2131 01:56:06.720 --> 01:56:10.119 already picking sites. But I think that might be partially 2132 01:56:10.159 --> 01:56:10.880 a funding thing. 2133 01:56:11.159 --> 01:56:13.159 So are the other ones, like Iter just dead in 2134 01:56:13.239 --> 01:56:13.560 the water. 2135 01:56:13.920 --> 01:56:16.560 No, they're so iders going along. They've spent enough money 2136 01:56:16.600 --> 01:56:18.159 out they're going to finish it. But they've also admitted 2137 01:56:18.199 --> 01:56:21.119 that EIDER is just and you know, that's the NIOBM 2138 01:56:21.199 --> 01:56:23.600 ten superconductor, so it's only got so much field strength. 2139 01:56:23.680 --> 01:56:26.479 The REBCO has five times the field strength, which makes 2140 01:56:26.479 --> 01:56:29.439 it a lot more viasible and smaller. Yeah, they they're 2141 01:56:29.640 --> 01:56:32.359 hoping to get to a queue of one with Ider 2142 01:56:32.479 --> 01:56:34.680 or just about so get as much energy out as 2143 01:56:34.800 --> 01:56:37.039 energy in. But they've already described the fact that that's 2144 01:56:37.039 --> 01:56:39.000 as far as that's going to go. But it'll give 2145 01:56:39.039 --> 01:56:41.279 us the education to build the next one. 2146 01:56:41.840 --> 01:56:43.319 Right, And how much money has itear? 2147 01:56:43.439 --> 01:56:49.880 Costs? Sixty billion? Good god? Maybe more? And how many years? Twenty? Wow? 2148 01:56:50.439 --> 01:56:54.119 But again when you build a containment, when you build 2149 01:56:54.520 --> 01:56:57.680 the Tacomac in eight pieces in eight countries, like, what 2150 01:56:57.760 --> 01:56:59.800 did you think was going to happen? Right? This is 2151 01:56:59.800 --> 01:57:03.119 not about efficiency. This is about a mega project run 2152 01:57:03.239 --> 01:57:06.800 by governments with international treaties involved. So it's really hard 2153 01:57:06.880 --> 01:57:10.560 to I just think of other uses for sixty billion dollars. 2154 01:57:10.640 --> 01:57:13.880 I can think of many. Yeah, well that's that's at 2155 01:57:14.000 --> 01:57:18.760 least two or three commercial light water reactors and several 2156 01:57:18.800 --> 01:57:22.079 gigawatts of power that could be working in right now. Yeah, 2157 01:57:22.239 --> 01:57:23.880 you know, there's a lot of things that can be 2158 01:57:23.960 --> 01:57:26.199 done with that. So, I mean, I'm excited to see 2159 01:57:26.199 --> 01:57:28.960 if Commonwealth Fusion gets there. They're getting closer, like the 2160 01:57:30.119 --> 01:57:32.840 they are well funded, so they're not scrounging for money. 2161 01:57:32.840 --> 01:57:34.000 That's why I don't hear from so. 2162 01:57:34.199 --> 01:57:37.880 Not this coming year, but maybe the year after that. 2163 01:57:38.000 --> 01:57:40.159 So in two years when you do the energy geek cut, 2164 01:57:40.199 --> 01:57:41.479 we might have more to talk about. 2165 01:57:41.640 --> 01:57:44.039 Yeah, first light plaster. Now, there are a few other 2166 01:57:44.119 --> 01:57:46.439 fusion projects going out there, but as I poke at 2167 01:57:46.439 --> 01:57:48.399 each of them, it's like the same new stories from 2168 01:57:48.479 --> 01:57:51.479 last year some of them. And then they're maybe they're 2169 01:57:51.520 --> 01:57:54.079 raising money, but it's like five million dollars. That's enough 2170 01:57:54.119 --> 01:57:56.359 to keep people paid to put up pr at press releases, 2171 01:57:56.399 --> 01:57:58.960 not to build things. Yeah, when I see one hundred 2172 01:57:58.960 --> 01:58:00.800 million dollars going into it company, I was like, okay, 2173 01:58:00.840 --> 01:58:03.319 you can build things with that. So a lot of 2174 01:58:03.319 --> 01:58:05.800 these others are now really in stasis. They've got just 2175 01:58:05.960 --> 01:58:07.920 enough money to keep limping along trying to find a 2176 01:58:07.960 --> 01:58:12.279 bigger funder to go further. Okay, a few more questions. 2177 01:58:12.760 --> 01:58:15.399 J Michaud asked about the aid of the art and 2178 01:58:15.520 --> 01:58:20.439 residential lighting. Now, in some ways, I feel like LED lighting. 