This edition of the Energy News Beat Podcast is an Exclusive interview with Robert Bryce, Energy Expert, Public Speaker, and Meredith Angwin, Author of “Shorting the Grid.”
Stu has two energy industry thought leaders stopping by the podcast. They cover the Energy Crisis in a way that only tremendous thought leaders can articulate critical points in the energy crisis the United States now faces.
Please follow and read all of Robert Bryce’s content at RobertBryce.com. Also, follow him on his Substack and check out his book “A Question of Power” HERE
Both books are on the Energy News Beat Must Read list. Common sense is needed to be applied to the energy market. The grid cannot support the issues that renewable energy’s physics requires when placed into production. Printing money and not implementing power in the most cost-efficient method will drive inflation and higher consumer prices.
ENB Podcast with Meredith and Robert. Run of Show
02:34 – Robert’s Trip to Japan
06:24 – energy policy and ensuring the grid
09:41 – Permitting on Electric Grid
California’s Electric Rates
13:02 – grips of this renewable energy fetish
19:15 – new coal plants’ energy hypocrisy
22:54 – Talks about modular reactor
25:15 – SMR issue
27:04 – Nuscale Power
31:26 – How did you meet Meredith?
32:10 – Talks about Robert’s Book: Question of Power
33:21 – How Difficult and how slow it will be for the U.S. and the rest of the world to move off of hydrocarbons? – Energy Transition
36:45 – What would be some resources for people to get involved, Meredith?
39:37 – Do you have anything else to add for education, Robert? Because you both are true treasures in the industry
43:34 – Free ways to educate yourself
44:52 – How to get a hold of Meredith
45:19 – Where to find Robert
47:00 – Outro
Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.
Stuart Turley: [00:00:06] Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Energy News Beat Podcast. My name’s Stuart Turley and President and CEO of the Sandstone Group. We’ve got a fantastic show today. We not only have some legends, we have industry thought leaders and authors on this show today. We have Meredith Angwin. [00:00:23][17.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:24] She is an author and I have had the pleasure of having her on the podcast before. I’m a gigantic fan of Meredith. She has her book called Shrinking the Grid. And if you remember the podcast that she was on, I was holding the book up all the yellow tabs and everything else. And Meredith is a rock star. Welcome, Meredith. [00:00:43][19.6]
Meredith: [00:00:44] Well, thank you for having me on the show. And I’m really especially pleased to be here with Robert. Bryce is here because he’s a hero of mine. [00:00:51][7.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:00:52] Oh, absolutely. Coming around the corner, we have the Robert Bryce. I mean, not just. Hey, Robert Bryce. You have the Robert Bryce. Robert Bryce is an author, public speaker, world traveler. [00:01:04][11.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:04] I got a few other things to say in here, but there’s too much hugging going on. I am a true fan of both of you, and I want to tee this conversation up. We want an organic, fun conversation. There’s so much to talk about, but I love the interaction that you all do on LinkedIn, Twitter. All of the other things you are true industry thought leaders. [00:01:28][23.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:01:29] And I think the only way to get through our energy and financial crises around the world is by education. And you are both the folks that are really doing it right out there talking about everything. So thank you guys for stopping by. [00:01:44][15.2]
Meredith: [00:01:44] Thank you. [00:01:45][0.3]
Robert: [00:01:45] I need to. Lie down after that introduction Here. [00:01:48][2.2]
Meredith: [00:01:48] Meet too. [00:01:49][0.5]
Robert: [00:01:51] As one. British was a British military guy a few years ago. He had this flowery introduction and he said, Well, thank you for that introduction. It’s one that my mother would have believed when my father would have appreciated it. [00:02:02][11.3]
Robert: [00:02:04] But,you know, Robert, if the truth is there, when Meredith is speaking the truth and when you’re speaking the truth on your podcast and I get I’m hooked on your Daily Show, when you’re out there not you’re you’re updates, Robert, you’re traveling the world and you’re giving us updates about that. I’m sorry. Tell us about your last trip. That was really cool. [00:02:24][20.2]
Meredith: [00:02:24] It was well, sure. Well, I think you’re talking about Japan. I’ve been in. Yes, actually, I was in Oshkosh, Wisconsin last week and Louisville. And that. [00:02:33][8.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:02:33] Was a great one on your substack. [00:02:34][1.0]
Robert: [00:02:34] On earth and earthquakes last or the week before. But Japan was fascinating. And I’ll just repeat, you know, I’ll acknowledge Meredith as well. Meredith’s been on my podcast, the Power Hungry podcast five times because I’m a great admirer of hers and talked to her about I mean, she is the acknowledged expert on autos and grid operations in the U.S. And I want to talk about that because. [00:02:55][20.4]
Robert: [00:02:55] I think these are the you know, the electric grid is the key issue, is a key network now that is being fragiles by a lot of bad policy. Japan trip thank you was fascinating. I was there for two weeks. A couple of quick observations. One is that Japan is slowly going back to nuclear and you know, as Japan has a very complex history with nuclear energy, I’ll put it that way. [00:03:15][19.5]
