Speaker 1: Seven o six if aty five KRC DE Talk station.
Speaker 1: Been a very happy Friday to you. Happy to welcome
Speaker 1: back to the pe Pod KRC Morning Show. Wish she
Speaker 1: was an institut but apparently he had a late night out.
Speaker 1: We don't know what he was doing out there. Brigha
Speaker 1: McCown from the Hudson Institute, Senior fellow there, director of
Speaker 1: the Initiative on American Energy Security. Hudson dot org is
Speaker 1: where you find him online. He has more than three
Speaker 1: decades of domestic and foreign policy experience while serving in
Speaker 1: multiple positions within an industry, government, and the military. And
Speaker 1: he's also a professor at Miami University, teaching graduate and
Speaker 1: undergraduate courses in law, policy and ethics. Welcome back, Brigham.
Speaker 1: It's always great having you on my program.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. It's great to be with you this morning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: late night out.
Speaker 1: We won't ask you to elaborate on the details, Brigham.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was something that was on the up
Speaker 1: and up anyway, energy policy generally. I was happy for them,
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to see it that they're rolling out.
Speaker 1: But I'm a big fan of these modular small modular reactors.
Speaker 1: The idea of using nuclear power because we don't have
Speaker 1: to build a giant three mile island with the giant
Speaker 1: cooling tower in old nineteen seventies technology. The world's evolved,
Speaker 1: and nuclear power has evolved as well, and it generates
Speaker 1: gazillions of amounts of power on a very small footprint.
Speaker 1: Waste issues are not a problem, as we've learned as well.
Speaker 1: But Ontario, Canada, they said they've given final approval for
Speaker 1: the construction of the very first western world small modular reactor.
Speaker 1: How come Ontario is getting to do it and we're not,
Speaker 1: Brigham McCalla when this seems to me the answer to
Speaker 1: everybody's climate change warriors because it doesn't put on any carbon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it does, doesn't it. And I think
Speaker 2: it's partially because, you know, Ora policies, our domestic policies
Speaker 2: have been some of our own worst Anny's light. For example, Brian,
Speaker 2: I got back at one thirty in the morning on
Speaker 2: a flight that was supposed to land at Cincinnati at
Speaker 2: ten o'clock. Why because air traffic control is outdated. We
Speaker 2: use stuff from the sixties and seventies. This is sort
Speaker 2: of the mindset across all of the federal government, including
Speaker 2: energy and what was once a very promising nuclear industry
Speaker 2: in this country in the sixties and seventies, remember the
Speaker 2: atomic age. We were going to do it everywhere everything
Speaker 2: was atomic. We allowed ourselves to get mired in a
Speaker 2: government red tape bureaucratic delays to where we're no longer innovative.
Speaker 2: Other countries are moving much faster than we are. But
Speaker 2: the good news is if there is one is I
Speaker 2: think we're starting to figure this out. And Ontario, which
Speaker 2: has a more conservative government, it's like, let's do this.
Speaker 2: Why not?
Speaker 1: Well, and there's I mean in Ohio. I talked to
Speaker 1: Vivak Ramaswami about this. He's all in favor of it.
Speaker 1: I mean, he make Ohio the energy generation capital of
Speaker 1: the United States. And you know, inexpensive energy draws business
Speaker 1: and industry. And if we provide that, man, you just
Speaker 1: you have to put a fence up to keep the
Speaker 1: businesses from wanting to come into the state of Ohio.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just smart policy across the board. And
Speaker 1: again there is no possible or legitimately underscore that or
Speaker 1: reason for anyone to argue against this. It should be
Speaker 1: embraced by the climate change o armist because it doesn't
Speaker 1: produce anything by way of waste. It's just I don't
Speaker 1: know as have our elected officials been propagandized into believing
Speaker 1: every one of these represents a three mile island or
Speaker 1: Cherniobyl like threat.
Speaker 2: Well, I think there are a couple of different issues
Speaker 2: at play, yes, in part. First of all, back to
Speaker 2: your point on the cost of energy. You know, one
Speaker 2: of things that we've explored at Hudson Institute is g
Speaker 2: why does manufacturing leave. Well, it leaves because things cost
Speaker 2: too much, and certainly wages can be part of that.
Speaker 2: But the cost of energy and industrial building and an
Speaker 2: industrial capacity is the tipping point between companies that make
Speaker 2: profit and ie expand and hire more people and companies
Speaker 2: that can't make it. And that's what Ohio and parts
Speaker 2: of the quote russ Belt had experienced, was the loss
Speaker 2: of energy, the loss of the loss of affordable energy.
