WEBVTT

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<v Speaker 1>How'd you like to listen to dot NetRocks with no ads? Easy?

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<v Speaker 1>up now at Patreon dot dot NetRocks dot com. Hey,

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<v Speaker 1>welcome back to dot NetRocks. It's geek out again for

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<v Speaker 1>twenty twenty five. At this time we're focused on energy.

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<v Speaker 1>I'm Carl Franklin and that is the star of the show.

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<v Speaker 1>Richard Campbell. Good morning, Richard, Hey, Happy New Year, Happy

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<v Speaker 1>new year to you, Time Traveling, Time Traveling. Yeah, of course,

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<v Speaker 1>I know we have a lot to cover today, so

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<v Speaker 1>I want to get started right away with an energy

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<v Speaker 1>themed better no framework, roll the music awesome?

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<v Speaker 2>What do you got?

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<v Speaker 1>So? I've found this video on YouTube and while I

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<v Speaker 1>was doing it, I was thinking to myself, boy, this

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<v Speaker 1>would be a great thing to share with the kids,

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<v Speaker 1>and then I thought maybe the grand kids.

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<v Speaker 2>Kids aren't kids anymore more than.

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<v Speaker 1>My Yeah, back when we started this show, I would

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<v Speaker 1>do things like you know, good for the kids and

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<v Speaker 1>everybody who's listening, Yeah, the kids, maybe the grand kids.

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<v Speaker 1>All right, So this is a YouTube video how to

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<v Speaker 1>make a potato clock?

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<v Speaker 2>Cool? So using the electric potential in a potato.

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<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, it's a great little experiment that you can do

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<v Speaker 1>with your kids. You you know, put a die out

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<v Speaker 1>in one side, an electrode in the other, and you

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<v Speaker 1>get energy that powers a clock. Isn't that fun? That's

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<v Speaker 1>what I meant to say. You science guys, you know

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<v Speaker 1>you feel details. Copper and zinc, baby copper and zinc.

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<v Speaker 1>So that's what I got. Richard. You want to read

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<v Speaker 1>a comment?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, sure, grabbed a coamooff last year's Energy Geek Outs.

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<v Speaker 2>This is from episode nineteen thirty one around this time

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<v Speaker 2>last year. We're oddly enough, we talked about energy and it's,

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<v Speaker 2>you know that funny. I'm always big on making sure

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<v Speaker 2>things I referenced last year get mentioned in the next

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<v Speaker 2>year and so forth. So certainly I've been reading through

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<v Speaker 2>all of that for a great deal. And this comment

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<v Speaker 2>comes from Richard Another Richard. He says, great chat, Thanks guys.

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<v Speaker 2>Interesting that comment about granular solar and wind projects. I

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<v Speaker 2>don't know if you've countered as in North America, but

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<v Speaker 2>here in Australia, we have so much solar based generation

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<v Speaker 2>that we've maxed out the capabilities of our older transmission grid.

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<v Speaker 2>Another government here wants those with a rooftop solar to

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<v Speaker 2>pay for their exports to the grid. He considers it

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<v Speaker 2>a bait and switch to get us to all buy batteries, which,

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<v Speaker 2>by the way, has happened. Wow. I don't know that

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<v Speaker 2>there was so much a bait and switch in that.

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<v Speaker 2>I don't know that the issue the government realized how

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<v Speaker 2>quickly Australian citizens would put solar on the roof, because

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<v Speaker 2>they're the leader in the world in this, and they

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<v Speaker 2>have literally overwhelmed the great at times, you know, so

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<v Speaker 2>much power available at noon, Yeah, because there's so many

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<v Speaker 2>solar panels running all at once that it literally blowed

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<v Speaker 2>transformers off poles.

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<v Speaker 1>But it's amazing that they actually did that. They have

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<v Speaker 1>full capacity of their grid from solar. That's amazing to me.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. At times, of course it's not you know, again,

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<v Speaker 2>the power doesn't flow uphill particularly well, it doesn't step

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<v Speaker 2>back through transformers. Like there's all those kinds of problems

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<v Speaker 2>they're getting big on because battery prices have fallen so

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<v Speaker 2>much and we're going to talk about that they've gotten

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<v Speaker 2>very big on batteries now, because the main thing that

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<v Speaker 2>you want on rooftop solar is to run your house.

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<v Speaker 2>Nobody else is yeah really yea, yeah right there. All

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<v Speaker 2>this buy back was a way to encourage you to

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<v Speaker 2>do this. The utilization of the power is very poor.

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<v Speaker 1>As we learned in the very first geek out, which

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<v Speaker 1>was on electricity, right.

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<v Speaker 2>Man, not very first, but you know, way back there

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<v Speaker 2>we talked about this and lots of controversy on it

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<v Speaker 2>one way or.

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<v Speaker 1>The other, one of the first Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>But Richard also goes on to say our older style,

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<v Speaker 2>greatest more Hubbins spoke that works well with a small

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<v Speaker 2>number of chunky, high capacity cold based generators and their

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<v Speaker 2>associated consection points exactly right. You know, we've built a

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<v Speaker 2>grid designed to have those big power points push down

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<v Speaker 2>everything else, not flow in multiple directions. And with so

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<v Speaker 2>many solar and wind projects around our country, the re

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<v Speaker 2>rebuilding of the transmission network grid is costing gazillions, and

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<v Speaker 2>it's be having to be rebuilt in the wrong order.

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<v Speaker 2>In my opinion, refactoring the new grid ideally should have

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<v Speaker 2>been commenced first. Since you note that the nuclear based

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<v Speaker 2>generation here would have had a similar grid shape in

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<v Speaker 2>that to the old one, almost one to one, And

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<v Speaker 2>he wonders if this similar issue is happening in the

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<v Speaker 2>US and Canada. In the answer is yes, absolutely, Actually

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<v Speaker 2>it's happening everywhere in the world. Power is power right, well,

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<v Speaker 2>more importantly, grid is grid right. The real issue here

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<v Speaker 2>is that now that there's many different sources of power

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<v Speaker 2>and you're going to flow in multiple directions, things get

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<v Speaker 2>complicated and the grid was just never built for this,

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<v Speaker 2>and you could not have built out the grid first.

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<v Speaker 2>I just don't think it's possible. A you didn't know

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<v Speaker 2>what was going to happen, and B it's impossible to

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<v Speaker 2>spend upfront on this. You kind of have to build

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<v Speaker 2>it as you go, and that may not be the

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<v Speaker 2>most cost effective way. But the only way you're going

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<v Speaker 2>to get it right is in hindsight, and that's not

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<v Speaker 2>real life. So you know, what's happening is pretty much

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<v Speaker 2>what had to happen, except that we do have some

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<v Speaker 2>negative forces. You know, lots of politicians are jumping on

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<v Speaker 2>the idea that it's solar's faulted, the grids unstable. Phenominally,

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<v Speaker 2>that's kind of correct. That doesnt mean you shouldn't use solar,

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<v Speaker 2>it's that the grade needs to be upgraded. So so

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<v Speaker 2>those complicated conversations aren't sexy. The easy one is to

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<v Speaker 2>blame new power on all the problems on the grid,

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<v Speaker 2>and really, we need to upgrade our grade and we

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<v Speaker 2>have maintained our grade well enough, and that has been

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<v Speaker 2>the problem all along, and it's where a lot of

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<v Speaker 2>money is going right now. People are very frustrated the

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<v Speaker 2>idea that cost of power continues to go up, and

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<v Speaker 2>they blame it on new power sources, which makes no sense.

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<v Speaker 2>If the new power sources arebot to drive it down,

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<v Speaker 2>they drave it on new consumers like AI certainly something

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<v Speaker 2>we're going to talk about today, and that's these are

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<v Speaker 2>all fragments of truth where the real truth is, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>we're in the midst of a revolution on our way

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<v Speaker 2>we build our grid, and we're just putting more stress

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<v Speaker 2>on it. So Richard, thank you so much for your comment,

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<v Speaker 2>and a copy of music co Buy is on its

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<v Speaker 2>way to you. And if you'd like a copy of music,

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<v Speaker 2>go buy, write a comment on the website at dot

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<v Speaker 2>netroocks dot com or on the facebooks and helplish every

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<v Speaker 2>show there and if you comment there in a reading

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<v Speaker 2>the show, we'll send you copy music Cope.

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<v Speaker 1>And what he's talking about is music to Code Buy,

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<v Speaker 1>which is something that I built a long time ago

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<v Speaker 1>and keep adding tracks too. We're up to twenty two

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<v Speaker 1>tracks now. They're twenty five minutes long to coincide with

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<v Speaker 1>the Pomodoro technique, and they're designed to keep you in

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<v Speaker 1>a state of flow while you're writing code. I'm halfway

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<v Speaker 1>done with episode twenty three as of this writing, but

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<v Speaker 1>I think I'm going to knock it out in the

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<v Speaker 1>next day or so so we can get it to

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<v Speaker 1>people for Christmas. So Musicdoco buy dot net if you

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<v Speaker 1>want to buy the collection in an MP three wave

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<v Speaker 1>or FLACK versions. All right, So shall we talk about

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<v Speaker 1>what happened in nineteen eighty three because that's our episode number.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, all right, there's some favorites for you in my list,

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<v Speaker 2>but I'm sure we'll see what you've got.

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<v Speaker 1>Well, the big one, Richard, kind of crosses into your realm.

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<v Speaker 1>It's the beginning of the Internet. The migration of arpinet

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<v Speaker 1>to TCPIP was completed, marking the official start of the Internet.

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<v Speaker 1>According to some sources, the depending on who you asked, right, yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>but I mean TCPIP is what powers the Internet. It's

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<v Speaker 1>the protcol stack that we all use today. So before

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<v Speaker 1>it was arpinet, and there were other protocols that connected

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<v Speaker 1>universities and things like that, but the true Internet really

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<v Speaker 1>requires TCPIP. All right, thanks sir. Yeah, yeah, launch of

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<v Speaker 1>mobile phones. You'll probably talk about this, so I'll leave

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<v Speaker 1>that that. Wasn't going to go too far into it

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<v Speaker 1>because there's so many other things to do. Okay, the first

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<v Speaker 1>mobile cellular telephone call was made. Michael Jackson performed the

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<v Speaker 1>moon Walk for the first time during a televised performance

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<v Speaker 1>of Billy Jean, which was big. Nobel Prizes were awarded

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<v Speaker 1>to various individuals, including William Golding for literature and somebody

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<v Speaker 1>I can't pronounce, lech Wtesa for peace. Okay, Lequillessa, good polish.

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<v Speaker 1>Opening of Tokyo Disneyland, the theme park. We'll open its

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<v Speaker 1>stores to the public on April fifteenth, becoming the first

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<v Speaker 1>Disney park in Asia. And you know, let's talk about

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<v Speaker 1>the top ten movies of nineteen eighty three, because there

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<v Speaker 1>were some good ones. A Christmas Story is number one,

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<v Speaker 1>which I watch every Year with My Girls. Great movie

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<v Speaker 1>and a great story too, Silkwood, Scarface, The Right Stuff,

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<v Speaker 1>War Games, Star Wars Episode six, Return of the Jedi,

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<v Speaker 1>The King of Comedy. Yep, that was Robert Tanniro, Jerry Lewis,

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<v Speaker 1>and Martin Scorsese directed National Lampoon's Vacation, Monty Python's The

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<v Speaker 1>Meaning of Life and coming in at ten The Outsider Again.

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<v Speaker 2>Another ridiculously good movie here, like ridiculously good.

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<v Speaker 1>Great, yeah, great movies coming out in eighty three. So

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<v Speaker 1>what you got in tech in space? Well, okay, let's

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<v Speaker 1>give to Dine Attack a little bit of love.

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<v Speaker 2>Right. That's the first cellular mobile phone. And there were

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<v Speaker 2>mobile phones before this. This was the first cellular phone.

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<v Speaker 2>Famously made a call to his competitor in New York

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<v Speaker 2>to say I've done it, you know, communicating on the

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<v Speaker 2>first cell node the phone had. It was kind of

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<v Speaker 2>brick shaped, but it had antenna and it definitely worked.

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<v Speaker 2>It's called din Attack and it's the beginning of that

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<v Speaker 2>whole race. But you know, awesome. The other gadget that

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<v Speaker 2>I have to bet you would be the Nintendo Entertainment Centisen,

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<v Speaker 2>the NASA. You know, this is the first of the Mario.

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<v Speaker 2>You know, you can play Mario at home like that.

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<v Speaker 2>It's huge and that Christmas I remember it well, selling

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<v Speaker 2>ness for a friend of mine at a store as

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<v Speaker 2>fast as we could possibly go.

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<v Speaker 1>Previous episodes of dot NetRocks we talked about Pong, right yep,

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<v Speaker 1>which and I can't remember what year it was, but

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<v Speaker 1>it was in the seventies somewhere seventy eight, seventy seven,

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<v Speaker 1>seventy six. But was this the real first graphic home

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<v Speaker 1>system or was the Atari the first one? Yeah, the

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<v Speaker 1>Atari's earlier in that and the in television so forth.

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<v Speaker 1>But this was sort of Nintendo entering that market, okay,

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<v Speaker 1>right as Famiccom And yeah, they were course big in Japan,

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<v Speaker 1>and you know, nominally in Japan it was a third

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<v Speaker 1>generation system, but this was the first one that they

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<v Speaker 1>brought to the US. Were they as huge as Stephen

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<v Speaker 1>Forte in Japan?

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<v Speaker 2>Nobody's a huge a Steve. Let's not get crazy now,

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<v Speaker 2>come on. But you know this is when you get

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<v Speaker 2>Super Mario Brothers. Legend of Zelda Metroid, like those classics

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<v Speaker 2>begin at least in North America, you know, well, I

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<v Speaker 2>mean it starts in Japan in eighty three and then

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<v Speaker 2>gets released in North America in eighty five. Yeah, nice,

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<v Speaker 2>so big on the space side, there's not all that's

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<v Speaker 2>happening in space shuttles. So Space Shuttle Challenge there gets

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<v Speaker 2>its first flight in April that year, and the only

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<v Speaker 2>thing interesting I can say about that flight, besides the

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<v Speaker 2>first flight of Challenger, is they launched the first of

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<v Speaker 2>the TDRS satellites. These are tracking in data relay satellites.

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<v Speaker 2>We take for granted today that there's NaSTA TV, that

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<v Speaker 2>there's a continuous transmission of video from the International Space

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<v Speaker 2>Station and any space flight, and that's because of these

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<v Speaker 2>TDRS satellites. There's three of them, but in nineteen a

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<v Speaker 2>three the very first one had been launched. Up till

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<v Speaker 2>then you just had voice communication and it was intermittent.

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<v Speaker 2>You constantly went out of into loss of signals. So

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<v Speaker 2>having it all the time was a big deal. And

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<v Speaker 2>this was the beginning of the TDRS. So Challenger put

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<v Speaker 2>up the first TDRS satellite, and then that's April. In

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<v Speaker 2>June flies again, like they did fly fairly often, right.

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<v Speaker 2>The goal was to be able to fly over two weeks.

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<v Speaker 2>They'd never got that fast, but they were flying every

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<v Speaker 2>couple of months. STS seven is a satellite deployment mission,

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<v Speaker 2>which was the original you know, major missions for the

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<v Speaker 2>Shuttle was to be able to launch satellites. But it's

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<v Speaker 2>also the mission where Sally Ride flies, the very first

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<v Speaker 2>female US female astronaut. That was her first flight.

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<v Speaker 1>And it's really funny that they wrote that song about

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<v Speaker 1>her Mustang Sally way before that.

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<v Speaker 2>Pretty sure for sure that's not true. Pretty sure for

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<v Speaker 2>sure that's not what we're talking about. And then the

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<v Speaker 2>end August, Challenger flies to fly to launch a couple

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<v Speaker 2>more satellites, but not a TDR.

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<v Speaker 1>Follow me for more fun facts, kids.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, there you go. So, and then to round out

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<v Speaker 2>the shuttles in eighty three, the last flight in a

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<v Speaker 2>three so Challenger flowed three times and then Columbia flies

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<v Speaker 2>once STS nine and takes up space Lab. This was

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<v Speaker 2>a collaboration which was with the Europeans before even the

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<v Speaker 2>Europeans based aged was well defined and really in a

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<v Speaker 2>lot of way space Lab easier precursor to ISS modules. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>So this was basically a laboratory twenty four feet long

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<v Speaker 2>in the back of the payload bay with a tunneling

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<v Speaker 2>it to the cab. The cabin in the front and

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<v Speaker 2>there were six people the first time it flew six

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<v Speaker 2>people on Shuttle, and these six people worked round the

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<v Speaker 2>clock in two shifts of twelve hours three and three

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<v Speaker 2>to do science experiments using space Lab to demonstrate the

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<v Speaker 2>potential at One of those astrots, by the way, was

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<v Speaker 2>Richard Garriott, And if you're a gaming fan, Richard Garriott

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<v Speaker 2>is the guy behind Ultima an Ultima online.

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<v Speaker 1>Wow.

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<v Speaker 2>That mission for Columbia was the last one for two years.

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<v Speaker 2>After that flight, it'll come down and do a major refit.

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<v Speaker 2>They'll take the ejection seats out and trying to reduce

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<v Speaker 2>the weight on Columbia, though I'll never be able to

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<v Speaker 2>get all the way down. It'll fly again in nineteen

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<v Speaker 2>eighty six.

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<v Speaker 1>I'll have some problems with the O rings, foreshadowing that'll be.

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<v Speaker 2>Called the Challenger. But yes, of course I won't say

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<v Speaker 2>the Soviets did nothing that year. They have Salute seven

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<v Speaker 2>up and they'll do like some major spacewalks to upgrade

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<v Speaker 2>the solar panels on it. Like they were doing good

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<v Speaker 2>science then too, so, but that not a you know,

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<v Speaker 2>its shuttle is sort of overwhelming all the messages at

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<v Speaker 2>the time. On the computer side, it's nineteen eighty three,

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<v Speaker 2>what comes out. Apple's Lisa. Lisa arguably the first of

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<v Speaker 2>the PC computers with a guy just a year ahead

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<v Speaker 2>of the Mac. Of course, there was a lot of

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<v Speaker 2>de beta where the name Lisa came from. Jobs finally

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<v Speaker 2>admitted it was named for his daughter, although at the

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<v Speaker 2>time they didn't want that to be true, so they

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<v Speaker 2>backron named it and called it something like local Integrated

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<v Speaker 2>Software Architecture, which means nothing. Somebody else said, let's be realistic.

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<v Speaker 2>It actually means let's invent some acronym. That's great. It

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<v Speaker 2>was a ten thousand dollars PC in nineteen eighty three.

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<v Speaker 2>It was really crazy expensive, but it had a sixty

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<v Speaker 2>eight thousand processor, had a Mega RAM initially with two

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<v Speaker 2>five and a quarter drives, then eventually had a five

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<v Speaker 2>Mega I driving even a seven a three and a

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<v Speaker 2>half inch drive on it. But it just prices itself

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<v Speaker 2>out of the market and then back would undermine them.

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<v Speaker 2>They'll be out, they'll be discontinued by eighty six. Lotus

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<v Speaker 2>one two three, Yeah, Yeah, so that's the Yeah, this

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<v Speaker 2>is the you know, and coming after VisiCalc. Although Microsoft's

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<v Speaker 2>also shipped a multiplan. The multiplan runs on lots of platforms.

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<v Speaker 2>That's Charles Simons's implementation. So it's not fast and one

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<v Speaker 2>two three is designed for the IBM PC and nothing else,

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<v Speaker 2>and it is fast, and it just swamps the market.

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<v Speaker 2>It's not defendive product, to the point where when Microsoft

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<v Speaker 2>is really trying to compete against it, they include a

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<v Speaker 2>mistake in the date math in Lotus one two three

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<v Speaker 2>in Excel to make sure it's perfectly compatible.

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<v Speaker 1>Oh not as an accident, to let everybody know that

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<v Speaker 1>they copied the code.

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<v Speaker 2>They they may realize it was making an error on

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<v Speaker 2>leap ears because the leap ears don't happen on the

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<v Speaker 2>on the four hundredth year, but Lotus one two three

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<v Speaker 2>made that mistake, and they didn't want it to be

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<v Speaker 2>different from Lotus one too three, so they made it

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<v Speaker 2>exactly the same mistake.

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<v Speaker 1>Was there some brew haha over the inventor of VisiCalc

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<v Speaker 1>and some loss circles and stuff like that.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh yes, I mean this is still in lawsuit area.

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<v Speaker 2>Don't worry, We're still coming into like the look and

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<v Speaker 2>feel lawsuits, Like none of that has happened yet, and

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<v Speaker 2>we were all sort of passed that all now, but

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<v Speaker 2>the time, no they're still figuring all that out.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Eighty three is also the year they shipped Microsoft word Word.

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<v Speaker 2>The original version is actually for Xenix. It's called multi

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<v Speaker 2>toool Word And they also put out the PC version

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<v Speaker 2>for on Dos in eighty three, and then they'body subsequent versions.

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<v Speaker 1>And if you're a fan of dot net rocks, you

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<v Speaker 1>know that we interviewed the guy Les Pinter who wrote

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<v Speaker 1>word and sold it to Microsoft, So that was around

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<v Speaker 1>this time.

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<v Speaker 2>It was in that same era, And of course they

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<v Speaker 2>also made versions of the Mac and the Atarist and

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<v Speaker 2>Unix and OS two Windows in eighty nine. It'll ultimately

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<v Speaker 2>become the dominant word processor, and it'll do it by

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<v Speaker 2>beating word Perfect. And the way it'll beat word perfect

329
00:16:45.279 --> 00:16:48.039
<v Speaker 2>is by reading and writing word perfect files. Yeah. Plus

330
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<v Speaker 2>it was easier to use, I mean, let's face it, Yeah,

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<v Speaker 2>but that's not enough to get people to move. The

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<v Speaker 2>big thing here was when word Perfect shipped their version fives,

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<v Speaker 2>they changed their file format and didn't include They only

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<v Speaker 2>had an importer, so you had to upgrade everything at once,

335
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<v Speaker 2>and that made people mad. And then word came along

336
00:17:05.559 --> 00:17:07.920
<v Speaker 2>and says, hey, we read and write four three files

337
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<v Speaker 2>and five one files. So suddenly you could use word

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00:17:11.079 --> 00:17:13.400
<v Speaker 2>whatever you got to pick up any old version of

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00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:15.640
<v Speaker 2>word perfect and write to Eddie version of We're perfect too.

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<v Speaker 2>And it just, you know, basically stood there, waited until

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<v Speaker 2>they made a mistake and then took advantage. What else

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<v Speaker 2>Richard stallman Ship's Ganu. Ganu has the best acronym of all,

343
00:17:26.279 --> 00:17:32.039
<v Speaker 2>which is not Unix. That's what can stands for. It's

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<v Speaker 2>a free it's not a full Borros, but it is

345
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<v Speaker 2>the free shell, and it is the catalyst for what

346
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<v Speaker 2>will become Linux, which is why Stallmanite still say you

347
00:17:41.400 --> 00:17:44.279
<v Speaker 2>should be calling it new Linux, right, But that's all

348
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<v Speaker 2>all begins there, and also the free software movement and

349
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<v Speaker 2>so forth come from that. Compact only been formed the

350
00:17:49.920 --> 00:17:53.839
<v Speaker 2>year before puts out their version of the Compact Portable,

351
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<v Speaker 2>the luggable PC case. It's the suitcase like an Osborne,

352
00:17:58.599 --> 00:18:02.880
<v Speaker 2>but built for CP for DAWs. It's an IBM compatible. Yeah.

353
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<v Speaker 2>And Ry Kurtzweel publishes his Age of the Intelligent Machines,

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<v Speaker 2>incredibly prescient if you read it today, just about some

355
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<v Speaker 2>of the insanity of that going on forty years earlier

356
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<v Speaker 2>and last, but certainly not least at the cees the

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<v Speaker 2>Consumer Electronics Show MIDI, right, yeah, yeah, nineteen ay three.

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<v Speaker 1>MIDI changed electronic music for everybody. Yeah, ushered in the

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<v Speaker 1>era of the synthesizers and the sequencers and all that stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>And brilliantly they came at it. It was a serial standard,

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<v Speaker 2>but they came at it as a public standard, so

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<v Speaker 2>anybody could implement against it, right, and that was good,

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<v Speaker 2>And so it just spread like wildfire. And I had

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<v Speaker 2>a little bit of a hand in the history of that,

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<v Speaker 2>not really, but I kind of jumped on to the

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<v Speaker 2>MIDI bandwagon working for a company that made Doss sequencers

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<v Speaker 2>in the late eighties, and a lot of that stuff

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<v Speaker 2>that I was doing was creating c structures or system

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<v Speaker 2>exclusive data. System exclusive data is stuff that's specific to

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<v Speaker 2>each synthesizer model that comes out so that you could

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<v Speaker 2>suck down the patches and then use a library application,

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<v Speaker 2>which is what we had to manage them, and then

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<v Speaker 2>swap the patches back in so so that Yeah, those

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<v Speaker 2>were fun times. Yeah, and it you know, at the time,

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<v Speaker 2>each vendor had their own standard, right, Roland had one

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<v Speaker 2>Oberheim and these are the two that originally collaborated, you know,

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<v Speaker 2>had had their own version, the parallel box and so forth,

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<v Speaker 2>and it was finally like these leaders of the company

379
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<v Speaker 2>kind of got on the phone and said, this is stupid, right,

380
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<v Speaker 2>why don't we just agree on a standard, And they

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<v Speaker 2>gradually drew more and more companies into all agree we're

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<v Speaker 2>going to do this, this MIDI standard, so that we

383
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<v Speaker 2>can interconnect with each other, so that our customers can

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<v Speaker 2>use the products they want to use.

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<v Speaker 1>What's interesting, Richard, is that standard still holds. I think

386
00:19:56.440 --> 00:19:59.559
<v Speaker 1>they went to METI two point zero, but they're midy two. Yeah,

387
00:19:59.599 --> 00:20:02.880
<v Speaker 1>but that's standard still holds. And compare that to something like, oh,

388
00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:06.440
<v Speaker 1>I don't know, scuzzy Small Computer Systems Interface, which was

389
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<v Speaker 1>supposed to be a standard which changed every year because

390
00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:11.759
<v Speaker 1>everybody wanted to own the standard.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's all which is kind of pointless. Yeah, those

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<v Speaker 2>guys have done a good job. But they kind of

393
00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:18.200
<v Speaker 2>got it right off the bat. Yep, and it worked. Yeah,

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00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:19.920
<v Speaker 2>so that's what I got. That's good. Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>So I hear you want to talk about energy?

396
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<v Speaker 2>What the heck?

397
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<v Speaker 1>Huh in twenty twenty five?

398
00:20:24.279 --> 00:20:27.319
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, When we do this every year, it's interesting

399
00:20:27.319 --> 00:20:31.359
<v Speaker 2>to look at the larger geopolitical landscape. Energy has always

400
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<v Speaker 2>been an important factor. It's really quite a potent ay

401
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:39.000
<v Speaker 2>right now. The International Energy Agency, which I often retort to,

402
00:20:39.079 --> 00:20:42.759
<v Speaker 2>the IA, sort of does a lot of overview. It's

403
00:20:42.799 --> 00:20:44.680
<v Speaker 2>a great phrase for me to do some reading, sort

404
00:20:44.680 --> 00:20:46.640
<v Speaker 2>of see where we actually had. And they talk about

405
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<v Speaker 2>the fact that coming out of the pandemic and with

406
00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:53.440
<v Speaker 2>the current conflicts, the countries are prioritizing energy security. They're

407
00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:57.640
<v Speaker 2>actually creating less efficient energy generation that they can control

408
00:20:58.000 --> 00:21:00.920
<v Speaker 2>rather than necessarily buying from wherever they can from. Having

409
00:21:01.279 --> 00:21:03.960
<v Speaker 2>the Russians out of the grid has been a big

410
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:06.440
<v Speaker 2>part of that. But it also means that they've driven

411
00:21:07.160 --> 00:21:10.759
<v Speaker 2>renewables to an all time high. But it's interesting to

412
00:21:10.839 --> 00:21:13.200
<v Speaker 2>point it's not just renewals, as you're not all time high.

413
00:21:13.440 --> 00:21:18.200
<v Speaker 2>Virtually every type of energy generation in twenty twenty five, coal,

414
00:21:18.720 --> 00:21:22.839
<v Speaker 2>natural gas, oil, even nuclear power isn't an all time

415
00:21:22.920 --> 00:21:25.680
<v Speaker 2>high right now. Old plants are being turned back on,

416
00:21:26.839 --> 00:21:28.599
<v Speaker 2>plants that are should have been shut down or being

417
00:21:28.640 --> 00:21:31.640
<v Speaker 2>capped because there's so much concern for availability of energy.

418
00:21:32.160 --> 00:21:36.000
<v Speaker 2>Oil prices are relatively low. Energy should be cheap right now,

419
00:21:36.079 --> 00:21:38.119
<v Speaker 2>and the reality, of course is the energy isn't Anybody

420
00:21:38.160 --> 00:21:40.480
<v Speaker 2>who's looking at their power bill is going, Wow, why

421
00:21:40.559 --> 00:21:41.880
<v Speaker 2>is my power bill so high?

422
00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:42.599
<v Speaker 1>Except for me?

423
00:21:42.720 --> 00:21:43.440
<v Speaker 2>It's true.

424
00:21:43.680 --> 00:21:47.279
<v Speaker 1>I got solar panels everywhere, and you know, my energy

425
00:21:47.319 --> 00:21:50.680
<v Speaker 1>bill has been flatlined for the last year. I've been

426
00:21:50.720 --> 00:21:54.240
<v Speaker 1>only paying my lease for for my panels.

427
00:21:54.279 --> 00:21:57.640
<v Speaker 2>But that's yeah. So you got in before even panel

428
00:21:57.640 --> 00:21:58.279
<v Speaker 2>prices are up.

429
00:21:58.240 --> 00:22:01.759
<v Speaker 1>Right now, good time fifty bucks a month plus whatever

430
00:22:02.319 --> 00:22:04.480
<v Speaker 1>Pizzley charge we get from the power company.

431
00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:09.440
<v Speaker 2>Right. So, the planet's consuming roughly about twenty tarowatt hours

432
00:22:09.440 --> 00:22:12.799
<v Speaker 2>of electricity per year right now. The IA says that

433
00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:16.319
<v Speaker 2>we're almost forty percent of that energy now is renewable

434
00:22:16.680 --> 00:22:19.759
<v Speaker 2>and expected to be over fifty percent ahead of twenty thirty,

435
00:22:19.799 --> 00:22:22.960
<v Speaker 2>which was the original goal. So some things are going well.

436
00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:26.920
<v Speaker 2>But at the same time, everybody's frantic about energy costs

437
00:22:26.920 --> 00:22:28.759
<v Speaker 2>and we're going to that's going to keep coming up

438
00:22:28.839 --> 00:22:31.160
<v Speaker 2>as we talk through the various forms. So let's do

439
00:22:31.200 --> 00:22:33.559
<v Speaker 2>our usual routine. We'll start with some of the renewables

440
00:22:33.559 --> 00:22:35.400
<v Speaker 2>and then we'll go into the more mainstreams. And I've

441
00:22:35.400 --> 00:22:38.519
<v Speaker 2>got some questions from listeners, not all includers. We go

442
00:22:38.559 --> 00:22:40.680
<v Speaker 2>through this all, right, So by the end of twenty

443
00:22:40.680 --> 00:22:43.000
<v Speaker 2>four last year, we were at about two point two

444
00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:46.960
<v Speaker 2>tarawatts of solar capacity on the planet. By the end

445
00:22:46.960 --> 00:22:49.039
<v Speaker 2>of this year, which is imminent, we should be around

446
00:22:49.079 --> 00:22:50.880
<v Speaker 2>three terra wats. Is a bit of an estimate because

447
00:22:50.880 --> 00:22:52.359
<v Speaker 2>it's not quite the end of the year yet and

448
00:22:52.440 --> 00:22:54.200
<v Speaker 2>it takes a few months to get all the report again.

449
00:22:54.920 --> 00:22:57.960
<v Speaker 2>So you know, about eight hundred megawatts of eight hundred

450
00:22:57.960 --> 00:23:00.240
<v Speaker 2>gigawatts of new solar put online. Most of that is

451
00:23:00.240 --> 00:23:04.319
<v Speaker 2>from China. Still, China has one point one tarot watts

452
00:23:04.720 --> 00:23:07.200
<v Speaker 2>of solar. They're number one by a long way, because

453
00:23:07.200 --> 00:23:10.279
<v Speaker 2>the number two is the United States at about two

454
00:23:10.519 --> 00:23:12.920
<v Speaker 2>hundred and forty gigawatts or maybe.