Robert: [00:03:15] And about nine weeks ago, in fact, nine weeks ago today or yesterday, I was at Fukushima Daiichi at the power plant and saw the ruined reactors. And it really did affect me and acknowledged and made me understand what the devastation was for the nuclear plant. And that was important. [00:03:30][14.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:03:30] Robert, you said it affected you. Did you get radiated and that’s why you’re glowing? [00:03:34][4.1]
Robert: [00:03:35] No, I mean, I think that it showed me that the radiation levels still are very you know, I’ll say I think the Japanese way of overreacted in terms is even today about the managing the radiation levels at the plant. And they clearly overreacted in terms of the evacuation, which was the bigger problem than anything, that it was radiation related. [00:03:53][17.9]
Robert: [00:03:53] But my point but two things. One is the Japanese utilities and their only nine or ten of them are going back to nuclear and investing for the future. And I think that’s really remarkable. The close knit you know, the close ties between the Japanese government and industry are well known, but they are going long nuclear. That is very clear. [00:04:09][15.3]
Robert: [00:04:09] The other point is just and I’ll make this and then I’ll stop it for a moment anyway, but it’s that, you know, Japan, for all of the fact that it’s the home of Kyoto Protocol and the rest of it, they are not chasing climate change goals. They are seeking energy security. They are building a coal plant in the middle of Tokyo. [00:04:25][15.9]
Robert: [00:04:26] TEPCO, the company that owns Fukushima Daiichi, is finishing an ultra supercritical coal plant in the heart of Tokyo, 1.3 gigawatts. So they are energy security is their paramount concern. And so for all the talk in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, Japan is going to take care of Japan and they are going with their industrial policy. [00:04:44][17.7]
Robert: [00:04:44] The rest of it, they’re building gas fired power plants. Coal fired power plants are slowly restarting their nuclear plants. But, you know, this idea that we’re going to have some international agreement on climate change, the rest of it, there’s no evidence of that in Japan. None. [00:04:55][10.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:04:56] Wow. Now, they don’t have natural gas, do they? They have to import their. [00:04:59][3.6]
Robert: [00:04:59] They’re building LNG power plants, LNG import and LNG gas fired power plants. [00:05:04][4.9]
Robert: [00:05:05] There’s one thing they don’t own, and I think so. And so some of the imports come across the Arctic from Russia. [00:05:13][8.3]
Robert: [00:05:14] Yeah. Yeah. [00:05:15][0.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:15] Yeah that was my next point. [00:05:16][1.0]
Robert: [00:05:16] They’re one of the biggest they’re one of the biggest LNG importers in the world and will be for some time to come. They’re competing for gas with China. And, you know, of course, Pakistan has fallen out of the game. But Korea, South you know, Asian countries across Asia and now particularly as well as Europe. [00:05:31][14.3]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:31] Oh, you bet. Now, Meredith, as you bring that up, we I think that the you know, our belief and again, for everything that I’ve read is I would like to see the lowest kilowatt per hour delivered to everybody on the planet with the least amount of impact on the environment. All right. [00:05:51][19.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:05:51] So that means that you must let the markets decide. And that means you got to use nuclear means, you got to use natural gas, you got to use oil and gas to get the net transition done. Carbon capture is going to be a lot of fun. [00:06:04][12.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:06:04] But, you know, you’re still going to need renewables in certain areas and things. If the market decides energy policies are nuts right now, it seems like permitting is a real problem. And then policies I want to lob this out to you, too, because, Meredith, we were just chatting beforehand and energy policies are tough. [00:06:23][19.1]
Meredith: [00:06:24] Well, energy policy and ensuring the grid I talk about too, I say this there are two grids. There’s a physical grid, which is how the electricity gets to your house and somebody makes it and it gets to your house. And then there’s the policy grid. [00:06:38][14.3]
Meredith: [00:06:38] And the policy grid can be described as many things, but one of the most important things is how the different kinds of plants get paid and how how secure their payments are, because the security of their payments is what makes people continue to invest in them. [00:06:55][16.8]
Meredith: [00:06:55] I mean, if you heard that you could invest in something which would make $1,000 profit for you one hour a year and the rest of the time it wouldn’t make any profit. You probably want to do it. You probably prefer to invest in something that makes a small profit every hour, you know? And even if they ended up to the same amount, if you would use a one hour year, you think, what if it doesn’t happen this year? You know,. [00:07:23][27.6]
Meredith: [00:07:23] So basically the subsidies for renewables have really distorted what’s going on in the market. And I didn’t want to admit that because one of the things that was when I began writing the book, the thing that was really front and center for me was how the auctions were distorting the market. [00:07:42][18.9]
Meredith: [00:07:43] And then I thought, you know, how the auctions, you know, the, the, the prices, the next kilowatt hour, Well, what about having to build the plant if well, if it’s an expensive plant, But the next kilowatt hour is cheap, but it only gets paid for that kilowatt hour. [00:07:59][16.5]
