Can America Afford the Future?

Welcome to American Power. I am your host, Nat Towson, comedian, speech writer, and most reflective in my father's eyes when he looks at me with joy, podcast host.

With me as always, is my panel of experts.

I wing those, I want you to know. This is my panel of experts.

“Our expert on the military and foreign policy, Chad Scott, Chad, how's it going, Nat?”

It's going well, Nat. If I was your father to be very proud of your podcasting endeavors. You know what, he actually is. I shouldn't make that joke, but thank you, you're my new dad. And also on the panel, nevertheless, you have replaced my father.

And on the other father on the panel, my other father, my third father. You know him as Mr. Global, he's our expert on all things energy, oil, renewable, global energy markets, Matt Randolph. Matt, how's it going? It's going great.

I just got a text from Mori and I am, in fact, not your father. So good news, all right. Do you spiritual paternity tests now? [LAUGH] It turns out that you're not even in honor of it.

Philosophically his father. He doesn't see you ideologically as a patrilineal connection. I, I look up to both of you. Are we the same age? I'm not certain.

“And on this episode, we're also joined by a very special guest.”

They are a campaign manager for a Spring Street Climate Fund, a long time climate organizer and strategist. And prior to their work with the prior to their work with Spring Street, they were the coordinator of the Energy Democracy Alliance, and managed a statewide collision to organize for a renewable and equitable energy system.

And also played a leading role in one of my favorites. This campaign to pass the Build Public Renoubles Act right here in New York, the big screen New Deal Bill in America, which became law in 2023. Please welcome to the podcast, Patrick Robbins. Well, thank you so much, Nat.

I am doing great. It's great to be on. Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this. Thank you.

I'm so happy to have you here. And I'll say for our listeners, I've known Patrick for many years. We actually went to high school together. And we found each other again. It's true.

Through the climate movement.

And I found that Patrick had been doing some really incredible work.

And it was really happy to see what you've been doing. But I was hoping I don't have the full story. Because hoping you could tell us a little bit of your path as to how you became an energy affordability advocate. Yeah, thank you, Nat.

So I work as the director of the Utility Customers Association, which is a project of Spring Street Climate Fund here in New York. And we are an organization of Utility Customers who are sick of high electricity bills and want structural changes to high electricity charges.

And so one reason why we got started is because these causes, the causes of pro-climate policy and affordability policies. These are frequently positioned in the media as separate. And sometimes even framed as competing or clashing. And we really believe that it's the exact opposite the way you get affordable bills

is through common sense renewable and storage policy. And there is a clear need to do something about the affordability crisis that we find ourselves in. So we've been organizing for about a year. It's been really great to just talk to people on the street, farmers markets, you know,

all over New York, about electricity bills. And now I'm happy to talk with all of you. That's great. And I understand that your expertise lies primarily in New York state, but I was hoping

“we could talk about New York as something of a model for the whole country because I think”

the sort of the clean energy transition to something that every state's handling differently, but it's on everyone's minds. And I think New York is a really interesting use case for that. But I want to ask you a question that I think pretty much every New Yorker is asking. But our listeners across America are probably also asking this question.

And if you're in Europe, hang tight. Because I want to know, why is the electricity bill so damn high?

It's never been like this.

No. Well, for what it's worth, I promise you they're asking that in Europe as well. But no, that is the million dollar question. And I could give the very long version, or I could give the very short version. But I think that maybe I'll start just by talking a little bit about how the

electric grid works. I feel like that's important to talk about before we get to, you know, how we got into the kind of quackmire that we're in now. So to your listeners who may be already familiar with this, apologies to go apologies for

But I want to offer a quick breakdown of how the electric grid works.

“And what exactly it is, what we talk about when we're talking about the electric grid.”

So the electric grid is broken down fundamentally into three separate parts. There's the generation side of the grid, the infrastructure that generates electric power. There is the transmission side of the grid where that power is transported from the sources of generation to, you know, the sites of consumption. And then there's the distribution grid, which is the wires that go into our homes and businesses

after, you know, the power has been downgraded to a, to a voltage that is, it is safe for our homes. And so those three different parts of the grid are sometimes owned by the same company in some cases. Here in New York, that is not the case.

We do not have a vertically integrated grid. We have different entities owning those different separate parts of the grid. And also with different kind of regulatory bodies and regulatory procedures governing the behavior of those different parts of the grid.

So, you know, the first power station in the country was actually built here in New York

in 1882. And, you know, for a long time, electricity was really something only for wealthier customers. And municipal and city governments began exploring how to build public distribution lines. And that was really a rallying cry for a lot of local governments across the country around the turn of the century.

And so there was this public power movement that was very much on the minds of the distribution companies at this time. And they were also worried about competition between each other. So, the earliest business association of the distribution utilities got together and proposed this kind of public utility commission model where there would be a state level commission

to regulate the distribution grid with a single company providing power to a given territory. So, a utility is a natural monopoly. And, you know, in the absence of any kind of market, you know, discipline of that company, that company is regulated by a public utility commission. So, the structure is designed so that only one company can run the utility in a given area, which, like, as you're saying, automatically creates a monopoly.

Yeah, that's exactly right. And so, you know, the obvious question is how do you prevent that company, if it's a monopoly, and it's got a, you know, captive customer base for the entire territory.

“How do you stop them from just charging whatever they want?”

My question is, why don't that? I do it earlier. But, because it seems to be what's happening right now. Sorry, go ahead. Well, no, that's exactly right.

And so, that is sort of the underlying logic or how it works in theory with the, you know, public utility commission model, you have this body that is in charge of regulating how much the utilities are allowed to spend.

The problem is that very often these regulators defer to the company on matters of financial analysis.

On, you know, aspects of the grid that in some cases are considered proprietary. You know, the company is a private company, so it is, you know, there's certain information about how our grid functions that, you know, we legally are not allowed to know. And so, there's this massive asymmetry of both knowledge and resources between the public and the company in the case of New York City. That's, that's kind of a sin. And, you know, oftentimes the regulator will, you know, they may, they may knock down, you know, what a company proposes by like a couple of, you know, percentage points in a rate case.

But they are, I would say, very much hamstrung by that asymmetry. And so, that's one answer as to how we ended up getting the high bills that we see today.

“And I think that if we want to go into more depth on why our electric bills are so high, we can also look at two components of the grid that I mentioned before that generation side of the grid.”

And then, you know, we can talk a little bit more about distribution. You know, I understand that on this show, you guys have talked about the war in Iran pretty extensively.

But that war and geopolitical instability more broadly has real real consequences for the fuel supply of our electric grid.

Here in New York, we have about 50% of our generation coming from Fract Gas, methane gas. And that means that when there's market volatility, we are extremely susceptible to that. And, you know, I can go into a little bit more on how wholesale markets work and why the market structure and the generation market is actually kind of designed to exacerbate those fluctuations. You know, with the highest cost energy source setting the price for, you know, for the market across the board. But that's one big big answer to why our bills are so high.

The other side of it, I'll say, is the distribution side. So when you look at the distribution side costs, that's counterintuitively considered the biggest driver of high electricity bills across the board. And the reason for that is that the utilities get paid a return on equity for building stuff. So when they want to raise rates, they go to the commission of their state. They say we want to raise money to build new substations, other kinds of infrastructure.