455
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:15.200
<v Speaker 1>Not, you know, with all those Chinese solar panels.

456
00:23:14.839 --> 00:23:17.839
<v Speaker 2>Barely a quarter. Yeah, although solar panels are also made

457
00:23:17.839 --> 00:23:20.680
<v Speaker 2>in the USA is more expensive. So we're roughly around

458
00:23:20.680 --> 00:23:23.880
<v Speaker 2>ten percent of global interesting now is solar, and seventy

459
00:23:23.880 --> 00:23:27.440
<v Speaker 2>five percent of the new capacity being added in renewables

460
00:23:28.160 --> 00:23:31.880
<v Speaker 2>is solar. Solar is very cheap, and it's the bigger

461
00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:33.960
<v Speaker 2>thing is it's easy to deploy. You get a square

462
00:23:34.119 --> 00:23:38.079
<v Speaker 2>flat piece of land, you can gradually grow out solar.

463
00:23:38.119 --> 00:23:41.559
<v Speaker 2>You know, ortually every other power plant besides wind and solar,

464
00:23:41.960 --> 00:23:43.400
<v Speaker 2>you kind of have to build the whole thing. Before

465
00:23:43.400 --> 00:23:46.400
<v Speaker 2>you get anything right, you'll have to build a large

466
00:23:46.519 --> 00:23:48.960
<v Speaker 2>multi megawatt plant right off the bat where with solar

467
00:23:49.039 --> 00:23:51.720
<v Speaker 2>and wind you can build an increments and so you

468
00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:54.599
<v Speaker 2>can slowly get connected to get to the grid and

469
00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:58.160
<v Speaker 2>slowly expand over time and sort of don't have to

470
00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:00.400
<v Speaker 2>get a huge amount of money up front. You can

471
00:24:00.400 --> 00:24:03.160
<v Speaker 2>get it over time. The Chinese are doing a lot

472
00:24:03.200 --> 00:24:06.400
<v Speaker 2>of the innovation here. They are. I read a great

473
00:24:06.440 --> 00:24:10.440
<v Speaker 2>piece about a huge solar and wind farm being built

474
00:24:10.559 --> 00:24:14.799
<v Speaker 2>int bed the Quingha Tatle and Solar projects. This is

475
00:24:14.960 --> 00:24:19.759
<v Speaker 2>seventeen gigawatts of solar and that's not even at full capacity.

476
00:24:19.920 --> 00:24:20.799
<v Speaker 2>And they're building on the bed.

477
00:24:20.839 --> 00:24:22.079
<v Speaker 1>How do they get them all up the mountain?

478
00:24:22.200 --> 00:24:24.759
<v Speaker 2>They carry them? This is not a trivial piece of

479
00:24:24.799 --> 00:24:25.759
<v Speaker 2>problem either, right.

480
00:24:25.599 --> 00:24:27.640
<v Speaker 1>Hey, Joe SHARPA have another panel?

481
00:24:27.759 --> 00:24:29.960
<v Speaker 2>That's it? You know? I think it's I think they

482
00:24:29.960 --> 00:24:32.039
<v Speaker 2>have a train line up there. But either way, the

483
00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:36.240
<v Speaker 2>high altitude means it's cold, good for the panels. The

484
00:24:36.279 --> 00:24:38.799
<v Speaker 2>air is thin, so sunlight is very clear, so they

485
00:24:38.839 --> 00:24:42.680
<v Speaker 2>actually get more generation, and then they use these high

486
00:24:42.720 --> 00:24:46.160
<v Speaker 2>performance DC connectors to bring it back down where it's needed.

487
00:24:46.400 --> 00:24:48.519
<v Speaker 2>They're also combining it with hydro electric power, because if

488
00:24:48.519 --> 00:24:51.160
<v Speaker 2>you've got mountains, you've got dams and a lot of

489
00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:53.799
<v Speaker 2>pumped hydro. So when they're doing excess power production around

490
00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:56.599
<v Speaker 2>the stored of batteries, they're pumping water back up hill

491
00:24:56.680 --> 00:25:01.319
<v Speaker 2>and storing behind the dams. So these massive demonstrations of power.

492
00:25:01.359 --> 00:25:03.720
<v Speaker 1>So I think we talked about this before, but I

493
00:25:03.759 --> 00:25:06.279
<v Speaker 1>don't know about in Canada. But in the United States,

494
00:25:06.359 --> 00:25:08.240
<v Speaker 1>I don't think like, if you have a house on

495
00:25:08.279 --> 00:25:11.559
<v Speaker 1>an acre and you have an adjacent acre that's flat, yeah,

496
00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:13.640
<v Speaker 1>I don't think you can. Can you or can you

497
00:25:13.720 --> 00:25:18.200
<v Speaker 1>not put up you know, solar panels on there and

498
00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:22.240
<v Speaker 1>to power your house or your for your local electricity

499
00:25:22.359 --> 00:25:23.519
<v Speaker 1>or sell it or whatever.

500
00:25:23.759 --> 00:25:26.480
<v Speaker 2>You can power your house fairly easily. Like you're hitting

501
00:25:26.480 --> 00:25:28.480
<v Speaker 2>on a veryly key point here, which is no, you

502
00:25:28.480 --> 00:25:30.119
<v Speaker 2>can't just go. You can put up panels and put

503
00:25:30.119 --> 00:25:31.400
<v Speaker 2>it in your own battery and do what you want

504
00:25:31.400 --> 00:25:35.799
<v Speaker 2>with it. That's fine. The regulations and these are even

505
00:25:35.839 --> 00:25:37.920
<v Speaker 2>down to the county level, not even state level, much

506
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:41.720
<v Speaker 2>less federal. It's usually fairly easy to generate power for

507
00:25:41.799 --> 00:25:44.519
<v Speaker 2>your home. But as soon as you want a grid tie,

508
00:25:45.079 --> 00:25:48.519
<v Speaker 2>you have to go through grid tie policy. Processes, and

509
00:25:48.559 --> 00:25:52.559
<v Speaker 2>those processes are archaic, they haven't been modernized. They are

510
00:25:52.559 --> 00:25:55.200
<v Speaker 2>controlled by relatively few entities that are not incented to

511
00:25:55.240 --> 00:25:58.240
<v Speaker 2>improve it because it's where they make their money. And

512
00:25:58.920 --> 00:26:02.000
<v Speaker 2>in some cases you're seeing a weight to get a

513
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:05.119
<v Speaker 2>grid tie for any kind of power plant of as

514
00:26:05.160 --> 00:26:06.440
<v Speaker 2>much as eight years.

515
00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:08.799
<v Speaker 1>Wow. On top of that, I imagine you have to be

516
00:26:08.920 --> 00:26:10.839
<v Speaker 1>zoned commercial for that because.

517
00:26:10.640 --> 00:26:15.039
<v Speaker 2>Well, that's selling power, but that's whole you know, that's

518
00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:17.400
<v Speaker 2>at the front end. Imagine the back end where you

519
00:26:17.440 --> 00:26:19.279
<v Speaker 2>actually build this. And now when you go to get

520
00:26:19.319 --> 00:26:21.079
<v Speaker 2>your grid tie, it's like it's going to be eight

521
00:26:21.160 --> 00:26:23.960
<v Speaker 2>years before you can actually start selling that power. Like,

522
00:26:24.000 --> 00:26:27.640
<v Speaker 2>if you've got a loan, you're big trouble. So yeah,

523
00:26:28.400 --> 00:26:30.720
<v Speaker 2>don't think too much unless you really have a lot

524
00:26:30.720 --> 00:26:32.799
<v Speaker 2>of money and you want to build a large scale

525
00:26:32.960 --> 00:26:36.400
<v Speaker 2>commercial power is expensive and complicated and depending on the region.

526
00:26:36.519 --> 00:26:39.160
<v Speaker 2>You know, there's one of the advantages that having an

527
00:26:39.160 --> 00:26:42.319
<v Speaker 2>authoritarian state like China is is that they simply dictate

528
00:26:42.359 --> 00:26:44.480
<v Speaker 2>when things are going to happen, and there is no

529
00:26:44.599 --> 00:26:48.000
<v Speaker 2>red tape unless they want it. Where I'm not saying

530
00:26:48.000 --> 00:26:50.839
<v Speaker 2>that red tape is automatically bad. Often there are procedures.

531
00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:52.319
<v Speaker 2>You know, what you don't want is to plug a

532
00:26:52.359 --> 00:26:54.720
<v Speaker 2>solar panel array into the grid and have the grid

533
00:26:54.720 --> 00:26:58.279
<v Speaker 2>catch fire, like then nobody gets power. But the current

534
00:26:58.319 --> 00:27:01.000
<v Speaker 2>processes aren't bad and then need to be made better.

535
00:27:01.559 --> 00:27:02.880
<v Speaker 2>It's an ongoing issue, and it is.

536
00:27:02.880 --> 00:27:06.200
<v Speaker 1>This both Canada and the United States everywhere.

537
00:27:05.920 --> 00:27:09.079
<v Speaker 2>And it's all of the western world. Right. The same

538
00:27:09.119 --> 00:27:11.799
<v Speaker 2>problems that we're having the grid power are also the

539
00:27:11.799 --> 00:27:15.359
<v Speaker 2>same problems we're having with housing, which is we created

540
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:18.960
<v Speaker 2>regulatory regimes that are blocking to the point where there

541
00:27:19.039 --> 00:27:22.599
<v Speaker 2>is no incentive to build. Yeah, right, And so you know,

542
00:27:22.920 --> 00:27:25.720
<v Speaker 2>if you go read as reclines abundance, it's like, listen,

543
00:27:26.039 --> 00:27:28.079
<v Speaker 2>all it's actually cheap to build a house than ever

544
00:27:28.200 --> 00:27:31.119
<v Speaker 2>was before. Why don't we have more houses? We've created

545
00:27:31.160 --> 00:27:34.160
<v Speaker 2>regulatory regimes that make it impossible and need to be streamlined,

546
00:27:34.480 --> 00:27:36.759
<v Speaker 2>and there's lots of effort happening in that, and there

547
00:27:36.799 --> 00:27:38.960
<v Speaker 2>needs to be more. There need to be louder noises.

548
00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:43.880
<v Speaker 2>The real reason housing and electricity are more expensive is

549
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:46.079
<v Speaker 2>that we've crew made it too hard for them to

550
00:27:46.079 --> 00:27:48.519
<v Speaker 2>be less. And this is where you go to your

551
00:27:48.519 --> 00:27:50.960
<v Speaker 2>government and demand it, and they'll give you simple answer.

552
00:27:50.960 --> 00:27:54.799
<v Speaker 2>It's like it's AI's fault or it's Solar's fault, and

553
00:27:54.880 --> 00:27:58.160
<v Speaker 2>all of that is crap. The reality is the infrastructure

554
00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:00.680
<v Speaker 2>needs to be upgraded and the process needs to be upgraded,

555
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:03.359
<v Speaker 2>and those things need to be dealt with, and building

556
00:28:03.359 --> 00:28:05.359
<v Speaker 2>more power is not going to solve it until you

557
00:28:05.359 --> 00:28:07.839
<v Speaker 2>get the process fixed. Everything else is a waste of time.

558
00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:08.559
<v Speaker 1>Good points.

559
00:28:08.720 --> 00:28:10.519
<v Speaker 2>There has been some you know, for a long time

560
00:28:10.599 --> 00:28:11.839
<v Speaker 2>when we were talking about solar We've done this for

561
00:28:11.880 --> 00:28:14.279
<v Speaker 2>a number of years. I've talked about perovs skites. You've

562
00:28:14.279 --> 00:28:17.200
<v Speaker 2>heard the term before, right, We've been living happily with

563
00:28:17.680 --> 00:28:20.960
<v Speaker 2>multijunction soloka and solar panels manufactured largely by the Chinese,

564
00:28:20.960 --> 00:28:24.319
<v Speaker 2>who drove the price down that are about twenty percent efficient.

565
00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:26.559
<v Speaker 2>If you got the good ones, it's about as good

566
00:28:26.559 --> 00:28:30.680
<v Speaker 2>as they can get. And there's always been this proposal,

567
00:28:30.759 --> 00:28:33.599
<v Speaker 2>this idea that there's other materials, but the perovskites will

568
00:28:33.599 --> 00:28:35.200
<v Speaker 2>be able to move more efficient panels, except for the

569
00:28:35.240 --> 00:28:37.680
<v Speaker 2>fact that when you put them outside, they fail. They

570
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:40.000
<v Speaker 2>don't last more than a couple of years. It's not

571
00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:42.440
<v Speaker 2>enough to make a panel that generates a lot of electricity.

572
00:28:42.440 --> 00:28:45.880
<v Speaker 2>It's got to last for twenty years. But in the

573
00:28:45.920 --> 00:28:50.000
<v Speaker 2>past couple of years we've had real breakthroughs. Last year

574
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:53.720
<v Speaker 2>I talked about Oxford PV who are making about twenty

575
00:28:53.720 --> 00:28:57.960
<v Speaker 2>five percent efficient panels, and you go twenty percent. Who cares, Like, dude,

576
00:28:58.160 --> 00:29:01.119
<v Speaker 2>that's a twenty percent improvement. That adds up. It's a

577
00:29:01.160 --> 00:29:05.000
<v Speaker 2>big deal. And so they're now at a point.

578
00:29:04.720 --> 00:29:08.799
<v Speaker 1>Where they have licensed to Trina Solar, which is a

579
00:29:08.880 --> 00:29:13.960
<v Speaker 1>Chinese company, to manufacture those twenty five percent panels at scale.

580
00:29:14.079 --> 00:29:15.599
<v Speaker 2>So those should be coming on the market.

581
00:29:15.720 --> 00:29:18.359
<v Speaker 1>And did you say those panels are also silicon based?

582
00:29:18.640 --> 00:29:22.039
<v Speaker 2>They're using provskites. Oh, they are using perovskites. Yeah, So

583
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:24.079
<v Speaker 2>what's the big deal about parovskites? Why do we like?

584
00:29:24.319 --> 00:29:28.880
<v Speaker 2>What's the potential in provskites? Perovskites absorb a different frequency

585
00:29:28.920 --> 00:29:32.880
<v Speaker 2>of light than the silicon. Silicon tends to absorb long light,

586
00:29:33.000 --> 00:29:36.960
<v Speaker 2>So the reds and the infrared is what is what

587
00:29:37.039 --> 00:29:41.480
<v Speaker 2>silicon absorbs and makeing electricity. Perovskites live in the ultraviolet

588
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:45.119
<v Speaker 2>and blue range, and so when you combine the two,

589
00:29:45.720 --> 00:29:47.400
<v Speaker 2>so you have a layer of silicon and a layer

590
00:29:47.400 --> 00:29:50.480
<v Speaker 2>of perovskite, the perovskite layer will pass through the reds

591
00:29:50.480 --> 00:29:52.960
<v Speaker 2>and infrared down to the silicon and absorb the UV

592
00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:56.279
<v Speaker 2>and blue. So this is why they're invariably more expensive

593
00:29:56.319 --> 00:29:59.400
<v Speaker 2>because they are a conventional silicon solar panel and the

594
00:29:59.440 --> 00:30:03.640
<v Speaker 2>Perovsky panel combined. Wow, right, but you get more energy

595
00:30:03.640 --> 00:30:05.880
<v Speaker 2>from it. No too is about it. So there should

596
00:30:05.920 --> 00:30:10.359
<v Speaker 2>be tandem style panels getting into the thirty percent range

597
00:30:10.400 --> 00:30:13.799
<v Speaker 2>available in the next year or two now, and yeah,

598
00:30:13.839 --> 00:30:16.000
<v Speaker 2>but they'll still be expensive. I'm sure they're going to

599
00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:18.440
<v Speaker 2>be more expensive now. One of the main manufacturers of

600
00:30:18.480 --> 00:30:21.920
<v Speaker 2>this is a US company called Klux. So Klux has

601
00:30:21.960 --> 00:30:27.240
<v Speaker 2>made this transparent perovskuide layers transparency to infrared and red spectrum.

602
00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:30.400
<v Speaker 2>So you replace the upper layer of a regular silicon

603
00:30:30.440 --> 00:30:34.119
<v Speaker 2>panel with their quote unquote active glass layer and some

604
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:37.359
<v Speaker 2>additional wiring and you get this increased power production. So

605
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:40.720
<v Speaker 2>they are licensing that to multiple companies to add to

606
00:30:40.920 --> 00:30:45.359
<v Speaker 2>existing silicon panels. Okay, back in China, which does a

607
00:30:45.400 --> 00:30:48.759
<v Speaker 2>lot of this innovation, a company called Longi has been

608
00:30:48.799 --> 00:30:52.480
<v Speaker 2>doing this tandem design, but they've also done a texturization

609
00:30:52.640 --> 00:30:56.880
<v Speaker 2>approach to the interface between the silicon and the parovs guide. Basically,

610
00:30:56.880 --> 00:31:00.799
<v Speaker 2>these little pyramid structures which increases light absorption. These are

611
00:31:00.799 --> 00:31:05.039
<v Speaker 2>micrometer pyramids, too tiny to even see, but they decrease

612
00:31:05.079 --> 00:31:09.440
<v Speaker 2>reefflectivity and increase light absorption between the layers. They've demonstrated

613
00:31:09.519 --> 00:31:12.880
<v Speaker 2>in a tandem panel almost a thirty five percent efficiency. Wow.

614
00:31:13.079 --> 00:31:16.559
<v Speaker 2>So and again that should have good lifespan So when

615
00:31:16.559 --> 00:31:18.119
<v Speaker 2>you talk about going for a twenty percent to a

616
00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:21.279
<v Speaker 2>thirty five percent like these are massive improvements. Now you

617
00:31:21.279 --> 00:31:24.359
<v Speaker 2>could play this ROI game where I need a third

618
00:31:24.519 --> 00:31:27.680
<v Speaker 2>less panels, almost half as many panels, I can pay

619
00:31:27.720 --> 00:31:30.039
<v Speaker 2>twice a bunch for those panels and still be ahead.

620
00:31:30.920 --> 00:31:34.599
<v Speaker 2>So solar technology is not holding still. It took a

621
00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:37.480
<v Speaker 2>long time for us to get to this capability, but

622
00:31:37.599 --> 00:31:40.440
<v Speaker 2>it has happened now, and so the market's going to

623
00:31:40.440 --> 00:31:42.440
<v Speaker 2>get interesting over the next couple of years in terms

624
00:31:42.440 --> 00:31:47.559
<v Speaker 2>of what panels to buy. Needless to say, expect conventional

625
00:31:47.880 --> 00:31:51.119
<v Speaker 2>multi junctions silicon panels to get even cheaper as these

626
00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:53.839
<v Speaker 2>other panels start to move into the market. Now. One

627
00:31:53.839 --> 00:31:56.720
<v Speaker 2>of the question areas we've gotten from it was Chad

628
00:31:56.759 --> 00:31:59.880
<v Speaker 2>Boyer and also Charles and Blue Sky said our chin

629
00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:02.440
<v Speaker 2>any solar panels the only choice, and without a doubt,

630
00:32:02.519 --> 00:32:04.720
<v Speaker 2>they are the cheapest choice. But they're not the only choice.

631
00:32:04.759 --> 00:32:10.039
<v Speaker 2>There are US manufactured solar panels, although not the entire pipeline.

632
00:32:11.039 --> 00:32:12.880
<v Speaker 2>The way solar panels made, you can sort of break

633
00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:16.839
<v Speaker 2>them into five major steps. So first is you've got

634
00:32:16.839 --> 00:32:20.680
<v Speaker 2>to make silicon metals. The US pioneered this. A lot

635
00:32:20.680 --> 00:32:22.359
<v Speaker 2>of it is still done in the US, but it's

636
00:32:22.400 --> 00:32:25.839
<v Speaker 2>how you get all the contaminutes out of silicon to

637
00:32:25.839 --> 00:32:28.880
<v Speaker 2>make a pure silicon metal. Then it's typically exported from

638
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:32.400
<v Speaker 2>there because the next steps forming the ingots, actually casting

639
00:32:32.440 --> 00:32:34.039
<v Speaker 2>them into the shapes that are going to be needed

640
00:32:34.039 --> 00:32:37.359
<v Speaker 2>for silicon, and slicing them into wafers, those are all

641
00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:41.319
<v Speaker 2>done abroad. So step one is very US SEP twos

642
00:32:41.319 --> 00:32:44.279
<v Speaker 2>and three not so much, are almost not at all.

643
00:32:44.400 --> 00:32:48.319
<v Speaker 2>Making them into cells, so that's actually adding textures, the doping.

644
00:32:49.319 --> 00:32:51.079
<v Speaker 2>Some of that's done in the US, but not very much.

645
00:32:51.880 --> 00:32:54.960
<v Speaker 2>But the final assembly part, taking those cells and wiring them,

646
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:57.480
<v Speaker 2>putting in the housings, actually building that, that's done at

647
00:32:57.480 --> 00:32:59.799
<v Speaker 2>scale in the US these days. So when you buy

648
00:32:59.839 --> 00:33:02.200
<v Speaker 2>an American solar panel and you can do that, you're

649
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:04.440
<v Speaker 2>going to pay a ten to twenty percent premium on that.

650
00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:08.960
<v Speaker 2>You're typically getting a module made from parts abroad that

651
00:33:09.079 --> 00:33:12.119
<v Speaker 2>is assembled in the US. So if that makes you happy,

652
00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:15.000
<v Speaker 2>and you know by US standards that's considered a US

653
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:17.920
<v Speaker 2>solar panel, you can do that. Just understand that cost.

654
00:33:18.319 --> 00:33:21.079
<v Speaker 2>I would also point out that much of that is

655
00:33:21.279 --> 00:33:25.519
<v Speaker 2>new capability that was brought on by the Inflection Inflation

656
00:33:25.559 --> 00:33:29.000
<v Speaker 2>Reduction Act in twenty two that's largely been shut down

657
00:33:29.000 --> 00:33:33.039
<v Speaker 2>by the new administration. The new administration has rolling back

658
00:33:33.079 --> 00:33:36.960
<v Speaker 2>all sorts of clean energy tax credits and benefits, and

659
00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:39.880
<v Speaker 2>this is one of them. So while they been built out,

660
00:33:39.880 --> 00:33:41.359
<v Speaker 2>I don't know how much more growth is going to

661
00:33:41.359 --> 00:33:42.720
<v Speaker 2>happen in that area and whether or not people are

662
00:33:42.759 --> 00:33:44.720
<v Speaker 2>willing to pay the premium for that to continue. But

663
00:33:44.799 --> 00:33:50.960
<v Speaker 2>that's what's going on as those as a US administration

664
00:33:51.079 --> 00:33:53.920
<v Speaker 2>rolled back the clean energy credits, a lot of money

665
00:33:53.960 --> 00:33:57.200
<v Speaker 2>gout went into renewable energy ahead of those rollbacks, So

666
00:33:57.279 --> 00:33:59.440
<v Speaker 2>the beginning of the year in twenty five, it was

667
00:33:59.440 --> 00:34:01.559
<v Speaker 2>a huge them out. Now it's dying off in the

668
00:34:01.599 --> 00:34:03.000
<v Speaker 2>later parts of the year though we don't have all

669
00:34:03.000 --> 00:34:05.119
<v Speaker 2>the numbers here, but one case there was a company

670
00:34:05.119 --> 00:34:08.159
<v Speaker 2>called clean Capital who ordered twenty five million dollars worth

671
00:34:08.199 --> 00:34:11.559
<v Speaker 2>of solar panels ahead of tariffing and credits going away.

672
00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:13.880
<v Speaker 2>They're now storing them because it's more than they need

673
00:34:14.199 --> 00:34:15.719
<v Speaker 2>to the tune of like one hundred and two thousand

674
00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:17.719
<v Speaker 2>dollars a month, but it's worth it for them for

675
00:34:17.800 --> 00:34:20.760
<v Speaker 2>production for the rest of the year. The vast majority

676
00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:22.920
<v Speaker 2>of new power being built in the US, like ninety

677
00:34:23.079 --> 00:34:26.400
<v Speaker 2>percent in twenty twenty five, is renewable, mostly solar, some

678
00:34:26.559 --> 00:34:29.320
<v Speaker 2>win so the impact of the rollbacks has to stop

679
00:34:29.360 --> 00:34:33.199
<v Speaker 2>that deployment this year. But a lot of high risk

680
00:34:33.239 --> 00:34:36.800
<v Speaker 2>projects like the off shore wind projects, which have been

681
00:34:36.840 --> 00:34:38.760
<v Speaker 2>shut down just because of their risk levels and the

682
00:34:38.800 --> 00:34:40.559
<v Speaker 2>time they don't know how long things are going to take,

683
00:34:40.760 --> 00:34:43.320
<v Speaker 2>they basically wound down. So we're not going to see

684
00:34:43.360 --> 00:34:46.199
<v Speaker 2>the impact of rollbacks on renewables for a few years,

685
00:34:46.280 --> 00:34:50.360
<v Speaker 2>possibly not until the end of this administration. So it's

686
00:34:50.400 --> 00:34:52.199
<v Speaker 2>going to be confusing for folks because they say, hey,

687
00:34:52.239 --> 00:34:54.079
<v Speaker 2>we cut all these things, but yet it's still going,

688
00:34:54.119 --> 00:34:57.000
<v Speaker 2>and it's just because people pre bought lots of investments

689
00:34:57.000 --> 00:34:59.840
<v Speaker 2>already in place. Businesses aren't perfectly elastic. They can't respond

690
00:34:59.840 --> 00:35:03.679
<v Speaker 2>to regulatory changes that quickly, but later there will be

691
00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:07.880
<v Speaker 2>impacts in growth. Just doesn't happened yet. All right back

692
00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:10.039
<v Speaker 2>in twenty two on that geek out, I mentioned the

693
00:35:10.039 --> 00:35:12.719
<v Speaker 2>thing called Project Nexus. This was so idea of putting

694
00:35:12.719 --> 00:35:16.599
<v Speaker 2>solar panels over top of agricultural canals in California. Thought

695
00:35:16.679 --> 00:35:20.079
<v Speaker 2>it was a brilliant idea, the idea being brilliant. Yeah,

696
00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:23.360
<v Speaker 2>this was done in India first, So it is the

697
00:35:23.400 --> 00:35:25.599
<v Speaker 2>idea of these are not normal water waste. The you're

698
00:35:25.639 --> 00:35:28.320
<v Speaker 2>man made water waste for distributing water for agriculture, and

699
00:35:28.360 --> 00:35:30.079
<v Speaker 2>they have a problem with algal growth and they have

700
00:35:30.079 --> 00:35:33.039
<v Speaker 2>a problem with evaporation and otherwise can't build stuff on there,

701
00:35:33.079 --> 00:35:35.639
<v Speaker 2>So why not build solar panels over top of them.

702
00:35:35.920 --> 00:35:37.880
<v Speaker 2>The water keeps the panels cooler, so they run more

703
00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:41.440
<v Speaker 2>efficiently and they last longer. You decrease the water losses,

704
00:35:41.480 --> 00:35:44.440
<v Speaker 2>you battle algae growth and other problems, so it's kind

705
00:35:44.480 --> 00:35:47.679
<v Speaker 2>of a win wind deal. Well, that project actually happened,

706
00:35:48.079 --> 00:35:51.840
<v Speaker 2>no kidding. Yeah, in August, it's twenty five. They finished it.

707
00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:54.519
<v Speaker 2>It's generating one point six megawatts of electricity, so it's

708
00:35:54.519 --> 00:35:57.719
<v Speaker 2>not a huge thing. There's many more that could be built,

709
00:35:57.920 --> 00:36:01.719
<v Speaker 2>but they've done it. It took three years. Now there's a

710
00:36:01.760 --> 00:36:05.320
<v Speaker 2>big reconciliation of is this worthwhile because it is more

711
00:36:05.360 --> 00:36:08.440
<v Speaker 2>complex to install over a waterway. You're not always pointing

712
00:36:08.440 --> 00:36:11.800
<v Speaker 2>the solar panels at their optimal angles, so in general

713
00:36:11.840 --> 00:36:16.159
<v Speaker 2>it's more costly to conventional solar installation. So it's going

714
00:36:16.159 --> 00:36:18.400
<v Speaker 2>to take a few years to really understand the other

715
00:36:18.480 --> 00:36:22.519
<v Speaker 2>benefits of long term utilization. They're harder to clean because

716
00:36:22.559 --> 00:36:25.760
<v Speaker 2>they're up higher and over a waterway, like. There's a

717
00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:28.920
<v Speaker 2>bunch of problems there, so it's a question of how

718
00:36:29.000 --> 00:36:31.039
<v Speaker 2>much more is going to happen. Same to go with

719
00:36:31.079 --> 00:36:33.960
<v Speaker 2>what they call floato voltaics. There's been so many papers

720
00:36:34.000 --> 00:36:37.199
<v Speaker 2>about this idea of just put solar panels on reservoirs, again,

721
00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:40.679
<v Speaker 2>man made bodies of water, typically because of dams. They're

722
00:36:40.800 --> 00:36:43.800
<v Speaker 2>nice and flat. There's not much going on there. You

723
00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:46.920
<v Speaker 2>already have electrical wiring, so just checking the put solar

724
00:36:46.920 --> 00:36:49.039
<v Speaker 2>panels on it. Yeah. Good. There's been a few projects,

725
00:36:49.039 --> 00:36:51.119
<v Speaker 2>but not very many, so everybody likes it. It's a

726
00:36:51.159 --> 00:36:52.639
<v Speaker 2>good idea, but it hasn't happened much, and I think

727
00:36:52.679 --> 00:36:55.199
<v Speaker 2>part of the reason is that most of the panel

728
00:36:55.239 --> 00:36:57.480
<v Speaker 2>solar panels that are available day are being installed in

729
00:36:57.480 --> 00:37:01.280
<v Speaker 2>commercial panel deployments on the ground that lowest costs and

730
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:04.280
<v Speaker 2>the most benefit and so people don't need to innovate

731
00:37:04.280 --> 00:37:07.159
<v Speaker 2>in this area yet, same for the canals. Right, it's

732
00:37:07.159 --> 00:37:08.679
<v Speaker 2>just a question of is it even necessary. We're not

733
00:37:08.679 --> 00:37:11.239
<v Speaker 2>struggling for land for all these things. And when you're

734
00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:14.079
<v Speaker 2>throwing the regulatory problems or even getting stuff connected to

735
00:37:14.119 --> 00:37:16.599
<v Speaker 2>the grid, they're like, Okay, we don't need a bottle

736
00:37:16.599 --> 00:37:18.360
<v Speaker 2>and more complicated stuff. Will just stick with the simple.

737
00:37:18.440 --> 00:37:21.360
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it is more complicated and it requires more infrastructure

738
00:37:21.360 --> 00:37:21.840
<v Speaker 1>and all that.

739
00:37:22.519 --> 00:37:26.840
<v Speaker 2>Now, one area of innovation in solar that is seeming

740
00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:30.039
<v Speaker 2>to grow because it's not that complicated is this area

741
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:36.480
<v Speaker 2>called agro voltaics. So this is combining farming and solar panels.

742
00:37:36.920 --> 00:37:39.320
<v Speaker 2>So this year in September in the Philippines, they opened

743
00:37:39.320 --> 00:37:42.920
<v Speaker 2>the City Corps Solar Petangus one. This is two hundred

744
00:37:43.119 --> 00:37:46.599
<v Speaker 2>megawatts of solar with a three hundred and twenty megawatt

745
00:37:46.639 --> 00:37:50.000
<v Speaker 2>hour battery storage system. So it's considered base low power.

746
00:37:50.039 --> 00:37:51.320
<v Speaker 2>It can run round the clock.

747
00:37:51.719 --> 00:37:51.960
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

748
00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:54.880
<v Speaker 2>But they built them tall enough that there's rooms to

749
00:37:54.920 --> 00:37:58.599
<v Speaker 2>grow crops underneath the solar panels. Now, the crops haven't

750
00:37:58.639 --> 00:38:00.440
<v Speaker 2>been the priority, but they built them that way because

751
00:38:00.440 --> 00:38:04.440
<v Speaker 2>it is good land for farming, and now you're talking

752
00:38:04.440 --> 00:38:07.360
<v Speaker 2>about crops that need some shade that make more sense

753
00:38:07.360 --> 00:38:09.119
<v Speaker 2>to be growing in the under those conditions.

754
00:38:09.159 --> 00:38:11.199
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's kind of say, I mean, don't crops usually

755
00:38:11.639 --> 00:38:14.679
<v Speaker 1>thrive in sunlight but some need shade.