Meredith: [00:08:00] And so it never gets to there was something called the search for the missing money among the plants because there was no way to recoup the money you were for building the plant. Well, at any rate, as I began writing it, I thought, you know, if you don’t mention the effect of renewables on the grid, you won’t be telling the truth. [00:08:21][21.2]
Meredith: [00:08:21] So I did it, but I just kind of pulled myself into the very many, very difficult effects of the renewable South on the grid. The fact that there is subsidized and the fact is they they drive more reliable generators out of business. The fact that the only thing that can back them up really is is natural gas, because steam plants or steam plants can load shallow coal and or coal and nuclear can also, but they can’t come up to speed as quickly as the wind can die down. [00:08:57][35.8]
Meredith: [00:08:58] You see that’s a different thing to for it. And so anyway, yes, the policy grid has been actually pretty much groomed reliability. And the most important thing a grid can have is reliability, because if it doesn’t have that, everything else inexpensive or whatever, it’s not going to be helpful. It’s not going to work. [00:09:23][25.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:09:23] Oh, absolutely. And Robert, you’re you talk a lot about permitting and everything else. You guys were just quoted in the Cowboy State daily. I love the Cowboy State daily. I read that every day. I want to give them a shout out. If nobody’s following them, they need to. The Robert What do you think about permitting? Should we change? [00:09:41][17.6]
Robert: [00:09:41] Well, let me let me just follow a little bit on what Meredith is saying about the reliability issue, because a friend of mine put it this way. He said, if it’s not reliable, the electricity is not reliable, it’s not affordable. [00:09:51][9.4]
Robert: [00:09:51] And so what have we seen in the electric grids across the country in the last few years? Well, Generac sales are skyrocketing. Generac has been one of the best performing stocks. Now it’s cooled off some, right. But there has been a boom in home generator sales. [00:10:06][14.2]
Robert: [00:10:06] Well, why is that? It’s because people are looking at the grid and saying, I don’t want to be blacked out. And so who’s buying the Generac will generally their on average their own their their own documents say their average customer has a household income of $140,000 a year. [00:10:20][14.1]
Robert: [00:10:21] That’s twice the national average. So that to me is a very clear point about who gets hurt by blackouts, who gets hurt the most by expensive electricity, by unreliable power. It’s the poor. Right. So there is a class element to all of this that I think is absolutely essential to keep front and center, because what we are seeing is, particularly in California, which is the poster child for bad energy policy, all kinds. [00:10:44][23.9]
Robert: [00:10:47] Electric rates have risen more have risen faster in California than any other state in the United States. I wrote about this on my Substack RobertBryce.Substack.com make sure and sign up. [00:10:56][9.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:10:57] It was a great article, by the way. [00:10:58][1.2]
Robert: [00:10:58] That California’s electric rates have gone up faster than any other country, any other state in the United States since 2008, when Governor Schwarzenegger signed into law this mandate requiring a third, you know, the state get a third of the utilities, get a third of their electricity from renewables, and they’ve ratcheted up since then. [00:11:13][14.5]
Robert: [00:11:13] But this is all hammers the poor and the middle class, all of it. And that is not being discussed in the elite policy circles. The academics, the Princeton crowd, the Stanford crowd. It’s Cal Berkeley crowd. You know, their fancy models where we can do all this? Well, yeah, you can, but at extraordinary cost to the consumer, because the electricity is less reliable, less affordable, and less resilient. [00:11:33][20.1]
Meredith: [00:11:34] I often say could is like the equivalent of a four letter word, because basically could the people say, oh, we could do this, we could do this? And in the example I used to make it really simple is that I live near the Connecticut River and I live on the Truman side. [00:11:51][17.2]
Meredith: [00:11:51] And the other side is the New Hampshire side. And it’s a good sized river and there are bridges across it. Sometimes it’s close together is for miles, and sometimes far apart is 13 miles. We could build a bridge every two miles. [00:12:06][15.1]
Meredith: [00:12:07] We know how to build bridges. We could do it. It would just be incredibly wasteful. But the thing is that somebody is going to say, if we want to save gas, we don’t want to have all these people driving eight miles to get to the bridge. So let’s build a bridge every two miles. We could do it. [00:12:23][16.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:12:24] I love it. Yeah, that’s a great point. Yeah, we could go all electric on the vehicles in the military. Kind of like what was said. This was it this week with our economy. Oh, my goodness. Can you imagine a tank with a solar panel? The Abrams. [00:12:41][16.3]
Robert: [00:12:41] Abrams weighs 60 tons. How many solar panels would you need on that? That is funny. You know, I’d never heard you use that bridge analogy, Meredith, about, well, we could build this many bridges across the river because then everybody would be able to cross the river more easily. [00:12:55][14.1]
Robert: [00:12:56] But I mean, to drive this home, I mean, what the other part hears, too, that I think is critical to understand is that we’re in the grips of this renewable energy fetish. And I think that that is the right word that the you know, that building more wind and solar capacity, this is the fetish that is being promoted by the biggest INGOs in America. [00:13:14][17.8]