And here's what we'll need to maintain service, build what we need to build, etc.

And that some cost of what they need, that's called the revenue requirement. But then on top of that, the utility says we need to attract investment. So we need a return on equity for all of that stuff we built. And that return on equity is often a lot higher than the actual cost of equity. You know, the amount that would be strictly necessary for them to offer in order to attract investors.

So when you put it all together, there are these massive costs in the system that are actually built into the business model itself.

“That honestly have very little to do with what it actually costs to generate and distribute power.”

And so we at the utility customers association are trying to lower bills by taking on both those generation and distribution costs. Interesting. So a lot of the, as you're saying, is sort of built into the structure of the system originally that has gradually exacerb that inequity and the sort of lack of effective accountability of the regulatory bodies ability to exercise too much power over the utilities. Some of that is just the gradual acceleration and increase over time of a system not designed to resist the increase in costs.

And then some of it is the second problem that you're describing. Now, if I can summarize that one correctly and am I understanding in that so much as ratepayers utility customers like myself and the rest of us listening. When our utility needs, or chooses to build to expand capacity, those costs are passed on via the rates. Yes. So we're essentially investing not only investing in the expansion of the greater expansion of the capacity for the utility or generative capacity, but we're also investing in the fund that they're using to add to attract investors and I have to imagine we don't see a return in our bills.

If those investments pay off? Well, no, I mean, do I see a way of decrease if that functions?

Spoiler. No, I've never seen one. I'm just, you know, curious if there was any.

“I think that's what we're thinking about and fund this stuff.”

Well, another way of thinking about it would be we are ourselves, all of us paying back their investors. Mm-hmm. You see what I'm saying. So they go to the public service commission and say we want to be able to offer this return on equity for, you know, for investment and then all of that comes off of the ratepayers backs. Right. Because those investments. And then that's before you get into it.

Yeah, exactly. And that's before you get into all these other costs, like, for example, condeds property tax, which is also directly passed on to the rate payer and makes up, you know, an enormous portion of our bills. So there's all sorts of ways in which the utility is able to pass their costs down to the rate payer above and beyond what is strictly necessary for providing electricity.

“So I have one more question and also mad if you want to jump in at any point if you have questions feel free.”

But I was going to ask, is there any sense, these are privately owned utilities, as I understand it. And I know that the point in New York, you know, we have a, we do have a publicly owned utility, but it's not used to power most of the state.

Is, is generation going to be just as expensive if we were to make it public, like, is there, you know, we talked about Claire Valdez is national public utility proposal on her campaign a couple weeks ago.

What does that mean for consumers, though?

Obviously, like, I would prefer the environment to divest from, for the environment for us to divest from oil and move to renewables, but what is what is divesting specifically from private utilities mean for consumers.

“You know, it's a really good question that and I think it's important to note that the idea that you're describing of having a public distribution utility.”

That is not a, you know, science fiction idea. We actually do have small public utilities already right here in New York state. We've got, you know, 40 or 50 or so towns that own their distribution lines. And, you know, we have public ownership of distribution in many states and, in fact, many countries around the world. I will say that, you know, it's, it's hard to say in terms of hypothetical how that would impact prices, but I will say that for those 40 or 50 or so public utilities right here in New York, they do have hands down cheaper electric bills than the rest of the state.

And are they stable in the same way? I mean, in so far as like, it seems like our bills are skyrocketing. I'm curious of the public bills are more proportionate the cost of energy or the cost of generation. It's a really good question and I'll be transparent that I don't know the answer. I haven't looked, you know, side by side apples to apples with some of the, you know, different distribution companies, you know, in the state. But I would suspect that a lot of the volatility that you're talking about is on the generation side because of the hikes that you see, because of the war in Iran. And, you know, you saw that as well when the Ukraine Russia war was kicking off.

And I would say that in terms of ramifications for utility customers, the distribution model that we have now the private distribution model that

in genders a like steady steady increase of electricity bills, you know, that is still bad, but constant, whereas the supply side is much more volatile and fickle than what you'd see in terms of in terms of its impacts on on your bills.

“Matt, I believe you wanted to talk a little bit about as Patrick was just discussing the ramifications of the conflict in Iran, the war in Iran on not only energy markets, but, you know, consumer attitudes.”

I don't want to put words into your mouth, but do you want to jump in here?

So across the country by far, the largest contributor to increasing electric bills are either delivery fees or distribution fees, getting the power to your house. And that is because there is a real supply demand scenario happening within those transmission lines and one analogy or example I like to use is like a pipeline, like say you have an oil pipeline, right? So more oil that's in that pipeline and the closer it gets to full capacity, the more expensive it is to put more oil in it.

“It is a true like supply demand scenario and that's what's happening with our grid across the country.”

As power demand specifically electricity demand continues to rise and we've had massive underinvestment into our grid over the last 20 years because it's due to energy efficiency, you know, I've told you guys before we went 20 years without increasing our energy demand in the United States because of our energy efficiency policies and and. I'm a huge fan of the fact that we added 40 million people to this country and and I believe 20 million homes 40 million cars and we're still using the exact same amount of energy just blows my mind because I nerd out about that stuff, but if you think about it.

It's like adding an entire state of California to your country without consuming any more energy and that's what those little yellow stickers are on your water heater that says hey you know you save this much that's what that is that's from George Bush's energy policy conservation act that he passed and Barack Obama approved on that improved on that when he came in office. So rates are going up but distribution fees is what's making people's bills like double and triple you know you can see a maybe a 10% rise and rates but you're saying like the distribution fees or what's really killing people and that is a very difficult problem to solve because.

So it's a very difficult decision to do so.

So we have it set up in a way where it's impossible to raise the money either through investments you know to actually expand our grid the way we need to I thought we're like I can't remember I think we're 60 or 70,000 miles of transmission line behind where we need to be right now we're insanely behind.

“And now that we have data centers and everything else that's increasing electricity demand really struggling with that.”

So that is a huge problem in the United States and I always tell people you know I'm an old and gas expert but I support renewable energy and that is because.

Every unit of energy that you place into the system has an impact on every unit of energy that exists there right it decreases the burden of every other unit of energy and it doesn't matter where that energy came from. And of course you can't power a car with wind energy or solar energy but when you put units from that type of energy into our portfolio it actually decreases the burden of fossil fuel energy within the system and drives down. The price of everything holistically and that's why I support and all of the above energy policy and it kind of blows people mind what I tell them like you know more solar would actually bring down your gas prices and they're like what are you talking about and it's because you have to look at it holistically you have to look at the.

You can't just look at one specific thing and say this is the problem and so currently we have an administration that is destroying renewable energy.

That is harming our energy consumption of every other kind of energy because it increases the burden of those other energies as well. Can I jump in with a with a kind of a weird question that I just thought of and has applies to both of you.

“So you guys both of you actually all of you are talking about your energy bills doubling and tripling and I'm not experiencing that in Idaho and I think the reason is originally I thought it was because.”