756
00:38:14.679 --> 00:38:16.880
<v Speaker 2>Well, the problem is with climate change going on, there's

757
00:38:16.880 --> 00:38:18.960
<v Speaker 2>almost too much sun in a lot of places, so

758
00:38:19.280 --> 00:38:22.360
<v Speaker 2>we have different crops that benefit from shade, and so

759
00:38:22.599 --> 00:38:25.360
<v Speaker 2>it is possible to optimize crops in those conditions. So

760
00:38:25.400 --> 00:38:27.719
<v Speaker 2>you're making power as well as providing shade for other

761
00:38:27.760 --> 00:38:31.559
<v Speaker 2>crops and utilizing the land twice. They're not the only project.

762
00:38:31.639 --> 00:38:35.599
<v Speaker 2>China's now built one a two gigawat project just absolutely

763
00:38:35.639 --> 00:38:37.920
<v Speaker 2>massive out in inner Mongolia, and they're using it for

764
00:38:38.039 --> 00:38:42.280
<v Speaker 2>deed deservocation. So where they have problems with too much

765
00:38:42.320 --> 00:38:45.280
<v Speaker 2>moisture loss and you're trying to grow cover crops just

766
00:38:45.320 --> 00:38:48.280
<v Speaker 2>to keep the sand from encroaching, they're putting solar panels

767
00:38:48.320 --> 00:38:50.400
<v Speaker 2>so the show keeps the water in place, it helps

768
00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:53.519
<v Speaker 2>protect the plants. They're calling it eco voltaics now, where

769
00:38:53.519 --> 00:38:56.199
<v Speaker 2>they think they can start pushing back the desert while

770
00:38:56.239 --> 00:38:59.159
<v Speaker 2>making solar power and starting to turn that land into

771
00:38:59.159 --> 00:38:59.760
<v Speaker 2>something viable.

772
00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:03.360
<v Speaker 1>Can go further Richard, we under the crops, let's put

773
00:39:03.400 --> 00:39:08.679
<v Speaker 1>fish farms, so the fish poop, you know, the nitrogen

774
00:39:08.719 --> 00:39:12.239
<v Speaker 1>from the fish poop fertilizes the crops. And now you've

775
00:39:12.239 --> 00:39:14.440
<v Speaker 1>got you know, three things going on.

776
00:39:14.719 --> 00:39:16.079
<v Speaker 2>Yep, you know you're not wrong.

777
00:39:16.159 --> 00:39:19.039
<v Speaker 1>I mean, that's a thing more ecosysm, that's a thing already.

778
00:39:19.239 --> 00:39:23.599
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Well, we certainly used aquaponics in combination of other

779
00:39:23.599 --> 00:39:28.840
<v Speaker 2>farming because it does create useful water, that is that

780
00:39:28.920 --> 00:39:31.719
<v Speaker 2>has fertilizer in it. Already, I thought the US is

781
00:39:32.199 --> 00:39:34.519
<v Speaker 2>doing this in Colorado. They have one hundred and fifty

782
00:39:34.519 --> 00:39:38.599
<v Speaker 2>megawatt solar farm now again stood on a higher posts,

783
00:39:38.599 --> 00:39:41.079
<v Speaker 2>so they can grow prairie grasses underneath that. We'll be

784
00:39:41.199 --> 00:39:45.039
<v Speaker 2>using sheep to graze that grass to keep it under control.

785
00:39:45.159 --> 00:39:45.440
<v Speaker 1>Nice.

786
00:39:45.639 --> 00:39:48.119
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, that's that's beautiful. I love to hear stuff like that.

787
00:39:48.159 --> 00:39:49.639
<v Speaker 2>Should we take a break and then we'll talk about

788
00:39:49.639 --> 00:39:50.119
<v Speaker 2>wind power.

789
00:39:50.159 --> 00:39:53.239
<v Speaker 1>That sounds good. Okay, We'll be right back after this

790
00:39:53.280 --> 00:39:59.199
<v Speaker 1>break for more wind break wind. You're funny. Did you

791
00:39:59.320 --> 00:40:02.159
<v Speaker 1>know you can lift and shift your dot Net framework

792
00:40:02.239 --> 00:40:06.239
<v Speaker 1>apps to virtual machines in the cloud. Use the elastic

793
00:40:06.320 --> 00:40:10.840
<v Speaker 1>beanstalk service to easily migrate to Amazon ec two with

794
00:40:11.000 --> 00:40:15.119
<v Speaker 1>little or no changes. Find out more at aws dot

795
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:24.599
<v Speaker 1>Amazon dot com, slash elasticbeanstock, and we're back. It's the

796
00:40:24.760 --> 00:40:28.079
<v Speaker 1>Energy Geek out of twenty twenty five. Mister Campbell has

797
00:40:28.119 --> 00:40:30.480
<v Speaker 1>done his research. He's got his cup of tea, probably

798
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:33.639
<v Speaker 1>got a kettle of tea on there, and we're going

799
00:40:33.679 --> 00:40:34.679
<v Speaker 1>to talk about wind.

800
00:40:34.679 --> 00:40:39.159
<v Speaker 2>All right, So about the data is only up to

801
00:40:39.239 --> 00:40:41.039
<v Speaker 2>date as the first half of twenty twenty five. There's

802
00:40:41.039 --> 00:40:44.559
<v Speaker 2>about seventy two gigawatts worldwide added in wind power, up

803
00:40:44.599 --> 00:40:47.440
<v Speaker 2>sixty five percent for twenty twenty four, so definitely expanding.

804
00:40:48.119 --> 00:40:51.119
<v Speaker 2>Expecting one hundred and fifty gigs of new wind online

805
00:40:51.159 --> 00:40:55.239
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty five for a total capacity of about

806
00:40:55.239 --> 00:40:59.320
<v Speaker 2>one point three tarawatts of wind worldwide. China course is

807
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:02.039
<v Speaker 2>the largest deployer, both on and offshore. They did fifty

808
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:04.639
<v Speaker 2>gigawatts in twenty twenty five and they expected to have

809
00:41:04.679 --> 00:41:08.159
<v Speaker 2>seven hundred gigawats total, so that is, you know, almost

810
00:41:08.199 --> 00:41:11.239
<v Speaker 2>half of all wind capacity in the world now being

811
00:41:11.280 --> 00:41:15.039
<v Speaker 2>built built for China. US is number two a one

812
00:41:15.119 --> 00:41:18.519
<v Speaker 2>hundred and fifty gigawatts, but almost no new installations coming

813
00:41:18.519 --> 00:41:19.599
<v Speaker 2>in on or offshore.

814
00:41:19.719 --> 00:41:22.800
<v Speaker 1>So you remember I told you we talked about this

815
00:41:22.920 --> 00:41:25.760
<v Speaker 1>last year that in New London at the State Pier

816
00:41:26.719 --> 00:41:30.599
<v Speaker 1>they're doing this Revolution Wind project, which is a seven

817
00:41:30.679 --> 00:41:34.719
<v Speaker 1>hundred and four megawatt project. It's being stage at the

818
00:41:34.800 --> 00:41:41.079
<v Speaker 1>State Pier. Project is eighty five percent completed. About three

819
00:41:41.119 --> 00:41:44.159
<v Speaker 1>months ago, Trump put the kaibash on it and said

820
00:41:44.199 --> 00:41:48.159
<v Speaker 1>we're not funding this anymore. And then he was ordered

821
00:41:48.199 --> 00:41:52.119
<v Speaker 1>to refund it, and so it got refunded. People went

822
00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:55.079
<v Speaker 1>back to work, and just three days ago after this,

823
00:41:56.719 --> 00:42:01.800
<v Speaker 1>you know, as of this recording, anyway, they halted it again. Well, boy,

824
00:42:01.960 --> 00:42:05.840
<v Speaker 1>it's pausing leases for five large scale offshore wind projects

825
00:42:06.320 --> 00:42:09.800
<v Speaker 1>under construction on the East Coast due to unspecified national

826
00:42:09.840 --> 00:42:15.760
<v Speaker 1>security risks identified by the Pentagon. Pauses effective immediately, and

827
00:42:15.800 --> 00:42:19.800
<v Speaker 1>we'll give the Interior Department, which oversees offshore wind, time

828
00:42:19.880 --> 00:42:22.199
<v Speaker 1>to work with the Defense Department and other agencies to

829
00:42:22.280 --> 00:42:26.119
<v Speaker 1>assess the possible ways to mitigate any security risks. Anyway,

830
00:42:26.519 --> 00:42:29.719
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to share this link with Richard and he

831
00:42:29.840 --> 00:42:33.280
<v Speaker 1>will put it on the page. It's from the Connecticut Mirror.

832
00:42:33.519 --> 00:42:36.760
<v Speaker 1>But you know, it's just it's hard when you have

833
00:42:36.800 --> 00:42:41.360
<v Speaker 1>an administration that just doesn't want any kind of renewable

834
00:42:41.480 --> 00:42:44.800
<v Speaker 1>energy projects. To continue and that's really what it's all about.

835
00:42:44.920 --> 00:42:47.199
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, no science on the basis of that. Now

836
00:42:47.719 --> 00:42:49.679
<v Speaker 2>that being said, there has been you know, there are

837
00:42:49.719 --> 00:42:53.519
<v Speaker 2>complaints about the noise from wind farms and there has

838
00:42:53.559 --> 00:42:56.199
<v Speaker 2>been some innovation there. So they're doing the same sort

839
00:42:56.239 --> 00:42:58.519
<v Speaker 2>of thing that the airline industry's done. So they're doing

840
00:42:58.559 --> 00:43:01.199
<v Speaker 2>things like serrations on the trailing edge trying to reduce

841
00:43:01.440 --> 00:43:06.119
<v Speaker 2>noise impact. There is a big effort to try and

842
00:43:06.519 --> 00:43:08.800
<v Speaker 2>what's happening in Europe, which really led a lot of

843
00:43:08.800 --> 00:43:11.679
<v Speaker 2>the wind technology, is the oldest wind turbines are now

844
00:43:11.679 --> 00:43:16.159
<v Speaker 2>aging out and they're finding out they're not recyclable. Well,

845
00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:20.920
<v Speaker 2>I mean, honestly, the vast majority is recyclable, the turbides itself,

846
00:43:21.519 --> 00:43:25.719
<v Speaker 2>even the concrete can be reprocessed. It's the blades. The

847
00:43:25.719 --> 00:43:29.639
<v Speaker 2>blades are made of fiberglass, carver fiber. They're almost impossible

848
00:43:29.639 --> 00:43:33.800
<v Speaker 2>to recycle and so that's been a big fuss. They

849
00:43:33.880 --> 00:43:40.239
<v Speaker 2>are now making new styles of blades specifically for more recyclabilities,

850
00:43:40.280 --> 00:43:42.719
<v Speaker 2>but that will take twenty years to play out because

851
00:43:42.519 --> 00:43:47.679
<v Speaker 2>these turbines typically last twenty to thirty years. Interesting AI

852
00:43:47.800 --> 00:43:52.440
<v Speaker 2>technologies has started to play a role in or at

853
00:43:52.519 --> 00:43:56.360
<v Speaker 2>least machine learning technology in wind turbine are wind site

854
00:43:56.400 --> 00:43:59.800
<v Speaker 2>development where they're using machine learning models to figure out

855
00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:03.719
<v Speaker 2>alltimal layouts and they're sometimes finding ten to fifteen percent

856
00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:07.719
<v Speaker 2>performance increases for the turbine sets by using these complex

857
00:44:07.800 --> 00:44:10.320
<v Speaker 2>models to be able to locate them so that they

858
00:44:10.360 --> 00:44:13.440
<v Speaker 2>have more wind from with the combined turbines over longer

859
00:44:13.440 --> 00:44:17.000
<v Speaker 2>periods of the time. On shores sort of gone as

860
00:44:17.000 --> 00:44:18.519
<v Speaker 2>far as it can. We kind of know what we're

861
00:44:18.559 --> 00:44:21.079
<v Speaker 2>doing there. It works very well where you kind good sites,

862
00:44:21.119 --> 00:44:24.000
<v Speaker 2>you lay them out, you need steady wind and tall posts.

863
00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:26.400
<v Speaker 2>They can't get a whole lot bigger. The real development

864
00:44:26.440 --> 00:44:28.400
<v Speaker 2>area is an offshore wind, and offshore wind kind of

865
00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:31.239
<v Speaker 2>comes in two categories. You have what they call fixed

866
00:44:31.239 --> 00:44:33.400
<v Speaker 2>based wind that's typically up to about fifty meters or

867
00:44:33.400 --> 00:44:36.119
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and fifty feet of water where you literally

868
00:44:36.119 --> 00:44:38.280
<v Speaker 2>put a casement down to the bottom. You drill a

869
00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:40.199
<v Speaker 2>hole and you pour a bunch of concrete, you lay

870
00:44:40.199 --> 00:44:42.079
<v Speaker 2>down the post. It's fixed on the bottom. Yeah, there's

871
00:44:42.119 --> 00:44:43.760
<v Speaker 2>only so many places in the world where that water

872
00:44:43.840 --> 00:44:47.199
<v Speaker 2>is a shallow like most of the North Sea and

873
00:44:47.239 --> 00:44:49.199
<v Speaker 2>around Denmark, so where the ashallow like that's why they

874
00:44:49.239 --> 00:44:50.400
<v Speaker 2>have a ton of it, but in a place like

875
00:44:50.440 --> 00:44:52.320
<v Speaker 2>here in British Columbia where the water is very deep,

876
00:44:52.480 --> 00:44:54.880
<v Speaker 2>you just can't do that. So now you get into

877
00:44:55.760 --> 00:45:01.360
<v Speaker 2>floating based offshore, and we talked about this before difficult.

878
00:45:01.400 --> 00:45:03.960
<v Speaker 2>This is using a lot. It is difficult and it's expensive,

879
00:45:04.280 --> 00:45:06.480
<v Speaker 2>so you get away from the cost effectiveness. You know,

880
00:45:06.559 --> 00:45:10.400
<v Speaker 2>this fixed base offshore, they're hitting the limits of size.

881
00:45:10.400 --> 00:45:13.280
<v Speaker 2>They're somewhere between fifteen and twenty five megawats per unit.

882
00:45:13.320 --> 00:45:15.400
<v Speaker 2>They're talking about some fifty megawats. But now you're getting

883
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:17.760
<v Speaker 2>into the physics problem. They're just so heavy and so large.

884
00:45:17.800 --> 00:45:21.039
<v Speaker 2>You can only be so big with floating. There's still

885
00:45:21.079 --> 00:45:23.480
<v Speaker 2>only really five sites that are being tested, and just

886
00:45:23.480 --> 00:45:25.519
<v Speaker 2>with a handful of turbines. There's a couple of sites

887
00:45:25.519 --> 00:45:27.840
<v Speaker 2>in the UK with five turbines each. Portugal has one

888
00:45:27.880 --> 00:45:30.000
<v Speaker 2>with three, No way as one with eleven. France that's

889
00:45:30.039 --> 00:45:33.199
<v Speaker 2>one with three. But that's about it. They're using oil

890
00:45:33.239 --> 00:45:36.880
<v Speaker 2>industry platform technology to build these floating platforms to put

891
00:45:36.880 --> 00:45:39.840
<v Speaker 2>wind turbines on, and they just have not scaled up

892
00:45:39.880 --> 00:45:42.840
<v Speaker 2>because it's so costly. So they're still a debate whether

893
00:45:42.880 --> 00:45:45.639
<v Speaker 2>it's necessary or when they're going to even go down

894
00:45:45.679 --> 00:45:47.519
<v Speaker 2>that path where there's still other areas to do less

895
00:45:47.519 --> 00:45:50.039
<v Speaker 2>expensive forms. That's all I got for wind, But I

896
00:45:50.039 --> 00:45:52.880
<v Speaker 2>actually have some stories for wave power because wavepower has

897
00:45:52.920 --> 00:45:55.519
<v Speaker 2>always been the you know, red headed step child, never

898
00:45:55.599 --> 00:45:57.559
<v Speaker 2>really worked kind of limited.

899
00:45:57.800 --> 00:46:00.280
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, from what I remember, it's kind of dirty, right.

900
00:46:00.320 --> 00:46:04.280
<v Speaker 1>You have these turbines that are underwater that are capturing

901
00:46:04.480 --> 00:46:08.440
<v Speaker 1>you know, tidal currents and things and stuff gets stuck

902
00:46:08.440 --> 00:46:10.360
<v Speaker 1>in there. You know, turbine is a fan.

903
00:46:10.679 --> 00:46:13.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and the ocean tends to destroy them.

904
00:46:13.079 --> 00:46:14.599
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, if it's one thing, if it's in the air,

905
00:46:14.599 --> 00:46:17.760
<v Speaker 1>but if it's underwater exactly, corrosion and stuff.

906
00:46:17.840 --> 00:46:19.480
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a tough time. And so really that's not

907
00:46:19.559 --> 00:46:21.320
<v Speaker 2>been the area development and instead they're looking at more

908
00:46:21.320 --> 00:46:25.320
<v Speaker 2>pumping technologies, so sitting more on the surface. Now. Last

909
00:46:25.360 --> 00:46:28.079
<v Speaker 2>year I talked about the Packwave Energy Project. So this

910
00:46:28.239 --> 00:46:31.039
<v Speaker 2>is a laboratory site largely off the coast of Oregon.

911
00:46:32.039 --> 00:46:36.840
<v Speaker 2>Oregon and Washington State have ideal conditions for wave power

912
00:46:36.880 --> 00:46:40.960
<v Speaker 2>technologies rather than tidle technologies. Wave power and so off

913
00:46:40.960 --> 00:46:44.079
<v Speaker 2>the coast of Oregon, because Oregon has more development on

914
00:46:44.119 --> 00:46:47.159
<v Speaker 2>the coast than Washington does. Washington's conditions are so rough.

915
00:46:47.159 --> 00:46:49.840
<v Speaker 2>There's very little over there. They built these two sides,

916
00:46:49.840 --> 00:46:52.760
<v Speaker 2>Packwave North and Packway South. North was purely for testing

917
00:46:53.079 --> 00:46:56.840
<v Speaker 2>and South we talked about this last year. They were

918
00:46:56.840 --> 00:46:58.679
<v Speaker 2>building up, putting in all the wiring and so forth

919
00:46:58.719 --> 00:47:02.519
<v Speaker 2>for four big tests berths, so that different companies could

920
00:47:02.559 --> 00:47:04.679
<v Speaker 2>test up to five power collectors in each of the

921
00:47:04.679 --> 00:47:06.920
<v Speaker 2>burths with all the wiring and telemetry already put in place.

922
00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:10.159
<v Speaker 2>And there were candidates to be put out there. One

923
00:47:10.159 --> 00:47:13.400
<v Speaker 2>of them was a company called Aqua Harmonics, which had

924
00:47:13.679 --> 00:47:16.360
<v Speaker 2>back in twenty sixteen won a Department of Energy prize

925
00:47:16.760 --> 00:47:20.559
<v Speaker 2>for their innovative boys. These are floating boys anchored to

926
00:47:20.599 --> 00:47:23.400
<v Speaker 2>the bottom but under tensions, and so the wave action

927
00:47:23.639 --> 00:47:25.880
<v Speaker 2>forces the boy to go up and down, and that

928
00:47:25.960 --> 00:47:29.039
<v Speaker 2>actually runs a small electric generator that then is wired

929
00:47:29.079 --> 00:47:33.760
<v Speaker 2>back to shortage general electricity. The cutting of funding for

930
00:47:34.039 --> 00:47:37.480
<v Speaker 2>renewable energy projects by the administration has put that project

931
00:47:37.559 --> 00:47:41.320
<v Speaker 2>entirely on holds. It's not much happening a pack packwave

932
00:47:41.360 --> 00:47:45.320
<v Speaker 2>Styuth this time. But there's another company, an Israeli company

933
00:47:45.320 --> 00:47:47.559
<v Speaker 2>called Eco Wave Power, and they do what's called on

934
00:47:47.880 --> 00:47:50.760
<v Speaker 2>shore wave power. Now, wait a second, how the heck

935
00:47:50.840 --> 00:47:52.280
<v Speaker 2>is that supposed to work?

936
00:47:52.440 --> 00:47:52.960
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, right.

937
00:47:53.039 --> 00:47:57.559
<v Speaker 2>So what this is is floats that can move anchored

938
00:47:57.559 --> 00:47:59.920
<v Speaker 2>to a war for a breakwater. So as the waves

939
00:48:00.079 --> 00:48:02.360
<v Speaker 2>come up to that breakwater or wharf, they push them

940
00:48:02.440 --> 00:48:06.159
<v Speaker 2>up and down and they're connected to hydraulic fluid arms

941
00:48:06.400 --> 00:48:08.639
<v Speaker 2>and that builds up pressure and that pressure then turns

942
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:12.719
<v Speaker 2>a generator. Now, Eco Wave Powers had a site in

943
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:17.599
<v Speaker 2>Gibraltar in the Mediterranean from twenty sixteen until twenty twenty two.

944
00:48:17.719 --> 00:48:19.760
<v Speaker 2>It was off of an old World War two AMMO

945
00:48:19.840 --> 00:48:23.400
<v Speaker 2>jetty and they learned a lot from there, but ultimately

946
00:48:23.440 --> 00:48:25.679
<v Speaker 2>they decided to shut that down and move that a

947
00:48:25.719 --> 00:48:29.480
<v Speaker 2>bunch of that tech to Los Angeles. So in Los Angeles,

948
00:48:29.519 --> 00:48:32.239
<v Speaker 2>on a wharf near the Catalina Ferry, there is seven

949
00:48:32.320 --> 00:48:35.840
<v Speaker 2>of these blue floats. They're quite large, connected to this

950
00:48:35.920 --> 00:48:38.719
<v Speaker 2>wharf and they generate up to one hundred kilowats of electricity,

951
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:42.880
<v Speaker 2>and the LA District wants to expand that onto all

952
00:48:42.920 --> 00:48:45.280
<v Speaker 2>the big breakwaters about eight miles worth a breakwater, think

953
00:48:45.400 --> 00:48:47.840
<v Speaker 2>like sixty megawatts of power. And that same company has

954
00:48:47.880 --> 00:48:51.719
<v Speaker 2>also got a pilot project now in Porto, Portugal where

955
00:48:51.719 --> 00:48:54.039
<v Speaker 2>the initial build they just broke around this year will

956
00:48:54.079 --> 00:48:56.480
<v Speaker 2>be a megalot with the intent to boot up to

957
00:48:56.559 --> 00:48:59.480
<v Speaker 2>nineteen more. I get along the big breakwaters in Porto. Porto,

958
00:48:59.519 --> 00:49:01.719
<v Speaker 2>you know, on the eastern side of the Atlantic, takes

959
00:49:01.760 --> 00:49:04.119
<v Speaker 2>some pretty serious waves. So we'll see if those actually work.

960
00:49:04.199 --> 00:49:06.639
<v Speaker 2>So there is some development a way of power. It's

961
00:49:06.719 --> 00:49:10.119
<v Speaker 2>minuscule compared to the other techs, but there is some development.

962
00:49:10.119 --> 00:49:12.840
<v Speaker 2>You love us Porta, Okay, I love that place. Porna

963
00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:14.960
<v Speaker 2>is such a great man. Let's talk about power storage.

964
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:18.760
<v Speaker 2>This is the most question category Materius. Carlson sent me

965
00:49:18.760 --> 00:49:21.679
<v Speaker 2>some questions. Dan Owen asked about solid state batteries, Martin

966
00:49:21.719 --> 00:49:24.840
<v Speaker 2>asked about sodium batteries. Lots of questions, but let me

967
00:49:24.880 --> 00:49:27.960
<v Speaker 2>begin with the most important power storage, the number one

968
00:49:27.960 --> 00:49:31.440
<v Speaker 2>power storage strategy that we have so far, which is

969
00:49:31.559 --> 00:49:35.599
<v Speaker 2>pumped hydro. I mentioned this back in twenty two with

970
00:49:35.679 --> 00:49:38.639
<v Speaker 2>the Australian National University paper where they provided an atlas.

971
00:49:38.639 --> 00:49:40.960
<v Speaker 2>They mapped out the world showing all these locations in

972
00:49:41.039 --> 00:49:43.440
<v Speaker 2>the world where it may not be a good hydro

973
00:49:43.480 --> 00:49:47.000
<v Speaker 2>electric location per se, but it is a high elevation

974
00:49:47.480 --> 00:49:50.599
<v Speaker 2>with water available below, where you could put a reservoir above,

975
00:49:50.639 --> 00:49:53.039
<v Speaker 2>pump water uphill and then run it down there. About

976
00:49:53.079 --> 00:49:56.599
<v Speaker 2>eighty five percent conversion efficient. They last one hundred years.

977
00:49:56.639 --> 00:49:58.199
<v Speaker 2>It's really well known technology.

978
00:49:58.199 --> 00:50:00.840
<v Speaker 1>So you basically use the power that's generator from the

979
00:50:00.880 --> 00:50:03.960
<v Speaker 1>water flowing down to power a pump that pumps it

980
00:50:04.039 --> 00:50:05.400
<v Speaker 1>back up to the reservoir.

981
00:50:05.599 --> 00:50:07.119
<v Speaker 2>Is that what you're saying now? That I mean that

982
00:50:07.159 --> 00:50:10.039
<v Speaker 2>won't net out. What it is is you have excess power, right,

983
00:50:10.119 --> 00:50:12.159
<v Speaker 2>Pump hydro is about I have too much shoulder, I

984
00:50:12.159 --> 00:50:14.920
<v Speaker 2>have too much wind, so I use it to pump

985
00:50:14.960 --> 00:50:18.320
<v Speaker 2>water uphill to store in a reservoir like a battery.

986
00:50:18.360 --> 00:50:18.880
<v Speaker 1>I see.

987
00:50:19.000 --> 00:50:22.639
<v Speaker 2>So today there are eighty seven pumped hydro sites facility

988
00:50:22.760 --> 00:50:26.119
<v Speaker 2>over a gigawat of storage on the planet right like

989
00:50:26.199 --> 00:50:28.239
<v Speaker 2>this is not They've been around for a while. There's

990
00:50:28.280 --> 00:50:31.400
<v Speaker 2>lots of small ones, but there are eighty seven gigawap

991
00:50:31.400 --> 00:50:33.880
<v Speaker 2>plus ones now wow, forty of those are in China.

992
00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:37.800
<v Speaker 2>Japan again, a very mountainous country, has fourteen o and

993
00:50:37.840 --> 00:50:42.639
<v Speaker 2>the US has ten. China has plans for another hundred.

994
00:50:43.199 --> 00:50:45.559
<v Speaker 2>So they're taking advantage of the terrain and again just

995
00:50:45.719 --> 00:50:49.400
<v Speaker 2>the easy regulatory regime mean they can move very quickly.

996
00:50:50.079 --> 00:50:55.119
<v Speaker 2>That the advantage of pumped hydro is it's completely known technology.

997
00:50:55.119 --> 00:50:56.559
<v Speaker 2>Those turbine has been around for a long time. The

998
00:50:56.599 --> 00:50:58.159
<v Speaker 2>pump's been around for a long time. We know how

999
00:50:58.159 --> 00:51:01.280
<v Speaker 2>to drill through rock, we know how to reservoirs. It's

1000
00:51:01.360 --> 00:51:05.000
<v Speaker 2>all known tech right, like, and they last. You know,

1001
00:51:05.079 --> 00:51:08.320
<v Speaker 2>we expect hydroelectric dams to last one hundred plus years. Like,

1002
00:51:08.320 --> 00:51:12.559
<v Speaker 2>they're the longest lasting power techs we have. So let's

1003
00:51:12.599 --> 00:51:14.239
<v Speaker 2>go back to the numbers for a second. You said

1004
00:51:14.280 --> 00:51:17.280
<v Speaker 2>there's an eighty five percent conversion rate. Yeah, what does

1005
00:51:17.280 --> 00:51:19.440
<v Speaker 2>that mean exactly? Can you break that down into English?

1006
00:51:19.559 --> 00:51:21.280
<v Speaker 1>So if I pump one hundred, if I spend one

1007
00:51:21.320 --> 00:51:24.679
<v Speaker 1>hundred megawats pumping water uphill, I can expect eighty five

1008
00:51:24.719 --> 00:51:25.880
<v Speaker 1>megawats back when I let.

1009
00:51:25.840 --> 00:51:29.559
<v Speaker 2>It flow back downhill. Okay, right, So they're losses, but

1010
00:51:29.599 --> 00:51:34.239
<v Speaker 2>they're not huge losses. It's efficient enough and the water

1011
00:51:34.360 --> 00:51:38.119
<v Speaker 2>storage itself doesn't leak very very badly. Right, you have

1012
00:51:38.159 --> 00:51:39.760
<v Speaker 2>some ev operation so forth. This is when you get

1013
00:51:39.760 --> 00:51:41.320
<v Speaker 2>into put more solar panels on like this.

1014
00:51:41.360 --> 00:51:43.960
<v Speaker 1>And as long as you have water yeah and height, yes,

1015
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:44.880
<v Speaker 1>you can make it work.

1016
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:48.039
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And generally we've been you know, our original water

1017
00:51:48.159 --> 00:51:52.199
<v Speaker 2>management projects, we're for managing flooding. Right. A lot of

1018
00:51:52.280 --> 00:51:55.000
<v Speaker 2>dams were built to stop seasonal flooding, right, and then

1019
00:51:55.079 --> 00:51:56.960
<v Speaker 2>we also learned to make electricity from it, so we

1020
00:51:57.079 --> 00:52:00.079
<v Speaker 2>ran them a little differently, and now we're learning to

1021
00:52:00.360 --> 00:52:02.840
<v Speaker 2>store with them as well, and to build multiple tiers. Right.

1022
00:52:02.840 --> 00:52:06.519
<v Speaker 2>And there's locations in Norway where a given water flow

1023
00:52:06.719 --> 00:52:09.239
<v Speaker 2>has like four different dams on it, four different restores

1024
00:52:09.239 --> 00:52:10.559
<v Speaker 2>on it. So they try and get as much power

1025
00:52:10.599 --> 00:52:16.360
<v Speaker 2>as possible. And the dynamic between place like Denmark and Norway.

1026
00:52:16.840 --> 00:52:19.880
<v Speaker 2>Denmark's got a ton of hydro electric power, Denmark's got

1027
00:52:19.880 --> 00:52:22.000
<v Speaker 2>a ton of wind power, so they put a connection

1028
00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:23.800
<v Speaker 2>between the two, and the Danes are making too much

1029
00:52:23.840 --> 00:52:26.880
<v Speaker 2>electricity from wind power, which happens they send that excess

1030
00:52:26.880 --> 00:52:29.880
<v Speaker 2>electricity in Norway. Norway shuts down their dam, their damn

1031
00:52:29.880 --> 00:52:32.400
<v Speaker 2>power generation and uses the wind power. And when the

1032
00:52:32.440 --> 00:52:36.679
<v Speaker 2>wind power slacks off, they crank up the dams and

1033
00:52:36.760 --> 00:52:39.079
<v Speaker 2>let the power flow down to Denmark to supply the difference.

1034
00:52:39.119 --> 00:52:41.519
<v Speaker 2>And when they're really making too much power, they're actually

1035
00:52:41.559 --> 00:52:44.000
<v Speaker 2>pumping water back up hills. They not only providing power

1036
00:52:44.039 --> 00:52:47.239
<v Speaker 2>in Norway and Denmark with wind, but also increasing storage

1037
00:52:47.360 --> 00:52:48.519
<v Speaker 2>on their existing dam system.

1038
00:52:48.559 --> 00:52:50.239
<v Speaker 1>You know, I know they watched Sesame Street when they

1039
00:52:50.239 --> 00:52:52.840
<v Speaker 1>were kids because cooperation was a big deal for that.

1040
00:52:54.119 --> 00:52:55.320
<v Speaker 1>It's kind of important.

1041
00:52:55.840 --> 00:52:59.159
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, you know, some of a lot of power

1042
00:52:59.199 --> 00:53:02.239
<v Speaker 2>generation has to do with geography. What have you got,

1043
00:53:02.760 --> 00:53:05.000
<v Speaker 2>you know, do you have mountains with water on the top, okay,

1044
00:53:05.079 --> 00:53:07.039
<v Speaker 2>hydro electric you know, not a lot of places to

1045
00:53:07.079 --> 00:53:08.800
<v Speaker 2>light them, but some of them are. You've got a

1046
00:53:08.800 --> 00:53:11.800
<v Speaker 2>lot of shallow water with good windflow Okay, you know,

1047
00:53:11.880 --> 00:53:15.920
<v Speaker 2>offshore fixed based wind awesome, right, and on and on

1048
00:53:15.960 --> 00:53:17.599
<v Speaker 2>and on. Let's face it, most of the places that

1049
00:53:17.679 --> 00:53:19.960
<v Speaker 2>burn coal or do it because they have coal. A

1050
00:53:19.960 --> 00:53:21.880
<v Speaker 2>lot of places that burn natural gas do it because

1051
00:53:21.920 --> 00:53:24.199
<v Speaker 2>they have natural gas. Like, there's only so many different

1052
00:53:24.199 --> 00:53:27.039
<v Speaker 2>power sources that are available. And if you've got a

1053
00:53:27.079 --> 00:53:29.079
<v Speaker 2>lot of sunline, fine solar has some merit to it.