Robert: [00:13:14] And and I don’t call them clients. I don’t call them environmental groups because they are anti-environment, I think, in many cases. But this this fetish is being driven by. And let’s get back to the policy grid where Meredith has been written. [00:13:26][11.4]
Robert: [00:13:26] So much is being driven by this massive I mean a neutron bombs of cash that are Congress is dropping on the wind and solar industry. We’re talking about over $250 billion in tax credits that are available to the wind and solar crowd between now and 2030. [00:13:38][12.3]
Robert: [00:13:39] And they are there is a land rush on in rural America to try and build these projects because these companies, many of them, some of the biggest companies in America, including Mid-American Energy, part of Berkshire Hathaway, NextEra Energy, are in a mad rush to build all this stuff, because if they don’t build it, they don’t get paid. So the incentives, as Meredith has pointed out many times, the incentives are are are distorting our grid and making it less reliable, less affordable, less resilient. [00:14:03][24.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:04] Oh, yeah. And you know, Meredith and Robert, great points. I’m I’m just so excited because I love talking to energy and you guys. But you know, when you’re bringing renewables. Meredith in your book, you were talking about the factor of 20% to build out your grid and you build out 20% for resilience of having a power plant down or an emergency. [00:14:27][22.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:28] And then when as soon as you add renewable, it’s 200%. And so all of a sudden when you’re putting in one megawatt wind turbine, you get then you got to actually buy another 190 of them or 99 of them in order to get the same production capabilities. And then it’s still wind. [00:14:45][17.7]
Meredith: [00:14:46] I think you got the same production capabilities because the windows down. [00:14:50][4.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:14:51] Exactly. [00:14:51][0.0]
Meredith: [00:14:52] You know, you been doing doing what it boils down to is I look at it as that if you had sort of a perfect system. You would have won, sir, but it would have renewables that would carry the tire load when their load was high. [00:15:09][16.8]
Meredith: [00:15:09] Then you had, as you said, renewables doubling them, which would be able to charge up some resource that they could store like a battery. Okay, some storage. And then you have the battery, which has to be able to carry the same load. [00:15:25][15.8]
Meredith: [00:15:25] So in other words, if you have a regular system, which we have now, you build a 120% of what you’ll need it at peak requirement with a all renewable plus storage system, you’re going to have to build 300%. [00:15:42][16.2]
Meredith: [00:15:43] Now, if you have careful modeling, you might say, Oh, you won’t have to build a complete 300% because you can be putting some of the stuff in the storage even when there’s not a 100% renewable available. You can anyway. You can play some games and get it down to 250 or 280% of what you need. But basically, if for a first cut, just look at it three times, one to run it, one to back it up and one to be storage. [00:16:13][30.5]
Meredith: [00:16:15] Wow!,. [00:16:15][0.0]
Robert: [00:16:15] And that’s a critique, if I to put that on that stew, because it’s a really critical point that Meredith is making and it’s important to put it into historical context. So from the days of Edison and Insel, who were the great pioneers in American history of American electricity, as long as along with Frank Sprague, who’s my personal hero and one of the great underappreciated inventors in American history, you only made the grid as large as you absolutely had to because you overbuild it, you waste money, right? [00:16:41][26.1]
Robert: [00:16:41] So that was always the effort to as to right size the grid. You didn’t want extra generation. And now this is part of the harebrained oddness of this current regime that we’re facing. As Meredith ably pointed out, we’re going to you know, today we have about 1.2 terawatts of generation capacity. [00:16:56][14.9]
Robert: [00:16:57] These schemes that are being promoted by an I will name them Jesse Jenkins at Princeton University by Mark Jacobson at Stanford University. You’re talking about two, three terawatts of additional capacity, you know, double or tripling the scale, the amount of stuff, the amount of steel we have to put in the ground in order to meet electric demand. It’s insane from the get go. [00:17:15][18.7]
Robert: [00:17:16] And yet these are the people who have the ear of the policymakers in Washington, and they are being the law. They are being just flooded. These are the companies that want to build all this stuff are looking at just insane some insane amounts of cash. And who’s with them? Who’s joining with big business, big banks and big law firms. [00:17:33][17.3]
Robert: [00:17:33] And so, yes, is that the I’ll use the word conspiracy, because it is a conspiracy because the big money interests are trying to make all this happen, even though it’s terrible for the grid and terrible for consumer. [00:17:44][10.8]
Meredith: [00:17:45] You know, the energy is also can be described as pork or ethanol. I just wanted to point that out because I grew up in Chicago where we talked a lot about what Daley was doing. And my mother told me that, you know, she was basically a Democrat, but she said she wouldn’t. [00:18:00][15.5]