We don't are in a fossil we were mostly hydroelectric was I mean we're we used a lot of dams up in the Pacific Northwest but I also found out through some research that I do a power which is the is a private company but it is called a regulated monopoly meaning they have to go to our. Our legislature to request a rate increase so you can't so this private company has all the power to raise rates if they want as a private company within a specific very narrow band so if. If Idaho company the CEO of Idaho company or Idaho power comes to and says we want to raise rates I get a notification by mail.

That says hey I do power wants to raise rates it's going before the legislature they will vote on it now obviously they can lobby that and they have a lot of money. But a lot of times they get pushed back and I'm wondering I just didn't I didn't think of this until just now I'm wondering is that model where you have a private company but it's called a regulated monopoly is that viable at least in the near term for places like in New York I mean Patrick do you have any thoughts on that.

“That's that's what we have I mean I regulated monopoly is the standard model that I was describing so that's that's not uncommon what does to go to me though about what you just said is the fact that those rates are.”

Controlled by the legislature that is interesting to me because you know the the model that I've seen certainly here in New York and in many other states as well is one where there is a kind of. Or between the public and that decision making process through the public utility commission and you know you can have states where the public utility commission is you know elected New York is not one of those states we are not an elected commission state we are you know appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the Senate.

But I have to imagine that some of the political accountability that is inherent in the process that you're describing probably makes a big difference I mean people are really furious in New York about. High electric bills I think that's true across the country and so I have to wonder if politically that is helping insulate the you know the rate payers in in your area.

And so I'm just saying it's just very it was I'm just it's kind of strange to me and and maybe you can explain it better how come everyone else seems to be talking about their their rates going up so high but then you see a state like Idaho or there's a couple of other states that don't have the same regulatory structure but they're not we're not seeing.

“Like my family that I have in Washington and Oregon they're not seeing massive rate increases is that just because they have more leverage in the it's not a renewable to technically but like hydro electric and things like that.”

So what you have chat is shocker Idaho doesn't use a lot of power. Yeah there's that too so there's like 10 people here just like Washington Oregon Idaho hydro electric power.

But the cheapest in the world. Yes and low demand like I live in Oklahoma not a lot of demand my power bills really cheap here. But this is mostly happening in the worst places highly populated areas and also in the upper Midwest areas where population growth is exploding. I can't even talk about this without thinking about PJM interconnect but and as far as you the structure we have a similar thing here in Oklahoma you know they they they do ask a public utility commission for the rate heights but.

Anyone within our state legislature has a problem with their decision they can actually go back and override the public utility commission so the public utility commission approves them. But if someone in our state legislature says wait a minute.

“Hang on I don't like that then the legislature can then take it up and most the time they don't but here recently there was a case where they took up a case involving a data center where they were like no.”

We're even though the utility commission had approved it the state legislature said yeah we don't that don't drive with us so they actually knocked it down so in my state it's like a.

There's a secondary sort of barrier there even though 99% of the time that legislature doesn't even bother with it but on a case like it's more connected though like in chat like yeah. They accountability I mean we vote for again another really very well for our governor who was coming here but it's very. Of course it's very difficult this distant from that one particular policy and I you know she's essentially running unopposed right now even though everyone hates that policy so.

“The elected governor electing a new governor is really complicated and I don't think we see that kind of voter accountability I think what you're describing is like legislators who are.”

Representing a smaller district within the state more likely to be.

Primary or or defeated in the next election and or just feel generally more accountable to voters that just by being in that position and by having that legislative oversight they might you know. A lot more empowered in that regard but because yeah technically we we vote on our governor but it does not feel in New York as if we have the ability to vote on our rates and I think what you're describing are two models that have a little bit more. Even though it's all somewhere electoral seems a lot more accountable to.

The will of the people. So I guess touch on what Patrick was talking about earlier um a utility company. Typically a privately owned publicly regulated monopoly right and it's different in each state but if you took the averages they're guaranteed a profit. So and it comes out to about a 10% profit per year that they are guaranteed and they can generally pass on any cost that they need to. We need to to the rate payer to ensure they get that 10% profit and that's right every time I talk about this I'm like God why didn't I get into utilities when I was 20 instead of the oil and gas industry it's so much more lucrative like.

Because in the oil and gas industry you might have a 100% profit one year and a 300% loss the next like a 10% guarantee profit every year like you cannot beat that like it's. I actually want to take a moment on that because that's a big difference in the kind of investment proposition that you're talking about between different parts of the grid. So it's true that there are elements of the grid that are difficult to attract investment because of that uncertainty distribution is not one of them because you know you're looking at some of the safest.

So there's a lot of I think justifiable anger when the utility says oh we have to charge you know this you know exorbitant fees in order to attract investment it's like well something's not adding up because. People are going to be interested in investing in con Edison you know it's a recession proof investment you know when you're looking for something really stable whether you're talking about pension funds or whatever else. Be charging all of us way way way less than they are charging now if that's if that's really the rationale and you know in 2025 when they were you know cutting off power to customers for non payment.

And you know they awarded their CEO nearly twenty million dollars in compensation according to the energy policy institute so that kind of thing rubs people are on way you know.

“So or like the vicious loop or feedback loop in this is when the only way to decrease utility bills is by adding infrastructure.”

And you get charged for all of the additional infrastructure there's no way to reduce utility bills you know what I mean exactly. I think this gets to sorry to interrupt but I think this gets to something really really right that I think you were touching on which is that we kind of have like a simultaneously overbuilt and under invested. You know it's this very strange paradox that we're in where the utility can't actually earn a profit on like the basic maintenance stuff and so their business model really really encourages and really incentivizes this kind of capex bias toward building new substations and all of that and we we're on the hook for that you know all of us who pay bills are on the hook for that so you know we really need to figure this out and like I said I really think that.

And there is a major major opportunity for any elected official any politician you know regardless of where they are for getting this right and you know I've seen lots and lots of elected officials you know sort of trying to take this on I mean honestly I'll be I'll be just very real with you guys I feel like I've lost count of the number of press releases I've read where it's like. So why state assembly member is taking on utility bills you know and so everybody clearly like a lot of these people really feel like they need to seem like they are doing something about this problem but it is such an under understood.

I've seen everything from here in New York our governor gutting our climate law the CLCPA and saying you know that's somehow going to.

Save utility customers money for this thing that we never really actually enforce in the first place or you know I've seen in New Jersey you have.

“And I'm going to share a running on freezing rates and arguably that contributed a lot to the success of her campaign and you know in practice what that looks like is sort of up for grabs I think I mean there is this kind of you know executive.”

Orders toward you know looking into the problem and encouraging the. You know proliferation of renewable energy and then in Pennsylvania you have governor Shapiro with that letter to all of the utilities in his state saying you know the utility model is fundamentally broken. And I will say that I find that very exciting because you know he's clearly got his eye on the presidency and so this is very likely to be an explicit presidential issue over the next over the next cycle. So I'm going to blow your guys's minds a bit I don't who does not have a guaranteed profit state.

“So again very red state this is surprising to me I don't power it allows them to earn a profit up to a specific ceiling.”

If they go over that and so they have let's say they want to build a new power plant or whatever or a transmission station. They can overcharge to earn a profit on it up to say 9% usually it's agreed upon. If they go over that consistently the legislature can come back and say okay we're automatically we're going to lower your rates for you. You don't get a choice anymore. And so our CEO at a vital power granted again very little state.