2179 01:58:20.560 --> 01:58:22.479 Everybody's got it now, it's in home depot. It's not 2180 01:58:22.520 --> 01:58:24.560 a big deal. It's normal put LED lights. And although 2181 01:58:24.560 --> 01:58:27.800 they're AC based LED, and as you know, and we 2182 01:58:27.840 --> 01:58:30.439 did a whole several shows on it, there's DC based LED, 2183 01:58:30.560 --> 01:58:34.479 which is much rarer and more efficient. It is more efficient, 2184 01:58:34.479 --> 01:58:37.319 it's about it's about thirty, you know, sixty percent more 2185 01:58:37.359 --> 01:58:40.800 efficient than AC based, but you have fewer products so 2186 01:58:40.880 --> 01:58:43.600 I found two stacks. Lumin Cash is the one I 2187 01:58:43.720 --> 01:58:45.520 used in Coquitlam back in the day and sold with 2188 01:58:45.680 --> 01:58:48.439 the house. And they have a new generation of their 2189 01:58:48.479 --> 01:58:50.079 product and I would use it again in a second. 2190 01:58:50.119 --> 01:58:52.319 When we tear this place apart and do upgrades, I 2191 01:58:52.439 --> 01:58:55.600 will put lumin Cash in. It's been nice. And there's 2192 01:58:55.600 --> 01:59:00.479 another company called clean Life with their ATX system spin 2193 01:59:00.720 --> 01:59:07.000 on native led DC lighting is solar because solar naturally 2194 01:59:07.079 --> 01:59:10.239 comes off at about forty eight bolts DC, and so 2195 01:59:10.880 --> 01:59:13.319 all both lumin Cash and clean Life now makes systems 2196 01:59:13.319 --> 01:59:15.920 where you can basically plug your solar directly into your 2197 01:59:15.960 --> 01:59:19.520 lighting system. So that's interesting. No battery storage, no conversion, 2198 01:59:20.119 --> 01:59:22.319 you're making DC power. You use it for your lights. 2199 01:59:22.840 --> 01:59:24.319 That's really interesting. 2200 01:59:24.479 --> 01:59:27.039 So along with the AC cables in your house, if 2201 01:59:27.079 --> 01:59:29.520 you're building a new house, let's say, or you feel 2202 01:59:29.560 --> 01:59:32.960 like ripping your walls off, you could have just a 2203 01:59:33.039 --> 01:59:34.039 whole DC circuit. 2204 01:59:34.199 --> 01:59:37.359 That's right, Yeah, and you know, can't really cause a fire. 2205 01:59:37.399 --> 01:59:40.760 The power levels too low. A lot less copper, so 2206 01:59:40.800 --> 01:59:43.159 it'll cost you less. You know, wiring's not cheap these days. 2207 01:59:43.239 --> 01:59:47.479 Copper costs money, so you know, the the net they 2208 01:59:47.560 --> 01:59:50.439 come up to about the same price, except the lights 2209 01:59:50.520 --> 01:59:54.680 never burn out, the dimming is super smooth. They run 2210 01:59:54.720 --> 01:59:58.119 on battery brilliantly because they're DC natives, so they don't 2211 01:59:58.119 --> 02:00:00.239 waste as near as much power. Don't eversion or thing. 2212 02:00:00.600 --> 02:00:02.840 They're just a really efficient way to make client cool. 2213 02:00:03.640 --> 02:00:07.000 Martina gram our friend and fellow RD always asks me 2214 02:00:07.119 --> 02:00:10.359 hard questions for the geek outs, and her question this 2215 02:00:10.439 --> 02:00:13.039 year is how what our energy consumption trends like for 2216 02:00:13.119 --> 02:00:17.880 country to country, so are we getting better? And the answer, Martina, 2217 02:00:18.000 --> 02:00:20.760 is that in the Western world, so US, Canada, EU, 2218 02:00:20.960 --> 02:00:24.560 Australia and New Zealand, you're seeing that power consumption per 2219 02:00:24.600 --> 02:00:27.199 capita going down, which is good because we have the 2220 02:00:27.319 --> 02:00:30.399 highest power consumption per capita in the world, but our 2221 02:00:30.479 --> 02:00:34.479 total consumption per person is decreasing. In the developing world, 2222 02:00:35.119 --> 02:00:38.800 it is still increasing. That's the nanatary nature of industrialization. 