Meredith: [00:18:01] She volunteered with the independent voters of Illinois because she didn’t want to be signed up with the Daley machine. And what I’m trying to say is that I I heard about pork barrel politics over the kitchen table when I was a little girl. [00:18:15][14.4]
Meredith: [00:18:16] And so every now and again, when somebody explains how much we’re going to have to invest in tripling the grid, I think I’ve seen this. I know about this. Okay. I’ll be quiet for a while here. [00:18:26][10.6]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:27] Oh, no, I just. This is why you guys are here. I would hug both of you in a group therapy hug if we could, but. But Robert and Meredith, energy hypocrisy drives me nuts. You know, when you sit back and a printing money. Robert, you nailed it. [00:18:44][17.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:18:44] Printing money just drives me nuts. Reuters, I believe it was four or five months ago, wrote a beautiful article you mentioned the universities and the universities have their own coal plants. I’m not sure if you read that article, but it was You probably wrote it. [00:19:00][15.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:19:00] I’m sorry if I’m stealing your material, I steal all your material and I pretend it’s mine. But, you know, and you sit back and you look how many campuses across the U.S. have coal plants that are not efficient and they’re old. The new coal plants at least have better scrubbers and stuff. But do you what do you guys think about energy? Hypocrisy? [00:19:21][21.8]
Robert: [00:19:22] I’m against it. [00:19:23][0.6]
Meredith: [00:19:26] Thank you. Well, you know, we have a we have a giant oil burning system on the Dartmouth campus, which is not far from us. And you can I mean, you can smell it sometimes. I mean, because oil I don’t know. It just it doesn’t it’s a pretty old system and it doesn’t burn all that clean. [00:19:49][22.5]
Robert: [00:19:49] Let me jump in for a second, Stu, since you brought up coal and I think this is an important point and it’s something that I mean, we think coal is dead. And, you know, Michael Bloomberg gave a. The Sierra Club a few years ago to fund their Beyond Coal campaign. [00:20:03][13.4]
Robert: [00:20:03] And now that’s become the Beyond Carbon campaign with half a billion dollars. Speaking of hypocrites, because Michael Bloomberg’s private jets last year burned something on the order of 300,000 gallons of jet fuel. By the way, he owns a dozen houses, by the way. But he’s funding all these climate groups because I guess he’s seeking some kind of indulgence. But nevertheless, the point I think that’s key to understand this is. [00:20:29][25.7]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:29] For our podcast listeners, I hate to interrupt. This is Mr. Bloomberg and I’m no you want to go on Robert Brice’s the power hungry power. [00:20:40][10.4]
Robert: [00:20:41] Powerhouse I guess any time. Mayor, come on down. We’ll have you on. We’ll talk about your jets and how much. Yeah. Never mind. [00:20:47][5.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:20:47] He’s denying it. [00:20:48][1.1]
Robert: [00:20:49] Sorry. Okay. That’s fine. But I didn’t mean to interrupt. But the coal issue is one that’s key, Stewart, Because the amount of coal fired capacity around the world continues to grow. It is not slowed down. You know, I thought for years that I was misapprehension that China and India were there. Coal consumption was consumption was leveling out. [00:21:07][18.2]
Robert: [00:21:07] No, the latest data and the late in the Chinese government just announced in the first quarter, I think Greenpeace reported it, that there something like 28 gigawatts of new coal fired capacity where were permitted by the Chinese provinces in the first quarter of this year. Sort of put that into context. [00:21:21][13.8]
Robert: [00:21:22] Last year in the U.S., we closed about 12 gigawatts of coal fired capacity. So the closures of coal fired capacity in the United States are not even matching the growth of the coal fired capacity that’s being built in China. And coal consumption last year grew by almost 1%, according to the latest IEA data. [00:21:38][15.8]
Robert: [00:21:38] So, you know, this all of this effort that is being and we’re talking ultimately trillions of dollars and we’ve already spent almost $1,000,000,000,000 on wind and solar in the U.S. since 2014, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. [00:21:49][11.5]
Robert: [00:21:50] I’m not saying it’s being wasted, but I will say it’s not being effective in ultimately reducing overall global emissions because the U.S. is not the main and not the most important story in emissions anymore. It’s China and India. [00:22:02][12.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:03] Oh, yeah. And India has just passed China for most populous. [00:22:06][3.4]
Robert: [00:22:07] And they’re building and they’re building coal plants, as is China, and so is Vietnam and Japan. I mean, you know, this idea that the U.S., we’re going to solve climate change and we’re if only we spend enough money in the Inflation Reduction Act, it’s just a misapprehension of the in what is happening globally. This is a global challenge. [00:22:25][17.8]
Robert: [00:22:25] And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so adamantly pro-nuclear. The U.S. should be leading the world in deployment of new nuclear. That is the only way we’re going to make significant dents in the overall global coal consumption is if we offer a technology that can displace coal at scale. [00:22:39][14.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:22:40] You bet. And Meredith I want to throw this out here because modular reactors, it seems to me that putting a modular reactor, using the infrastructure that’s already there makes a lot of sense when you shut down a coal plant or you have a modular reactor. Can you guys give me your thoughts on that? Because that makes sense to me. And I don’t it makes. [00:23:00][19.4]