I mean Boise the Boise Metro has like 800,000 people's the biggest city in Idaho and it makes up half the population basically so.

So it's just very weird to me because like we all read state has these very it seems like it's one of the most regulated power grids and that's why maybe our power is so cheap.

I don't know but it brings up a broader question is is it makes it very hard for us to drive towards a more renewable. I guess grid we we're not big into solar here even though we got a ton of sunshine here because we're high desert we're not big into wind farms. Yeah, even in the winter we actually we're what's funny is if you yeah go Google Southern Idaho it's actually one of the sunnyest locations in the state are in the country we said solar is irrelevant in the winter.

“Like the sun does it come out in the winter that's what it is.”

Well that's been that's the what they tell people I know.

But here's the thing is like how do we how do we balance that though how do we balance it's man old.

Well that was just how do you balance the the the the need for investment because it's going to cost extra money to get these these renewable plants online whether it's solar whether it's the cool soul I can't remember what they call like the directed solar they have outside Las Vegas. That's where it's solar power yeah those are cool and they have wind and everything like that how do we force the investment there. When we're also trying to keep affordability in play because I feel like if we if we want to bolster the grid bolster the renewables we're going to have to charge customers more I would assume in my wrong there I'm just kind of guessing as a layperson here because if you want to invest more upfront it's going to cost our bills are going to go up and is that why we're not.

We're not investing can I say something to that yeah absolutely well I think that Matt you're point about renewable energy bringing down costs you know for everyone.

“You know and relieving some of the burden regardless of energy source I think that that's really important to keep in mind.”

Here so the way wholesale markets for electricity work is you know it's this kind of Dutch auction model where you have different generation sources feeding into the wholesale markets for electricity for a given territory or state in real time. We're going to deal with the cut off being the amount you need to meet demand at that given time it's a little bit of a tricky thing but bear with me and it's arranged by price so that whatever the like highest cost supply source is for that to meet that amount of demand.

If you want to apply your gets that cost or gets that gets that price so then you know during the summertime here in New York we have ten gas fired peak power plants which are the dirtiest and most expensive generation sources in the state.

“They were all built in the backyards of black and brown communities working class communities in New York City it's a legacy environmental injustice in our grid that organizers have been fighting for you know since they were built basically.”

And during the summer everybody turns on their conditioner and we have to meet that demand and we turn on these gas fired peakers that are extremely dirty and extremely expensive and every other generator gets that price when that happens every other generator in the wholesale market gets that price so. And it's really changing their renewable exactly so it really changes the value proposition across the board you know I remember I was attending a kind of retreat for energy organizers and analysts and you know a dear friend and colleague of mine was explaining that how certain elements of the wholesale market worked to some students and I walked by just as she was explaining that point and the student was like that can't be how that works.

She's like it is. He's like that's crazy. She's like I know but that is that is how that works and so I bring that up because renewable energy which you know. You know mega watt hour per you know kilowatt hour by kilowatt hour is cheapest you know that stands you know there's a lot of benefits for for bringing down costs across the board when you build more renewable and storage. So you're right that it will require a front investment everything does but I'd rather see that investment going to something that's going to bring down prices in the long term rather than keep us on this kind of volatile and expensive source and perpetuity.

It does seem like you could take the cost angle then you used to sorry I'm going to talk of you Matt I just that was not always such an available argument to us now but I'd sorry go go ahead got.

No he's exactly right and so just to try to explain it in a way for anyone that might have not understood that let's say your your your town is not using any power right and then suddenly it's time to turn all the lights on in town.

But during the day it gets hot right and then suddenly you don't have enough renewable and you need to kick on a gas power generator to make up for the extra demand.

All of your power the price of it is all based on the gas even if it's only a small portion of the total power and being delivered. That's right. That's right.

“Yes, everyone is paying for gas even if 99% of it is renewable because the way that the it's structured is you go up this ladder to higher forms of energy and as soon as you hit that gas that's what everybody pays for.”

And that's the way it struck. I'm reacting.

I don't think I'm going to burn that same.

Your listeners can't see this because it's on you. You can find this moment on YouTube find the time. I look like the emoji that's three lines right now. I love I love that's face right now because that's the face that I've seen on anybody once they understand how that element of the whole so market works.

“I don't think I knew that until right now and that is.”

That's how it works. So I don't have a question again. How. Yeah. Doesn't that incentivize them to.

Drop the level to whenever whatever they feel like to incentivize those incentivize the the power companies to say oh we hit this whatever we determine to be the the rate we need to fire these bigger plans and now we can magically charge anyone we want so they could like they can say oh we. We anticipate it's supposed to be 100 degree day in New York if we get to 70% power grid we're going to fire a speaker plants just in case everyone pay this massive right now and we're there's nothing we can do right right.

That's right. That's right. That's crazy.

That's like an extra level of basically being able to manipulate the rates beyond rate that the public service commission even agreed on right because that's the standard rate not the.

That's crazy. I know that works. Well, I have an answer to my question about why the electric bill so high. Wow, that's what I do. It's yes, that is true for so many elements of the electric grid worse than you knew and I do want to just do a quick plug if you don't mind you know we're trying to tackle this problem from a variety of ways here in New York you know and as I mentioned a big part of the cost of our.

“A big part of our electric bills is the distribution side and that's why we're really encouraged and really excited that assembly member Sarah Hanna Schrethsa and Senator Shelley mayor have brought the fair act to the table.”

Which would lower the return on equity that the distribution companies are allowed to charge. It would take it tackles that problem by saying okay. You know we understand that you have to earn the revenue requirement plus enough to attract investment we are going to set it at what you need to attract investment which right away you're looking at a disincentivizing sort of. And I think that's the reason why we're doing that. I think that's the reason why the utility has been really putting up roadblocks to battery storage which is a really necessary part of bringing our bills down here in New York which is the biggest demand center in the state.

I would say you don't have to you don't have to know exactly what's motivating them deep down in their hearts to see that their. Profit motive and their business model is sort of running contrary to bringing more batteries on to the grid you know batteries are great because they help us levelize demand you know batteries can charge at times when power is cheap and discharge and sell back to the grid at times when power is expensive. And that makes unnecessary a lot of the really expensive infrastructure that distribution companies would otherwise be charging all of us for and that's.

You know, that's great for us, but it does fly directly in the face of connedicens business model. It cuts in less information money because the source is more local. Well, it's there's a couple of different things going on right so on the one hand, you know, they don't have to invest invest as much in.

So it saves us money in all kinds of ways. Connedicin has been charging developers since around last summer something like 30 to 40 times what is customary to interconnect to the grid.

And their their logic is that there could be new peaks created if all of those batteries charge at the same time. I will say that, you know, I've had conversations with Conned and you know, one of the first questions I asked is okay, so historically how much of these projects actually get built because they're assuming that all projects in the interconnection queue get built.

“So, you know, it's somewhere around 5% to that's what it was last year. So, you know, I have a very hard time taking this argument at face value and their claim is the other 500% are built it will be too much stress on the grid, which has never.”