1054
00:53:29.119 --> 00:53:31.000
<v Speaker 2>Like if you have to mix and match these things,

1055
00:53:31.039 --> 00:53:35.360
<v Speaker 2>and depends on the regions. But where those regions can

1056
00:53:35.400 --> 00:53:38.400
<v Speaker 2>colloberate so they can offset each other, everybody benefits.

1057
00:53:38.559 --> 00:53:38.840
<v Speaker 1>Yep.

1058
00:53:38.920 --> 00:53:41.880
<v Speaker 2>Okay, let's move onto the other sides of storage, and

1059
00:53:41.960 --> 00:53:44.440
<v Speaker 2>of course we need to focus on batteries to some degree.

1060
00:53:44.679 --> 00:53:47.639
<v Speaker 2>So twenty twenty five is a breakthrough year, the year

1061
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:50.599
<v Speaker 2>that lithium ion battery packs fall below one hundred dollars

1062
00:53:50.639 --> 00:53:55.079
<v Speaker 2>per kilo wat hour. So today, at scale an LFP battery,

1063
00:53:55.079 --> 00:53:59.880
<v Speaker 2>a lithium ferris phosphate pheraophosphate, these are the eighty bucks

1064
00:54:00.159 --> 00:54:03.960
<v Speaker 2>a kilowat ho Wow. In twenty ten, fifteen years ago,

1065
00:54:04.079 --> 00:54:07.480
<v Speaker 2>that was fifteen hundred dollars. Like, the impact of this

1066
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:09.320
<v Speaker 2>is hard to get your head around.

1067
00:54:09.719 --> 00:54:13.599
<v Speaker 1>Is that mostly because of demand from car manufacturers and

1068
00:54:13.639 --> 00:54:18.199
<v Speaker 1>things like that in phone manufacturers or was it in

1069
00:54:18.480 --> 00:54:20.920
<v Speaker 1>uptick and supply that came before demand.

1070
00:54:21.039 --> 00:54:24.519
<v Speaker 2>It's mostly demand, and demand has caused manufacturing to scale

1071
00:54:24.559 --> 00:54:26.920
<v Speaker 2>the same way that solar prices were driven down by

1072
00:54:27.039 --> 00:54:30.199
<v Speaker 2>China scaling up their production to meet demand. This is

1073
00:54:30.239 --> 00:54:32.440
<v Speaker 2>a price warring China over battery. So the point where

1074
00:54:32.440 --> 00:54:34.559
<v Speaker 2>Sherman g is actually telling the companies you need to

1075
00:54:34.599 --> 00:54:36.920
<v Speaker 2>cool it because they're hurting each other and trying to

1076
00:54:36.920 --> 00:54:39.360
<v Speaker 2>get the prices down as fast as possible. Wow, And

1077
00:54:40.039 --> 00:54:43.840
<v Speaker 2>they're just manufacturing at scale with very little control and

1078
00:54:43.920 --> 00:54:48.239
<v Speaker 2>making very very cheap batteries to the point where it's

1079
00:54:48.320 --> 00:54:50.920
<v Speaker 2>just now it's pretty much the rule in Australia if

1080
00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:52.199
<v Speaker 2>you're going to put a solar panel on a roof,

1081
00:54:52.239 --> 00:54:53.599
<v Speaker 2>you have to put a battery in the good news

1082
00:54:53.639 --> 00:54:56.320
<v Speaker 2>is the battery's just not that expensive anymore. Prices have

1083
00:54:56.360 --> 00:55:00.280
<v Speaker 2>come down a lot. You know, you want twenty yellow

1084
00:55:00.320 --> 00:55:03.639
<v Speaker 2>lot hours in your house, Well that today is two

1085
00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:07.440
<v Speaker 2>or three thousand dollars, right Like, that's now not that

1086
00:55:07.519 --> 00:55:09.280
<v Speaker 2>much more than It's all on the line of the

1087
00:55:09.320 --> 00:55:12.199
<v Speaker 2>solar prices. So we're getting down to very economical prices.

1088
00:55:12.239 --> 00:55:13.239
<v Speaker 2>It's going to take a while for it to go

1089
00:55:13.239 --> 00:55:13.800
<v Speaker 2>through the pipeline.

1090
00:55:13.800 --> 00:55:16.920
<v Speaker 1>I thought those Tesla batteries were still really expensive, though.

1091
00:55:16.760 --> 00:55:19.519
<v Speaker 2>They are, but they need their prices need to fall

1092
00:55:19.599 --> 00:55:23.599
<v Speaker 2>and their competitors are coming at them. And again, these

1093
00:55:23.639 --> 00:55:25.800
<v Speaker 2>batteries only hit this price of this year. It's going

1094
00:55:25.800 --> 00:55:26.960
<v Speaker 2>to take a couple of years for you to see

1095
00:55:26.960 --> 00:55:29.559
<v Speaker 2>them in the pipeline. Okay, but the reality is battery

1096
00:55:29.559 --> 00:55:30.840
<v Speaker 2>prices are tanking.

1097
00:55:31.079 --> 00:55:34.519
<v Speaker 1>Is there enough natural resource lithium in all of those

1098
00:55:34.559 --> 00:55:38.480
<v Speaker 1>things that make those to sustain this kind of growth.

1099
00:55:38.519 --> 00:55:42.039
<v Speaker 2>There is lots of lithium. What there isn't a lot

1100
00:55:42.079 --> 00:55:46.639
<v Speaker 2>of is cheap lithium. So for many years, because we

1101
00:55:46.679 --> 00:55:49.320
<v Speaker 2>don't use that much lithium, because the batteries tended to

1102
00:55:49.320 --> 00:55:53.320
<v Speaker 2>be small, we were able to sustain the industry on

1103
00:55:53.360 --> 00:55:57.119
<v Speaker 2>the back of some extremely cheap lithium. Lithium salts essentially

1104
00:55:57.199 --> 00:55:58.840
<v Speaker 2>boiling out of the ground in places like the Atta

1105
00:55:58.920 --> 00:56:01.760
<v Speaker 2>Kama Desert in Chili. So this is a place where

1106
00:56:01.880 --> 00:56:05.199
<v Speaker 2>lithium phosphates are literally coming out of the ground. You

1107
00:56:05.239 --> 00:56:07.840
<v Speaker 2>pump that water up, that briny water up, You put

1108
00:56:07.840 --> 00:56:11.119
<v Speaker 2>it in big ponds, let it evaporate off, you scrape

1109
00:56:11.159 --> 00:56:13.679
<v Speaker 2>it up, and you send it off to production. Wow,

1110
00:56:13.760 --> 00:56:16.480
<v Speaker 2>there are other lithium stores. There are lithium in clay beds,

1111
00:56:16.480 --> 00:56:19.679
<v Speaker 2>there are hard rock lithiums. They're just more expensive to extract.

1112
00:56:19.719 --> 00:56:24.960
<v Speaker 1>Are we taking lithium away from the psychology field where

1113
00:56:25.000 --> 00:56:28.000
<v Speaker 1>it's prescribed as a medication.

1114
00:56:28.400 --> 00:56:32.119
<v Speaker 2>That's grams of lithium versus tons of lithium.

1115
00:56:32.480 --> 00:56:35.119
<v Speaker 1>I know that's just a stupid sit on it, Sorry,

1116
00:56:35.119 --> 00:56:36.119
<v Speaker 1>but I would make the point.

1117
00:56:36.280 --> 00:56:39.599
<v Speaker 2>We got down to eighty dollars at kilowatt hour while

1118
00:56:39.840 --> 00:56:44.039
<v Speaker 2>materials and manufacturing costs have been rising, right, Like, the

1119
00:56:44.079 --> 00:56:47.159
<v Speaker 2>cost of making things is definitely up, the cost of

1120
00:56:47.199 --> 00:56:51.199
<v Speaker 2>the ingredients is definitely up, and yet the prices have

1121
00:56:51.239 --> 00:56:54.920
<v Speaker 2>still fallen. Now now we get into some of the

1122
00:56:54.920 --> 00:56:57.119
<v Speaker 2>other battery technologies are being developed, and one of them

1123
00:56:57.239 --> 00:56:59.760
<v Speaker 2>is a sodium battery. Now, sodium batteries have been around

1124
00:56:59.760 --> 00:57:04.599
<v Speaker 2>for really long time. Sodium is a slightly heavier version

1125
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:07.559
<v Speaker 2>of lithium. They are both alkali metals. Sodium is even

1126
00:57:07.559 --> 00:57:09.639
<v Speaker 2>more common than lithium by a large degree. That's the

1127
00:57:09.679 --> 00:57:14.159
<v Speaker 2>stuff in salt, it's everywhere. The problem is it's been

1128
00:57:14.199 --> 00:57:18.000
<v Speaker 2>difficult to manufacture. You can make it into a battery.

1129
00:57:18.320 --> 00:57:20.119
<v Speaker 2>By its nature, you presume it would not be as

1130
00:57:20.119 --> 00:57:23.360
<v Speaker 2>dense as a lithium battery. And then CATL came out

1131
00:57:23.360 --> 00:57:25.599
<v Speaker 2>with this announcement this year. Now c ATL is a

1132
00:57:25.679 --> 00:57:29.159
<v Speaker 2>Chinese company that's been making it makes lithium batteries for everybody,

1133
00:57:29.239 --> 00:57:31.320
<v Speaker 2>like this is one of the big players. So kind

1134
00:57:31.360 --> 00:57:33.360
<v Speaker 2>of it's like when Toyota says something like it kind

1135
00:57:33.360 --> 00:57:35.360
<v Speaker 2>of had to take these guys seriously. They're one of

1136
00:57:35.400 --> 00:57:37.960
<v Speaker 2>the biggest battery manufacturers in the world. And this is

1137
00:57:37.960 --> 00:57:41.320
<v Speaker 2>what they said. Yeah, we know we got LFP batteries

1138
00:57:41.320 --> 00:57:43.079
<v Speaker 2>down to eighty bucks a kilo one hour. We figured

1139
00:57:43.119 --> 00:57:46.239
<v Speaker 2>out how to make sodium batteries for ten dollars a

1140
00:57:46.320 --> 00:57:50.320
<v Speaker 2>kilo one hour. What it's crazy. And they announced a

1141
00:57:50.360 --> 00:57:56.000
<v Speaker 2>battery called Naxtra. So Naxtra they say this is a

1142
00:57:56.000 --> 00:57:59.480
<v Speaker 2>sodium based battery is a ten thousand cycle battery with

1143
00:57:59.559 --> 00:58:03.519
<v Speaker 2>a large temperature into the lithium. Most lithium batteries LFP,

1144
00:58:03.800 --> 00:58:07.199
<v Speaker 2>especially butt NMC as well. Three thousand cycles is normal.

1145
00:58:07.320 --> 00:58:08.880
<v Speaker 2>Three thousand cycles is a lot. You got a three

1146
00:58:08.920 --> 00:58:11.239
<v Speaker 2>thousand cycle battery. That means that's how many times you

1147
00:58:11.280 --> 00:58:14.000
<v Speaker 2>can recharge it before it does discharge and recharge, right,

1148
00:58:14.039 --> 00:58:16.280
<v Speaker 2>and then before it starts to really lose potential. Right.

1149
00:58:16.320 --> 00:58:17.920
<v Speaker 2>And in a three thousand cycle batteries, this is what

1150
00:58:18.000 --> 00:58:20.039
<v Speaker 2>you get in like a Tesla, right, which means that

1151
00:58:20.199 --> 00:58:22.960
<v Speaker 2>after two hundred thousand miles of driving or so, your

1152
00:58:22.960 --> 00:58:25.599
<v Speaker 2>battery is down ten to fifteen percent in capacity. Right's

1153
00:58:25.599 --> 00:58:28.239
<v Speaker 2>a pretty good deal. They're talking about ten thousand cycle battery,

1154
00:58:28.280 --> 00:58:30.440
<v Speaker 2>so now you're talking a million miles before you start

1155
00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:31.159
<v Speaker 2>losing capacity.

1156
00:58:31.239 --> 00:58:32.239
<v Speaker 1>Wow, that's amazing.

1157
00:58:32.480 --> 00:58:35.800
<v Speaker 2>And because of the structure of sodium, it's more tolerant

1158
00:58:35.800 --> 00:58:38.599
<v Speaker 2>to colder and higher temperatures. So one of the key

1159
00:58:38.800 --> 00:58:42.519
<v Speaker 2>things to making lithium batteries successful in cars has been

1160
00:58:42.679 --> 00:58:46.920
<v Speaker 2>the temperature management system. We pump fluid around these batteries

1161
00:58:47.159 --> 00:58:49.400
<v Speaker 2>to keep them so they don't get too cold and

1162
00:58:49.440 --> 00:58:51.800
<v Speaker 2>they don't get too warm. It's expensive. It's part of

1163
00:58:51.800 --> 00:58:54.119
<v Speaker 2>what makes an electric car expensive, but it makes sure

1164
00:58:54.159 --> 00:58:55.280
<v Speaker 2>those batteries last.

1165
00:58:55.480 --> 00:58:58.599
<v Speaker 1>Doesn't sodium nut like water, Well, lithium doesn't like water.

1166
00:58:58.760 --> 00:59:02.039
<v Speaker 1>All alkali one metals do not like water. Right, Okay,

1167
00:59:02.239 --> 00:59:04.719
<v Speaker 1>that's just a normal part of the problem. So sodium

1168
00:59:04.840 --> 00:59:07.239
<v Speaker 1>is no more dangerous if it gets wet than lithium.

1169
00:59:07.280 --> 00:59:10.119
<v Speaker 2>Sure, okay, now it's always problematic. They can both burn,

1170
00:59:10.480 --> 00:59:12.800
<v Speaker 2>but we've built systems to deal with that. The bigger

1171
00:59:12.840 --> 00:59:14.639
<v Speaker 2>issue is sodium is not going to be as dense

1172
00:59:14.639 --> 00:59:19.599
<v Speaker 2>as lithium. However, they say, again we haven't seen this

1173
00:59:19.679 --> 00:59:22.400
<v Speaker 2>the extra battery yet, that they're getting one hundred and

1174
00:59:22.400 --> 00:59:25.639
<v Speaker 2>seventy five kilo wat hours per kilogram. That's comparable to

1175
00:59:25.719 --> 00:59:28.320
<v Speaker 2>lithium phosphate batteries. It's not as good as NMC batteries

1176
00:59:28.360 --> 00:59:30.679
<v Speaker 2>like your top of the line batteries today are three

1177
00:59:30.800 --> 00:59:34.119
<v Speaker 2>hundred kilowat hours per per kilo. They're just expensive, about

1178
00:59:34.119 --> 00:59:37.360
<v Speaker 2>one hundred and seventy five. That's feasible for a car.

1179
00:59:37.559 --> 00:59:39.840
<v Speaker 1>So it's going to be a little bigger. Nominally, it

1180
00:59:39.880 --> 00:59:42.440
<v Speaker 1>would be probably not. You're probably not going to see

1181
00:59:42.440 --> 00:59:43.960
<v Speaker 1>it in a phone any day soon.

1182
00:59:44.400 --> 00:59:46.519
<v Speaker 2>No, you probably wouldn't, but then again, the battery is

1183
00:59:46.519 --> 00:59:48.800
<v Speaker 2>not that expensive in a phone. We're talking about battery

1184
00:59:48.800 --> 00:59:52.840
<v Speaker 2>storage for grid, battery storage for houses, batteries and batteries

1185
00:59:52.840 --> 00:59:55.760
<v Speaker 2>and cars. Yeah, this is in the league. And if

1186
00:59:55.760 --> 00:59:57.679
<v Speaker 2>it's a ten dollars a kilo wat hour, like, sign

1187
00:59:57.760 --> 01:00:00.519
<v Speaker 2>me up, I'll give you more space in my garage exactly.

1188
01:00:00.559 --> 01:00:04.320
<v Speaker 2>If you can drop by household battery price tenfold, which

1189
01:00:04.360 --> 01:00:07.159
<v Speaker 2>is what you're talking about, that's really great. They've also

1190
01:00:07.199 --> 01:00:10.360
<v Speaker 2>announced another battery called a free void battery, where they've

1191
01:00:10.360 --> 01:00:14.199
<v Speaker 2>got a control. They mix sodium and lithium battery designs

1192
01:00:14.440 --> 01:00:16.280
<v Speaker 2>and they use a smart controller to figure out what

1193
01:00:16.320 --> 01:00:19.719
<v Speaker 2>batteries do use under what conditions. Wow, which is very clever.

1194
01:00:20.480 --> 01:00:24.159
<v Speaker 2>The questions here is why have these why have why

1195
01:00:24.199 --> 01:00:27.199
<v Speaker 2>are sodium batteries more expensive than lithium batteries until COTL

1196
01:00:27.239 --> 01:00:30.079
<v Speaker 2>made this announcement, And the biggest thing is just manufacturing

1197
01:00:30.079 --> 01:00:32.599
<v Speaker 2>at scale. They just have not matured that the pipeline.

1198
01:00:32.639 --> 01:00:35.320
<v Speaker 2>There's not as many ingredients as available. The material costs

1199
01:00:35.320 --> 01:00:38.400
<v Speaker 2>are lower, but it's not as plentiful and the process

1200
01:00:38.440 --> 01:00:41.519
<v Speaker 2>is not as mature. The lithium process has been worked

1201
01:00:41.559 --> 01:00:44.480
<v Speaker 2>on so hard in the past twenty years, it's just

1202
01:00:44.719 --> 01:00:48.239
<v Speaker 2>driven the price down. So the concern here is is

1203
01:00:48.280 --> 01:00:53.039
<v Speaker 2>everything CTL is saying true? Right? Is this knowing how

1204
01:00:53.079 --> 01:00:56.199
<v Speaker 2>competitive the Chinese market is in cl is the Chinese company?

1205
01:00:56.760 --> 01:00:59.800
<v Speaker 2>Are they saying this to freak out their competitors more

1206
01:00:59.800 --> 01:01:01.880
<v Speaker 2>than they can actually pull it off? Like I'm really

1207
01:01:02.599 --> 01:01:05.000
<v Speaker 2>keen If it's true, this is a huge breakthrough. We

1208
01:01:05.199 --> 01:01:06.960
<v Speaker 2>just need to actually be able to buy the product

1209
01:01:07.079 --> 01:01:10.239
<v Speaker 2>well in a huge disruption, right yep. It just means

1210
01:01:10.400 --> 01:01:13.400
<v Speaker 2>there's no excuse not to have batteries, Like how far

1211
01:01:13.440 --> 01:01:15.360
<v Speaker 2>are we from simply you know, you put the battery

1212
01:01:15.400 --> 01:01:17.840
<v Speaker 2>on the solar panel and it naturally backs itself up

1213
01:01:17.880 --> 01:01:20.880
<v Speaker 2>like that, and that's it if they're that cheap. But today,

1214
01:01:21.000 --> 01:01:24.119
<v Speaker 2>right now, lithin perophosphate batteries are the cheapest known tech.

1215
01:01:24.239 --> 01:01:26.639
<v Speaker 2>They've hit it. They've hit a remarkable floor and they're

1216
01:01:26.639 --> 01:01:27.480
<v Speaker 2>going to continue down.

1217
01:01:27.519 --> 01:01:27.760
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

1218
01:01:28.000 --> 01:01:30.320
<v Speaker 2>All right, there was a question about solid state batteries.

1219
01:01:30.320 --> 01:01:34.519
<v Speaker 2>This is an ongoing debate. This is you know, sol

1220
01:01:34.599 --> 01:01:36.920
<v Speaker 2>state batteri is one of those voodoo terms right.

1221
01:01:36.800 --> 01:01:38.199
<v Speaker 1>Where Yeah, what does that even mean?

1222
01:01:38.360 --> 01:01:41.440
<v Speaker 2>I thought, if we just do this, everything will be better, right,

1223
01:01:41.519 --> 01:01:44.440
<v Speaker 2>The battery will last forever. That's the idea that the

1224
01:01:44.480 --> 01:01:47.480
<v Speaker 2>electrolyte in the battery, which is normally a liquid or gel,

1225
01:01:47.920 --> 01:01:50.480
<v Speaker 2>is a solid, So they should be denser, should be safer,

1226
01:01:50.599 --> 01:01:53.280
<v Speaker 2>they should last longer, they should charge faster. It's just

1227
01:01:53.360 --> 01:01:57.320
<v Speaker 2>like it's the holy grail. Okay. And lots of companies

1228
01:01:57.559 --> 01:02:00.719
<v Speaker 2>have constantly said, oh, yeah, we've got solid estate batteries

1229
01:02:00.719 --> 01:02:02.960
<v Speaker 2>coming soon, and our cars are going to be amazing.

1230
01:02:03.039 --> 01:02:05.360
<v Speaker 2>Hyundai said they had a pilot project this year they're

1231
01:02:05.400 --> 01:02:08.239
<v Speaker 2>going to make mass producing in twenty thirty. The problem

1232
01:02:08.280 --> 01:02:10.280
<v Speaker 2>is every time someone says to have a solid state battery,

1233
01:02:10.400 --> 01:02:12.840
<v Speaker 2>somebody smart takes that battery apart and finds some liquid

1234
01:02:12.840 --> 01:02:15.480
<v Speaker 2>in it. Yeah, okay, so we're kind of playing with

1235
01:02:15.559 --> 01:02:17.960
<v Speaker 2>the term, like the solid state itself is like it's

1236
01:02:18.360 --> 01:02:22.679
<v Speaker 2>more solid or less solid, or it's quasi solid. So

1237
01:02:23.199 --> 01:02:26.440
<v Speaker 2>it's all about almost there, right. We never really nailed

1238
01:02:26.440 --> 01:02:29.519
<v Speaker 2>this completely, and so that that's still going on. Lots

1239
01:02:29.519 --> 01:02:32.639
<v Speaker 2>of companies making promises but just don't have the real

1240
01:02:32.639 --> 01:02:35.360
<v Speaker 2>batteries here. Yeah, all right, a couple more battery texts

1241
01:02:35.360 --> 01:02:38.800
<v Speaker 2>then we will take a break form energy. This is that

1242
01:02:38.960 --> 01:02:41.800
<v Speaker 2>iron air battery. I check, keep checking it on this

1243
01:02:41.960 --> 01:02:45.719
<v Speaker 2>was the idea of you know, lithium ion batteries are

1244
01:02:45.760 --> 01:02:47.880
<v Speaker 2>kind of silly for grid storage. They have a natural

1245
01:02:47.920 --> 01:02:51.639
<v Speaker 2>like eight hour cycle or their natural discharges about eight hours.

1246
01:02:51.679 --> 01:02:54.039
<v Speaker 2>There's not enough for going overnight. It's not actually a

1247
01:02:54.039 --> 01:02:56.199
<v Speaker 2>good tech for this. And let's face it, their battery

1248
01:02:56.199 --> 01:02:58.360
<v Speaker 2>designs are about being able to be moved around, right,

1249
01:02:58.400 --> 01:02:59.920
<v Speaker 2>whether it's in your phone or in your car, stuff

1250
01:02:59.920 --> 01:03:02.559
<v Speaker 2>like that. In an iron air battery, while much bigger, heavier,

1251
01:03:02.599 --> 01:03:06.000
<v Speaker 2>and hotter, it's perfect for grid storage because about back then,

1252
01:03:06.079 --> 01:03:07.719
<v Speaker 2>at least a few years ago, there was ten percent

1253
01:03:07.719 --> 01:03:10.400
<v Speaker 2>of the price of lithium ion battery, although lithia myon

1254
01:03:10.480 --> 01:03:12.760
<v Speaker 2>batteries have gone a lot cheaper. We talked about these

1255
01:03:12.800 --> 01:03:15.000
<v Speaker 2>last year too, and we are talking about for several

1256
01:03:15.079 --> 01:03:18.239
<v Speaker 2>years now, and their form Entergy's original projects in Minnesota.

1257
01:03:18.239 --> 01:03:20.199
<v Speaker 2>It's called the Great River Energy Project. It was supposed

1258
01:03:20.199 --> 01:03:22.039
<v Speaker 2>to be a one point five megawatt storage with one

1259
01:03:22.079 --> 01:03:25.440
<v Speaker 2>hundred and fifty megawatt hours because it has a natural

1260
01:03:25.719 --> 01:03:30.480
<v Speaker 2>one hundred hour discharge time that's pretty potent, not just

1261
01:03:30.559 --> 01:03:34.559
<v Speaker 2>lasting overnight, but literally lasting for days. They were supposed

1262
01:03:34.599 --> 01:03:37.960
<v Speaker 2>to be done in twenty twenty three. They finally started

1263
01:03:38.039 --> 01:03:41.599
<v Speaker 2>actually installing per batteries in October of twenty five.

1264
01:03:41.840 --> 01:03:42.280
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

1265
01:03:42.519 --> 01:03:45.559
<v Speaker 2>So, and I've read the press releases of they're just saying, hey,

1266
01:03:45.599 --> 01:03:48.440
<v Speaker 2>you know what, manufacturing at scale is hard. And so

1267
01:03:48.559 --> 01:03:51.639
<v Speaker 2>they built out this factory in Virginia when they raised

1268
01:03:51.679 --> 01:03:53.960
<v Speaker 2>more money back in twenty four and they finally said

1269
01:03:53.960 --> 01:03:57.760
<v Speaker 2>they're producing their grid scale capable batteries. They've started to

1270
01:03:57.800 --> 01:04:01.840
<v Speaker 2>populate the Minnesota the Great Energy Facility finally.

1271
01:04:01.880 --> 01:04:06.119
<v Speaker 1>All right, So the idea here if I'm correct, me

1272
01:04:06.119 --> 01:04:09.239
<v Speaker 1>if I'm wrong, but is that the grid itself is

1273
01:04:09.280 --> 01:04:11.840
<v Speaker 1>backed up, so you're going to have less brownouts and

1274
01:04:11.920 --> 01:04:13.400
<v Speaker 1>things like that. Is that true?

1275
01:04:13.519 --> 01:04:17.639
<v Speaker 2>Well, well, the idea is runs have a huge amount

1276
01:04:17.679 --> 01:04:20.800
<v Speaker 2>of solar, it charges up that battery and then overnight

1277
01:04:20.800 --> 01:04:24.320
<v Speaker 2>you run on the battery. Oh right, okay, simplest thing, right,

1278
01:04:24.360 --> 01:04:26.360
<v Speaker 2>if we have enough story we have a certain amount

1279
01:04:26.400 --> 01:04:28.000
<v Speaker 2>of storage like that so that we can run the

1280
01:04:28.039 --> 01:04:30.519
<v Speaker 2>low loads at night, then we don't have to have

1281
01:04:30.559 --> 01:04:33.880
<v Speaker 2>as much base low power. But you're right, these battery

1282
01:04:33.920 --> 01:04:36.639
<v Speaker 2>storage facilities are about stabilizing grids when you're switching sources.

1283
01:04:36.679 --> 01:04:38.559
<v Speaker 2>But there's all kinds of advantage to having a certain

1284
01:04:38.599 --> 01:04:42.400
<v Speaker 2>amount of battery, right, right, and normally they've been using

1285
01:04:42.400 --> 01:04:47.519
<v Speaker 2>lithium my own because they're cheap relatively speaking at scale. Right,

1286
01:04:47.519 --> 01:04:49.679
<v Speaker 2>this is what Tesla pushed on for all those years

1287
01:04:49.719 --> 01:04:51.480
<v Speaker 2>and have built out a bunch of facilities for them.

1288
01:04:51.480 --> 01:04:54.159
<v Speaker 2>They've got their challenges, they overheat, they catch fire, that

1289
01:04:54.239 --> 01:04:56.400
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing, but they've done this. But the whole

1290
01:04:56.719 --> 01:05:00.559
<v Speaker 2>idea is the iron air battery is very inexpensive. Bigger

1291
01:05:00.599 --> 01:05:03.000
<v Speaker 2>and hotter and heavier, None of that matters when you

1292
01:05:03.000 --> 01:05:05.159
<v Speaker 2>put a fence around it. And that means how you

1293
01:05:05.199 --> 01:05:07.880
<v Speaker 2>can feed various power sources into that to keep it

1294
01:05:07.960 --> 01:05:10.039
<v Speaker 2>charged and then discharge it when you need it. And

1295
01:05:10.119 --> 01:05:13.199
<v Speaker 2>so they've got they've been building out the Great River

1296
01:05:13.360 --> 01:05:17.480
<v Speaker 2>Energy Project. Finally, they've also got contracts with in California

1297
01:05:17.519 --> 01:05:19.840
<v Speaker 2>and Georgia, Maine, but I think everybody's just waiting to

1298
01:05:19.840 --> 01:05:22.480
<v Speaker 2>see how Minnesota goes at this point. But they apparently

1299
01:05:22.519 --> 01:05:24.719
<v Speaker 2>are really installing batteries, so it's great. Now they got

1300
01:05:24.719 --> 01:05:26.559
<v Speaker 2>to find out if the run times actually play out

1301
01:05:26.559 --> 01:05:28.199
<v Speaker 2>the way they do, and have they managed to heat

1302
01:05:28.239 --> 01:05:30.519
<v Speaker 2>properly and you know that all that like, there's still

1303
01:05:30.559 --> 01:05:34.320
<v Speaker 2>more to learn, but form Energy is making progress. Another

1304
01:05:34.320 --> 01:05:37.320
<v Speaker 2>one I mentioned last year is polar night Energy. This

1305
01:05:37.360 --> 01:05:39.840
<v Speaker 2>is that project in Finland where they built a one

1306
01:05:39.920 --> 01:05:44.840
<v Speaker 2>megawat sand battery, right, that was very interesting. That stored

1307
01:05:44.840 --> 01:05:47.000
<v Speaker 2>one hundred megawatt hours of power. So we're going to

1308
01:05:47.079 --> 01:05:49.519
<v Speaker 2>discharge it a one megawatt for one hundred hours.

1309
01:05:49.639 --> 01:05:52.039
<v Speaker 1>The whole idea is that sand holds heat, right, Yeah,

1310
01:05:52.039 --> 01:05:52.440
<v Speaker 1>that's right.

1311
01:05:52.480 --> 01:05:55.400
<v Speaker 2>So you use the excess solar to heat up the

1312
01:05:55.440 --> 01:05:57.559
<v Speaker 2>sand about six hundred degree cent a grade. You have

1313
01:05:57.679 --> 01:06:01.480
<v Speaker 2>US ninety conversion efficiency. They blow air through it which

1314
01:06:01.519 --> 01:06:04.280
<v Speaker 2>superheats that air and then it can flash steam or

1315
01:06:04.360 --> 01:06:07.239
<v Speaker 2>they can use the air directly in commercial process so forth.

1316
01:06:07.239 --> 01:06:10.119
<v Speaker 2>This thing went live in June this year, in twenty

1317
01:06:10.159 --> 01:06:13.960
<v Speaker 2>twenty five. A megawatt with one hundred megawat hours of storage. Wow,

1318
01:06:14.000 --> 01:06:17.039
<v Speaker 2>And the result has been successful, and so they're building

1319
01:06:17.039 --> 01:06:20.679
<v Speaker 2>another one in Vaski, Finland. They're now building to megawatt

1320
01:06:20.719 --> 01:06:24.119
<v Speaker 2>two one hundred and fifty megawatt hour. So construction to

1321
01:06:24.159 --> 01:06:26.880
<v Speaker 2>start next year in twenty six, completion and operation in

1322
01:06:26.920 --> 01:06:31.440
<v Speaker 2>twenty seven. This is twenty four hundred metric tons of

1323
01:06:31.519 --> 01:06:35.880
<v Speaker 2>sand in a silo fourteen meters hide and fifteen meters wide.

1324
01:06:35.960 --> 01:06:38.719
<v Speaker 2>It's just sand that it's one of those things that

1325
01:06:38.840 --> 01:06:42.159
<v Speaker 2>works at scale, and so that's a great success story.

1326
01:06:42.760 --> 01:06:44.880
<v Speaker 2>They've got a cheap source of sand. It's just the

1327
01:06:44.920 --> 01:06:49.159
<v Speaker 2>ceramic residues. It's not that silicon's hand, but it works

1328
01:06:49.159 --> 01:06:52.159
<v Speaker 2>for them. And so congrats to Polar Night Energy, new project,

1329
01:06:52.159 --> 01:06:56.480
<v Speaker 2>even bigger. Okay, let's take a brief break and then

1330
01:06:56.480 --> 01:06:58.679
<v Speaker 2>we'll come back and talk a hydrogen sounds good.