Meredith: [00:23:00] A lot of sense to me. And I have to admit that I have a friend, Rod Adams, who is would you join Nucleation capital to fund small reactor innovative reactors? And another think about it. And then I have another friend who lives near us, Robert Hargraves, and he is the co-founder of a company to make modular reactors, which will be built in a shipyard and then delivered by ship and plugged into the land. [00:23:31][31.4]
Meredith: [00:23:32] So this is people who are buying the power they don’t have to deal with the is the running of the reactor or anything. They just plug in. And then when it’s time to refurbish these are small reactors, you can just take the ship away and get another ship with some more or, you know, and so forth. [00:23:52][19.9]
Meredith: [00:23:52] And one of the other things is that he he really he has a coworker, co-founder Jack Cheney, who worked in a Korean shipyard. And Jack is very clear on the idea of this, the equivalent of built in a facility versus the equivalent of stick build. [00:24:10][18.4]
Meredith: [00:24:11] Stick built is going to be much more expensive. And the quality control, it’s not going to be as good. And that’s how we build our reactors here. But Bob Hargraves hopes for reactors for kind reactors that can then that can just be barged up to a site and collected. [00:24:30][19.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:24:31] Wow. I was lucky enough to interview Thomas Jam from Copenhagen. Atomics He’s the CEO there and Copenhagen. Atomics has the modular reactors that they are just started and by next year they should be able to roll out 365 modular reactors a year for the they they are the size of a semi truck and they are going out. And I’m like, Where do I sign up on that and get them some that would to me. You can’t invest money in print money without inflation. [00:25:09][37.2]
Meredith: [00:25:09] Yeah. [00:25:09][0.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:25:09] , that to me seems like a good investment for printing money. I’m just getting on that. [00:25:14][4.6]
Robert: [00:25:14] Well, I’ll. Jump in on the SMR issue because I think it’s him. There’s no doubt that it’s there are some promising technologies and a bunch of different companies Meredith mentioned or con terrestrial energy in Canada. TerraPower here in the U.S. or nice in the U.S., which has a a very intriguing gas fired I’m sorry, gas cooled reactor design that Dow Chemical is is going and planning to use in one of their chemical plants. [00:25:40][25.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:25:41] You said gas gas cooled? [00:25:42][1.5]
Robert: [00:25:43] Yeah. Yeah. High temperature gas. Oh, yeah. Yeah. One of those is already been deployed in China in Shandong province. Uh, let me see. And late 21 it started. [00:25:52][9.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:25:52] Nice. [00:25:52][0.0]
Robert: [00:25:53] But let’s be clear and again, this is one of the things that I leaving Japan made me much more sober about nuclear the future of nuclear in the U.S., and I’m adamantly pro-nuclear. I’ve said the same thing for 13 years. Natural gas to nuclear. This is the way forward is the no regrets policy we should be following. [00:26:08][15.2]
Robert: [00:26:09] But we but to make that happen, we it’s going to require sustained bipartisan support in Congress. Why? Because the nuclear industry requires robust government backing. It doesn’t you can’t just leave it to the private sector. [00:26:21][12.2]
Robert: [00:26:21] And this is one of the big problems facing nuclear in America. I’m not glib about it. I’m absolutely in favor of nuclear. But we have to be very clear eyed when we talk about smart about deploying them. [00:26:32][10.5]
Robert: [00:26:32] The problems are, I think, very clear. They’re three of them. First is a nuclear regulatory commission. This agency is intractable. They are taking way too long to permit new projects, a new scale. It got another promising company, modular reactor company. It took them six years and $500 million with the NRC to get their design. [00:26:51][18.7]
Meredith: [00:26:51] Permanenting. [00:26:51][0.0]
Robert: [00:26:52] For their further reactor design. [00:26:53][1.2]
Meredith: [00:26:54] Im Building it we’re now talking about half a billion to build it. We’re talking about half a billion to permit it. [00:26:58][4.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:26:59] Robert, can you say that again? That’s frightening. [00:27:01][2.4]
Robert: [00:27:02] So nuscale power they have and they’re and here’s the other part that makes us even more, I would say sobering, is that the scales design is a light water design. [00:27:11][8.9]
Robert: [00:27:11] So the light water design, so their design for their reactor is really just a shrunk down model of the kind of reactors we have deployed all over the U.S. It took them six years and $500 million to get approval for their project, for their permit design at the NRC. [00:27:24][13.6]
Robert: [00:27:25] Now they have to build it, right? They haven’t done that yet either. So so what are the key hurdles back to those points? Well, it’s the NRC, the regulatory regime is onerous and I don’t see a quick fix there. And it’s likely will require an act of Congress to get that fixed in place. [00:27:40][15.5]
Robert: [00:27:41] Second, the supply chain, who’s going to build it and where? And I agree with Meredith wholeheartedly. And I think the shipyard reactor designs are really promising because most of the world’s population lives in coastal cities. So powerships are an incredibly important opportunity and I’ve seen Powerships myself in Lebanon. [00:27:57][16.1]