And so it's also like saying, you know, this could be a problem in like three years time which, you know, another way of thinking about it would be if you were running a restaurant and you said, okay, well we've projected, you know, how much it's going to cost by certain amount of ingredients, we could run out of food in three years so we're going to stop serving now.

You know, that's another way of thinking about it. And so we are excited to see that more and more legislators at the city and state level are speaking out about this.

Council member Sandy Nurse has a resolution in the city council resolution for 22 that calls on the Public Service Commission to act. The comment period for this particular docket with the commission has closed that comment period closed on May 4th. So it really is in the hands of the Public Service Commission now, you know, whether they're going to bake in this terrible precedent for. We're going to talk about what we're going to do, so we're going to talk about what we're going to do, and we're going to talk about what we're going to do, and we're going to talk about what we're going to do, and we're going to talk about what we're going to do, and we're going to talk about what we're going to do, and we're going to talk about what we're going to do.

I'm going to talk about the fact that I'm one of the many things I do is I'm a planning and zoning commissioner for eight accounting. One of the biggest problems we run into is this massive push back against solar panels being built on farmland. Basically, it turns into the nimbee situation on my backyard, and they're using farmland as the Trojan horse to say we don't want these solar panels. Is that something you guys experience, and if so, for my own education when I'm standing in front of all these farmers that say I don't want a solar panel because it creates that urban heat bubble causes problems that will never.

“That happens if the solar panel farm goes down, and it's just now wasting away. How do you address those concerns?”

So I have a bit of ammunition to kind of fire back at them, and when it comes to understanding, hey, this is broadly going to be more of a benefit than it's going to be a detriment for this plot of land versus all of your your farms essentially.

Either one. Yeah, I mean, I'll just say this isn't, you know, this isn't really an area of, you know, an expertise for me.

I haven't really worked on this much, but I will say that there's exciting things happening with, you know, agribultaics and upstate New York, figuring out ways to productively pair, you know, growing different kinds of crops and sort of accounting for like a shady crop almost like it's considered. On something, or yeah, I mean, another way of another way of doing it would be like if there's land that's kind of not really good for anything else, you know, a lot, this could be a good source of income for, you know, land that would otherwise not be productive. I don't think that.

“Advocates in New York are encouraging, you know, construction on productive farmland, like that's a, that's a straw man that I have seen sometimes here in New York state and at least not in New York, nobody's calling for that, not really.”

The other thing that I'll say on the kind of nimbee tip with regard to batteries, that's something I'm a little bit more familiar with, you know, there is an awful lot of fear-wongering about battery storage. I was at a hearing in New York City on fire safety, which is usually what people talk about when they talk about objections to batteries. You know, you had the Hasmat Commissioner for the FDNY and you know, one of their deputy commissioners saying, you know, we have the highest safety standards.

And, you know, as somebody who is not a fire expert myself, I'm inclined to take the word of the people whose, whose job it is to know about and care about that issue.

“So there was a case in in up near Vassar actually upstate in near the Kipsy I believe it was where they were considering a moratorium on new battery construction for that reason.”

And it was just one local guy who is, you know, this isn't even his job he's like a professor. He took it on himself to just like have meetings with the local fire department and the fire department ended up coming out in favor of the battery projects and that really changed the political calculus so that that moratorium was taken off the table.

So I think that engaging in good faith with the concerns that people have and figuring out ways to have those conversations early on.

The last thing I'll say is I really do think it's incumbent on the developer to be a good partner in all of this. Like, you know, for all of this to work, they have to be a good neighbor. You know, I've seen or heard about cases where developers are, you know, negotiating down the payment and lieu of taxes that they they have to pay. And, you know, I don't think that's so great either. I mean, they should be benefiting the host communities where they're cited so I do think that it cuts.

You know, it goes both ways and we should expect a high standard for businesses that are building in our areas.

Yeah, and we use an escrow system now that got baked into our laws where they have to pay a amount of the solar companies pay an amount in case they go under because a lot of them are independent. And so what will happen is if they go under and they can't maintain there's an account that we can we pull that money out so we can tear down the solar panels and things. So that is part of it. So I don't know, Matt, do you have any thoughts on that? I do so I know we're going to I don't want to run out of time because I really want to ask you very specific question about something.

But do you have any thoughts on on that idea of how I mean help me with the farmers. So solar companies aren't looking for nutrient rich farm land to put solar panels on it's much more expensive than just regular land like. My father and law is a farmer and his best land is worth five times more than his crappy land that he didn't grow anything on so I don't really know if that's. A much of an issue like I just don't see solar companies willing to pay five times more to be in one spot as opposed to another because of the type of dirt that's there.

But I will say is your escrow thing the oil and gas industry has the same thing, but it's.

“Majorally underfunded, you know, you have to put up a bond to eventually plug.”

Yeah, that's the order of gas. Well, yeah. And it's probably the same thing with solar where if the operator isn't responsible and they flake out then the money's there for the cleanup the problem with oil and gas is those bonds. Probably don't even cover 20% of the cost by the time, you know, because you're looking at you're paying a bond today for something you're going to fix in 30 years from now and just general inflation will blow that out of the water so. That's one of the that's an oil and gas issue that also needs to be remedied.

Not super familiar with the solar one, but it does seem like playing a solar farm would be a lot easier than. Yeah, plugging it abandoning old gas wells for sure. So if you have time if you're going to just indulge me on this final topic, because I know Matt's thoughts and I know that's thought somewhat what are your feelings on nuclear power. Well, you know, we take kind of an affordability.

“And so, you know, I think this is something that can get very heated when you go on energy Twitter or whatever, but, you know, we really do take an affordability perspective and you know, I keep waiting for somebody to go on.”

I keep waiting for somebody to explain to me how this is going to be. The best use of our resources if we're going to be investing in the grid and I just haven't seen anybody be able to. To make it make sense, you know. I just typically finish way behind schedule, too, like isn't our renewable energy source a little bit more, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm answering for my, but my understanding is it's just a very slow build at this point like where we can build solar now. Is there is very value in there, like so we have very little of our power here and I don't come from nuclear even though the we were the first off, but it's funny because we were the first nuclear power.

Of the climate crisis like because even though there's a huge up front cost nuclear, I mean it's hard to deny it is one of the cleanest out there other than obviously the waste that it can produce which relative to as we said lithium is not.

“As much as lithium waste, but it's also far more dangerous, is there some is there some value as a transition as we transition to trying to.”

Keep nuclear on on the table for a while, I know building out a plan is huge like 30 billion dollars is almost at cost that's probably not going to be the case, but the ones we have running is it worth it to try to keep them going as we try to transition to more renewable. I will share that part of my response to this just comes from our experience in New York where I just witnessed our governor, you know, tear down years of progress through the climate leadership and community protection act.

The framing itself of nuclear is something that we can do as a transitionary measure assumes that we are actually making a transition to renewables when we're this far behind schedule.

We passed the Build Public Renewables Act here in New York in 2023 and we still haven't seen projects breaking ground. I want to see some renewables, I want to see some storage, you know, that's my that's my my take on this.

“So you can certain that we would lean too much on nuclear at the expense of building more renewable and it's just more of an easy button instead of getting to that renewable stage.”