1331
01:06:59.079 --> 01:07:04.800
<v Speaker 1>We'll be right back, and we're back, gets the dot

1332
01:07:04.840 --> 01:07:09.079
<v Speaker 1>net Rocks twenty twenty five Energy geek out. Mister Campbell

1333
01:07:09.440 --> 01:07:12.960
<v Speaker 1>is about to talk to us about some hydrogen stuff.

1334
01:07:12.639 --> 01:07:14.199
<v Speaker 2>Because we're on the back half and.

1335
01:07:14.119 --> 01:07:16.440
<v Speaker 1>This kind of what happened to hydrogen?

1336
01:07:16.760 --> 01:07:19.639
<v Speaker 2>Oh what happened to hydrogen? And Kiaran landing online.

1337
01:07:19.320 --> 01:07:20.599
<v Speaker 1>Where's my hydrogen car?

1338
01:07:20.679 --> 01:07:23.320
<v Speaker 2>Anyway, that is exactly what Kiaren said, he gets where's

1339
01:07:23.320 --> 01:07:27.960
<v Speaker 2>my hydrogen car? It's like, look, I mean, Toyota's got

1340
01:07:28.039 --> 01:07:31.320
<v Speaker 2>their hydrogen car, right. Both guys who got one thought

1341
01:07:31.320 --> 01:07:34.760
<v Speaker 2>it was great. These are very you know, the problem

1342
01:07:34.800 --> 01:07:37.559
<v Speaker 2>with the mirror is a cool little hydrogen cell car.

1343
01:07:37.599 --> 01:07:40.920
<v Speaker 2>But hydrogen cells are hot, they need a lot of maintenance.

1344
01:07:40.960 --> 01:07:44.480
<v Speaker 2>They're expensive. You know, the battery car has one. Yeah,

1345
01:07:44.519 --> 01:07:46.880
<v Speaker 2>although these days is a big pushback to go back

1346
01:07:46.880 --> 01:07:50.920
<v Speaker 2>to hybrids, which you know, and arguably one of the

1347
01:07:50.920 --> 01:07:53.559
<v Speaker 2>reasons people like hybrids because then you have some gas

1348
01:07:54.199 --> 01:07:57.159
<v Speaker 2>that they can charge that battery, so you're sort of

1349
01:07:57.199 --> 01:07:58.960
<v Speaker 2>use you a mix of both for a more mechanically

1350
01:07:58.960 --> 01:08:01.360
<v Speaker 2>complicated car. But you know who's happy when you have

1351
01:08:01.400 --> 01:08:05.239
<v Speaker 2>a more mechanically complicated car your dealer. You know, dealers

1352
01:08:05.280 --> 01:08:08.159
<v Speaker 2>don't like electric vehicles because there's nothing for them to do, right,

1353
01:08:08.199 --> 01:08:10.039
<v Speaker 2>and so they don't like selling them. They'd much rather

1354
01:08:10.039 --> 01:08:11.679
<v Speaker 2>sell you a hybrid because it means you're going to

1355
01:08:11.719 --> 01:08:13.559
<v Speaker 2>be back every quarter to get some maintenance stuff.

1356
01:08:13.599 --> 01:08:15.760
<v Speaker 1>Well, the dealers have to ship from being mechanics to

1357
01:08:15.800 --> 01:08:20.239
<v Speaker 1>being electric electrical engineers and computer technicians, right, I mean, but.

1358
01:08:20.239 --> 01:08:22.000
<v Speaker 2>Even then, there's just not that much for you to do. Look,

1359
01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:24.960
<v Speaker 2>I own a Rivian. I take it in once a year,

1360
01:08:25.640 --> 01:08:27.640
<v Speaker 2>and even then that's just to change like air filters

1361
01:08:27.640 --> 01:08:29.720
<v Speaker 2>and theory. I could do that myself, you know, other

1362
01:08:29.760 --> 01:08:32.039
<v Speaker 2>than occasional warranty where it's it's just nothing to do

1363
01:08:32.159 --> 01:08:34.600
<v Speaker 2>on electric cars, and that the dealers are very unhappy

1364
01:08:34.640 --> 01:08:34.960
<v Speaker 2>about them.

1365
01:08:35.479 --> 01:08:38.279
<v Speaker 1>But the oil and gas. She love hydrogen because they

1366
01:08:38.399 --> 01:08:40.840
<v Speaker 1>are the sources of hydrogen. Most hydrogen is made from

1367
01:08:40.920 --> 01:08:43.680
<v Speaker 1>natural gas, and so it means their pipelines are still

1368
01:08:43.680 --> 01:08:46.640
<v Speaker 1>important all this stuff they've invested in. Hydrogen prices have

1369
01:08:46.720 --> 01:08:48.960
<v Speaker 1>not fallen at all. Last year there are about five

1370
01:08:49.000 --> 01:08:50.000
<v Speaker 1>thousand dollars e metric ton.

1371
01:08:50.119 --> 01:08:52.319
<v Speaker 2>This year they're about five thousand dollars a metric ton,

1372
01:08:52.399 --> 01:08:55.920
<v Speaker 2>so they're just not going anywhere. We make the vast

1373
01:08:55.920 --> 01:08:59.479
<v Speaker 2>majority of hydrogen using steam reformation, which is where you

1374
01:08:59.520 --> 01:09:02.479
<v Speaker 2>take uh methane gas and you pump a bunch of

1375
01:09:02.600 --> 01:09:05.319
<v Speaker 2>about six megawat hours of electricity into it to make

1376
01:09:05.359 --> 01:09:07.880
<v Speaker 2>a ton of hydrogen. You'll also spin out ninety twelve

1377
01:09:07.920 --> 01:09:11.319
<v Speaker 2>tons of carbon dioxide in the process. Most hydrogen today,

1378
01:09:11.319 --> 01:09:13.560
<v Speaker 2>which is used in industrial processes primarily.

1379
01:09:13.600 --> 01:09:16.720
<v Speaker 1>That's how it's made. It's not all that clean, is it. No, Well,

1380
01:09:16.720 --> 01:09:18.399
<v Speaker 1>it's a lot. It's a lot of carbon dioxide for

1381
01:09:18.399 --> 01:09:21.199
<v Speaker 1>the amount of hydrogen to make. Now you can up

1382
01:09:21.239 --> 01:09:24.680
<v Speaker 1>the power consumption threefold, go to about twenty five megawat hours.

1383
01:09:25.000 --> 01:09:29.079
<v Speaker 2>It's almost fourfold really, and you can do methane pyroalysis.

1384
01:09:29.079 --> 01:09:31.159
<v Speaker 2>Now you'll make it. You'll make a ton of hydrogen

1385
01:09:31.479 --> 01:09:34.479
<v Speaker 2>and three tons of solid carbon which you can bury

1386
01:09:34.880 --> 01:09:37.359
<v Speaker 2>or at least contains you're not emitting carbon dioxide. It

1387
01:09:37.439 --> 01:09:40.479
<v Speaker 2>just costs moreau's a lot more energy. But most people

1388
01:09:40.520 --> 01:09:42.359
<v Speaker 2>think about making a hydrogen what the way you did

1389
01:09:42.359 --> 01:09:45.800
<v Speaker 2>in the lab at school, with electrolysis.

1390
01:09:44.960 --> 01:09:46.119
<v Speaker 1>Of electricity and water.

1391
01:09:46.439 --> 01:09:49.479
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Yes, So if you want to make a ton

1392
01:09:49.520 --> 01:09:54.359
<v Speaker 2>of hydrogen with electrolysis, that's sixty megawat hours, So ten

1393
01:09:54.399 --> 01:09:57.399
<v Speaker 2>times would it costs in electricity from steam reformation.

1394
01:09:57.520 --> 01:09:59.479
<v Speaker 1>But it's a good use for solar energy, isn't it

1395
01:09:59.560 --> 01:10:01.079
<v Speaker 1>if it's excess power. Yeah.

1396
01:10:01.159 --> 01:10:03.279
<v Speaker 2>So one of the ideas is switching access power. But

1397
01:10:03.319 --> 01:10:06.600
<v Speaker 2>the problem is that to do electrolysis at scale, you

1398
01:10:06.680 --> 01:10:09.119
<v Speaker 2>can't just turn it on quickly, right. It takes about

1399
01:10:09.159 --> 01:10:11.039
<v Speaker 2>an hour or two hours for those systems to get

1400
01:10:11.079 --> 01:10:13.199
<v Speaker 2>up and running, sometimes like five or six hours, So

1401
01:10:13.479 --> 01:10:15.720
<v Speaker 2>you can't always take advantage of power that way. It's hard.

1402
01:10:15.800 --> 01:10:20.600
<v Speaker 1>You have to have big and or numerous membranes right right, Well,

1403
01:10:20.680 --> 01:10:22.199
<v Speaker 1>the electrolysis is more.

1404
01:10:22.079 --> 01:10:25.199
<v Speaker 2>Gas capture, so they don't have make of a problem. Okay,

1405
01:10:25.239 --> 01:10:26.960
<v Speaker 2>And just to be clear, you know we're talking about

1406
01:10:26.960 --> 01:10:28.640
<v Speaker 2>the problem with fuel cells, is your typical way to

1407
01:10:28.680 --> 01:10:31.359
<v Speaker 2>turn a hydrogen back into electricity. So if you take

1408
01:10:31.399 --> 01:10:33.840
<v Speaker 2>a ton of hydrogen and you run it through a

1409
01:10:33.880 --> 01:10:37.960
<v Speaker 2>fuel cell, you'll get about three point three megawatt hours

1410
01:10:37.960 --> 01:10:39.720
<v Speaker 2>of electricity from it in a bunch of whiters. So

1411
01:10:39.760 --> 01:10:44.159
<v Speaker 2>you just spent sixty megawat hours to make that ton

1412
01:10:44.159 --> 01:10:47.920
<v Speaker 2>of hydrogen to get three megawaan hours back. Yeah, it's

1413
01:10:47.920 --> 01:10:49.039
<v Speaker 2>a twentyfold loss.

1414
01:10:49.199 --> 01:10:52.640
<v Speaker 1>It's a lot more efficient to use electricity in batteries

1415
01:10:52.760 --> 01:10:54.039
<v Speaker 1>in a car than hydrogen.

1416
01:10:54.159 --> 01:10:58.159
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's just you know, and fuel cells are pricey

1417
01:10:58.159 --> 01:11:01.960
<v Speaker 2>and unreliable, and it's just a problem. Right, And let's

1418
01:11:01.960 --> 01:11:04.079
<v Speaker 2>face it, hydrogen is it makes more sense to move

1419
01:11:04.119 --> 01:11:06.000
<v Speaker 2>methane around that does to move natural gas around. The

1420
01:11:06.079 --> 01:11:09.279
<v Speaker 2>hydrogen Hydrogen leaks out of everything, right, right, it's such

1421
01:11:09.319 --> 01:11:11.640
<v Speaker 2>a fine it's such a thin gas. It'll escape constantly.

1422
01:11:11.720 --> 01:11:13.279
<v Speaker 1>And aren't they engines loud to.

1423
01:11:13.520 --> 01:11:15.920
<v Speaker 2>Well, it can be, but there's solutions to all of that.

1424
01:11:16.039 --> 01:11:17.920
<v Speaker 2>But you just need so much more of it. Right,

1425
01:11:18.239 --> 01:11:21.439
<v Speaker 2>to move the same amount of energy in as hydrogen

1426
01:11:21.439 --> 01:11:23.920
<v Speaker 2>gas and methane, you need to move three times more volume.

1427
01:11:24.479 --> 01:11:25.960
<v Speaker 2>So that costs more energy.

1428
01:11:26.000 --> 01:11:26.319
<v Speaker 1>Again.

1429
01:11:26.560 --> 01:11:27.920
<v Speaker 2>So one of the ideas if you're going to make

1430
01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:31.199
<v Speaker 2>hydrogen at scale is actually making into meth into ammonia.

1431
01:11:31.399 --> 01:11:33.920
<v Speaker 2>Oh so that's a you know, because an ammonia atom

1432
01:11:34.159 --> 01:11:36.960
<v Speaker 2>is a nitrogen atom with four hydrogens attached to it. Now,

1433
01:11:37.000 --> 01:11:41.239
<v Speaker 2>traditionally we make ammonia for fertilizer or fertilizers using the

1434
01:11:41.279 --> 01:11:44.119
<v Speaker 2>haber Bosch process. Right, and this is another, you know,

1435
01:11:44.800 --> 01:11:48.479
<v Speaker 2>very dirty process because you do that steam reformation to

1436
01:11:48.520 --> 01:11:50.720
<v Speaker 2>make hydrogen. Then you draw that and then I should

1437
01:11:50.760 --> 01:11:52.640
<v Speaker 2>off that you have another process to buying the two together.

1438
01:11:52.680 --> 01:11:53.920
<v Speaker 1>You also use it to make bombs.

1439
01:11:54.039 --> 01:11:57.000
<v Speaker 2>Well it's the same stuff, right ye, And you know fertilizer,

1440
01:11:57.439 --> 01:12:01.079
<v Speaker 2>that's whatever. You know, that big deal. So there's this

1441
01:12:01.199 --> 01:12:07.319
<v Speaker 2>idea of green ammonia. So now building out excess clean

1442
01:12:07.439 --> 01:12:12.680
<v Speaker 2>energy sources to do your hydrogen extraction with electrolysis and

1443
01:12:12.720 --> 01:12:15.960
<v Speaker 2>then combine it with nitrogen to make ammonia, which much

1444
01:12:16.000 --> 01:12:19.039
<v Speaker 2>easier store. It's an easy liquid to work with. We

1445
01:12:19.079 --> 01:12:21.119
<v Speaker 2>already have a system for doing all of this. I

1446
01:12:21.199 --> 01:12:26.800
<v Speaker 2>think it's interesting about ammonia is you can use it

1447
01:12:26.840 --> 01:12:29.800
<v Speaker 2>in a rocket, you can use it in an engine.

1448
01:12:30.000 --> 01:12:30.840
<v Speaker 2>That stuff will burn.

1449
01:12:31.279 --> 01:12:31.880
<v Speaker 1>I didn't know that.

1450
01:12:32.119 --> 01:12:35.720
<v Speaker 2>And it's emissions are nitrogen and water. Huh, two things

1451
01:12:35.760 --> 01:12:37.439
<v Speaker 2>that we need. It's just a yeah, it's just an

1452
01:12:37.439 --> 01:12:39.880
<v Speaker 2>ammonia's expensive to make. It is normally a very dirty

1453
01:12:39.880 --> 01:12:42.159
<v Speaker 2>process to make it. So once again, the Chinese step

1454
01:12:42.199 --> 01:12:45.840
<v Speaker 2>in with a huge solar plant out in Chief and

1455
01:12:45.880 --> 01:12:49.800
<v Speaker 2>they're making three hundred and twenty thousand metric tons of

1456
01:12:49.840 --> 01:12:54.119
<v Speaker 2>green ammonia using wind, solar and battery systems. Now their

1457
01:12:54.159 --> 01:12:56.479
<v Speaker 2>ammonia is more expensive than regular ammonia. So far, they

1458
01:12:56.520 --> 01:12:58.560
<v Speaker 2>think they can get to price parity by twenty twenty eight.

1459
01:12:59.079 --> 01:13:02.000
<v Speaker 2>But there's a whole movement happening. There might even stand

1460
01:13:02.000 --> 01:13:04.319
<v Speaker 2>to be its own geek out on what you can

1461
01:13:04.399 --> 01:13:06.600
<v Speaker 2>use ammonia for if you can produce it cleanly enough

1462
01:13:06.640 --> 01:13:09.920
<v Speaker 2>and it's scalely enough and cheaply enough to operate in

1463
01:13:10.039 --> 01:13:12.239
<v Speaker 2>engines as well as just making fertilizer.

1464
01:13:12.840 --> 01:13:14.000
<v Speaker 1>All right, that's interesting.

1465
01:13:14.159 --> 01:13:17.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, talk a little about geothermal. We've talked about it before, obviously,

1466
01:13:17.680 --> 01:13:20.840
<v Speaker 2>we talk about it every year. Traditional geothermal, you're looking

1467
01:13:20.880 --> 01:13:23.159
<v Speaker 2>for guysers, so you're looking for a place where water

1468
01:13:23.319 --> 01:13:27.239
<v Speaker 2>is interfacing with high temperature rocks, typically in volcanic areas,

1469
01:13:27.279 --> 01:13:31.359
<v Speaker 2>so think New Zealand, Iceland. But every time those guys

1470
01:13:31.399 --> 01:13:33.640
<v Speaker 2>try and build germal thermal power, often they destroy the

1471
01:13:33.640 --> 01:13:35.840
<v Speaker 2>guys are based in the process. The shock of cold

1472
01:13:35.920 --> 01:13:39.359
<v Speaker 2>water being deliberately pumped in the system damages it, and

1473
01:13:39.359 --> 01:13:41.399
<v Speaker 2>then the water disappears and the whole thing stops working. And

1474
01:13:41.439 --> 01:13:44.039
<v Speaker 2>the expensive part of geothermal power is drilling, is putting

1475
01:13:44.079 --> 01:13:46.199
<v Speaker 2>those pipes in the first place. And so when the

1476
01:13:46.199 --> 01:13:48.199
<v Speaker 2>system shifts like that, you've spent a lot of money.

1477
01:13:48.199 --> 01:13:50.119
<v Speaker 2>You don't get a lot of results. But we know

1478
01:13:50.199 --> 01:13:53.319
<v Speaker 2>that the rocks are hot everywhere. You just have to

1479
01:13:53.399 --> 01:13:56.880
<v Speaker 2>drill a little further, and they tend to be dry rock,

1480
01:13:57.079 --> 01:13:59.000
<v Speaker 2>so they don't have water in them and they're not

1481
01:13:59.039 --> 01:14:03.000
<v Speaker 2>permeable to water first place. And this is where fracking

1482
01:14:03.079 --> 01:14:03.920
<v Speaker 2>comes into play.

1483
01:14:04.159 --> 01:14:06.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I knew we were going to talk about fracking,

1484
01:14:06.960 --> 01:14:08.199
<v Speaker 1>the fracking stuff.

1485
01:14:08.399 --> 01:14:11.920
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So fracking was developed to extract methane and oil

1486
01:14:12.079 --> 01:14:17.279
<v Speaker 2>from shale beds, which sometimes contaminates waterways. So, but if

1487
01:14:17.279 --> 01:14:19.560
<v Speaker 2>you drill away from the waterways and the different layers

1488
01:14:19.560 --> 01:14:22.560
<v Speaker 2>of rock down deeper, where the rocks are hotter, you

1489
01:14:22.680 --> 01:14:26.560
<v Speaker 2>can fracture that rock and pump water in it to superheated.

1490
01:14:26.640 --> 01:14:29.479
<v Speaker 2>So you drill in at least two holes the original designs,

1491
01:14:29.520 --> 01:14:32.920
<v Speaker 2>that's what they do, and then pump in the fracking,

1492
01:14:32.920 --> 01:14:35.640
<v Speaker 2>fluid shatter the rock and then you try and pump

1493
01:14:35.720 --> 01:14:37.159
<v Speaker 2>water through it. See if you get steamed from that.

1494
01:14:37.680 --> 01:14:39.479
<v Speaker 2>This technology has been advanced a lot of It's a

1495
01:14:39.479 --> 01:14:41.800
<v Speaker 2>company called Fervo Energy, and we've talked about them before.

1496
01:14:41.800 --> 01:14:44.039
<v Speaker 2>They've done pilot projects back in twenty three and they've

1497
01:14:44.079 --> 01:14:46.840
<v Speaker 2>raised a ton of money. And what they're doing is

1498
01:14:46.880 --> 01:14:50.239
<v Speaker 2>horizontal drilling. So they drill in on either side of

1499
01:14:50.279 --> 01:14:53.439
<v Speaker 2>a dry rock bay where they think they can get

1500
01:14:53.479 --> 01:14:56.840
<v Speaker 2>enough temperature, and then they go horizontally into it to

1501
01:14:57.000 --> 01:15:00.720
<v Speaker 2>the fracturing and that way they if they actually have

1502
01:15:00.760 --> 01:15:02.960
<v Speaker 2>a problem where they have a shock that causes the

1503
01:15:03.000 --> 01:15:05.880
<v Speaker 2>water to leak away the main drill lines, the expensive

1504
01:15:05.920 --> 01:15:09.479
<v Speaker 2>ones don't have to rejail. They just redrill the horizontal parts.

1505
01:15:10.119 --> 01:15:12.119
<v Speaker 2>So far, they're doing what they call an open solution,

1506
01:15:12.560 --> 01:15:16.119
<v Speaker 2>where they're not actually making those two pipelines meet. Like

1507
01:15:16.159 --> 01:15:17.800
<v Speaker 2>there's a whole idea of we could build a seal

1508
01:15:17.960 --> 01:15:20.560
<v Speaker 2>loop for this, but that really hasn't been done yet.

1509
01:15:20.640 --> 01:15:23.640
<v Speaker 2>So far, they're still using fracking to pump this through.

1510
01:15:24.439 --> 01:15:26.800
<v Speaker 2>The problem is that when you use fracking, you are

1511
01:15:28.319 --> 01:15:30.279
<v Speaker 2>you have to follow the regulations of oil and gas,

1512
01:15:30.279 --> 01:15:32.600
<v Speaker 2>which are now these days pretty tightly regulated because of

1513
01:15:32.600 --> 01:15:34.880
<v Speaker 2>all the problems that have happened, and so there's a

1514
01:15:34.880 --> 01:15:38.560
<v Speaker 2>whole conversation going on about changing the regulations around all

1515
01:15:38.600 --> 01:15:41.880
<v Speaker 2>of this. Because they aren't touching waterways, they are going

1516
01:15:41.880 --> 01:15:44.760
<v Speaker 2>into dry rock, they're going they're not trying to extract oil,

1517
01:15:45.039 --> 01:15:47.359
<v Speaker 2>they're not in decreasing the density on the soils that

1518
01:15:47.439 --> 01:15:49.600
<v Speaker 2>might cause collapse and things. They don't have those same problems.

1519
01:15:50.079 --> 01:15:53.720
<v Speaker 2>But they now have a power purchase Creaming from California

1520
01:15:53.760 --> 01:15:56.720
<v Speaker 2>in the megawatt class, so they built a smaller facility

1521
01:15:56.720 --> 01:16:00.279
<v Speaker 2>a megawa, a single megawat in Utah. Google has been

1522
01:16:00.279 --> 01:16:01.600
<v Speaker 2>funding them a bunch because they want to use their

1523
01:16:01.640 --> 01:16:04.520
<v Speaker 2>power for their AI data stators. But in twenty twenty

1524
01:16:04.600 --> 01:16:08.479
<v Speaker 2>six they expect to be having several hundred megawats of

1525
01:16:08.479 --> 01:16:12.319
<v Speaker 2>power for California off of this technique. So they've definitely

1526
01:16:12.399 --> 01:16:16.800
<v Speaker 2>matured and are scaling up. Most higher geroelectric our most

1527
01:16:16.920 --> 01:16:19.920
<v Speaker 2>geothermal power plants are only in the tens of megawats

1528
01:16:19.920 --> 01:16:21.920
<v Speaker 2>the biggest ones. Some of them are much smaller than that,

1529
01:16:22.319 --> 01:16:23.720
<v Speaker 2>so you need to make a lot of them for

1530
01:16:23.760 --> 01:16:28.359
<v Speaker 2>them scale, but no emissions right, no consumable The water

1531
01:16:28.520 --> 01:16:30.079
<v Speaker 2>is reused over and over again.

1532
01:16:30.319 --> 01:16:30.520
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

1533
01:16:30.560 --> 01:16:33.520
<v Speaker 2>I mean, this is really a good power system that

1534
01:16:33.600 --> 01:16:35.680
<v Speaker 2>can last for a long time if we can get

1535
01:16:35.680 --> 01:16:38.359
<v Speaker 2>it right. So what Fervro's doing is compelling and important.

1536
01:16:38.439 --> 01:16:38.640
<v Speaker 2>You know.

1537
01:16:38.720 --> 01:16:41.920
<v Speaker 1>I always when we talk about geothermal, I talk about

1538
01:16:42.279 --> 01:16:46.560
<v Speaker 1>using a geothermal system for home heating and cooling. Yeah,

1539
01:16:46.600 --> 01:16:50.159
<v Speaker 1>and so the idea there is and my uncle did this,

1540
01:16:50.880 --> 01:16:54.840
<v Speaker 1>talk about this every year. But the idea there is

1541
01:16:54.880 --> 01:16:57.960
<v Speaker 1>that you know, twenty thirty feet below the ground.

1542
01:16:57.840 --> 01:16:59.560
<v Speaker 2>And even six six doesn't have to be that.

1543
01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:03.960
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, yeah, well there's the temperature is consistent, and

1544
01:17:04.000 --> 01:17:07.560
<v Speaker 1>it's usually depending on where you are in North America anyway,

1545
01:17:07.600 --> 01:17:11.680
<v Speaker 1>between fifty and seventy five degrees right hotter places, it's

1546
01:17:11.680 --> 01:17:14.720
<v Speaker 1>going to be hotter, obviously, But let's say it's fifty degrees.

1547
01:17:15.840 --> 01:17:18.800
<v Speaker 1>So that is cool enough to cool you when the

1548
01:17:18.800 --> 01:17:23.439
<v Speaker 1>temperature is when it's very hot outside and warm enough

1549
01:17:23.479 --> 01:17:27.680
<v Speaker 1>to keep you warm in freezing cold. So what you

1550
01:17:27.720 --> 01:17:30.319
<v Speaker 1>do is you run a pipe below the ground, right,

1551
01:17:30.479 --> 01:17:32.800
<v Speaker 1>and it either heats up or cools down, becomes fifty

1552
01:17:32.800 --> 01:17:35.960
<v Speaker 1>degrees and then you can blow air over that pipe

1553
01:17:36.000 --> 01:17:39.399
<v Speaker 1>when it comes out of the ground, and and there

1554
01:17:39.439 --> 01:17:41.680
<v Speaker 1>you have it. So you have warmer and.

1555
01:17:41.680 --> 01:17:44.520
<v Speaker 2>Cool air, typically a pup fluid through the loop, and

1556
01:17:44.560 --> 01:17:46.920
<v Speaker 2>so the fluid it's you know, it's normally around sixty

1557
01:17:46.920 --> 01:17:49.520
<v Speaker 2>degrees fahrenheit. Yeah, it's what you're going to get ten

1558
01:17:49.640 --> 01:17:52.720
<v Speaker 2>fifteen feet underground all the time. And sixty degrees is

1559
01:17:52.720 --> 01:17:55.760
<v Speaker 2>great for cooling. It's plenty cool. Yeah, but it's also

1560
01:17:55.800 --> 01:17:58.479
<v Speaker 2>a great start for warming up. Right. You know, if

1561
01:17:58.520 --> 01:18:00.840
<v Speaker 2>you could start at sixty instead of zero zero and

1562
01:18:00.880 --> 01:18:03.039
<v Speaker 2>then heat it up to seventy, everybody's pretty happy. Well,

1563
01:18:03.079 --> 01:18:05.600
<v Speaker 2>and it's sixty degrees, your pipes aren't going to freeze, right, Yeah,

1564
01:18:05.640 --> 01:18:06.479
<v Speaker 2>nothing's going to freeze.

1565
01:18:06.479 --> 01:18:07.439
<v Speaker 1>Nothing's going to freeze.

1566
01:18:07.520 --> 01:18:10.439
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So the advantage here is just a good starting

1567
01:18:10.439 --> 01:18:13.119
<v Speaker 2>point of everything. The downside is it depends on the ground.

1568
01:18:13.600 --> 01:18:16.000
<v Speaker 2>You know, I can't have geo thermal power here for

1569
01:18:16.159 --> 01:18:19.319
<v Speaker 2>my house because it's all rock. The cost of drilling

1570
01:18:19.359 --> 01:18:21.880
<v Speaker 2>that would be crazy, right. You need ground that you

1571
01:18:21.960 --> 01:18:24.680
<v Speaker 2>can put those pipes down into, but if you've got it,

1572
01:18:24.680 --> 01:18:26.359
<v Speaker 2>it's expensive to install.

1573
01:18:26.439 --> 01:18:28.199
<v Speaker 1>Also, if you're going to run that in lieu of

1574
01:18:28.239 --> 01:18:30.800
<v Speaker 1>an air conditioner, you're going to need a dehumidifier. Because

1575
01:18:30.840 --> 01:18:33.439
<v Speaker 1>I did notice this at my uncle's house that it

1576
01:18:33.479 --> 01:18:36.119
<v Speaker 1>was very wet in the house when it was cool,

1577
01:18:36.720 --> 01:18:39.880
<v Speaker 1>which is the opposite of what you get with air conditioning,

1578
01:18:39.960 --> 01:18:43.600
<v Speaker 1>right with regular yeah, where you dry everything out. One

1579
01:18:43.640 --> 01:18:47.119
<v Speaker 1>last aspect on geothermal we mentioned them before, quas energy.

1580
01:18:47.159 --> 01:18:49.159
<v Speaker 1>These are the guys that instead of using conventional drills,

1581
01:18:49.159 --> 01:18:51.279
<v Speaker 1>are using microwaves to do drilling.

1582
01:18:51.520 --> 01:18:51.600
<v Speaker 3>What.

1583
01:18:52.640 --> 01:18:54.960
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a lot of energy. But

1584
01:18:55.239 --> 01:18:58.520
<v Speaker 2>the interesting thing about this is you're literally vaporizing the

1585
01:18:58.600 --> 01:19:02.159
<v Speaker 2>rock with microwaves, and so you need a lot of

1586
01:19:02.199 --> 01:19:04.560
<v Speaker 2>pressurized air to make that happen more deeper, go on

1587
01:19:04.640 --> 01:19:07.439
<v Speaker 2>where you need. But it also automatically builds the casement.

1588
01:19:07.479 --> 01:19:11.199
<v Speaker 2>Like normal drilling. As you're drilling with your grinding head,

1589
01:19:11.319 --> 01:19:14.840
<v Speaker 2>you're pumping mud around it to bring the debris back up.

1590
01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:17.800
<v Speaker 2>You're also sliding these pipes down behind it, behind the

1591
01:19:17.840 --> 01:19:20.279
<v Speaker 2>drilling head to keep the wall stable. Right, Kate, they

1592
01:19:20.279 --> 01:19:21.039
<v Speaker 2>called casements.

1593
01:19:21.079 --> 01:19:23.239
<v Speaker 1>Don't stand too close to the hole, boys.

1594
01:19:23.159 --> 01:19:26.439
<v Speaker 2>It's all dangerous stuff, right. Those drillers are brave. It's

1595
01:19:26.560 --> 01:19:29.960
<v Speaker 2>very tricky to do route and so this vaporization of rock,

1596
01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:32.439
<v Speaker 2>it's very star trek. You're vaporize and a rock to rock.

1597
01:19:32.479 --> 01:19:35.159
<v Speaker 2>It's actually building the walls they didn't raise any money

1598
01:19:35.319 --> 01:19:37.359
<v Speaker 2>in twenty twenty five. I couldn't find any statement. So

1599
01:19:37.399 --> 01:19:39.720
<v Speaker 2>it's like, I wonder how much money they've got. They're

1600
01:19:39.720 --> 01:19:42.279
<v Speaker 2>still functional. I was worried they were last year. I said,

1601
01:19:42.279 --> 01:19:43.960
<v Speaker 2>I think these guys aren't going to make it. But

1602
01:19:44.439 --> 01:19:48.199
<v Speaker 2>this year they were able to do some real drilling. Admittedly,

1603
01:19:48.640 --> 01:19:50.680
<v Speaker 2>their test run this year they got down one hundred

1604
01:19:50.760 --> 01:19:53.840
<v Speaker 2>meters or about three hundred and thirty feet. Their goal

1605
01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:56.960
<v Speaker 2>next year is to hit a kilometer. To do what

1606
01:19:57.079 --> 01:20:01.520
<v Speaker 2>Fervo is doing, you need to drill five kilometers turn sideways. Yeah,

1607
01:20:01.560 --> 01:20:04.479
<v Speaker 2>so they're a long way from production, but they seem

1608
01:20:04.600 --> 01:20:08.640
<v Speaker 2>to still be in business. So they're still functioning even

1609
01:20:08.680 --> 01:20:11.560
<v Speaker 2>if they're not doing particularly well. So I hope for

1610
01:20:11.640 --> 01:20:13.399
<v Speaker 2>them because if they can improve the drilling process, so

1611
01:20:13.479 --> 01:20:17.640
<v Speaker 2>much the better. But you know, meantime existing drilling, the

1612
01:20:17.640 --> 01:20:20.159
<v Speaker 2>downside of the mechanical drilling is the head swear out.