Speaker 2: When you don't have affordable energy, you don't put money
Speaker 2: back into your plans, you don't put money back into
Speaker 2: your infrastructure, and it's sort of a spiraling decay. And
Speaker 2: so where we have cheap electricity, cheap energy, we're seeing
Speaker 2: industry move back.
Speaker 1: In well, and all this on the heels of the
Speaker 1: new announcement from this morning, Duke Energy is raising customers
Speaker 1: prices again. Public you told, a commission of Ohio announced
Speaker 1: that Duke Energy is going to be jump bumping the
Speaker 1: price of the killowatt hour by two point five cents
Speaker 1: per killowot hour. Sounds small, but it all adds up.
Speaker 2: Bring them, Yeah, it does really all add up. And
Speaker 2: you know, I hate to say it. Spent a lot
Speaker 2: of times the utility companies they're like, yeah, we'll pass
Speaker 2: it off to the consumer. You want to regulate this, fine,
Speaker 2: you want us to use when us to use more
Speaker 2: expensive energy, fine, we'll just pass it on to the consumer.
Speaker 2: Say we had to do it the energy companies, the
Speaker 2: utility companies need to step up and be part of
Speaker 2: the solution. And say you would think, Brian, like, people
Speaker 2: want to sell more electricity, right, I mean I'd want
Speaker 2: to sell more if I make candy bars, I want
Speaker 2: to sell more candy bars. But for some reason, the
Speaker 2: utility industry just seems content to pass prices along and
Speaker 2: not worry about it.
Speaker 1: Well, and I noted out in California, it was an
Speaker 1: analysis that was done by the Specific Research Research Institute
Speaker 1: talking about how unbelievably expensive it is to pursue this
Speaker 1: green future out there. The study that they produce, so
Speaker 1: the financial burden estimates that this green transition is going
Speaker 1: to cost Californians each and every one of them seventeen
Speaker 1: thousand plus between seventeen thousand and twenty thousand dollars per
Speaker 1: family to switch over to just alternative energy sources that
Speaker 1: are non carbon producing, and of course, none of which
Speaker 1: includes the aforementioned small modular reactors I talked about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is, it is, And you know, you look
Speaker 2: at California wholesale electric prices if and increase more than
Speaker 2: four fold, it's directly tied to their policies out there. Look,
Speaker 2: if you want, if you want to throw up a
Speaker 2: solar panel, you want to do windmill, fantastic, But you
Speaker 2: get back to nuclear right to your point, if if
Speaker 2: and assuming, if you're like, golly, carbon is a huge problem.
Speaker 2: We need to take care of the environment with CO two,
Speaker 2: which is only one of numerous greenhouse gases. But for
Speaker 2: some reason we're going to fixate on that. Yeah, great,
Speaker 2: n clear is a zero emission fuel. So if that's
Speaker 2: your stick, then you ought to be all over nuclear.
Speaker 1: Well and this the nefarious thing lurking behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: I'm thoroughly convinced, Briga McCowan is that we did have
Speaker 1: small modular reactors, they did produce an abundance of power.
Speaker 1: We would expand our domestic production, we would increase our
Speaker 1: consumption because inexpensive electricity translates to a better life for
Speaker 1: all of us, and that therefore we would not fall
Speaker 1: in line with the global alarming alarmists concerns about our
Speaker 1: overconsumption and are destroying the planet with our you know,
Speaker 1: buying up all the resources and consuming them. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, productive country does go through a lot of resources,
Speaker 1: and I think that's really the goal here is to
Speaker 1: undermine our productivity and our success here in this and
Speaker 1: otherwise free quasi capitalist country.
Speaker 2: Absolutely couldn't agree more. And by the way, if also
Speaker 2: you're into the climate, you would think you would want
Speaker 2: things made in America where we do take environmental protection seriously,
Speaker 2: where we can do it by emitting far less harmful
Speaker 2: products to the environment. And say, I don't know.
Speaker 1: China, right, That's that's the other weird thing about these
Speaker 1: climbate alarm ist Brigham, is that no one ever points
Speaker 1: a finger at China, who regularly continues to build new
Speaker 1: coal fired power plants. They don't have an EPA, they're
Speaker 1: not concerned about the environment. They don't have strict rules
Speaker 1: and regulations like we do. So we're just giving more
Speaker 1: and more opportunity for the Chinese to keep their prices
Speaker 1: down because while they have inexpensive electricity generated by polluting coal,
Speaker 1: not a word about China, or rarely ever word. Although
Speaker 1: China occasionally plays lip service to wanting to help with
Speaker 1: dealing with climate chains, they don't lift a finger to
Speaker 1: do anything about it.