Robert: [00:27:58] But then finally is the fuel issue and this is the one that now, because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is much more difficult to solve. So, yes, these are SMRs, man they’re cool you know, I’d like you know, like you. Well, but many of them use Hailu High as a low enriched uranium. Who makes Hailu? The Russians. They’re not our friends. [00:28:13][15.4]
Robert: [00:28:14] They were never our friends so where are we going to get the fuel? Who is going to do the enrichment? Where are we going to put the mines? How is this going to happen in the United States when we have a Congress that is generally and objects to industrial policy of any kind? How is this going to happen? We have to be very clear eyed about what this means and what the challenges are. [00:28:35][21.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:28:35] Wow!, talk about second order effects of how you make that comment. You hit me in the back of the head with a shovel, Robert. I mean, there’s a lot of things that people need to think about out there and that permitting thing is terrible. That’s awful. Well, yeah. [00:28:50][14.6]
Meredith: [00:28:50] This is it is really bad. It is really bad and even when they try to make a ruling, for example, they made a ruling that NRC had to spend only two years setting up a permit. What NRC did I think they did this with Oakland. [00:29:07][16.2]
Meredith: [00:29:07] They said, oh, yes, you have. We reviewed it we take two years. But what we’re we’re not saying yes and we’re not saying no. We’re going to say it’s incomplete and go back and do it again. [00:29:18][11.3]
Meredith: [00:29:19] So the two years is basically we can do as many two years as we feel like and it’s unfortunate, but that is exactly how they are approaching everything. But even if Congress makes a rule, they know how to get around it they spend all their time figuring out how to get around such rules. So the Congress spends very little time trying to set them up. [00:29:39][20.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:29:40] Right. [00:29:40][0.0]
Robert: [00:29:40] Well, Robert reminds me of the old adage from lobbyists, right? Oh, that’s not a one Lexis Bill. That’s a two Lexis bill. You know, we’re going to make sure that we get this one passed. It’s going to take a while also but I see that at work at the NRC, it’s an independent agency. [00:29:55][15.1]
Robert: [00:29:56] You have a lot of people there who I’m sure a. Hold their consciences and hard working, but there is no motivation for them to approve projects. Quite the opposite. And so and and because it’s an independent agency, it’s not like somebody can crack heads. [00:30:09][12.7]
Robert: [00:30:11] Congress can really hold their feet to the fire except through budgetary things and other. But the other point that Ray Rothrock made that I thought was really important to understand about the NRC and its dysfunction is that it doesn’t have a CEO, it has a huge staff, and there are five commissioners, but there’s nobody who sits at the top and says, You must, you will, and you’ll do it now. [00:30:27][16.0]
Robert: [00:30:27] So it’s a system that has kind of bred this unaccountability so there are many problems within the regulatory regime that have to be resolved if we’re going to approve new designs and get them deployed at scale. But we right now don’t have that capability and we can complain about the NRC. But even if we solve that, it’s only part of the only part of the challenge that we face in deploying new nuclear. [00:30:49][22.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:30:50] Wow, you know, we as we sit back, guys, I just I really enjoy hanging with you. You guys are just rock stars. You guys are doing exactly what we need to do is have an open dialog with everybody. I don’t care if you’re wind, solar or nuclear we need to have an open dialog on how to better humanity as we go forward on these things. [00:31:13][22.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:31:14] I’m going to just ask a thing. How did you and Meredith Robert, how did you and Meredith meet? And she’s been on your podcast five times. You’re as much of a fan of Meredith as I am, and I’m a fan of you, but how did you meet Meredith? [00:31:27][12.7]
Meredith: [00:31:29] Grace introduced us. I mean, I’ve been reading I’ve been reading Robert’s books, of course, and so forth. But but when I began to write my own book, Yes, the Question of Power, excellent book, and it’s out in paperback now so everybody buy it, please. [00:31:46][17.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:31:47] Yes, that’s where I was going. [00:31:48][1.3]
Meredith: [00:31:49] Yes, yes, yes. But anyway, I. I asked I asked Robert Hargraves if he could write a read my book ahead of time and and write a an endorsement for it for the front of the book. And he said, Sure and he said, I said, you know, I wish I could get Robert Bryce to do that and is why I know Robert. So that’s how we met. [00:32:09][20.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:32:10] Well, you know, I want to give you a shout out, Robert. I just bought that book and it’s the paperback forward on it and I was getting ready. I have your other books and I just applaud you. All of your books will be in my show notes as we publish this out. You are truly in anybody wanting to Know the true story. Also, Meredith, your your book will be in the show notes as well, too. And Robert, hold that book up again. I want to just make sure everybody sees that. [00:32:38][28.3]
Robert: [00:32:39] It’s a question of power the paperback will be out May 16th. So it’s the paper, the hardback came out three years ago, but because of COVID and the rest of it, we had a little detour. But I did write a new preface for the book about 5000 words updating what’s happened since then, of course. [00:32:52][13.4]