1613
01:20:20.159 --> 01:20:21.840
<v Speaker 2>Then you have to stop, pull the whole thing back,

1614
01:20:22.319 --> 01:20:24.119
<v Speaker 2>put a new head on, and go again. So you

1615
01:20:24.159 --> 01:20:25.920
<v Speaker 2>the deeper your drill and more expensive it gets by

1616
01:20:25.920 --> 01:20:28.000
<v Speaker 2>a lot, right, But Furrow is making it work. In

1617
01:20:28.079 --> 01:20:30.479
<v Speaker 2>a five kilometer drill, you know, between three and five,

1618
01:20:30.520 --> 01:20:32.760
<v Speaker 2>depending on the rock beds that are working in. Okay,

1619
01:20:32.880 --> 01:20:34.560
<v Speaker 2>all right, ready to get in the new clear this

1620
01:20:34.600 --> 01:20:35.399
<v Speaker 2>is gonna be a long part.

1621
01:20:35.520 --> 01:20:37.079
<v Speaker 1>Let's do it. My friend all.

1622
01:20:37.119 --> 01:20:39.079
<v Speaker 2>Right again the kiaren Land and the guy, where's my car?

1623
01:20:39.199 --> 01:20:39.960
<v Speaker 1>My car?

1624
01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:42.039
<v Speaker 2>He says, where's my mini nuke for my house? Right?

1625
01:20:42.239 --> 01:20:45.159
<v Speaker 1>Same same thing, or at least my town. You know

1626
01:20:45.640 --> 01:20:46.439
<v Speaker 1>that would be nice.

1627
01:20:46.520 --> 01:20:49.439
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk a little bit about conventional nuclear. Last

1628
01:20:49.520 --> 01:20:52.239
<v Speaker 2>year I mentioned this is the Vaugetall facility. This is

1629
01:20:52.279 --> 01:20:55.039
<v Speaker 2>in Georgia where they build reactors three and four. So

1630
01:20:55.199 --> 01:20:57.319
<v Speaker 2>normally in America there's only ever been two reactors. This

1631
01:20:57.319 --> 01:20:59.039
<v Speaker 2>is the first time we've had a four reactors set,

1632
01:20:59.479 --> 01:21:03.920
<v Speaker 2>the first new reactors in decades. These are Westinghouse eight

1633
01:21:03.960 --> 01:21:07.119
<v Speaker 2>P one thousand Gen three pluses, so passive cool down.

1634
01:21:07.159 --> 01:21:10.359
<v Speaker 2>The funny thing about this reactor design is actually simpler

1635
01:21:10.399 --> 01:21:14.920
<v Speaker 2>than the older reactor designs. Because it has passive cool down,

1636
01:21:14.960 --> 01:21:17.279
<v Speaker 2>you don't need all the additional pumps and monitoring and

1637
01:21:17.319 --> 01:21:20.520
<v Speaker 2>so forth for cooling it down in an emergency. It's

1638
01:21:20.640 --> 01:21:24.000
<v Speaker 2>less wiring for your pumps, for your pipes. But because

1639
01:21:24.279 --> 01:21:26.279
<v Speaker 2>it had been decades since anybody built them, they kind

1640
01:21:26.279 --> 01:21:29.039
<v Speaker 2>of didn't know what they were doing, and the pandemic

1641
01:21:29.159 --> 01:21:32.199
<v Speaker 2>and money and the financial crisis meant that where they

1642
01:21:32.239 --> 01:21:35.239
<v Speaker 2>originally estimated it would be fourteen dollars to build and

1643
01:21:35.399 --> 01:21:39.239
<v Speaker 2>be done in like twenty fifteen, it actually was thirty

1644
01:21:39.239 --> 01:21:41.439
<v Speaker 2>four billion dollars to build and they didn't finish until

1645
01:21:41.439 --> 01:21:42.079
<v Speaker 2>twenty twenty four.

1646
01:21:42.520 --> 01:21:44.319
<v Speaker 1>How does it did cool work?

1647
01:21:44.960 --> 01:21:47.760
<v Speaker 2>So passive cool down is that you know, if I

1648
01:21:47.840 --> 01:21:50.000
<v Speaker 2>scram the reactor so there's an emergency and I brought

1649
01:21:50.079 --> 01:21:52.960
<v Speaker 2>the control runs to stop the reaction, the reactor core

1650
01:21:53.000 --> 01:21:55.960
<v Speaker 2>itself is still very hot and it will take days

1651
01:21:56.039 --> 01:21:58.840
<v Speaker 2>to cool down, and you're no longer running the pumps

1652
01:21:58.880 --> 01:22:01.319
<v Speaker 2>to move the water through. Right. So this is what

1653
01:22:01.359 --> 01:22:04.079
<v Speaker 2>happened to Fukushima. They SCRAMed those reactors in twenty eleven

1654
01:22:04.119 --> 01:22:06.159
<v Speaker 2>after the earthquake, and then they needed to keep pumping

1655
01:22:06.159 --> 01:22:09.479
<v Speaker 2>the water, and then the tsunami came in and destroyed

1656
01:22:09.479 --> 01:22:12.159
<v Speaker 2>the generators that were running those water pumps. What we

1657
01:22:12.199 --> 01:22:14.000
<v Speaker 2>don't talk about in Fukushima is there was a reactor

1658
01:22:14.039 --> 01:22:16.840
<v Speaker 2>five and six that do have passive cool down. Passive

1659
01:22:16.840 --> 01:22:19.520
<v Speaker 2>cool down means that even with that excess heat, enough

1660
01:22:19.600 --> 01:22:24.159
<v Speaker 2>water flows through convection to cool the reactor on its own.

1661
01:22:24.199 --> 01:22:27.119
<v Speaker 2>You don't, oh interesting, don't have to do anything to

1662
01:22:27.199 --> 01:22:28.560
<v Speaker 2>keep the reactor cool.

1663
01:22:28.680 --> 01:22:29.079
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

1664
01:22:29.239 --> 01:22:32.479
<v Speaker 2>So these were the first of these passive cool down

1665
01:22:32.520 --> 01:22:34.359
<v Speaker 2>reactors in the US. There's a few in other parts

1666
01:22:34.359 --> 01:22:36.560
<v Speaker 2>of the world. Brits are building more of them. And

1667
01:22:36.600 --> 01:22:39.960
<v Speaker 2>this is Westinghouse's design. And I lamented at the time

1668
01:22:40.079 --> 01:22:42.840
<v Speaker 2>last year that we only built you only built two

1669
01:22:42.840 --> 01:22:45.640
<v Speaker 2>of them. You've now built up the supply pipeline and

1670
01:22:45.680 --> 01:22:47.359
<v Speaker 2>trained a group of people for the first time in

1671
01:22:47.399 --> 01:22:50.800
<v Speaker 2>decades to build a reactor. You should build more. You've

1672
01:22:50.840 --> 01:22:53.039
<v Speaker 2>done the expensive part. They're only going to get cheaper

1673
01:22:53.079 --> 01:22:57.279
<v Speaker 2>from here. And so the good news is that Westinghouse

1674
01:22:57.279 --> 01:23:00.920
<v Speaker 2>has announced that they are working for up to ten

1675
01:23:00.960 --> 01:23:04.119
<v Speaker 2>more reactors in the US. Now, they weren't very specific

1676
01:23:04.319 --> 01:23:04.800
<v Speaker 2>about it.

1677
01:23:05.199 --> 01:23:09.439
<v Speaker 1>Would they be able to replace existing non passive cool

1678
01:23:09.520 --> 01:23:10.920
<v Speaker 1>down reactors.

1679
01:23:10.520 --> 01:23:12.560
<v Speaker 2>Yes, well, that's one of the things that's happening is

1680
01:23:12.560 --> 01:23:14.159
<v Speaker 2>that a lot of the reactors that were built in

1681
01:23:14.199 --> 01:23:17.279
<v Speaker 2>the seventies and eighties are now starting to age out.

1682
01:23:17.319 --> 01:23:19.560
<v Speaker 2>They've had their license extended up to fifty years in

1683
01:23:19.600 --> 01:23:21.920
<v Speaker 2>some cases, but there are aging out and they need

1684
01:23:21.960 --> 01:23:24.640
<v Speaker 2>to be replaced. One of the examples would be near Homestead,

1685
01:23:24.640 --> 01:23:27.880
<v Speaker 2>Florida area called Turkey Point that has a pair of Westinghouse.

1686
01:23:27.920 --> 01:23:30.600
<v Speaker 2>They had a Marguarte reactors from the seventies and they

1687
01:23:30.720 --> 01:23:34.039
<v Speaker 2>have a license for AP one thousands. They just don't

1688
01:23:34.079 --> 01:23:37.840
<v Speaker 2>currently have a plan to actually build. So there's actually

1689
01:23:37.920 --> 01:23:40.920
<v Speaker 2>you know, when we when the west House CEO said this,

1690
01:23:40.960 --> 01:23:42.960
<v Speaker 2>we're going to be able ten new new Krali reactors,

1691
01:23:43.079 --> 01:23:46.279
<v Speaker 2>we think or they think that it's based on licenses

1692
01:23:46.279 --> 01:23:48.479
<v Speaker 2>that are already out there. There's like four in Florida.

1693
01:23:48.520 --> 01:23:51.680
<v Speaker 2>There's a couple of new in North Carolina and South Carolina.

1694
01:23:52.079 --> 01:23:54.800
<v Speaker 2>And so perhaps those negotiations going on with government to

1695
01:23:54.880 --> 01:23:57.880
<v Speaker 2>move ahead with this production, to get those reactors built

1696
01:23:57.880 --> 01:24:00.479
<v Speaker 2>and to take advantage of what they've got here. These

1697
01:24:00.520 --> 01:24:04.079
<v Speaker 2>reactors should last another fifty sixty years. They're very safe.

1698
01:24:04.479 --> 01:24:06.560
<v Speaker 2>You've already got the hard part. You've got the site

1699
01:24:06.600 --> 01:24:08.800
<v Speaker 2>all set up with the licensing and the distance controls

1700
01:24:08.800 --> 01:24:10.960
<v Speaker 2>and so forth. So it makes sense to go forward

1701
01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:13.840
<v Speaker 2>with that. So it gives me some hope for conventional nuclear,

1702
01:24:14.239 --> 01:24:17.760
<v Speaker 2>which is generally more tolerated, the same for the European

1703
01:24:17.800 --> 01:24:21.159
<v Speaker 2>pressurized reactor. And I've talked about this before in I

1704
01:24:21.199 --> 01:24:25.199
<v Speaker 2>do this future of energy talks now at conferences, and

1705
01:24:25.239 --> 01:24:27.560
<v Speaker 2>we talked about the UK Energy site be where they've

1706
01:24:27.560 --> 01:24:30.319
<v Speaker 2>taken the EPI reactor which was developed in France and

1707
01:24:30.359 --> 01:24:33.199
<v Speaker 2>they've built them in Finland and China as well. The

1708
01:24:33.279 --> 01:24:35.640
<v Speaker 2>UK of course had to customize it for their own requirements,

1709
01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:38.039
<v Speaker 2>so they've made it more expensive. They're building two at

1710
01:24:38.039 --> 01:24:40.199
<v Speaker 2>a site called Hinckley Site see, but they also planned

1711
01:24:40.199 --> 01:24:43.039
<v Speaker 2>on building two more in size well, which another location

1712
01:24:43.359 --> 01:24:46.880
<v Speaker 2>where they're replacing older reactors with newer ones and same thing.

1713
01:24:47.000 --> 01:24:50.239
<v Speaker 2>Prices are starting to fall because they're maturing the skill set.

1714
01:24:51.680 --> 01:24:56.800
<v Speaker 2>So conventional nuclear is doing better and it could do more.

1715
01:24:57.119 --> 01:24:59.880
<v Speaker 2>We have these safer designs. We know how they were,

1716
01:25:00.199 --> 01:25:03.239
<v Speaker 2>We have the existing sites. They produce almost one hundred

1717
01:25:03.239 --> 01:25:07.159
<v Speaker 2>percent of the time full power. You know, they're running

1718
01:25:07.199 --> 01:25:09.680
<v Speaker 2>the ninety percent utilization rate, much higher than almost any

1719
01:25:09.720 --> 01:25:12.760
<v Speaker 2>other kind of power, and they're cleaning efficient, like they're

1720
01:25:13.119 --> 01:25:15.840
<v Speaker 2>zero emission technologies except for.

1721
01:25:15.800 --> 01:25:19.319
<v Speaker 1>That spent fuel. Yes, but there has never been a

1722
01:25:19.439 --> 01:25:23.119
<v Speaker 1>single death or anything caused by this stuff. But it

1723
01:25:23.159 --> 01:25:23.640
<v Speaker 1>is a problem.

1724
01:25:23.720 --> 01:25:26.119
<v Speaker 2>I spent fuel, but it is a problem, and it's

1725
01:25:26.159 --> 01:25:28.880
<v Speaker 2>a problem that you know, depending on where, Like the

1726
01:25:28.880 --> 01:25:31.479
<v Speaker 2>fins didn't screw around. They've just built a proper storage

1727
01:25:31.479 --> 01:25:34.039
<v Speaker 2>site for their reactors and that's the end of that. Right.

1728
01:25:34.199 --> 01:25:36.000
<v Speaker 2>America has gone around in circles on this for a

1729
01:25:36.079 --> 01:25:38.039
<v Speaker 2>long time, and it's where you get into this problem

1730
01:25:38.039 --> 01:25:40.399
<v Speaker 2>of why should one state take the waste of another state?

1731
01:25:40.640 --> 01:25:43.239
<v Speaker 2>You know, D D that's right, not in my backyard.

1732
01:25:43.399 --> 01:25:48.119
<v Speaker 2>It's exactly the issue, all right. You know, we've talked

1733
01:25:48.119 --> 01:25:52.239
<v Speaker 2>about how the current administration has been pretty negative on renewables.

1734
01:25:52.520 --> 01:25:55.640
<v Speaker 2>Here's an initiative that the current administration started with the

1735
01:25:55.640 --> 01:25:58.000
<v Speaker 2>Department Ergy called the Reactor Pilot Program. So it's from

1736
01:25:58.000 --> 01:26:00.800
<v Speaker 2>a set of executive orders in June this year, the

1737
01:26:00.840 --> 01:26:03.680
<v Speaker 2>goal of finding three new reactor designs to be tested

1738
01:26:03.680 --> 01:26:05.840
<v Speaker 2>by July of twenty twenty six, which is crazy fast.

1739
01:26:05.960 --> 01:26:06.840
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that's crazy.

1740
01:26:07.039 --> 01:26:11.359
<v Speaker 2>So they like a dozen candidates were announced in August,

1741
01:26:11.800 --> 01:26:13.359
<v Speaker 2>and I can go through a few of them. All

1742
01:26:13.439 --> 01:26:16.520
<v Speaker 2>these companies existed before these announcements, but some of them,

1743
01:26:17.279 --> 01:26:19.560
<v Speaker 2>what's happened is the government has just made it easier

1744
01:26:19.600 --> 01:26:22.199
<v Speaker 2>to get fuel and to move forward. So I'll rattle

1745
01:26:22.199 --> 01:26:25.000
<v Speaker 2>off a few of them. Alo Atomics, they wish the

1746
01:26:25.039 --> 01:26:27.600
<v Speaker 2>company started twenty twenty three. They're trying to spill, build

1747
01:26:27.640 --> 01:26:31.920
<v Speaker 2>small module reactors for data centers. Doing a sodium cooled

1748
01:26:31.920 --> 01:26:35.560
<v Speaker 2>thermal reactor ten megawatts, and they've got fuel. They're starting

1749
01:26:35.560 --> 01:26:37.720
<v Speaker 2>to do testing. They're trying to make that July twenty,

1750
01:26:37.720 --> 01:26:40.800
<v Speaker 2>twenty sixth deadline. Ontari's nuclear also started in twenty three.

1751
01:26:40.840 --> 01:26:43.239
<v Speaker 2>They were working in the military and space areas with

1752
01:26:43.680 --> 01:26:47.520
<v Speaker 2>tryso fuel. That's those fuel balls, the pebble bed fuel concept.

1753
01:26:47.560 --> 01:26:50.439
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, yeah, but using sodium heat pipes to transfer

1754
01:26:50.479 --> 01:26:54.600
<v Speaker 2>the heat. So dry reactor, no water involved, using these

1755
01:26:54.640 --> 01:26:57.199
<v Speaker 2>balls and then heating up sodium and heat pipes. Talking

1756
01:26:57.199 --> 01:27:01.439
<v Speaker 2>about a five hundred kilowat reactor. Design is supposed to

1757
01:27:01.439 --> 01:27:03.720
<v Speaker 2>be able to work even in vacuum, so it could

1758
01:27:03.720 --> 01:27:04.840
<v Speaker 2>work up in space as well.

1759
01:27:04.960 --> 01:27:07.359
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, So you're going to go into each of

1760
01:27:07.359 --> 01:27:08.520
<v Speaker 1>these in detail after right.

1761
01:27:08.600 --> 01:27:11.039
<v Speaker 2>I don't want to now because it's too many of them, right.

1762
01:27:10.960 --> 01:27:13.840
<v Speaker 1>Oh okay, I just wanted to know if these were

1763
01:27:14.119 --> 01:27:17.680
<v Speaker 1>safer or as safe as conventional nuclear.

1764
01:27:18.199 --> 01:27:20.079
<v Speaker 2>Well, let's go through them, and then I'll talk about

1765
01:27:20.079 --> 01:27:22.039
<v Speaker 2>the categories because it's basically they only come down to

1766
01:27:22.039 --> 01:27:23.680
<v Speaker 2>three or four categories. So once the plus is a

1767
01:27:23.720 --> 01:27:28.199
<v Speaker 2>mind of this, our friend Steve Smith asked me about

1768
01:27:28.239 --> 01:27:31.399
<v Speaker 2>deep fission. It's also one of these companies in this competition.

1769
01:27:32.039 --> 01:27:34.840
<v Speaker 2>Their idea is to build a regular pressurized water reactor,

1770
01:27:35.079 --> 01:27:37.680
<v Speaker 2>but to only make it thirty inches wide so that

1771
01:27:37.720 --> 01:27:40.680
<v Speaker 2>they can put it underground a mile by drilling a

1772
01:27:40.720 --> 01:27:43.760
<v Speaker 2>thirty inch borehole so you don't need a containment vessel

1773
01:27:43.760 --> 01:27:46.199
<v Speaker 2>and if things go terribly wrong, just pour concrete over

1774
01:27:46.239 --> 01:27:49.000
<v Speaker 2>top of them. Forget about. Wow, it's kind of nuts,

1775
01:27:49.279 --> 01:27:51.359
<v Speaker 2>but yeah, put it. Shove the reactor down this big

1776
01:27:51.399 --> 01:27:53.680
<v Speaker 2>hole on a cable with a mile long water line

1777
01:27:53.680 --> 01:27:57.439
<v Speaker 2>and a mile long steamline. It's naturally pressurized. Is that

1778
01:27:57.520 --> 01:28:00.600
<v Speaker 2>deep underground? And you pump water down to it and

1779
01:28:00.640 --> 01:28:02.760
<v Speaker 2>then heat it up with the reactor and steam comes

1780
01:28:02.800 --> 01:28:04.359
<v Speaker 2>back up. Interesting idea.

1781
01:28:04.399 --> 01:28:07.359
<v Speaker 1>Interesting seems a little dangerous.

1782
01:28:06.920 --> 01:28:10.439
<v Speaker 2>Though, Yeah, but you know if it's in hard.

1783
01:28:10.279 --> 01:28:13.720
<v Speaker 1>Rock earthquakes, you know, and a good earthquake and that

1784
01:28:13.760 --> 01:28:14.159
<v Speaker 1>thing is.

1785
01:28:14.199 --> 01:28:17.359
<v Speaker 2>Getting crushed and might might be problematic, Bye bye, right,

1786
01:28:17.439 --> 01:28:21.399
<v Speaker 2>and only make a reactor thirty inches wide. That's really tiny,

1787
01:28:21.560 --> 01:28:25.640
<v Speaker 2>and a pressurized road reactor at that. It's interesting. Last Energy,

1788
01:28:25.760 --> 01:28:27.960
<v Speaker 2>established back in twenty nineteen, is a spin off of

1789
01:28:28.000 --> 01:28:30.359
<v Speaker 2>a group called the Energy Impact Center, building a twenty

1790
01:28:30.399 --> 01:28:36.720
<v Speaker 2>megawatt pressurized water air cooled small rad Sholi reactor Okola,

1791
01:28:37.239 --> 01:28:40.079
<v Speaker 2>it's been around since twenty thirteen. It's been a while now,

1792
01:28:40.159 --> 01:28:43.479
<v Speaker 2>building a sodium cooled fast reactor in the fifty megawatt class.

1793
01:28:43.640 --> 01:28:45.920
<v Speaker 2>They got a lot of funding from tech billionaires. They're

1794
01:28:45.920 --> 01:28:49.239
<v Speaker 2>looking for building data center power.

1795
01:28:49.279 --> 01:28:54.880
<v Speaker 1>Okay, you're going to need it. Natural resources, bolten salt reactors, Yeah,

1796
01:28:55.000 --> 01:28:55.760
<v Speaker 1>hunter megawatts.

1797
01:28:55.800 --> 01:28:59.479
<v Speaker 2>We'll talk more about the darling of dot net rocks. Yeah.

1798
01:29:00.159 --> 01:29:03.159
<v Speaker 2>Radiant Industries back from twenty twenty eight a one megawatt

1799
01:29:03.159 --> 01:29:07.159
<v Speaker 2>reactor called Klidos, which is together that tryso fuel helium cold.

1800
01:29:07.319 --> 01:29:09.159
<v Speaker 2>That's supposed to be able to fit and container, so

1801
01:29:09.399 --> 01:29:13.199
<v Speaker 2>pretty small terrestrial energy. It's actually a Canadian company, although

1802
01:29:13.199 --> 01:29:16.039
<v Speaker 2>they also have a US group building an integral molten

1803
01:29:16.119 --> 01:29:20.119
<v Speaker 2>salt reactor, so that is graphite moderated molten fluorine just

1804
01:29:20.239 --> 01:29:23.640
<v Speaker 2>using regular uranium as a fuel. Three hundred and ninety

1805
01:29:23.680 --> 01:29:27.760
<v Speaker 2>two megawatt. This is a normal sized reactor, really terrestrial energy.

1806
01:29:28.079 --> 01:29:31.520
<v Speaker 2>And then the lar Atomics another one of the trisos

1807
01:29:31.520 --> 01:29:34.199
<v Speaker 2>building a two hundred and fifty megawat tryso helium cold.

1808
01:29:34.359 --> 01:29:36.319
<v Speaker 2>So let's talk to this three there's a couple of

1809
01:29:36.319 --> 01:29:38.600
<v Speaker 2>pressurized water reactors. We've talked about those before. You know

1810
01:29:38.640 --> 01:29:43.279
<v Speaker 2>how those work. There is a couple of sodium fast reactors.

1811
01:29:43.319 --> 01:29:44.600
<v Speaker 2>Actually we can do that later because I'm going to

1812
01:29:44.640 --> 01:29:46.960
<v Speaker 2>talk about terra power. And there is the molt salt reactors.

1813
01:29:46.960 --> 01:29:49.119
<v Speaker 2>So the only one to really mission here that's different

1814
01:29:49.239 --> 01:29:52.720
<v Speaker 2>are the trisos. So this is the idea of building

1815
01:29:52.760 --> 01:29:57.840
<v Speaker 2>these sort of baseball size or tennis ball size spheres

1816
01:29:58.520 --> 01:30:03.279
<v Speaker 2>that are a common donation of both carbon and uranium fuel,

1817
01:30:03.520 --> 01:30:06.479
<v Speaker 2>so that they're self contained. They're naturally protected fuel. They

1818
01:30:06.520 --> 01:30:08.800
<v Speaker 2>can't melt down. They expand as the heat up, which

1819
01:30:08.800 --> 01:30:10.800
<v Speaker 2>actually slows the reaction on the They get really hot

1820
01:30:11.079 --> 01:30:12.359
<v Speaker 2>six seventy eight hundred degrees.

1821
01:30:12.399 --> 01:30:14.479
<v Speaker 1>So is uranium on the inside, carbon on the outside

1822
01:30:14.520 --> 01:30:15.479
<v Speaker 1>or is it all mixed together?

1823
01:30:15.560 --> 01:30:19.479
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, and silicon carbide is the protective layer. Okay, So

1824
01:30:20.399 --> 01:30:22.720
<v Speaker 2>they're very hard, it's hard to manufacture. They appear to

1825
01:30:22.720 --> 01:30:25.800
<v Speaker 2>be unrecyclable. Nobody's really figured out how to recycle these things. Okay,

1826
01:30:25.880 --> 01:30:28.199
<v Speaker 2>but you get a bunch of them together and they

1827
01:30:28.279 --> 01:30:30.840
<v Speaker 2>naturally heat up a lot. They get to hundreds of

1828
01:30:30.880 --> 01:30:32.600
<v Speaker 2>degrees and then you just have to pump up fuel

1829
01:30:32.640 --> 01:30:35.560
<v Speaker 2>over it. So one of the reactor designs used sodium

1830
01:30:35.560 --> 01:30:38.039
<v Speaker 2>heat pipes, So just make the heat pipes hot, sodium

1831
01:30:38.079 --> 01:30:41.479
<v Speaker 2>flows by, it doesn't even get contaminated by it, and

1832
01:30:41.600 --> 01:30:44.000
<v Speaker 2>that's your heat. Most of the time they use helium. Yeah,

1833
01:30:44.039 --> 01:30:46.800
<v Speaker 2>the most common trisode designs for pebble bed you let

1834
01:30:46.880 --> 01:30:50.079
<v Speaker 2>superheat the helium. We don't have mature reactor designs for helium.

1835
01:30:50.119 --> 01:30:52.760
<v Speaker 2>But helium cannot become radioactive. It's also hard to contain.

1836
01:30:52.880 --> 01:30:56.720
<v Speaker 2>It's hard to contain. Yeah, but it's safe stuff relatively speaking.

1837
01:30:57.119 --> 01:30:58.880
<v Speaker 2>In the past, we've read into problems with pebble beds

1838
01:30:58.880 --> 01:31:00.800
<v Speaker 2>heating up their containers so much they cause the containers

1839
01:31:00.840 --> 01:31:05.560
<v Speaker 2>to crack and then possibly even catch fire yanks. So

1840
01:31:06.640 --> 01:31:09.600
<v Speaker 2>you just have to keep moving these pebbles through their store,

1841
01:31:10.079 --> 01:31:13.119
<v Speaker 2>through the reaction area, and then down into container, and

1842
01:31:13.159 --> 01:31:16.640
<v Speaker 2>it gradually as they get older, you know they're going

1843
01:31:16.720 --> 01:31:18.960
<v Speaker 2>to become a stable and then you have to take

1844
01:31:19.000 --> 01:31:21.880
<v Speaker 2>them out, so you have a continuous refueling process. You

1845
01:31:21.920 --> 01:31:24.119
<v Speaker 2>just keep replacing the balls as they get old enough.

1846
01:31:24.159 --> 01:31:25.760
<v Speaker 2>The last few years, So.

1847
01:31:25.720 --> 01:31:27.880
<v Speaker 1>Are these things designed by the same guys who designed

1848
01:31:27.880 --> 01:31:31.039
<v Speaker 1>the McDonald's play Place ballpit Basically, it's kind of what,

1849
01:31:31.520 --> 01:31:34.359
<v Speaker 1>don't go jumping in there, little hot It's kind of

1850
01:31:34.359 --> 01:31:35.479
<v Speaker 1>what I envision in my head.

1851
01:31:35.600 --> 01:31:38.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, but imagine a column with these spheres just sort

1852
01:31:38.720 --> 01:31:40.760
<v Speaker 2>of trickling down and then they get to the bottom,

1853
01:31:40.840 --> 01:31:43.079
<v Speaker 2>they come out and they're sort of assessed for what

1854
01:31:43.119 --> 01:31:44.960
<v Speaker 2>their relative energy is, and so that they go into

1855
01:31:44.960 --> 01:31:46.479
<v Speaker 2>a storage, you know, or do they go back in

1856
01:31:46.520 --> 01:31:50.159
<v Speaker 2>and come back around again. But yeah, it's are relatively

1857
01:31:50.159 --> 01:31:53.800
<v Speaker 2>immature technologies, but it's possible, and this might be just

1858
01:31:53.840 --> 01:31:55.439
<v Speaker 2>the thing to catalyze it. I would point out that

1859
01:31:55.439 --> 01:31:58.079
<v Speaker 2>the US government is not funding any of these so far.

1860
01:31:58.680 --> 01:32:00.800
<v Speaker 2>They all have their own fund. The main thing that

1861
01:32:00.840 --> 01:32:03.000
<v Speaker 2>government has done with this new pilot I deal with

1862
01:32:03.000 --> 01:32:06.520
<v Speaker 2>the DOE has provided them fuel. So up until now,

1863
01:32:06.600 --> 01:32:09.039
<v Speaker 2>most of these companies have had a tough time actually

1864
01:32:09.039 --> 01:32:11.560
<v Speaker 2>maturing the designs enough to be even able to get fuel.

1865
01:32:11.560 --> 01:32:14.640
<v Speaker 2>But the rules have changed. The two other category is

1866
01:32:14.680 --> 01:32:17.079
<v Speaker 2>pressurized water. In that cateador is a few trisos. There's

1867
01:32:17.079 --> 01:32:18.319
<v Speaker 2>a couple of molten salts, and I want to talk

1868
01:32:18.319 --> 01:32:20.600
<v Speaker 2>about salts apperately, and then we'll talk about the sodium fasts.

1869
01:32:21.239 --> 01:32:25.640
<v Speaker 2>So back to molten salt reactors. Typically with thorium. The

1870
01:32:25.760 --> 01:32:30.960
<v Speaker 2>Chinese with their TSMRILF one in WIWI built started construction

1871
01:32:31.039 --> 01:32:33.279
<v Speaker 2>back in twenty eighteen and went critical in twenty twenty

1872
01:32:33.279 --> 01:32:36.600
<v Speaker 2>three with a two megawatt thermal test reactor, so not

1873
01:32:36.640 --> 01:32:40.079
<v Speaker 2>making electricity, just generating heat. They lit that reactor in

1874
01:32:40.119 --> 01:32:45.640
<v Speaker 2>twenty three with your enriched uranium twenty four. Last year

1875
01:32:45.760 --> 01:32:49.880
<v Speaker 2>they started adding thorium to the liquid fuel and successfully

1876
01:32:49.880 --> 01:32:52.039
<v Speaker 2>brightened into uranium two thirty three. So one of the

1877
01:32:52.039 --> 01:32:55.560
<v Speaker 2>secrets ofium salt reactors, which we talked about before, is

1878
01:32:55.600 --> 01:32:58.640
<v Speaker 2>that you turn thorium into uranium to use it as

1879
01:32:58.640 --> 01:33:01.640
<v Speaker 2>a fuel of uranium two thirty eight, which is the

1880
01:33:01.680 --> 01:33:04.520
<v Speaker 2>most common kind for uranium two thirty five, the enriched

1881
01:33:04.560 --> 01:33:08.359
<v Speaker 2>kind are you using uranium two thirty three. So that

1882
01:33:08.399 --> 01:33:11.319
<v Speaker 2>plant has been completely successful. They've now proven they can

1883
01:33:11.359 --> 01:33:14.319
<v Speaker 2>breathe thorium into you two thirty three, and so there's

1884
01:33:14.359 --> 01:33:17.760
<v Speaker 2>now a one hundred megawatt plant to another test plant

1885
01:33:18.199 --> 01:33:21.840
<v Speaker 2>for twenty thirty five this year. In September, I got

1886
01:33:21.840 --> 01:33:24.159
<v Speaker 2>a chance to tour Copenhagen Atomics.

1887
01:33:24.239 --> 01:33:24.439
<v Speaker 1>Nice.

1888
01:33:24.600 --> 01:33:26.960
<v Speaker 2>They reached out to me and they liked their shows

1889
01:33:26.960 --> 01:33:29.199
<v Speaker 2>that we've done, and they offered to take us for

1890
01:33:29.239 --> 01:33:31.359
<v Speaker 2>a walk around. So I spent time with Thomas the CEO.

1891
01:33:31.399 --> 01:33:33.399
<v Speaker 2>Spend a whole day with them. Actually, as he said,

1892
01:33:33.399 --> 01:33:34.800
<v Speaker 2>it's the first time. It took him three hours to

1893
01:33:34.840 --> 01:33:39.239
<v Speaker 2>do the one hour tour. I had a lot of questions.

1894
01:33:39.800 --> 01:33:41.760
<v Speaker 2>Would you want a tour with me? It's a lot

1895
01:33:41.760 --> 01:33:44.039
<v Speaker 2>of work, right. Well, we had a good time. You know,

1896
01:33:44.119 --> 01:33:45.399
<v Speaker 2>he loves what he's talking about.