Speaker 2: I think you've got their four to one one, Brian.
Speaker 1: I do, I do well. Pause will bring Brigham account
Speaker 1: Hudson Institute. Go online to Hudson dot org and check
Speaker 1: that page out bookmarket. It's got some great material there.
Speaker 1: Speaking of electricity culling, my friends have Colored Electric family
Speaker 1: owned and operated since nineteen ninety nine, A plus with
Speaker 1: a better business beer, and they're happy with that. One
Speaker 1: of the reasons their honest reputation. That's an APE plus there.
Speaker 1: Provide all facets of residential electric work between the smallest project.
Speaker 1: I always use like as an illustration, an outlet install
Speaker 1: or maybe a can light or two. They did our
Speaker 1: whole house with can lights. I love those things.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: Maybe wiring up your media room they'll do that. Maybe
Speaker 1: wire up your whole house generator. They did that for me. Uh,
Speaker 1: and help me with the remodeling project in the bathrooms.
Speaker 1: Most recently they were over at our house for that
Speaker 1: and of course a wonderful job it was. Price is
Speaker 1: always right and they have a ten year wiring warranty.
Speaker 1: Anything they do for you comes along with that ten
Speaker 1: year wiring warranty. So hire the best. I'd be Cullen
Speaker 1: Electric Online CEE U L L E N Cullen Electriccincinnati
Speaker 1: dot com. Here's a number and tell Andrew and the team.
Speaker 1: Brian said, Hi, when you give them a call at
Speaker 1: five one three two two seven four one one two.
Speaker 1: That's five one three two two seven four one one
Speaker 1: two fifty five KRC dot com. Hello, I'm Victor Gray
Speaker 1: and I'm calling here. It is your Channel nine first
Speaker 1: Warning weather forecast. Today, beautiful day, sunny, skyes dry and
Speaker 1: sixty seven. It's gonna remain dry over night. Forty three
Speaker 1: for the low, sunny again tomorrow, seventy three for the high.
Speaker 1: Another dry night time with a fifty four low and
Speaker 1: for Mother's Day, perfect God shining down on mom with
Speaker 1: sunny sky's and a highest seventy six, also dry forty six.
Speaker 1: Right now, it's time.
Speaker 3: For traffic from the UCL Traffic Center. When it comes
Speaker 3: to stroke, every second count. So that's why you see health.
Speaker 3: That's the clear choice for rapid life saving treatment. Learn
Speaker 3: more at uc health dot com. Highway traffic and pretty
Speaker 3: good shape. They cleared the Rex southbound seventy five at
Speaker 3: two seventy five in Erlwonger. You can expect to lay
Speaker 3: southbound seventy five out of Saint Bernard into downtown and
Speaker 3: then on southbound four seventy one. That's all for Deputy
Speaker 3: Larry Henderson's procession. Chuck Ingram on fifty five krc the
Speaker 3: talk station.
Speaker 1: It's seven eighteen if you've got KRCD talk station. Brian
Speaker 1: Thomas with Brigham Account Hudson dot orgs where you find
Speaker 1: the Hudson Institute. He is the Senior Fellow Director of
Speaker 1: Innovation on American Energy Security. That's another component of energy
Speaker 1: production is secure already bring them as to have a
Speaker 1: secure America. He needs secure grid and the other component
Speaker 1: of this, although away from energy production, is the idea
Speaker 1: that our grid isn't necessarily secure from the Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 1: hackers or other nefarious actors in the world who could easily,
Speaker 1: I've come to the understanding easily just shut the grid down,
Speaker 1: which would result in obvious chaos for multiple reasons.
Speaker 2: Oh, it absolutely would. And I think, Brian, that's another
Speaker 2: reason why this rush to electrify everything is maybe well
Speaker 2: intended by some, but there's nothing wrong with natural gas.
Speaker 2: I've got it in my house, most people do have it.
Speaker 2: Let's not put all of our eggs in one basket.
Speaker 2: There needs to be we call it a Belton sustenders approach.