Yeah, I mean, I don't want I don't think that these things need to be opposed from a strictly technical perspective, but I see them positioned against each other. Politically by elected officials and decision makers in the various agencies that govern our electorate grid. And at a time when we're so far behind schedule on building the renewables in the storage capacity that we're supposed to be building we have a we have a goal of six gigawatts of storage capacity that the governor herself called for.

At this, at this point, I like I said, I want to see, I want to see renewables and storage being built before we can talk about that.

That's what I'm just like so. We can add like 80 gigs of renewable power a year easy. That would take us 20 generations of people to add 80 gigs of nuclear power like this is slow like it doesn't it doesn't address the problem that we have at hand right now.

“I think that Vogel plant and Georgia was nearly 12 or 13 years before they finished it for I think they ended up with three reactors so three gigs of power like we can do three gigs of power with renewable energy.”

A couple of weeks or a month easy like I mean it's just it's very time consuming every nuclear reactor is a custom build there's no parts of the shelf you can buy like it's you know every every seller panel is off the shelf every wind turbine is off the shelf like you can buy this stuff into your native supply chance to which is fun.

Yeah, it's it's just and I'm not anti nuclear energy, but if if your goal is to reduce cost nuclear energy is the absolute worst way to do it.

Those people in Georgia are going to be paying for that Vogel plant for the next 60 years. Absolutely. Yeah, I guess my past on to rate payers right. Yeah, yeah. My concern is the Germany model not so much building new ones is we start taking ours offline way too fast now granted Germany was a weird situation because it was response to the war and you crane and they got their oil and gas shut off and so they had fire they shut down their nuclear power plants and then suddenly.

This crisis happened I don't think that necessarily affects us because we with Canada generally can can remain somewhat more energy independent than obviously Germany does but they ran into a brick wall where they shut down their nuclear plants in anticipation of going green and then. Ron rush the starts are war and Ukraine starts and they had to fire oil and coal back up I'll be at temporarily it wasn't permanently it was just temporarily they're they're green grid did catch up which maybe put a boot in their ass.

I just worry maybe we're not in the same situation because the United States is far more energy powerful that that's a concern is I just don't want to start taking down nuclear when we as you said we really need a bolster our green energy because I I would love to go green across the board.

Which is good for fish for the fish and things like that so. While it's weird because Idaho is again a very red staple we are very very very conservation it's it's a very conservation estate it's a so that's kind of it's kind of a cool story there and I just. Again we did that well and prepare we were prepared to decommission these dams well it was one whole damn let's be honest with a fan with the fans with the windmills but yeah I just kind when you look at. Much bigger states like New York obviously you start seeing the the politicization of shutting down plants and if you guys are and then suddenly all of a sudden now you're burning peaker plants constantly and they're chasing the headline of well we shut down a new plant.

It ends up hurting and I just worry about that see see this is the position that you end up in whether it's but by design or not you know when we when we talk about this this framing you know people make the same.

“The same thing about the gas fired bigger plants that I mentioned before and you know that continues to position you know affordability and reliability you know against the transition I think about how.”

You know under you know the the the the build public renewables act which not and I work together on you know that was. When was that introduced that was introduced in 2020.

Yeah right and if we had had the political will to use this incredible historic engine this legacy.

But a new deal project that already governs New York's hydropower resources and has this kind of like built in bond model that you can use you know we could have been doing so much more so many years ago.

“And that's that's why I think it's it's so frustrating when you know I hear elected officials say you know oh well we're just going to have to keep these peak power plants on for a little bit longer it's like the answer to.”

You know we're running down these dirty and expensive fuel sources you have you specifically have had the answer at your fingertips for years now and you haven't you haven't done it so we need political leadership that will actually.

You know have a spine and get us to the cheaper electricity on cleaner electricity sources that we need.

It's interesting. I know Chad you're deflecting a lot about how or you're mentioning a lot how Idaho is a red state but. I think it does kind of illustrate that this is not a part of an issue I think it's not a frame that way. The exact same cruel at some point exactly conservation was a conservative value at some point in the history of our country. That same group like these these are no longer the idea that a red state value is destroying the foot like that is a product of capitalism that is a product of late 20th century corporatism reframing conservation as a.

It's a marvelous liberal pinko like aesthetic value versus like American industriousness whereas American industriousness and conservationists were one of the same at a certain point you know and regardless of the history of it.

“I think you go to you know we're in a very well I should say we're in a very blue city in a mixed state over here in the northeast in New York.”

But as Patrick has laid out we are having a lot of roadblocks with you know effectively capitalist energy industry and people within that within the legislature and within the government preventing us from taking this supposedly philosophically consistent energy action. So I think it's really interesting to see like your state has handled it well with its resources obviously you have fewer people but it also goes to show that like your state hasn't rejected that that's not a conservative value and I think a lot of our listeners might find themselves in places where they think this kind.

Of changes hopeless but like you might be in more of a susceptible market in a territory where making change in terms of energy affordability and availability and renewability is actually possible.

Yeah and it's it's really fascinating because the. The Idaho is is bucks a trend and I don't say this I don't think it's necessarily considered I will call it maga because that's the kind of the the Trump I want to tear down all the windmills I want to tear down solar and coal is great I mean he said things like that. Yes, we are red not regard but a lot of people even red blue doesn't matter that move to Idaho are very very outdoorsy but that can be the Trojan horse I think for us is there's a reason Idaho is 75%.

We are actively instead of just tearing down the dams and replacing it with oil or something we are using the wind power I think that's a very good move for Idaho and we're we're now working on things like hydrogen potentially as as a clean fuel.

“Instead because we have the Idaho National Laboratory which is where the first nuclear reactor was built but they are pivoting to other stuff so.”

I do think that isn't a red blue issue it's a human issue well I I would completely agree with all that and to your point about dams you know you can't build dams everywhere for sure but hydroelectric is such a stable source of power. And that one thing you can do is reinvest the revenue from that power back into the things that absolutely want to see and back into the grid and that's what we've been trying to do here in New York with the New York power authority you know when you are fortunate enough to have a resource like that.

We've been in the Northwest you have the Bonville power administration you have these other kind of legacy institutions there are these kind of untapped.

“Financial engines that can be put to the service of the planet and the rate payer.”

Yeah and they I mean it even boils down to just kind of the forward thinking on the solar panels of.

The nuclear test sites that we used to have here in Idaho that's where they're now putting solar panels because no one wants to live there no one wants to farm there it was a nuclear test site back.

60, 70 years ago so they're now putting solar panels out there on top of these old sites and I I got to give kudos to the conservation mentality that is one thing where as not was saying. I tend to think it bucks the trend but really it doesn't we everyone should be more conservation is it should be just a very easy route for us to take. You're right as an American not to get trampled by all these corporations that that don't want you to have individualism and the land that you're entitled to as an American I'm trying to frame this you as an individual.

We love being individuals all we love being individuals so much you the the don't tread on me by putting a nuclear reactor or a fracking practice in my state you got to think of it that way right capture our indignence.

I don't know if you're going to have to do that but I don't know if you're going to have to do that but if you're going to have to do that you're going to have to do that.