2223 02:00:39.560 --> 02:00:42.039 China has the most growth. They're still less than US 2224 02:00:42.359 --> 02:00:46.800 by half, but they are increasing. So when you say US, 2225 02:00:47.079 --> 02:00:51.439 China as one country is less than the whole West. 2226 02:00:52.319 --> 02:00:56.399 Their power consumption per capita is half the US is 2227 02:00:56.439 --> 02:01:00.159 power presumption or the US which is the highest. But 2228 02:01:00.319 --> 02:01:03.079 all you know, I don't think the spread between the US, Canada, 2229 02:01:03.439 --> 02:01:06.680 Europe is that large. It's there, but it's not. 2230 02:01:06.760 --> 02:01:09.239 They are burning a lot of coal over there, however, 2231 02:01:09.399 --> 02:01:12.199 And our coal consumption has gone down, hasn't it. 2232 02:01:12.319 --> 02:01:14.279 And when I say our, I mean cole consumption. China 2233 02:01:14.279 --> 02:01:17.920 has gone down too. Yeah, it's like everybody's decreasing coal 2234 02:01:18.920 --> 02:01:22.520 to a degree. Okay, last one, Yeah, from our friend 2235 02:01:22.840 --> 02:01:27.199 Laurent Laurent Vignon. So he asked me about the land 2236 02:01:27.520 --> 02:01:31.880 Man Rant land Man is so what is this? Okay? 2237 02:01:32.159 --> 02:01:35.119 Land Man is a television show and the character involved 2238 02:01:35.199 --> 02:01:37.159 was played by Billy Bob Thorne, and he went on 2239 02:01:37.239 --> 02:01:41.479 this huge rant about there's nothing clean about alternative energy, right, 2240 02:01:42.079 --> 02:01:44.439 you need all these trucks running diesel, and you need 2241 02:01:44.520 --> 02:01:47.199 lubricants and so forth, like there's nothing clean about it. 2242 02:01:48.079 --> 02:01:50.079 It's important to remember this is a television show. He 2243 02:01:50.199 --> 02:01:52.079 was playing a character, and none of my set was 2244 02:01:52.119 --> 02:01:56.239 actually true. You know. His argument was that it you know, 2245 02:01:56.840 --> 02:01:59.279 I'm sure you put up a wind turbine, but that 2246 02:01:59.439 --> 02:02:01.520 you used made more carbon putting that up than it's 2247 02:02:01.560 --> 02:02:05.039 ever going to save, which is patently untrue. The typical 2248 02:02:05.199 --> 02:02:08.520 carbon payback, even for all the concrete castings and everything 2249 02:02:08.680 --> 02:02:11.239 for a wind turbine is less than a year. The 2250 02:02:11.359 --> 02:02:13.880 larger the turbine, the faster the payback, the big big 2251 02:02:13.960 --> 02:02:18.520 ones three months so and then after that your net 2252 02:02:18.600 --> 02:02:22.000 negative on carbon production. And I'm not even accounting for 2253 02:02:22.199 --> 02:02:24.720 the amount of say, concrete, you would pour to build 2254 02:02:24.720 --> 02:02:25.920 a coal power plant. Right. 2255 02:02:26.479 --> 02:02:29.279 But it is useful to have fiction like that because 2256 02:02:29.359 --> 02:02:32.039 it just helps us keep on our toes in terms 2257 02:02:32.079 --> 02:02:36.319 of you know what is greenwashing versus yes, you know real, 2258 02:02:37.199 --> 02:02:39.159 you know it. It forces us to do the science, 2259 02:02:39.359 --> 02:02:39.720 and it was. 2260 02:02:39.720 --> 02:02:42.000 Good to have the real experts come out and show 2261 02:02:42.159 --> 02:02:46.239 the matheh, Right. But it also I think that Billy 2262 02:02:46.279 --> 02:02:49.479 Bob Thornton did a really good job of portraying your 2263 02:02:49.560 --> 02:02:56.000 classically misinformed worker who feels threatened by all these technologies. Right. Sure. 2264 02:02:56.600 --> 02:02:59.840 The fact that a certain group of the population jumped 2265 02:02:59.880 --> 02:03:03.359 on it as factuals that everybody should watch this, that's 2266 02:03:03.439 --> 02:03:07.720 the disturbing part. It was a television show. Television shows 2267 02:03:07.760 --> 02:03:12.800 aren't real. But it is worthwhile to do the math 2268 02:03:12.920 --> 02:03:15.600 for the payback in carbon. In fact, when is the 2269 02:03:15.760 --> 02:03:19.520 fastest payback almost always less than a year. A few months. 2270 02:03:19.920 --> 02:03:23.680 Commercial solar is one to two years, from a carbon 2271 02:03:23.720 --> 02:03:28.720 footprint perspective of payback, it does create a certain amount 2272 02:03:28.720 --> 02:03:30.119 of CO two to make those panels and to put 2273 02:03:30.159 --> 02:03:32.159 them up and to put them down on the ground 2274 02:03:32.640 --> 02:03:34.239 is commercial solar, but it does pay back. 2275 02:03:34.239 --> 02:03:36.439 I hate to ask this, like right at the end 2276 02:03:36.520 --> 02:03:39.520 of the energy geekeout, but is there any hope for 2277 02:03:40.960 --> 02:03:44.520 replacing your classic jet fuel for flying? 