Speaker 2: You have to have backups, so you have to have
Speaker 2: ways to ensure the stable supply of energy, whether it's
Speaker 2: related to natural events or man made events. And you know,
Speaker 2: I think that's clear. We've seen the CCP intentionally get
Speaker 2: into our electrical, our power, our other energy infrastructure. So
Speaker 2: far it seems to be probing around. But you know
Speaker 2: these are not good guys. You know your friends, don't
Speaker 2: you know, don't come into your house middle of the
Speaker 2: night and rummage through your stuff. They're looking for pain points,
Speaker 2: They're looking for ways that should a conflict to come up,
Speaker 2: or should we tell them they can't take over Taiwan
Speaker 2: or they can't do whatever they want to do. Part
Speaker 2: of that strategy is to figure out how to make
Speaker 2: it hurt to us in ways that they're not traditional
Speaker 2: type of warfare that we're used to exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, I keep pivoting back to California, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're pushed to get everybody in an electric vehicle and
Speaker 1: achieve zero emission status by some randomly selected year. There
Speaker 1: was a study by the University of Southern California came
Speaker 1: out noting that because of all of the refinery shutdowns,
Speaker 1: which were in large part pushed by all the regulatory costs, burdens,
Speaker 1: and obligations the government of California State placed upon these refineries,
Speaker 1: including the litigation that they filed against the petroleum companies
Speaker 1: claiming that they're directly responsible for global warming, a nonsensical
Speaker 1: legal position, but they said that this researcher concluded that
Speaker 1: by the end of the year, regular gas prices could
Speaker 1: jump from four dollars and eighty two cents, which was
Speaker 1: the norm in California as of April this year, to
Speaker 1: as high as eight dollars and forty four cents by
Speaker 1: the end of next year. That's that's insanity right there.
Speaker 2: You know, it is in sanity, especially when if you
Speaker 2: go to Los Angeles, that is like a car city.
Speaker 2: They don't even try to do much in the way
Speaker 2: of urban transit there. They're like, we like our cars, well,
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, And so it's kind of a bit of
Speaker 2: a head scratcher for sure, because you know, this notion
Speaker 2: of fossil fuel being phased out, it's not going to
Speaker 2: happen overnight. Even the most optimistic forecast, if you are
Speaker 2: really into this, is that the country is still predominantly
Speaker 2: fossil fuel based, especially in the transportation sector out past
Speaker 2: twenty fifty. But what we do know is powered by
Speaker 2: the green agenda. In California. There are a couple of
Speaker 2: reports out that talk about how California's electricity rates are
Speaker 2: almost double the rest of the country double second highest
Speaker 2: in the nation, just behind Hawaii, which is a whole
Speaker 2: nother story. But from nineteen to twenty three, which is
Speaker 2: the latest data, if you look at California's three largest
Speaker 2: investor owned utilities, SoCal, PGNA, and Sacramento Area, prices have
Speaker 2: increased between forty eight and sixty seven percent for electricity.
Speaker 2: Some of that, some of that is caused by the
Speaker 2: wildfires and the fact they have not been upgrading their infrastructure.
Speaker 2: They've been putting solar panels everywhere, but it doesn't cost less.
Speaker 2: It costs a lot more.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, in those programs wouldn't exist but for subsidies,
Speaker 1: which are nothing more than taking tax dollars and then
Speaker 1: turning them into a subsidy to get people to do
Speaker 1: something that they don't want to do and make giving
Speaker 1: it the appearance that it's actually affordable. It's just this
Speaker 1: circular pleasure fest that goes on with our taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad, I'm brod. I'm so glad you mentioned that,
Speaker 2: because you know, when you talk to people there, they
Speaker 2: seem to think that subsidies and tax rebates they're free.
Speaker 2: They're free, they don't cost us anything. They don't come
Speaker 2: from anywhere. You know, when you hear the term subsidy, right,
Speaker 2: the federal government is giving you something and that comes
Speaker 2: from each and every one of us. You know, it
Speaker 2: could be used to reduce the deficit, could be reused
Speaker 2: to do other things, but now it's there is no
Speaker 2: such thing as a free money tree in the backyard,
Speaker 2: or I think we'd probably already have one.