You're not a red or blue you know they they play the cards they're dealt and they're dealt a very nice you know hydroelectric. It's also very bipartisan the kind of indignation that you see about this issue and that you see about high electricity bills I mean I'll tell you I've I've done door knocking and canvas and organizing on kind of a variety of issues over the course of my life and.

“I think that probably the easiest canvassing I've ever done is talking to people like hey how do you feel about content let me tell you I don't know if we can swear on this show but like oh yeah.”

This is the find out media now we're seeing some of the other shows. Well and it's it's funny because you have staunchly conservative people in Idaho now like hey what kind of because I have a hybrid been even kind of hybrid is that and so when you're talking but it affected yeah you suddenly become more apt to. Look into green energy stuff like I'm I only pay 30 bucks a tank for a tank of gas for a huge minivan as my kid and business hauler and it. People are like that's awesome I'm going to look into that so I mean even if it's not an electric vehicle there at least maybe taking that hybrid step to do that so I think that money angle like you're talking about where content is getting.

And so that's a lot of the way that you can do that is that you can do that. And that's like conservatives are also being exploited by their utilities like that's the thing when it comes down to it's not like oh we need to convince them it's about affordability it is about affordability and we're all being screwed by it in the same way.

So is that is that going to be harder for you to sell to them hey let's try looking renewables and we have a ton of renewable energy.

“Is over taking the oil though. I wouldn't say that but I think it's the I think it's the third largest wind farm in the country is like 20 minutes from my house.”

Texas has a may win country yeah Texas has more than anybody yeah so there's a lot but we actually export most of that because Oklahoma we produce I think four times more energy than we consume so we're a huge exporter. Yeah a lot of that wind energy goes to Louisiana and Arkansas and I think Mississippi or Tennessee but. Yeah we have a lot of renewable energy here they're building a massive solar farm south before I live. You know Matt I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on this my understanding is that actually building out a lot of the you know gas infrastructure and you know LNG infrastructure the last couple years.

I actually could have led to domestic bills going up because all of a sudden you're talking about competing on a you know international.

Market to a greater extent than you were before. Yeah I've been talking about that for a long time yeah. Being being the world's largest natural gas exporter comes with a cost exactly. Well this has been terrific guys I really should be on my way but I've so enjoyed spending some time and and chatting so thank you all for having me on Patrick Robbins thank you for joining us here on American power. Once again for our listeners Patrick Robbins from Spring Street climate.

Looking to everything they're doing look for energy affordability advocates in your state in your area and look at the fair act also as we got into it in this episode I learned a lot right now a little wonky as to how.

The financial structure of this is but I think.

Essentially a bill that stops utility payers from over investing in the utility company for the utility company's own profit is a pretty good sell once you get people to understand what it is. And I'd love to see more solutions like that on a state level across the country so make sure you check that out. And if you'd like to know more please follow the utility customers association one more time Patrick Robbins thank you so much for being on American power. Thanks all have a great day Patrick Robbins from the energy affordability association and Spring Street climate.

Thank you once again for joining us. What do you guys think that was a really interesting discussion I'm glad they could join us on the show. Yeah.

“I personally did not know that deal about utility rates being set at auction by the highest at the highest rate for example like the peaker plant rate that completely blew that's why I've been reading about this stuff for years.”

Well yeah and when they hold their auctions for months that fall during the year where we have extreme temperatures those auctions get crazy because they know how much demand is going to be on the system. And and the thing is regardless of whether that extreme temperature comes or not. You still end up paying a higher price because they've already paid to play during those extreme temperatures. But it's not only said but it's kind of crazy yeah expenditure it's like the potential maximum expenditure.

Yeah should the weather get that extreme wow that is crazy. Well thank you guys for showing the White House has made a few videos on social media where he shows how that works what we were talking about there and one time he did it wrong and I called him out on it and a lot of people got mad at me but I mean we need to be correct but.

“Yeah that that's how it works the cheapest power first but the moment you use any more expensive power all of it is more expensive wow it's crazy that that's the way it set up but.”

I like I like I really like the fact that. He came across his down to earth like more. How this impacts the average person because a lot of times you hear in this screen energy world it comes very preachy of. And it kind of was to how we remember our our episode on the democrat their autopsy and how the democrat the democratic party loves to just kind of think at this high level theoretical. He's actually coming in and like hey this is how we get cheaper this is how we get cleaner this is how you do it I like the fact that he came in was like hey.

New clears okay it's just we can't build it out because so expensive and I kind of knew that I just. I'm glad that he came in and was like this is the reality for this works for whether you're in New York or if you're in California either Oklahoma wherever and I like having that type of guest on that's not so. I think you get such a high level will we need to save the western yellow back to butterfly from power and I'm like that's cool but how do we make it cheaper and he's like this how we do that to find out the flu vaccine was in that butterfly but I hear what you're saying something like that like we just the cure for cancers in there.

But I know she was very pragmatically focused which I think is it's like I said it's not a disingenuous approach this is not a partisan issue I mean this is a human issue this is this is a populist issue too because we're the ones paying.

“For these massive investment money talks yeah absolutely and I think you're right I mean.”

I've said before I wish more people cared about the environment automatically even if it was expensive but I do think a pragmatic approach is is what gets people to care about these things and it really does affect everyone.

Yeah absolutely yeah I think most most people don't realize like we're probably going to add.

25 to 30 gigawatts of battery storage by the year 2030. That would be 25 to 30 nuclear reactors. You know what I mean like people don't think about batteries and like comparison to nuclear reactors so he talked about New York wanting to add six gigawatts of battery storage right. That would be the equivalent of six nuclear reactors now how long would it take you to build six nuclear reactors in the state of New York. You know what I mean like over it's not even if simultaneously but probably long.

Yeah.

“That decade would be just on debating the legislation to allow it to happen.”

Yeah I give one of these things all in the in the next two decades is like optimistic. Yeah. Yeah. So I didn't mean to cut you off there were you.

No I was just saying the cost of those six nuclear reactors like what would you be looking at you know fifty billion dollars or something like.

Six plants would be almost between hundred fifty and two hundred billion dollars. Yeah and that's like they're that's not sustainable. Well I like their answer to your question about like. You right we don't want to take things down so fast that we end up firing oil plants more. But the solution to that is to build the renewables.

Yeah. The law already says we have I mean in New York it's like well that you're inventing a problem that assumes you're not going to follow through on building out renewable energy. Like at least in our states like we passed that bill where are those six get I mean the original bill public renewables act said 15 gigawatts. But the governor has been slow rolling it and adding small it started with three and then three point five up to seven back down to six they've been. That's going around back and forth but you know regardless that's you know relative relative to.

The amount the actual goal like that would have taken care of our our nuclear coverage had they started building when they when the law said they were supposed to build it. And also if the problem is further capacity then we have to build the renewables to make up that capacity and not hope that there's a gap there which is something I thought but I thought they articulated it. Really well, which was like yeah that doesn't make a lot more sense because I've had that thought too of like is it really so bad if the plants already there.

And it's like we can build solar so like you said that they're on the shelves already. Yeah solar panels are made product yeah. My only concern and I didn't bring this up but my only concern is the lithium and the copper and things like that that goes through. As of right now now we're doing better it goes through China. That is unfortunately their wheelhouse so all of these things that we have the ability to leverage.