2278 02:03:45.479 --> 02:03:50.039 That's a tough one. You know, aircraft depend on losing 2279 02:03:50.159 --> 02:03:53.560 the mass of the fuel for their flight distances, and 2280 02:03:53.640 --> 02:03:55.880 when you carry batteries around, you don't lose any weight, 2281 02:03:56.680 --> 02:03:59.920 so it's not going to work for batteries. That being set, 2282 02:04:00.800 --> 02:04:04.439 we are making we are able to produce carbon neutral 2283 02:04:04.600 --> 02:04:07.079 jet fuel. Well that's interesting. So if I take carbon 2284 02:04:07.159 --> 02:04:09.199 that's already in the system, like take it out of 2285 02:04:09.239 --> 02:04:12.920 the atmosphere is carbon dioxide, or take it from algae 2286 02:04:13.039 --> 02:04:15.319 already in the system and make jet fuel from it, 2287 02:04:15.399 --> 02:04:18.039 I'm not adding new carbon to the system as opposed 2288 02:04:18.079 --> 02:04:21.640 to socking it from underground and refining into fuel adding 2289 02:04:21.720 --> 02:04:26.119 new to the system. The problem is that today those 2290 02:04:26.960 --> 02:04:32.199 zero carbon fuels are five times the price, right, and 2291 02:04:32.319 --> 02:04:37.479 so we're going to have long range jet flight because 2292 02:04:37.479 --> 02:04:40.840 we are starting to see electric and commuter ranges. We're 2293 02:04:40.840 --> 02:04:42.479 going to see long range jet flight. We're going to 2294 02:04:42.560 --> 02:04:45.079 have to raise the price and reduce the cost of 2295 02:04:45.119 --> 02:04:47.239 that fuel and meet it somewhere in the middle to 2296 02:04:47.680 --> 02:04:50.520 get to carbon neutral in that it's a great question, 2297 02:04:50.680 --> 02:04:52.680 and it's a it's a common one, but you know, 2298 02:04:53.239 --> 02:04:57.960 you've got to understand the payload fraction of a large 2299 02:04:58.039 --> 02:05:02.319 airliner in fuel, right, and airliners get more efficient as 2300 02:05:02.319 --> 02:05:03.920 to get the higher altube. But they're carrying so much 2301 02:05:03.920 --> 02:05:05.640 fuel when they start, they can only fly so high. 2302 02:05:06.039 --> 02:05:09.840 But today to increase efficiency, as they lose weight from 2303 02:05:09.880 --> 02:05:12.600 burning net fuel, they actually raise their health to increase 2304 02:05:12.640 --> 02:05:18.039 their efficiency. It's that significant, more than half of the 2305 02:05:18.119 --> 02:05:19.880 mass of an aircraft when it takes off on all 2306 02:05:19.960 --> 02:05:22.119 over reason I get that is fuel. Yeah. Is that 2307 02:05:22.239 --> 02:05:25.720 a show? You know? I feel it. You'd be two hours. Yeah, 2308 02:05:26.680 --> 02:05:29.319 feel better now that it's out of your brain. Yeah, 2309 02:05:29.760 --> 02:05:33.560 much better. Thank you, We all do as well. Thank 2310 02:05:33.600 --> 02:05:36.920 you for sharing, Richard. It's always a pleasure. Awesome. All right, 2311 02:05:37.000 --> 02:05:39.000 We'll see you next time on dot net Rocks. 2312 02:05:59.319 --> 02:06:01.880 Dot net Rock is brought to you by Franklin's Net 2313 02:06:02.159 --> 02:06:06.079 and produced by Pop Studios, a full service audio video 2314 02:06:06.199 --> 02:06:10.199 and post production facility located physically in New London, Connecticut, 2315 02:06:10.520 --> 02:06:14.680 and of course in the cloud online at pwop dot com. 2316 02:06:15.520 --> 02:06:17.560 Visit our website at d O T N E t 2317 02:06:17.880 --> 02:06:19.119 R O c k S dot. 2318 02:06:19.079 --> 02:06:24.319 Com for RSS feeds, downloads, mobile apps, comments, and access 2319 02:06:24.359 --> 02:06:26.840 to the full archives going back to show number one, 2320 02:06:27.399 --> 02:06:30.560 recorded in September two thousand and two. And make sure 2321 02:06:30.600 --> 02:06:33.119 you check out our sponsors. They keep us in business. 2322 02:06:33.640 --> 02:06:36.079 Now go write some code, See you next time. 2323 02:06:37.039 --> 02:06:38.520 You got javan 2324 02:06:40.920 --> 02:06:40.960 And