1897
01:33:45.479 --> 01:33:48.600
<v Speaker 1>I would want to tour with you for a distillery again, Yeah,

1898
01:33:48.640 --> 01:33:50.520
<v Speaker 1>because the questions.

1899
01:33:50.079 --> 01:33:52.279
<v Speaker 2>The same thing, right, And that's we went deep into

1900
01:33:52.359 --> 01:33:55.760
<v Speaker 2>the into the questions. So his concept is a container

1901
01:33:55.840 --> 01:33:59.960
<v Speaker 2>size reactor really for industry. That's about forty mega WA.

1902
01:34:00.039 --> 01:34:05.000
<v Speaker 2>It's electrical in one hundred megawatts of heat using thorium,

1903
01:34:05.039 --> 01:34:08.119
<v Speaker 2>with a reactor designed to be replaced on a routine basis,

1904
01:34:08.439 --> 01:34:10.079
<v Speaker 2>so you kind of fuel it. Once you run it

1905
01:34:10.119 --> 01:34:12.399
<v Speaker 2>for a few years, you drain the fuel out of it.

1906
01:34:12.479 --> 01:34:16.119
<v Speaker 2>You take the entire reactor, simply out store it until

1907
01:34:16.159 --> 01:34:19.000
<v Speaker 2>it can be reprocessed and put another reactor in. Is

1908
01:34:19.079 --> 01:34:22.520
<v Speaker 2>design they call the onion design, so imagine onion sitting

1909
01:34:22.520 --> 01:34:23.960
<v Speaker 2>on its end. So it's got a set of layers

1910
01:34:24.000 --> 01:34:25.960
<v Speaker 2>in it that a utter most layer is what they

1911
01:34:26.000 --> 01:34:29.840
<v Speaker 2>call a thorium breeding layer, where neutrons are hitting that

1912
01:34:29.920 --> 01:34:32.680
<v Speaker 2>thorium and turning into the uranium two thirty three. The

1913
01:34:32.720 --> 01:34:37.760
<v Speaker 2>next layer in is heavy water deudized water, and the

1914
01:34:37.840 --> 01:34:41.680
<v Speaker 2>reason for the deuterium is it reflects neutrons well, so

1915
01:34:41.720 --> 01:34:44.960
<v Speaker 2>it's their neutron reflector. Instead of graphite, which a lot

1916
01:34:44.960 --> 01:34:48.640
<v Speaker 2>of other reactor designs, including the original thorium reactors used,

1917
01:34:49.159 --> 01:34:54.479
<v Speaker 2>you're using deterium because you can control the reactor by

1918
01:34:54.479 --> 01:34:57.479
<v Speaker 2>the amount of deuterium available. If the water flows out,

1919
01:34:57.560 --> 01:35:00.159
<v Speaker 2>the reactor stops, and so you got to keep that

1920
01:35:00.199 --> 01:35:02.000
<v Speaker 2>water cool. Because the reactor is running in like six

1921
01:35:02.119 --> 01:35:04.439
<v Speaker 2>hundred degrees, the water's going to stay under one hundred

1922
01:35:04.439 --> 01:35:06.119
<v Speaker 2>so he doesn't boil, but if it does, it actually

1923
01:35:06.159 --> 01:35:09.119
<v Speaker 2>slows the reactor down, so it's safe. So then on

1924
01:35:09.159 --> 01:35:10.840
<v Speaker 2>the inside you have the fuel layer, and this will

1925
01:35:10.880 --> 01:35:15.520
<v Speaker 2>be a lifthium fluorine and thorium fluorine and uranium fluorine salts.

1926
01:35:16.039 --> 01:35:19.039
<v Speaker 2>And then in the centuries this adjustable. The center part

1927
01:35:19.039 --> 01:35:21.960
<v Speaker 2>of this is an adjustable heavy water level, so the

1928
01:35:22.000 --> 01:35:24.000
<v Speaker 2>amount of heavy water in there controls your action. You

1929
01:35:24.000 --> 01:35:26.279
<v Speaker 2>put in more water, reactor goes faster, take out the

1930
01:35:26.319 --> 01:35:31.159
<v Speaker 2>water reactor goes slower, so they are sufficiently funded to

1931
01:35:31.239 --> 01:35:33.640
<v Speaker 2>build their first test reactor. The funny part is they

1932
01:35:33.640 --> 01:35:35.840
<v Speaker 2>can't run that reactor in Denmark without they don't have

1933
01:35:36.000 --> 01:35:38.159
<v Speaker 2>they can't get a license for it. Then Denmark has

1934
01:35:38.159 --> 01:35:40.119
<v Speaker 2>no new reactors, so they're actually going to set up

1935
01:35:40.159 --> 01:35:42.079
<v Speaker 2>the rig in Switzerland where they're able to get a

1936
01:35:42.159 --> 01:35:44.319
<v Speaker 2>test in twenty twenty seven. They have the money to

1937
01:35:44.359 --> 01:35:46.079
<v Speaker 2>do this, they just got to actually do it. They're

1938
01:35:46.079 --> 01:35:47.720
<v Speaker 2>going to run a reactor for a few months just

1939
01:35:47.760 --> 01:35:49.840
<v Speaker 2>to prove the behavior and then do all the testing.

1940
01:35:50.319 --> 01:35:51.880
<v Speaker 2>One of the biggest things I saw on the tour

1941
01:35:52.479 --> 01:35:54.640
<v Speaker 2>is that they're building all of these test suites for

1942
01:35:54.760 --> 01:35:57.560
<v Speaker 2>working with the molten salts. These are very high temperature salts,

1943
01:35:58.119 --> 01:36:01.640
<v Speaker 2>and they sell these rigs to university, so they're essentially

1944
01:36:01.720 --> 01:36:04.399
<v Speaker 2>training the next generation of engineers in Bolton Salt.

1945
01:36:04.600 --> 01:36:05.119
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

1946
01:36:05.399 --> 01:36:07.159
<v Speaker 2>And one of the things that Thomas showed me that

1947
01:36:07.319 --> 01:36:10.800
<v Speaker 2>was really a deep insight for me was, you know,

1948
01:36:10.840 --> 01:36:13.600
<v Speaker 2>fluorine salts are very corrosive. They'll destroy a lot of

1949
01:36:13.640 --> 01:36:17.840
<v Speaker 2>They showed me some things that fluorine salt had eaten,

1950
01:36:17.560 --> 01:36:20.600
<v Speaker 2>and so they've got these metals that can tolerate it.

1951
01:36:20.600 --> 01:36:22.920
<v Speaker 2>But those metals can only take so much heat. So

1952
01:36:22.960 --> 01:36:24.920
<v Speaker 2>one of the most complicated parts in any of these

1953
01:36:24.920 --> 01:36:28.199
<v Speaker 2>reactors is the heat exchanger. So you want to flow

1954
01:36:28.279 --> 01:36:33.680
<v Speaker 2>these radioactive salts through pipes beside other pipes that have

1955
01:36:33.800 --> 01:36:36.000
<v Speaker 2>non radioactive salts in it, so you transfer the heat

1956
01:36:36.000 --> 01:36:38.880
<v Speaker 2>from one to the other, keep the radioactive stuff in

1957
01:36:38.920 --> 01:36:42.399
<v Speaker 2>the container, and then non radioactive hot salts flow back out.

1958
01:36:43.199 --> 01:36:47.439
<v Speaker 2>Somewhere around six hundred degrees celsius, the metal starts to warp,

1959
01:36:48.279 --> 01:36:51.159
<v Speaker 2>starts to melt, get soft, and you don't want any

1960
01:36:51.159 --> 01:36:52.920
<v Speaker 2>of that stuff to leak. Like all of that is bad.

1961
01:36:53.800 --> 01:36:57.640
<v Speaker 2>And so even though the fuel itself can go up

1962
01:36:57.640 --> 01:36:59.840
<v Speaker 2>to one thy twelve hundred degrees, you just can't con

1963
01:37:00.039 --> 01:37:02.199
<v Speaker 2>pain it well. So the part of the challenge this

1964
01:37:02.279 --> 01:37:04.840
<v Speaker 2>is running into the temperatures where the materials will hold together.

1965
01:37:05.359 --> 01:37:07.680
<v Speaker 2>Most of the work I see Copenhagen Atomics doing in

1966
01:37:07.720 --> 01:37:10.760
<v Speaker 2>those labs is about finding the right materials to just

1967
01:37:10.840 --> 01:37:15.520
<v Speaker 2>be able to tolerate all last be durable enough. I have

1968
01:37:15.600 --> 01:37:18.399
<v Speaker 2>several hours of interviews of an interview that spending that

1969
01:37:18.479 --> 01:37:20.119
<v Speaker 2>day with Thomas I could make into a show. At

1970
01:37:20.119 --> 01:37:22.720
<v Speaker 2>some point of one of those radio lab edits sort

1971
01:37:22.760 --> 01:37:24.479
<v Speaker 2>of summarize a lot of this, but it was very

1972
01:37:24.520 --> 01:37:27.800
<v Speaker 2>insightful for me just to understand how challenging working these

1973
01:37:27.840 --> 01:37:31.199
<v Speaker 2>high temperatures are, and they different reactor designs approaches to

1974
01:37:31.199 --> 01:37:35.239
<v Speaker 2>doing this. Brilliant people. I'm really pleased to have met them. Okay,

1975
01:37:35.319 --> 01:37:37.680
<v Speaker 2>let's talk about Terra Power. So this is a project

1976
01:37:37.680 --> 01:37:39.239
<v Speaker 2>going all the way back to two thousand and six

1977
01:37:40.159 --> 01:37:41.880
<v Speaker 2>that Bill Gates backed along with a bunch of other

1978
01:37:41.880 --> 01:37:44.239
<v Speaker 2>people to build a reactor called Natrium. So this is

1979
01:37:44.279 --> 01:37:48.920
<v Speaker 2>a sodium cooled fast reactor three hundred and fifty megawatts.

1980
01:37:49.640 --> 01:37:53.920
<v Speaker 2>Their clever innovation is that they're going to use fluorine salts,

1981
01:37:54.000 --> 01:37:58.399
<v Speaker 2>the lithium berrillium salts for heat exchange transfer and storage.

1982
01:37:58.840 --> 01:38:00.439
<v Speaker 2>The idea of being they can store off of that

1983
01:38:00.479 --> 01:38:03.479
<v Speaker 2>fluid that you could actually put out five hundred megawatts

1984
01:38:03.479 --> 01:38:05.600
<v Speaker 2>of energy for up to five hours because you've got

1985
01:38:05.720 --> 01:38:09.720
<v Speaker 2>enough hot salts. And again one of the problems you

1986
01:38:09.720 --> 01:38:11.960
<v Speaker 2>have with sodium. We've been building sodium cool fast reactors

1987
01:38:11.960 --> 01:38:13.479
<v Speaker 2>for a long time. So this is using the fast

1988
01:38:13.520 --> 01:38:18.039
<v Speaker 2>neutron instead of the thermal neutron. When neutrons are split

1989
01:38:18.199 --> 01:38:23.039
<v Speaker 2>off of your radioactive elements like uranium. They're moving very quickly,

1990
01:38:23.560 --> 01:38:27.600
<v Speaker 2>and that's great if they hit another nucleus of an atom,

1991
01:38:27.720 --> 01:38:29.720
<v Speaker 2>but they don't hit as often because they're moving so fast.

1992
01:38:30.079 --> 01:38:32.119
<v Speaker 2>When they do hit, they tend to split everything, which

1993
01:38:32.159 --> 01:38:35.439
<v Speaker 2>is great. You don't tend to make higher compounds as often.

1994
01:38:35.880 --> 01:38:37.479
<v Speaker 2>But in order to have it work, you have to

1995
01:38:37.560 --> 01:38:41.000
<v Speaker 2>run into higher reaction rates and so, and you use

1996
01:38:41.479 --> 01:38:44.199
<v Speaker 2>molten sodium because sodium is transparent to the neutrons as

1997
01:38:44.239 --> 01:38:47.159
<v Speaker 2>opposed to water. Water tends to absorb neutrons, which generates

1998
01:38:47.199 --> 01:38:50.039
<v Speaker 2>heat and slows the neutrons down. That's why we work

1999
01:38:50.039 --> 01:38:52.199
<v Speaker 2>in what we call the thermal range instead of the

2000
01:38:52.239 --> 01:38:54.920
<v Speaker 2>fast range when you're dealing with a pressurized water reactor.

2001
01:38:56.119 --> 01:38:59.840
<v Speaker 2>Same for when we use graphite. Graphite slows those neutrons down.

2002
01:39:01.079 --> 01:39:05.560
<v Speaker 2>Heavy water in the Copenhagen Thomas design or in the

2003
01:39:05.600 --> 01:39:08.000
<v Speaker 2>can Do design, same thing slows the neutrons down. But

2004
01:39:08.039 --> 01:39:10.520
<v Speaker 2>if you keep the neutrons moving fast, you have some

2005
01:39:10.600 --> 01:39:13.439
<v Speaker 2>advantages in the exchange. For it's risky and they're hard

2006
01:39:13.479 --> 01:39:15.560
<v Speaker 2>to keep stable, and the main thing is it's hard

2007
01:39:15.560 --> 01:39:17.159
<v Speaker 2>to power them up and power them down. So what's

2008
01:39:17.159 --> 01:39:19.680
<v Speaker 2>clever about the natrium design is you run the reactor

2009
01:39:19.720 --> 01:39:21.359
<v Speaker 2>at the same speed all the time. You get it

2010
01:39:21.359 --> 01:39:23.760
<v Speaker 2>to speed and you leave it there because it's just

2011
01:39:23.920 --> 01:39:26.560
<v Speaker 2>making more hot salt for you, and then you're cooling

2012
01:39:26.560 --> 01:39:29.199
<v Speaker 2>that salt by making electricity with it. But you don't

2013
01:39:29.199 --> 01:39:31.119
<v Speaker 2>have to slow it down when the demand goes down.

2014
01:39:31.159 --> 01:39:33.680
<v Speaker 2>You just store the excess heat. So it's a way

2015
01:39:33.720 --> 01:39:36.720
<v Speaker 2>to keep the reactor more stable. Very smart, also a

2016
01:39:36.760 --> 01:39:40.319
<v Speaker 2>great nuclear waste burner. One of the reasons we've always

2017
01:39:40.319 --> 01:39:42.680
<v Speaker 2>pushed on fast reactors is they're a way to break

2018
01:39:42.760 --> 01:39:47.119
<v Speaker 2>higher actinides. Now salt reactors can also do that because

2019
01:39:47.119 --> 01:39:49.279
<v Speaker 2>they can burn for so long, they can keep the

2020
01:39:49.279 --> 01:39:53.359
<v Speaker 2>fuel in for far longer. What's the problem with sodium

2021
01:39:53.399 --> 01:39:55.840
<v Speaker 2>cold reactors. Well, the first off is sodium is opaque,

2022
01:39:55.840 --> 01:39:57.960
<v Speaker 2>so you can't see anything. If you want to do

2023
01:39:58.000 --> 01:39:59.560
<v Speaker 2>any work on the reactor, you have to drain all

2024
01:39:59.560 --> 01:40:02.800
<v Speaker 2>the sodium, and I mean all of the sodium, because

2025
01:40:02.840 --> 01:40:06.359
<v Speaker 2>that sodium will burn in air and explode in water.

2026
01:40:06.479 --> 01:40:08.920
<v Speaker 2>So it's very hard to clean out a reactor enough

2027
01:40:08.920 --> 01:40:10.720
<v Speaker 2>to do any inspections and so forth with it. But

2028
01:40:10.760 --> 01:40:12.600
<v Speaker 2>not that you do that very often, but it's part

2029
01:40:12.640 --> 01:40:15.239
<v Speaker 2>of the challenge of working with sodium gold reactors. It's

2030
01:40:15.279 --> 01:40:17.840
<v Speaker 2>easy to have fires when you have molten high temperature

2031
01:40:17.920 --> 01:40:21.520
<v Speaker 2>molten solelyum flowing around. That stuff burns really, really easily.

2032
01:40:21.600 --> 01:40:25.520
<v Speaker 1>I heard a cool science thing that because sodium is

2033
01:40:25.560 --> 01:40:29.560
<v Speaker 1>so opaque, that light travels through it slower than the

2034
01:40:29.600 --> 01:40:32.800
<v Speaker 1>speed of light. And they did an experiment where I

2035
01:40:32.800 --> 01:40:34.960
<v Speaker 1>don't know as you could actually see the light moving

2036
01:40:35.000 --> 01:40:39.039
<v Speaker 1>through it, but it was measurable that it was very

2037
01:40:39.079 --> 01:40:40.039
<v Speaker 1>slow getting through.

2038
01:40:40.199 --> 01:40:43.079
<v Speaker 2>Eventually, Yeah, I mean light speed of light is always

2039
01:40:43.079 --> 01:40:46.800
<v Speaker 2>slower through every medium, right, but yeah, very slow through that.

2040
01:40:47.319 --> 01:40:49.920
<v Speaker 2>So there is They actually have a sight in camera

2041
01:40:50.279 --> 01:40:54.520
<v Speaker 2>Wyoming where they've built the salt side, so the storage

2042
01:40:54.560 --> 01:40:56.880
<v Speaker 2>and the heating system. They don't actually have the final

2043
01:40:56.960 --> 01:41:00.399
<v Speaker 2>license to run nukes through it yet. They're to build

2044
01:41:00.399 --> 01:41:03.880
<v Speaker 2>the radioactive side, but they are close, and again with

2045
01:41:03.920 --> 01:41:08.199
<v Speaker 2>the current regime and Washington, it's probably easier for them

2046
01:41:08.199 --> 01:41:09.840
<v Speaker 2>to get right now. They also just took a six

2047
01:41:09.880 --> 01:41:13.319
<v Speaker 2>hundred and fifty million dollars investment from in Nvidia. Wow,

2048
01:41:13.880 --> 01:41:18.680
<v Speaker 2>so there's plenty of money around. These guys aren't started

2049
01:41:18.720 --> 01:41:21.399
<v Speaker 2>for money. They also have a design they want to

2050
01:41:21.439 --> 01:41:24.520
<v Speaker 2>build a new reactor called a molten chloride fast reactor

2051
01:41:24.560 --> 01:41:27.119
<v Speaker 2>sometime in the future. So instead of using chluorine, using

2052
01:41:27.159 --> 01:41:30.399
<v Speaker 2>chlorine salts, and you're dealing with the same compound. It's

2053
01:41:30.399 --> 01:41:32.720
<v Speaker 2>in the same part of the periodic table. So they

2054
01:41:32.720 --> 01:41:35.880
<v Speaker 2>have new reactory sides. But terror power is probably going

2055
01:41:35.960 --> 01:41:38.560
<v Speaker 2>to get to heat and they're gonna build a sodium reactor.

2056
01:41:38.600 --> 01:41:42.479
<v Speaker 2>We'll see how that goes cool. Hey, one last reactor

2057
01:41:42.479 --> 01:41:44.600
<v Speaker 2>technology is from the University of Illinois. Just found this

2058
01:41:44.640 --> 01:41:50.159
<v Speaker 2>recently using molten salt systems to for experiments, but now

2059
01:41:50.159 --> 01:41:53.000
<v Speaker 2>they've actually applied for a license to produce electricity at

2060
01:41:53.039 --> 01:41:58.840
<v Speaker 2>the university. This is that microreactor that Kirim was asking about,

2061
01:41:58.880 --> 01:42:01.920
<v Speaker 2>like where I get reactor? So there's about twenty five

2062
01:42:01.960 --> 01:42:05.000
<v Speaker 2>microreactors at different university chemists around the US. Right, they're

2063
01:42:05.000 --> 01:42:08.039
<v Speaker 2>not really for making power, they're for doing nuclear experiments.

2064
01:42:08.479 --> 01:42:12.119
<v Speaker 2>And so this little reactor is using triso fuel. So

2065
01:42:12.159 --> 01:42:17.640
<v Speaker 2>back to those pebbles again, right, and they are encased

2066
01:42:17.680 --> 01:42:20.479
<v Speaker 2>in graphite and use helium to transfer the heat to

2067
01:42:20.479 --> 01:42:26.239
<v Speaker 2>spin a turbine to general electricity. And so they take

2068
01:42:26.279 --> 01:42:28.920
<v Speaker 2>these spheres, they stack them up as as raw assemblies

2069
01:42:28.920 --> 01:42:31.479
<v Speaker 2>and hexagonal as sddily all underground. This is called the

2070
01:42:31.680 --> 01:42:34.319
<v Speaker 2>is made by a company called Chronos. This reactor design

2071
01:42:34.399 --> 01:42:37.439
<v Speaker 2>and the helium loop runs at about six megapascals at

2072
01:42:37.479 --> 01:42:40.239
<v Speaker 2>about six hundred degrees so plenty hot. Again mentioned that

2073
01:42:40.279 --> 01:42:42.319
<v Speaker 2>magic number six hundred degrees because that's where you can

2074
01:42:42.359 --> 01:42:44.800
<v Speaker 2>make the exchange your work and they're heating up that's

2075
01:42:44.800 --> 01:42:50.239
<v Speaker 2>fahrenheit or that's celsius celsius. Okay, yeah, so six degrees yeah,

2076
01:42:50.600 --> 01:42:57.319
<v Speaker 2>six degrees celsius is what eleven hundred fahrenheit, so hot,

2077
01:42:56.439 --> 01:43:01.800
<v Speaker 2>do not touch touch, bad near And so they want

2078
01:43:01.800 --> 01:43:04.720
<v Speaker 2>to use that helium loop because it can't become radioactive.

2079
01:43:04.800 --> 01:43:08.039
<v Speaker 2>Going over those triso fuel to heat up a salt

2080
01:43:08.079 --> 01:43:15.720
<v Speaker 2>loop of potassium nitrides and sodium nitrides at low pressure

2081
01:43:16.119 --> 01:43:20.319
<v Speaker 2>so not heavily pressurized, but also very hot five hundred degrees,

2082
01:43:20.319 --> 01:43:23.319
<v Speaker 2>and then that does heat exchange agains steam to generate electricity.

2083
01:43:23.479 --> 01:43:26.840
<v Speaker 2>So nothing too fancy, but they've passed the NRC review,

2084
01:43:26.960 --> 01:43:29.000
<v Speaker 2>so they expect to get a permit to do this

2085
01:43:29.039 --> 01:43:31.920
<v Speaker 2>assembly next year and to actually generate electricity for the

2086
01:43:32.000 --> 01:43:33.960
<v Speaker 2>University of Illinois twenty nine.

2087
01:43:34.000 --> 01:43:34.279
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

2088
01:43:34.439 --> 01:43:37.680
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, interesting, isn't it. That is interesting. Now, to be clear,

2089
01:43:37.880 --> 01:43:39.039
<v Speaker 2>this is not something for your.

2090
01:43:38.880 --> 01:43:43.079
<v Speaker 1>Home, No, right, Sorry, Kiaren, this is yeah, it's it's

2091
01:43:43.079 --> 01:43:46.199
<v Speaker 1>still a whole building. Right, It's a microreactor, but it's

2092
01:43:46.199 --> 01:43:51.079
<v Speaker 1>not like it's not a generator. It's big, all right.

2093
01:43:51.079 --> 01:43:52.640
<v Speaker 2>We got to talk about the AI side of this

2094
01:43:52.720 --> 01:43:55.199
<v Speaker 2>equation because all of the tech companies have been funding

2095
01:43:55.640 --> 01:43:58.399
<v Speaker 2>different nuclear projects that most people have heard about Microsoft

2096
01:43:58.399 --> 01:44:00.600
<v Speaker 2>and Three Mile Island right in the news for the

2097
01:44:00.640 --> 01:44:03.600
<v Speaker 2>past couple of years. Here where Microsoft went to Constellation,

2098
01:44:03.640 --> 01:44:05.520
<v Speaker 2>who the current owners of the Three Mile Island site.

2099
01:44:05.520 --> 01:44:07.399
<v Speaker 2>Three Mile Island had the meltdown in seventy seven on

2100
01:44:07.479 --> 01:44:11.000
<v Speaker 2>Reactor one two, but Reactor one continue to operate and

2101
01:44:11.239 --> 01:44:14.560
<v Speaker 2>was only shut down in twenty nineteen for costs. Still

2102
01:44:14.560 --> 01:44:16.479
<v Speaker 2>had twenty years of run life in it, but it

2103
01:44:16.520 --> 01:44:18.680
<v Speaker 2>was cheaper to make power with natural gas, and so

2104
01:44:18.720 --> 01:44:21.720
<v Speaker 2>they turned it off. It wasn't even worth operating. So

2105
01:44:21.840 --> 01:44:25.439
<v Speaker 2>Microsoft has basically committed to buying power from it for

2106
01:44:25.439 --> 01:44:29.119
<v Speaker 2>twenty years. And Constellation's actually certain it's going to cost

2107
01:44:29.119 --> 01:44:31.560
<v Speaker 2>about two billion dollars to restart, but they should be

2108
01:44:31.600 --> 01:44:32.520
<v Speaker 2>running in twenty twenty eight.

2109
01:44:32.600 --> 01:44:35.279
<v Speaker 1>Are they going to run with the new the new

2110
01:44:35.359 --> 01:44:36.920
<v Speaker 1>style of reactor or they don't.

2111
01:44:37.239 --> 01:44:39.359
<v Speaker 2>This is just restarting the old reactor, which again it's

2112
01:44:39.399 --> 01:44:42.720
<v Speaker 2>expensive to operate, but it's been running for decades. Just fine,

2113
01:44:42.760 --> 01:44:44.119
<v Speaker 2>It's just they turned it off because it was too

2114
01:44:44.159 --> 01:44:46.680
<v Speaker 2>expensive to run compared to the cheap natural gas, which,

2115
01:44:46.720 --> 01:44:48.600
<v Speaker 2>by the way, natural gas is not that cheap these days.

2116
01:44:48.720 --> 01:44:52.039
<v Speaker 1>Right, It's pretty obvious why the AI companies want to,

2117
01:44:53.520 --> 01:44:55.720
<v Speaker 1>you know, are interested in nuclear power because they need

2118
01:44:55.840 --> 01:44:58.359
<v Speaker 1>a lot of energy for their data centers, which, right,

2119
01:44:58.399 --> 01:45:01.880
<v Speaker 1>that's why they want to locate the in close proximity

2120
01:45:01.920 --> 01:45:05.319
<v Speaker 1>to these power plants. We have the same issue that

2121
01:45:06.039 --> 01:45:12.680
<v Speaker 1>happened in Waterford, Connecticut, where Dominion E otherwise known as

2122
01:45:12.720 --> 01:45:16.479
<v Speaker 1>Millstone Nuclear Power Plant sits at the at the edge

2123
01:45:16.479 --> 01:45:20.560
<v Speaker 1>of the ocean there or the sound, and there was

2124
01:45:21.079 --> 01:45:23.760
<v Speaker 1>something on the table for some company to come in

2125
01:45:23.800 --> 01:45:25.439
<v Speaker 1>and buy up the land next to it and put

2126
01:45:25.439 --> 01:45:28.159
<v Speaker 1>in a data center, and everybody said no.

2127
01:45:28.760 --> 01:45:32.159
<v Speaker 2>So yeah, well, let's talk about the AI side in

2128
01:45:32.159 --> 01:45:33.560
<v Speaker 2>just a minute, because I would just want to say,

2129
01:45:33.560 --> 01:45:37.239
<v Speaker 2>Microsoft's not unique. Google just announced they're restarting the Cedar

2130
01:45:37.319 --> 01:45:39.880
<v Speaker 2>Rapids Idaho reactor has been shut down for five years.

2131
01:45:39.920 --> 01:45:42.479
<v Speaker 2>This six hundred megawaute reactor that was built and operated

2132
01:45:42.479 --> 01:45:45.199
<v Speaker 2>in originally nineteen seventy five, shut down in twenty twenty

2133
01:45:45.239 --> 01:45:48.880
<v Speaker 2>again for cost, and Google's basically said we'll buy power

2134
01:45:48.880 --> 01:45:51.600
<v Speaker 2>from it for twenty five years. Yeah, and so'll they

2135
01:45:51.640 --> 01:45:53.640
<v Speaker 2>say it'll take for four more years to restart, so

2136
01:45:53.680 --> 01:45:56.039
<v Speaker 2>somewhere in twenty nine it'll be up and running again.

2137
01:45:57.439 --> 01:46:01.399
<v Speaker 2>Amazon announced funding They put five million dollars into a

2138
01:46:01.439 --> 01:46:04.760
<v Speaker 2>new reactor design and called the XE one hundred. This

2139
01:46:04.840 --> 01:46:10.479
<v Speaker 2>is another triso helium cooled high temperature gas reactor. The

2140
01:46:10.520 --> 01:46:15.000
<v Speaker 2>individual reactors eighty megawats electrical two hundred megawats heat their

2141
01:46:15.039 --> 01:46:17.720
<v Speaker 2>normal configuration, and they've got a license to build one

2142
01:46:17.720 --> 01:46:20.199
<v Speaker 2>in Washington State with four reactors for three hundred and

2143
01:46:20.239 --> 01:46:24.279
<v Speaker 2>twenty megawatts. And again Amazon committing to buying all that power.

2144
01:46:24.800 --> 01:46:26.680
<v Speaker 2>So all the tech companies have been doing this. And

2145
01:46:26.720 --> 01:46:29.520
<v Speaker 2>then you know, the other category of question I got

2146
01:46:29.520 --> 01:46:31.760
<v Speaker 2>a ton of coming into this was what is the

2147
01:46:31.800 --> 01:46:35.479
<v Speaker 2>impact of AI and power generation? So Jake Fox, friend

2148
01:46:35.479 --> 01:46:38.720
<v Speaker 2>of Charles on the Blue Sky, Mats Carlson, who's been

2149
01:46:38.760 --> 01:46:41.199
<v Speaker 2>on the show before, saying, talk to us about what's

2150
01:46:41.239 --> 01:46:43.880
<v Speaker 2>the impact on AI, and I sort of gave this

2151
01:46:43.920 --> 01:46:47.319
<v Speaker 2>away at the beginning of the show. Is a AI

2152
01:46:47.399 --> 01:46:50.600
<v Speaker 2>technologies and the building of data centers responsible for increasing power.

2153
01:46:50.720 --> 01:46:53.920
<v Speaker 2>Energy is like, well, yeah, a little, But the bigger

2154
01:46:53.960 --> 01:46:56.960
<v Speaker 2>issue here is power prices were going up anyway because

2155
01:46:57.000 --> 01:47:00.199
<v Speaker 2>the cost of improving the industry trastructure to support or

2156
01:47:00.319 --> 01:47:04.079
<v Speaker 2>the large diversity of power is costing money and taking time.

2157
01:47:04.279 --> 01:47:07.520
<v Speaker 2>And while it's easy to blame various individual points for

2158
01:47:07.600 --> 01:47:11.319
<v Speaker 2>why that's happening, it's not the only reason. We have

2159
01:47:11.399 --> 01:47:13.600
<v Speaker 2>put a lot of power online. In many cases, we

2160
01:47:13.640 --> 01:47:15.520
<v Speaker 2>have power in that's not even on the grid yet

2161
01:47:15.520 --> 01:47:17.359
<v Speaker 2>because it's taking so long to get it added to

2162
01:47:17.439 --> 01:47:20.319
<v Speaker 2>the grid. They're not used to new power adding to

2163
01:47:20.319 --> 01:47:23.239
<v Speaker 2>the grid all the time. It destabilizes it. The grid

2164
01:47:23.279 --> 01:47:26.479
<v Speaker 2>has been built, especially in the US, to increase power

2165
01:47:26.520 --> 01:47:30.239
<v Speaker 2>production roughly at half a percent per year, and suddenly

2166
01:47:30.239 --> 01:47:32.399
<v Speaker 2>we're asking it to grow faster than that one or

2167
01:47:32.439 --> 01:47:35.640
<v Speaker 2>two percent, and they're just not built for it. So

2168
01:47:35.720 --> 01:47:39.159
<v Speaker 2>they're struggling to adopt new power sources, to deal with

2169
01:47:39.199 --> 01:47:41.800
<v Speaker 2>bi directional loads, to deal with intermitt and power, to

2170
01:47:41.840 --> 01:47:44.439
<v Speaker 2>deal with storage, none of the things that these grids

2171
01:47:44.479 --> 01:47:49.000
<v Speaker 2>were originally built for, and we have North America has

2172
01:47:49.039 --> 01:47:53.920
<v Speaker 2>consistently underspent on maintaining infrastructure. The infrastructure wasn't built for

2173
01:47:54.000 --> 01:47:57.119
<v Speaker 2>this it hadn't been well maintained. It was built to

2174
01:47:57.199 --> 01:48:01.079
<v Speaker 2>the minimum necessary for the basic uses, and now it's

2175
01:48:01.119 --> 01:48:04.039
<v Speaker 2>not being able to cope with what we're asking to do,

2176
01:48:04.319 --> 01:48:07.760
<v Speaker 2>including the additional demand of data centers.