South America Australia Chile Argentina they they'll those will eventually overtake China but right now China is the kind of the end all be all in the lithium world and that is concerning from a geopolitical standpoint and a national security standpoint. But I think we can overcome that whereas the uranium side of it not much better but it is better because we have we can leverage Canada.

Canada Canada has a lot of uranium that we can use but again doesn't matter if we want to spend 200 billion we we're not going to spend half a trillion dollars on nuclear plants in this country.

So the renewable route is going to be the far better way to go so.

“Yeah that's what it seems like to me too.”

Hmm. Well this has been a really productive discussion and I hope that we can have them back on I think it's given us a lot to talk about in future episodes as well. I was glad we were able to take a moment to really expand on an issue and I'm sure we'll be talking about more headlines next week and international issues as we often do but I was glad we could have a moment to really break things down. And now that we're at the end of our show I want to take us to a segment that we end almost every show with where we highlight a positive part of our week or story that gave us a little bit of hope.

This was not our bleakest episode but I still want to give us give a little moment to each one of us for the least worst part of our week. Chad give a least worst part of your week. Yeah kind of kind of stole my thunder myself already because I kind of talked about it earlier where I was I'm just. I like that again red blue purple doesn't matter the state you can leverage the the conservation aspect you can leverage just the intrinsic value people have in ensuring that the environment is clean. Idaho probably the second redest state in the in the country still very very focused on conservation even through their their energy 75% of Idaho's electricity generation comes from renewable whether it's hydroelectric wind it's a solar we're you can find unique ways to build solar power on places where no one's going to live anyway like we're using old nuclear test sites to build solar and it's the seems to be working.

I still think that it can be a model for how to at least have the discussion in in an educated academic way but also a pragmatic way with anyone doesn't matter what side of the aisle you're on so I'm just I'm super proud of Idaho for that and I kind of highlighted earlier but I just wanted to re highlight that. I think it's worth and I think that's great and I think you're really good point I mean I know I'm always I'm going on about how it's not partisan but I thought you did a really good job illustrating that I mean I didn't know that much about your state is kind of fascinating how much just come out of it in terms of.

“Not only to sustain within this day but also as a model for other states I think it's really interesting. Mister global what's the least worst part of here week.”

So I normally you know.

And you guys was silly stuff but a lot more serious this time cancer cancer treatment so waste series yeah other direction.

Yeah I'm going to the other direction doesn't what he's about to say about I know could be it could be good news. I'm hoping that because we heard about a new treatment for pancreatic cancer. Well that like doubles the life expectancy of those but a new one has dropped since then and it is a cancer vaccine and a immunotherapy that actually reduces. Increases life expectancy it cuts the death in half is what I'm trying to say of melanoma patients by 5% it's called enter is maran I think as how I'm saying it but that combined with an existing therapy that they already had has proven to.

We're going to do steths by 50% in melanoma patients and all of this sort of news about new cancer treatments has been happening a lot more recently lately I don't know if that's.

A high related or like I don't know how this is all happening it seems to be happening quicker but it's it's really cool that we just. Continually now seem to hear more positive things about cancer research and the things they're figuring out so that was my best.

“You should just have a chance. I mean I don't but you should clearly I remember the name of the segment no that's okay is and I don't want to brush by it to jokes too fast I think you know I actually have a lot of fears that.”

Especially in the US with you know the Trump administration defunding all this medical research that you know this kind of progress would come to a come to a hall and seeing that more recent what feels like an acceleration of good news is.

You know really hardening and that's an important initiative that's really important to me.

Yeah and it just a quickly jump in. There's these these classes of drugs they call them like the the maps the nibs and the the sid drugs these are and mad alluded to it we talked about the data centers. Those are being driven by what I call human or AI assisted humans and so that's where they're coming from and I'm actually direct to beneficiary I take I so I have you sent a feel like a soft guy is it's not it's more just a annoyance than it is anything dangerous but. There's a drug called Dupilla map and it's one of those map drugs that I take so I can manage it and all of these new classes of drugs that we see are.

So it not trying to defend the data centers but that's kind of there we're being we're getting some benefit out of these these humans are using kind of the AI to help them assist to do. Really quick trials on things rather than which allow them to get to approval faster so very cool. That is cool and we also will probably discuss data centers more on another episode so I'm sure we can we can talk about the integration of medical research and all. Yeah when we revisit that next time but no I mean I'm I'm only saying that to say you don't need to devalue what you're saying is that's really important and I'm also scrambling because I'm trying really hard to.

Transition to the thing I'm about to say which is considerably less serious which is. Go for normally the beginning of the episode I say we are recording this on Monday evening you're listening to Wednesday this is not a particularly timely episode but I do want to say that by the time you have listened to this on Wednesday.

“We've both seen the New York next go three and oh in the NBA finals and I think we all know that was a great game Jalen Brunson really out did himself back up here because we got two it's obviously.”

We all know it's currently Wednesday when you're listening to this and also that halftime shootout between Trump and Zora I mean I don't know why Trump got himself into that but I mean Zora on cooked him I don't know why they went down to knockout game one on one but I guess Trump thought he could double down on double nothing but.

That's the least worst part of my week we're on the first fan on the right side of me over here though since I'm on the middle of this.

Actually I'm written for the next look I had that you're going for the spurs after the thunder so after the spurs beat us. I told my spurs fans followers that I would root for the spurs but I hadn't really paid attention to. Best of I only watch sports during playoffs like I don't pay attention. And after watching that first game.

I just became an X fan I was like I love these guys.

Like I like the Brunson guy I like Carl Anthony towns like I just like him like I don't know why.

“And honestly I don't think the spurs have anything for him I think it's a sweep like you beat somebody twice at home oh my gosh like.”

I will not really like that Brunson guy he seems down to earth and I like the Carl Anthony town. I just like him like I don't know why but I think they're gonna win. He sends your hate mail to Mr. global view box.

I know I'm always going on about community in New York but this the vibe in this city has been incredible for the past week.

I mean human ingenuity you just see people putting on costumes. They're making sets outside of massive square garden people are don't leap off of a billboard. But people are leaping off billboards people are getting videos from the tops of buildings. Like you just this it feels like some of like 1993 again all of a sudden. Like people are so jazzed.

“Delhi guys are yelling me out the door like hey did you see the game tonight?”

I'm not joking that happened like it. I'm not even the biggest sports fan but the way that it brings people together and the way that you see like. You know the similarities between these people I don't want to be like oh we're all one race your politics absolutely. Matter, but it's really cool to see the soul of a city come together that way and see people realize how much they have in common. I guess the city didn't collapse after Monvani after we're happening.

Yeah I'm so interesting how that didn't happen.

“Honestly, I think it's better for the country if the next win and not the spurs.”

I think there's about San Antonio. Nobody cares what happens in San Antonio dishes. Mr. One of the things happening there. When New York does well the country does well that's just a fact like you know that's just how it is. That has been the least worst part of our week and you're listening to American power. This has been American power for Chad Scott and Mr. Global Matt Randolph.

I'm Nat Towson will be back next week and remember power corrupts but American power corrupts. American Lee.