Speaker 1: Well one more thing along the lines of what the
Speaker 1: undo California. But I was kind of I view with
Speaker 1: with really some positive perspective and optimism. Two forty six
Speaker 1: to one sixty four vote for a Congressional Review Act
Speaker 1: resolution to repeal the waiver that the EPA granted California
Speaker 1: for its EV mandate. This just happened last week, so
Speaker 1: pasted with bipartisan support. You had thirty five Democrats joining
Speaker 1: the Republicans to repeal the EV mandate. Electric vehicles not
Speaker 1: the popular things that they were really hoping they would be,
Speaker 1: again going back to subsidies. In order to get people
Speaker 1: to buy them, you had to incentifize them with a
Speaker 1: seventy five hundred dollars tax credit.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, And you know what's really important about that
Speaker 2: EPA waiver to California was you know, if you think
Speaker 2: about it, it started out as a rational way, like, hey,
Speaker 2: there's a federal standard for smog and pollution that comes
Speaker 2: out of tail pipe, and if states wanted a higher level,
Speaker 2: they could ask the federal government. Maybe you lived in
Speaker 2: we remember dirty cloudy cities we were younger, and the
Speaker 2: federal government said, okay. The problem is it's a waiver
Speaker 2: which the federal government can grant. It also means the
Speaker 2: federal government can take it away. And what California has
Speaker 2: done is they've gotten their buddies on board. Now there
Speaker 2: are between eleven and thirteen states that follow California's emission standards.
Speaker 2: And then they go to all the auto manufacturers and say,
Speaker 2: you know what, you might as well make every car
Speaker 2: to our standard. And that means that affects the price
Speaker 2: of the cars that we buy here in the Tri State.
Speaker 2: And California has become the de facto federal regulator for
Speaker 2: car emissions. It's crazy and it's time we pull that back.
Speaker 1: It is, and at least the House and with bipartisans support,
Speaker 1: was able to do that last week. We'll see how
Speaker 1: this advances. Brigham account. It's Hudson dot org. rEFInd the
Speaker 1: Hudson and Stu Briingham. It's always a pleasure talk energy
Speaker 1: policy with you on the program, and I'll look forward
Speaker 1: to doing it again down the road. And hope you
Speaker 1: have a wonderful weekend. My friend.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, and get people towards Charge Conversations.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to talk about this, I apologize for
Speaker 1: not bringing that up. Yes, the podcast Charged Conversations with
Speaker 1: Brigha McCown. Wherever you find your podcast, you'll find it,
Speaker 1: and I recommend you check that out too, thanks to
Speaker 1: the reminder there, Brigham. Have a great weekend. It's seven
Speaker 1: twenty six fifty five KC the Talk station. Anna Marie Barnett,
Speaker 1: the executive director of the Alzheimers Association Alzheimer's Association of
Speaker 1: Greater SINCINNTI coming up next, some alarming statistics and facts
Speaker 1: from here in the state of Ohio on Alzheimer's. Of course,
Speaker 1: I have a profound connection with that particular nefarious disease.
Speaker 1: But first a word for my good friends at Bud
Speaker 1: Herbert Motors. Picked up my mower just the other day
Speaker 1: and it's getting serviced. I'll be happy to have a
Speaker 1: sharpened blade, oil change fully serviced lawnmower return to me.
Speaker 1: They're going to drop it back off to my home
Speaker 1: next week pick up drop off. They service what they sell,
Speaker 1: and in terms of what they sell, own the finest
Speaker 1: lawn equipment out there. This is fifth generation family in
Speaker 1: and operated business. You will work with a Herbert family
Speaker 1: member and they're proud of what they do, and they're
Speaker 1: obviously reputations on the line, which is why one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why you get such great customer service. They
Speaker 1: help you find the perfect lawn equipment, whether it's you know,
Speaker 1: from the deer lineup attractors and utility tractors, even big stuff.
Speaker 1: You're out there with a cup of farm you work with.
Speaker 1: But Herbert Motors x Mark Mowers stealing Honda power equipment.
Speaker 1: Got lots of steel power equipment from Bud Herbert, and
Speaker 1: I got my Honda walk behind powered lawnmower from them
Speaker 1: as well. After a terrible box store experience. Don't go
Speaker 1: with the box store. They don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: They don't own the business. But Herbert Motors only sells
Speaker 1: the best. They know everything there is to know about
Speaker 1: what they sell, and again that's superior customer service. I
Speaker 1: really appreciate you selling telling them, Brian said, Hi, when
Speaker 1: you give them a call, it's five one three, five
Speaker 1: four one thirty two ninety one. That's five four one
Speaker 1: thirty two ninety one. Online you'll find them at Bud
Speaker 1: Herbertmotors Dot com fifty five KRC, the talk station Andy
Speaker 1: Andy