2177
01:48:07.479 --> 01:48:10.439
<v Speaker 1>And the politicians have historically kicked the can down the

2178
01:48:10.520 --> 01:48:11.960
<v Speaker 1>road for everybody else to deal with.

2179
01:48:12.319 --> 01:48:15.279
<v Speaker 2>Sure, because it's maintenance, right, and maintenance isn't sexy.

2180
01:48:15.560 --> 01:48:15.960
<v Speaker 1>Nope.

2181
01:48:17.279 --> 01:48:20.520
<v Speaker 2>I would also say that the perception of the amount

2182
01:48:20.560 --> 01:48:26.079
<v Speaker 2>of power that AI needs is distorted. These companies, these

2183
01:48:26.119 --> 01:48:30.640
<v Speaker 2>tech companies are using shell companies. They're creating entities to

2184
01:48:30.760 --> 01:48:35.479
<v Speaker 2>hide who's building the data centers. They're also ordering up

2185
01:48:35.520 --> 01:48:37.199
<v Speaker 2>as much stuff as they can anywhere they can get

2186
01:48:37.239 --> 01:48:40.840
<v Speaker 2>a deal, they will immediately or request power for it,

2187
01:48:40.880 --> 01:48:43.199
<v Speaker 2>whether they're going to build on there or not off

2188
01:48:43.239 --> 01:48:45.960
<v Speaker 2>of the same Compani's got half a dozen different contracts

2189
01:48:45.960 --> 01:48:48.079
<v Speaker 2>at once, but probably only has the ingredients to build

2190
01:48:48.079 --> 01:48:51.800
<v Speaker 2>in one location. So there's more land being grabbed up,

2191
01:48:51.840 --> 01:48:54.760
<v Speaker 2>there's more orders for parts they possibly needed. This is

2192
01:48:54.760 --> 01:48:57.319
<v Speaker 2>why ram prices and other things are going through the roof,

2193
01:48:57.680 --> 01:49:01.000
<v Speaker 2>because they're putting out all these outstanding orders to justify

2194
01:49:01.039 --> 01:49:03.920
<v Speaker 2>the demand for licensing and power in a lot of

2195
01:49:03.920 --> 01:49:06.119
<v Speaker 2>these locations. We don't know how many of these are

2196
01:49:06.159 --> 01:49:08.840
<v Speaker 2>even going to be built, right, irrespective of the AI

2197
01:49:08.880 --> 01:49:12.800
<v Speaker 2>bubble bursting or not. They're deliberately putting in multiple applications,

2198
01:49:13.279 --> 01:49:15.800
<v Speaker 2>deliberately putting in multiple orders. It's one of those things

2199
01:49:15.800 --> 01:49:18.399
<v Speaker 2>where hey, I want to get one of these, but

2200
01:49:18.439 --> 01:49:21.159
<v Speaker 2>they're scarce, so I order five, right, and if I

2201
01:49:21.199 --> 01:49:23.560
<v Speaker 2>get one comes through, then I'll cancel the others. Well,

2202
01:49:23.600 --> 01:49:27.239
<v Speaker 2>that's happening with these data centers, right. They're ordering as

2203
01:49:27.319 --> 01:49:29.359
<v Speaker 2>much as they can possibly order it, as many places

2204
01:49:29.399 --> 01:49:31.880
<v Speaker 2>they can, all the chances they get some of what

2205
01:49:31.960 --> 01:49:35.720
<v Speaker 2>they think they're going to need. It's all projection, right, Nobody,

2206
01:49:35.880 --> 01:49:38.479
<v Speaker 2>Their demands aren't that high, and so you're seeing these

2207
01:49:38.479 --> 01:49:41.880
<v Speaker 2>asymmetrical results where some companies are saying, we have GPUs

2208
01:49:41.920 --> 01:49:43.640
<v Speaker 2>in storage with know where to plug them in. We've

2209
01:49:43.640 --> 01:49:46.000
<v Speaker 2>built on a day center, we can't get power. And

2210
01:49:46.520 --> 01:49:49.119
<v Speaker 2>the crazy part that's happening lately, we're going to put

2211
01:49:49.279 --> 01:49:53.399
<v Speaker 2>data centers in space right right, which we talked briefly

2212
01:49:53.439 --> 01:49:56.640
<v Speaker 2>on the space side, but there's more to that story, right, Like,

2213
01:49:58.199 --> 01:50:01.359
<v Speaker 2>this is a really complicated had set of problems being

2214
01:50:01.520 --> 01:50:06.560
<v Speaker 2>exacerbated by this competition to overbuild in many different locations,

2215
01:50:06.600 --> 01:50:09.640
<v Speaker 2>and the pressure is showing. The reason the space thing

2216
01:50:09.720 --> 01:50:13.119
<v Speaker 2>showed up is that every kind of power development now

2217
01:50:13.199 --> 01:50:15.760
<v Speaker 2>has gone up in price, even the cheapest power like

2218
01:50:16.079 --> 01:50:19.319
<v Speaker 2>combined cycle natural gas plants. The prices on the stuff

2219
01:50:19.359 --> 01:50:23.720
<v Speaker 2>is soled. Yeah, there's currently licensing out for one hundred

2220
01:50:23.720 --> 01:50:26.920
<v Speaker 2>and twenty new gas fower plants by twenty thirty in

2221
01:50:26.960 --> 01:50:30.039
<v Speaker 2>the US alone for eighty gigawatts of power. Wow. The

2222
01:50:30.119 --> 01:50:33.840
<v Speaker 2>previous five years they built thirty five gigawatts, and that

2223
01:50:34.000 --> 01:50:37.039
<v Speaker 2>was rapid building because it was the cheapest power. Part

2224
01:50:37.079 --> 01:50:38.760
<v Speaker 2>of the issue you're running into is you can only

2225
01:50:38.760 --> 01:50:41.800
<v Speaker 2>build these steam turbines so fast. There's three companies that

2226
01:50:41.880 --> 01:50:45.520
<v Speaker 2>make steam turbines at scale, gee Verona, Siemens, and Missionbishi.

2227
01:50:46.199 --> 01:50:50.640
<v Speaker 2>All of them are back ordered hugely. So you know,

2228
01:50:52.039 --> 01:50:54.159
<v Speaker 2>five years ago, if you wanted to build a gas

2229
01:50:54.159 --> 01:50:56.800
<v Speaker 2>power plant, you could expect to pay about one thousand

2230
01:50:56.880 --> 01:51:00.840
<v Speaker 2>dollars a kilowatt, right, and you typically we take you

2231
01:51:00.880 --> 01:51:03.279
<v Speaker 2>thirty months to build that thing, and you'll be a

2232
01:51:03.439 --> 01:51:05.880
<v Speaker 2>three hundred to five hundred megawat power plant in about

2233
01:51:05.880 --> 01:51:10.439
<v Speaker 2>thousand old kill. What Now it's three times that price, right?

2234
01:51:10.520 --> 01:51:13.359
<v Speaker 2>And there used to be you know a one point

2235
01:51:13.399 --> 01:51:16.159
<v Speaker 2>two gigawat power plant which would take thirty months to build.

2236
01:51:16.199 --> 01:51:19.520
<v Speaker 2>Now they're talking twice that five years. And in many cases,

2237
01:51:19.520 --> 01:51:22.279
<v Speaker 2>if you're talking about the normal power plant builds, when

2238
01:51:22.279 --> 01:51:25.720
<v Speaker 2>you're dealing with your normal half percent growth, part of

2239
01:51:25.760 --> 01:51:28.439
<v Speaker 2>your agreement with your government for building that power plant

2240
01:51:28.520 --> 01:51:30.119
<v Speaker 2>is that you will build it on time. And so

2241
01:51:30.199 --> 01:51:32.199
<v Speaker 2>now this shortage of supply is meant that a bunch

2242
01:51:32.239 --> 01:51:35.119
<v Speaker 2>of normal power plants are going to get canceled because

2243
01:51:35.119 --> 01:51:37.399
<v Speaker 2>they can't deliver on time because of the supply chain

2244
01:51:37.439 --> 01:51:39.600
<v Speaker 2>pressures that have you put on this. It's got to

2245
01:51:39.600 --> 01:51:42.520
<v Speaker 2>the point where other companies are desperate to build termines.

2246
01:51:42.560 --> 01:51:44.279
<v Speaker 2>So this is this company I've been paying attention to

2247
01:51:44.319 --> 01:51:48.640
<v Speaker 2>called Boomer Supersonic. They want to build a supersonic biz jet. Right,

2248
01:51:48.680 --> 01:51:51.680
<v Speaker 2>we have no supersonic commercial aircraft anymore since Concor was gone.

2249
01:51:51.680 --> 01:51:55.000
<v Speaker 2>They're gone. So one point five seven mock aircraft. I'll

2250
01:51:55.039 --> 01:51:56.600
<v Speaker 2>probably never get a chance to fly in it. But

2251
01:51:56.640 --> 01:51:58.640
<v Speaker 2>they made in order to get an engine to fly

2252
01:51:58.760 --> 01:52:01.079
<v Speaker 2>that fast, they did a customer turbine out of a

2253
01:52:01.079 --> 01:52:06.359
<v Speaker 2>company called Florida Turbine Technologies, and recently they got a

2254
01:52:06.439 --> 01:52:09.920
<v Speaker 2>three hundred million dollar funding out of the Silicon Valley

2255
01:52:10.560 --> 01:52:13.920
<v Speaker 2>to build turbines for energy generation. So they're going to

2256
01:52:14.079 --> 01:52:17.720
<v Speaker 2>hijack the production line at Florida Turbine instead of making

2257
01:52:17.720 --> 01:52:22.039
<v Speaker 2>the turbides for the aircraft, to make them for electricity generation.

2258
01:52:23.000 --> 01:52:24.199
<v Speaker 2>Now they're gonna be able to use that money to

2259
01:52:24.199 --> 01:52:26.760
<v Speaker 2>fund the aircraft because they were struggling for enough money. Right,

2260
01:52:26.800 --> 01:52:29.199
<v Speaker 2>They're going to be testing of turbine for general energy

2261
01:52:29.239 --> 01:52:32.720
<v Speaker 2>generation in twenty twenty six, production in twenty thirty. It's crazy,

2262
01:52:32.800 --> 01:52:37.720
<v Speaker 2>that's a different world. Well, it's what And we're all

2263
01:52:39.000 --> 01:52:42.319
<v Speaker 2>veterans of the dot combo right and of the dot

2264
01:52:42.359 --> 01:52:45.720
<v Speaker 2>com bubble, and we can feel that this is a bubble.

2265
01:52:46.119 --> 01:52:49.119
<v Speaker 2>And so there's only so much time before this bubble

2266
01:52:49.199 --> 01:52:50.920
<v Speaker 2>ends and a lot of these orders go away. In

2267
01:52:50.960 --> 01:52:53.640
<v Speaker 2>the meantime, you're hurting a lot of people, right, you're

2268
01:52:53.640 --> 01:52:55.880
<v Speaker 2>disrupting a lot of industry. Don't try and build a

2269
01:52:55.920 --> 01:52:57.680
<v Speaker 2>PC right now, you're going to play five times the

2270
01:52:57.760 --> 01:53:00.439
<v Speaker 2>price for RAM. And that's just because of back orders,

2271
01:53:00.479 --> 01:53:03.520
<v Speaker 2>not because there's not much ram and needed. But everybody's

2272
01:53:03.520 --> 01:53:07.359
<v Speaker 2>been protecting these straight lines in demand which are never true,

2273
01:53:08.000 --> 01:53:12.159
<v Speaker 2>and sending their groups out to order and doing redundant

2274
01:53:12.239 --> 01:53:15.279
<v Speaker 2>ordering multiple times two, three, four times more what they need.

2275
01:53:15.600 --> 01:53:17.560
<v Speaker 2>And if just simply wipe the market out, it is

2276
01:53:17.600 --> 01:53:21.319
<v Speaker 2>another like we had coming out of the pandemic, a

2277
01:53:21.520 --> 01:53:26.479
<v Speaker 2>supply chain inflation crisis where the demand you're over demanding

2278
01:53:26.520 --> 01:53:28.479
<v Speaker 2>the supply chain at the point where prices are just

2279
01:53:28.520 --> 01:53:30.600
<v Speaker 2>going through the roof for folks who need stuff, and

2280
01:53:30.640 --> 01:53:35.159
<v Speaker 2>that just means everything's more expensive. And for what, right

2281
01:53:35.359 --> 01:53:37.479
<v Speaker 2>you know, if this bubble actually bursts in twenty twenty six,

2282
01:53:37.600 --> 01:53:39.079
<v Speaker 2>like so much of this is going to go away,

2283
01:53:39.399 --> 01:53:42.520
<v Speaker 2>and the guy and someone who put their hands on

2284
01:53:42.680 --> 01:53:44.800
<v Speaker 2>expensive parts because they needed them at the time are

2285
01:53:44.840 --> 01:53:47.960
<v Speaker 2>going to be in a terrible situation. The joke is

2286
01:53:48.560 --> 01:53:51.880
<v Speaker 2>these new power generations technologies, especially wind and solar, like

2287
01:53:51.880 --> 01:53:56.079
<v Speaker 2>they have no consumables. The wind always blows, you know,

2288
01:53:56.439 --> 01:53:59.479
<v Speaker 2>intermittent at times. The sun comes up every day, and

2289
01:53:59.520 --> 01:54:02.039
<v Speaker 2>so they key getting cheaper. Same for batteries. The batteries

2290
01:54:02.039 --> 01:54:04.720
<v Speaker 2>just keep getting cheaper because really once you build them,

2291
01:54:04.720 --> 01:54:06.840
<v Speaker 2>they last. Right, We're getting twenty years out of these

2292
01:54:06.880 --> 01:54:09.680
<v Speaker 2>batteries like that combination is pretty powerful. And so this

2293
01:54:10.119 --> 01:54:12.880
<v Speaker 2>every other power source has this consumable problem. Right, and

2294
01:54:12.960 --> 01:54:16.079
<v Speaker 2>here we've got these non consumables. If we weren't being irrational,

2295
01:54:16.159 --> 01:54:19.000
<v Speaker 2>this would be pretty easy to do. But we've got

2296
01:54:19.439 --> 01:54:22.560
<v Speaker 2>we've got problems stacked on a problem. As these new

2297
01:54:22.560 --> 01:54:25.359
<v Speaker 2>technologies have emerged, it has made the grid more complicated.

2298
01:54:25.560 --> 01:54:27.439
<v Speaker 2>It's taking time for the grid and the especially the

2299
01:54:27.520 --> 01:54:30.159
<v Speaker 2>regulators to get into play, to start actually working with it.

2300
01:54:30.239 --> 01:54:32.840
<v Speaker 2>Right now, we've throw this extra layer on top of it,

2301
01:54:32.880 --> 01:54:37.159
<v Speaker 2>with this bubble of building out AI technologies excessively, and

2302
01:54:37.199 --> 01:54:41.720
<v Speaker 2>it's complicated everything largely unnecessarily, and we know it will

2303
01:54:41.760 --> 01:54:45.720
<v Speaker 2>go away soon. Yeah, and all this disruption will be

2304
01:54:45.720 --> 01:54:46.079
<v Speaker 2>for naught.

2305
01:54:46.359 --> 01:54:50.079
<v Speaker 1>Maybe we should just shift a little bit to economics

2306
01:54:50.119 --> 01:54:55.399
<v Speaker 1>because the certainly the United States stock market is being

2307
01:54:55.439 --> 01:54:58.119
<v Speaker 1>propped up by all these AI stocks. Oh sure, and

2308
01:54:58.159 --> 01:55:01.159
<v Speaker 1>the rest of them are family I mean, they're not failing,

2309
01:55:01.199 --> 01:55:01.760
<v Speaker 1>but they're.

2310
01:55:01.800 --> 01:55:03.399
<v Speaker 2>They're not doing particularly well.

2311
01:55:03.479 --> 01:55:06.359
<v Speaker 1>You know, they're they're not doing any Yeah, they're not

2312
01:55:06.439 --> 01:55:11.680
<v Speaker 1>doing well. And so all it takes is one default

2313
01:55:12.039 --> 01:55:16.920
<v Speaker 1>on a loan by one of these AI companies and

2314
01:55:17.199 --> 01:55:19.880
<v Speaker 1>you know, you're pulling at the thread and it's going

2315
01:55:19.920 --> 01:55:22.319
<v Speaker 1>to unravel. And we know it's going to unravel next year.

2316
01:55:22.479 --> 01:55:24.520
<v Speaker 1>So but it's going to have an effect on the

2317
01:55:24.720 --> 01:55:27.079
<v Speaker 1>entire economy, the world economy.

2318
01:55:27.239 --> 01:55:29.319
<v Speaker 2>Yep, Well, the S and P five hundred for better

2319
01:55:29.399 --> 01:55:32.920
<v Speaker 2>or worse, represents about fifty percent of the equity value

2320
01:55:32.960 --> 01:55:35.239
<v Speaker 2>of the planet. Yeah, eighty percent of the value in

2321
01:55:35.239 --> 01:55:39.319
<v Speaker 2>the US. So when it takes a twenty thirty percent haircut,

2322
01:55:39.319 --> 01:55:43.199
<v Speaker 2>which is what this insanity ending, looks like everybody's.

2323
01:55:42.720 --> 01:55:44.600
<v Speaker 1>Going to fall. So just in the last few weeks,

2324
01:55:44.600 --> 01:55:47.880
<v Speaker 1>silver has gone from like twenty three or thirty to

2325
01:55:48.239 --> 01:55:51.880
<v Speaker 1>sixty eight dollars an ounce. It's just shooting up. And

2326
01:55:51.880 --> 01:55:53.960
<v Speaker 1>that tells you that people are protecting their money. The

2327
01:55:54.000 --> 01:55:55.840
<v Speaker 1>smart money is taking it out of the market and

2328
01:55:55.880 --> 01:56:00.239
<v Speaker 1>putting it into precious metals, and silver is rising highigher

2329
01:56:00.319 --> 01:56:01.359
<v Speaker 1>than even gold is.

2330
01:56:01.520 --> 01:56:05.359
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so what you're seeing, you know, to answer the question,

2331
01:56:05.560 --> 01:56:08.159
<v Speaker 2>is they are responsible when you're seeing an amplification of

2332
01:56:08.159 --> 01:56:11.000
<v Speaker 2>a set of problems that we're going to raise prices anyway,

2333
01:56:12.399 --> 01:56:14.800
<v Speaker 2>and they're raising them faster. And it's amazing to hear

2334
01:56:14.840 --> 01:56:17.039
<v Speaker 2>the good news stories like and yet batteries are still

2335
01:56:17.079 --> 01:56:19.119
<v Speaker 2>cheaper with all of this pressure, right, So it makes

2336
01:56:19.119 --> 01:56:21.199
<v Speaker 2>you wonder when the crazy is over, like, how cheap

2337
01:56:21.199 --> 01:56:23.479
<v Speaker 2>our battery is going to be? Because I suspect they're

2338
01:56:23.479 --> 01:56:26.680
<v Speaker 2>going to be even less. And I mean, on one hand,

2339
01:56:26.720 --> 01:56:29.439
<v Speaker 2>I'm happy to see money being put into innovating on

2340
01:56:29.479 --> 01:56:32.039
<v Speaker 2>a bunch of these new power generation technologies. I would

2341
01:56:32.079 --> 01:56:34.520
<v Speaker 2>like small module reactors to be mature. There's a bunch

2342
01:56:34.560 --> 01:56:38.840
<v Speaker 2>of advantages to building small reactors. You know those big reactors,

2343
01:56:38.840 --> 01:56:41.960
<v Speaker 2>the AP one thousands and the EPRs where they last

2344
01:56:41.960 --> 01:56:44.840
<v Speaker 2>sixty years. It means that you consistently have a problem

2345
01:56:44.960 --> 01:56:47.560
<v Speaker 2>every few decades, you have to relearn how to make

2346
01:56:47.600 --> 01:56:50.720
<v Speaker 2>come again, all right, and with new models of it.

2347
01:56:50.800 --> 01:56:53.560
<v Speaker 2>And so if we've got into a model where like

2348
01:56:53.600 --> 01:56:56.279
<v Speaker 2>the Copenhagen model, and many of these are the reactors models,

2349
01:56:56.279 --> 01:56:58.359
<v Speaker 2>where they're replaced every few years, it means you would

2350
01:56:58.359 --> 01:57:02.039
<v Speaker 2>have a continuous production of new small reactors. And that

2351
01:57:02.319 --> 01:57:05.479
<v Speaker 2>allows for more optimization and a more stable market for

2352
01:57:05.520 --> 01:57:05.880
<v Speaker 2>all of these.

2353
01:57:06.199 --> 01:57:09.039
<v Speaker 1>So a smarter workforce, right, I mean, you don't have

2354
01:57:09.119 --> 01:57:12.359
<v Speaker 1>to people who built those reactors don't have to worry

2355
01:57:12.399 --> 01:57:14.239
<v Speaker 1>about it for sixty years. So in the meantime, another

2356
01:57:14.279 --> 01:57:17.279
<v Speaker 1>generation has to come up and learn all over again.

2357
01:57:17.479 --> 01:57:20.319
<v Speaker 2>Right. But if we had a continuous supply line so

2358
01:57:20.359 --> 01:57:23.079
<v Speaker 2>that you're building reactors every day and you have factories

2359
01:57:23.119 --> 01:57:26.199
<v Speaker 2>that do that, and you're replacing reactors that last to

2360
01:57:26.880 --> 01:57:32.399
<v Speaker 2>five years, then that also means more intivations, better reactors.

2361
01:57:32.399 --> 01:57:34.520
<v Speaker 2>We don't it's hard to build a better reactors on

2362
01:57:34.560 --> 01:57:36.520
<v Speaker 2>it if you only do it once every fifty years.

2363
01:57:36.600 --> 01:57:39.720
<v Speaker 1>Now would you say that they're the trend? And I

2364
01:57:39.760 --> 01:57:41.159
<v Speaker 1>don't know if you know this or not or what

2365
01:57:41.199 --> 01:57:42.840
<v Speaker 1>you think, but what do you think about the trend

2366
01:57:42.880 --> 01:57:45.840
<v Speaker 1>of having reactors not at the building level, but maybe

2367
01:57:45.880 --> 01:57:49.680
<v Speaker 1>at the town level or the ten thousand people level

2368
01:57:49.720 --> 01:57:51.920
<v Speaker 1>of the ten thousand home service level.

2369
01:57:52.000 --> 01:57:54.239
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I think that's we're going to see that emerge.

2370
01:57:54.439 --> 01:57:57.560
<v Speaker 2>That's what small modular really speaks to. And again, if

2371
01:57:57.560 --> 01:57:59.600
<v Speaker 2>you're not doing fuel handling. It's one of the things

2372
01:57:59.600 --> 01:58:02.479
<v Speaker 2>about these small reactors is they run for two or

2373
01:58:02.520 --> 01:58:04.680
<v Speaker 2>five years without any fuel handling at Also, the most

2374
01:58:04.720 --> 01:58:08.319
<v Speaker 2>dangerous exercise doesn't happen in that site, so they can

2375
01:58:08.399 --> 01:58:11.640
<v Speaker 2>be closer to people than regular reactors are. Fuel handling

2376
01:58:11.680 --> 01:58:13.520
<v Speaker 2>is a dangerous part. That's where trouble happens.

2377
01:58:13.560 --> 01:58:13.680
<v Speaker 1>Right.

2378
01:58:13.720 --> 01:58:15.920
<v Speaker 2>But this idea that you drop a reactor into some

2379
01:58:16.000 --> 01:58:18.600
<v Speaker 2>kind of containment, even underground, and it runs for two

2380
01:58:18.720 --> 01:58:20.960
<v Speaker 2>years with nothing being done to it. At the end

2381
01:58:20.960 --> 01:58:22.960
<v Speaker 2>of two years, they show back up, take the whole

2382
01:58:22.960 --> 01:58:26.399
<v Speaker 2>assembly away and put another one in. It's safer, it's

2383
01:58:26.399 --> 01:58:29.119
<v Speaker 2>more reliable, and it maintains a skill set to allow

2384
01:58:29.159 --> 01:58:31.720
<v Speaker 2>them to continuously improve. And maybe this is the way

2385
01:58:31.720 --> 01:58:34.279
<v Speaker 2>we end up doing it. It's a stupid way, this

2386
01:58:34.439 --> 01:58:37.079
<v Speaker 2>AI padic and these tech companies dumping money into it,

2387
01:58:37.399 --> 01:58:40.560
<v Speaker 2>but it's still a way, and so if it comes

2388
01:58:40.560 --> 01:58:43.119
<v Speaker 2>out that way, we'll be better off as society or

2389
01:58:43.159 --> 01:58:45.520
<v Speaker 2>as a civilization. I just wish we didn't have to

2390
01:58:45.520 --> 01:58:48.159
<v Speaker 2>do it quite this dumb. Yeah, that's what I got, brother.

2391
01:58:48.239 --> 01:58:51.479
<v Speaker 2>Are we going to talk about fusion? It's not a

2392
01:58:51.520 --> 01:58:54.560
<v Speaker 2>lot of good news on the fusion side. Eider Projects

2393
01:58:54.560 --> 01:58:56.800
<v Speaker 2>slowly calling along like all of the company. You know

2394
01:58:56.920 --> 01:58:59.439
<v Speaker 2>that old story and I said eight years ago when

2395
01:59:00.079 --> 01:59:02.680
<v Speaker 2>when the scientists are well funded, they don't talk, right,

2396
01:59:02.800 --> 01:59:06.039
<v Speaker 2>So like Commonwealth, Fusion well funded. A couple of news

2397
01:59:06.039 --> 01:59:08.239
<v Speaker 2>stories here and there, but we haven't seen anything. They've

2398
01:59:08.239 --> 01:59:11.239
<v Speaker 2>got enough money. They're building their reactor, right, there's no

2399
01:59:11.399 --> 01:59:14.880
<v Speaker 2>news to talk about it. Tider keeps inching along, you know,

2400
01:59:15.119 --> 01:59:17.960
<v Speaker 2>spending billions and billions, but they put out their steady

2401
01:59:17.960 --> 01:59:19.880
<v Speaker 2>streaming new stories. But they're not finished, yet no light

2402
01:59:19.960 --> 01:59:23.159
<v Speaker 2>there like we're not seeing new light. We are seeing

2403
01:59:23.279 --> 01:59:25.600
<v Speaker 2>is that a bunch of companies are well funded, but

2404
01:59:25.840 --> 01:59:28.720
<v Speaker 2>all of them, all of those their dollogies, are further

2405
01:59:28.840 --> 01:59:33.319
<v Speaker 2>away from actually making electricity. Right. One of the biggest

2406
01:59:33.319 --> 01:59:34.840
<v Speaker 2>issues you have with fusion, and we talked about this

2407
01:59:34.880 --> 01:59:37.000
<v Speaker 2>last year and it hasn't changed, is you need a

2408
01:59:37.000 --> 01:59:39.439
<v Speaker 2>lot of deterium and tritium to run them, and that

2409
01:59:39.479 --> 01:59:41.920
<v Speaker 2>takes a lot of energy to make that stuff. So

2410
01:59:41.960 --> 01:59:46.199
<v Speaker 2>we don't have a fuel pipeline for fusion reactors. How

2411
01:59:46.239 --> 01:59:48.880
<v Speaker 2>do we actually make enough fuel. We make a few

2412
01:59:49.319 --> 01:59:52.239
<v Speaker 2>tens of grams of tritium a year, and now we're

2413
01:59:52.239 --> 01:59:55.039
<v Speaker 2>going to need tons of it. Now, first we need

2414
01:59:55.079 --> 01:59:57.039
<v Speaker 2>to react. You can't you're not going to build a

2415
01:59:57.039 --> 01:59:59.880
<v Speaker 2>supply line when the machine doesn't exist. So we do

2416
02:00:00.119 --> 02:00:02.399
<v Speaker 2>have to build the reactor first, which we have not done.

2417
02:00:02.840 --> 02:00:05.239
<v Speaker 2>But when it does happen, the next problem will be, Okay,

2418
02:00:05.279 --> 02:00:06.840
<v Speaker 2>how do we get this thing fuel and start to

2419
02:00:06.840 --> 02:00:09.039
<v Speaker 2>build it at scale? And it's never going to be

2420
02:00:09.319 --> 02:00:12.159
<v Speaker 2>power toomb cheap to meter, right, Like the bottom line

2421
02:00:12.199 --> 02:00:15.720
<v Speaker 2>is just operating a grid costs five to ten cents

2422
02:00:15.720 --> 02:00:17.239
<v Speaker 2>a kill a one hour, so They're always going to

2423
02:00:17.239 --> 02:00:20.199
<v Speaker 2>build for something. The cost of the electricity is not

2424
02:00:20.479 --> 02:00:23.760
<v Speaker 2>the hard part. It's never been the hard part. Distributing

2425
02:00:23.800 --> 02:00:26.079
<v Speaker 2>it and keeping an infrastructure up there running it. That's

2426
02:00:26.119 --> 02:00:26.399
<v Speaker 2>the heart.

2427
02:00:26.520 --> 02:00:28.079
<v Speaker 1>The name of my next band is going to be

2428
02:00:28.159 --> 02:00:29.520
<v Speaker 1>Magnetic Donut.

2429
02:00:30.760 --> 02:00:32.439
<v Speaker 2>Took am Max a good name. I like took him

2430
02:00:33.680 --> 02:00:34.279
<v Speaker 2>took him Max.

2431
02:00:34.479 --> 02:00:36.760
<v Speaker 1>Well, that certainly wasn't I don't put.

2432
02:00:36.760 --> 02:00:38.840
<v Speaker 2>I didn't talk about fusion on this show because there

2433
02:00:38.920 --> 02:00:40.119
<v Speaker 2>just wasn't a lot to talk about.

2434
02:00:40.199 --> 02:00:42.640
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Okay, they're funded, they're working on it. We'll get

2435
02:00:42.640 --> 02:00:45.600
<v Speaker 1>back to you in a few thousand years, hopefully sooner. Richard.

2436
02:00:45.920 --> 02:00:49.840
<v Speaker 1>What can I say? Man, you're amazing. Thank you, long show,

2437
02:00:49.920 --> 02:00:50.359
<v Speaker 1>my friends.

2438
02:00:50.399 --> 02:00:52.760
<v Speaker 2>Sorry, but so much to talk about, and I hope

2439
02:00:52.800 --> 02:00:55.199
<v Speaker 2>I address people's questions. Of course, you can always send

2440
02:00:55.239 --> 02:00:58.239
<v Speaker 2>me more. I'm happy to talk further and put some comments. Yeah,

2441
02:00:58.279 --> 02:00:59.880
<v Speaker 2>I'll send you a copy of music Coba.

2442
02:01:00.159 --> 02:01:02.479
<v Speaker 1>You got it. We'll see what happens, all right, We'll

2443
02:01:02.520 --> 02:01:25.960
<v Speaker 1>see you next time on dot net Rocks. Dot net

2444
02:01:26.039 --> 02:01:29.000
<v Speaker 1>Rocks is brought to you by Franklin's Net and produced

2445
02:01:29.000 --> 02:01:32.760
<v Speaker 1>by Pop Studios, a full service audio, video and post

2446
02:01:32.800 --> 02:01:37.000
<v Speaker 1>production facility located physically in New London, Connecticut, and of

2447
02:01:37.039 --> 02:01:41.479
<v Speaker 1>course in the cloud online at pwop dot com.

2448
02:01:41.720 --> 02:01:43.840
<v Speaker 3>Visit our website at d O T N E t

2449
02:01:44.079 --> 02:01:48.079
<v Speaker 3>R O c k S dot com for RSS feeds, downloads,

2450
02:01:48.239 --> 02:01:51.920
<v Speaker 3>mobile apps, comments, and access to the full archives going

2451
02:01:51.960 --> 02:01:55.119
<v Speaker 3>back to show number one, recorded in September two.

2452
02:01:55.039 --> 02:01:58.039
<v Speaker 1>Thousand and two. And make sure you check out our sponsors.

2453
02:01:58.199 --> 02:02:01.000
<v Speaker 1>They keep us in business. Now, go write some code,

2454
02:02:01.560 --> 02:02:02.319
<v Speaker 1>see you next time.

2455
02:02:03.359 --> 02:02:03.880
<v Speaker 2>Got trade.

2456
02:02:03.960 --> 02:02:11.920
<v Speaker 1>Middle vands do the summer time that means home than

2457
02:02:12.039 --> 02:02:19.359
<v Speaker 1>my Texas in line