Robert: [00:32:53] Talking about the coal market, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, why we need nuclear land use conflict, some just revising or not. I didn’t change any of the existing text, but added a new preface to kind of bring it up to date. But I want to also talk to just a little bit about since your your podcast is energizing American talking about where we are. [00:33:12][19.0]
Robert: [00:33:12] I think it’s also important to put we’ve only really focused on electricity and we talked about nuclear and we’ve talked about wind and solar. What’s important to remember as well is that how difficult and how slow it will be for the U.S. and the rest of the world to move off of hydrocarbons? [00:33:25][13.0]
Robert: [00:33:26] And I want to point out this whole thing about the energy transition we hear about this. We heard this phrase all the time, and I presented it last week in Louisville on this very issue and speaking at the University of Northern Iowa in a couple of days, you know, this idea that we’re in the midst of some big energy transition, we aren’t, in fact. [00:33:41][14.5]
Robert: [00:33:41] What we’re at. We’re adding a lot of renewables to our unit or to our production, but we’re not displacing significant quantities of hydrocarbons. So just one quick point here. If we just look at the U.S. in 2022, just the growth of just the growth in natural gas consumption, which grew 5% last year in the U.S., which is a big increase, is the growth in consumption of gas. [00:34:01][19.7]
Robert: [00:34:01] Last year was greater than the growth in wind and solar combined so this idea that we’re suddenly going to switch and we’re going to quit using oil, we’re going to quit using cologne, you know, these just stop oil hooligans, you know, Oh, we’re just going to pivot and stop doing this. No, we’re not. [00:34:13][12.1]
Robert: [00:34:14] And if you try to do that, you will crater society and end up with mass starvation, mass dislocation, a civil unrest on levels we’ve never seen before. And yet we’re in the grips of this kind of mania that is being spearheaded and I will name them. [00:34:31][16.7]
Robert: [00:34:31] People like Bill McKibben, who are leading these groups who are saying, Oh, we’re just going to quit using oil, we’re going to quit using hydrocarbons, we’re going to do it right away. We’re going to go to all renewables. [00:34:39][7.4]
Robert: [00:34:39] We have to be, again, very sober about the challenge that we face and the irreplaceable ability in many cases for hydrocarbons. And we have to be very clear about that because it’s easy to vilify these sources of energy. But they are incredibly important to how our society works and the transition away from them will take decades. If not centuries. [00:34:59][19.8]
Stuart Turley: [00:35:00] You bet. And by the way, Robert, great, great points the amount of money being invested in the companies in oil and gas right now are trillions short of just meeting decline curves. So what you’re hearing is OPEC was saying that, oh, by the way, and the IEA is saying, oh, by the way, oil demand is still going to be up for a while. You nailed it, Robert. I didn’t mean to give you a compliment, but, boy, you just nailed it. It’s going to be around a while. And so. [00:35:31][31.0]
Robert: [00:35:31] And that’s a function of scale still. I mean, it’s just a function of scale. It’s not. And physics, of course. Right. You know, the energy density of these fuels is the key. It’s why, you know, there’s no conspiracy. Why do we use oil because it’s damn near irreplaceable. When it comes to it. Cost of, you know, comes to cost, ease of handling, amount of energy density, you know, ease of tankage, all of these things that’s why we use it. [00:35:51][20.0]
Robert: [00:35:51] And so the idea, oh, we’re going to run our jets on fuel cells or we’re going to you know, California is is is banning the use of diesel diesel trucks. What are you doing? I’ve seen I’m an old man. I’m 63. I seen the three fuel cells in my entire life and yet they say we’re going to quit using diesel engines. What are you talking about, man? I mean, you know, where are you going to get the magnets, the minerals in the metals. It just none of this is being thought about in any kind of holistic way. [00:36:17][25.9]
Stuart Turley: [00:36:18] No. And, you know, as we sit here and talk about educators and we talk about thought leaders, Meredith, where can people get involved and help or learn more, I mean, what are resources that you use in order to try to if somebody was out there saying, hey, where do I learn more about this? And then I’ll ask the same of Robert and then we’ll ask what’s coming around the corner for both of you. But what would be some resources for people to get involved? Meredith. [00:36:47][29.5]
Meredith: [00:36:48] Well, I think that I’m going to start by free and inexpensive resources. And I would say that in in three in inexpensive resources, you should be following utility design, you should be following Power magazine. If you can get a free online subscription and you should be following Robert Bryce is Substack and there are other sub stacks too. [00:37:10][22.1]
Meredith: [00:37:11] I just feel like I’m trying to start with the free ones there are other things. Other things such as well, there are a lot of really excellent sub stacks. There’s one that I like. It’s very kind of cranky. It’s called Green Leap Forward. [00:37:28][17.2]
Meredith: [00:37:30] The idea is that all this green energy stuff is the equivalent of Mao’s Great Leap Forward. It will have the same negative effect on the health and well-being of the people in society. And then Irena Slav is got her substack and those so those are either free or very expensive. [00:37:52][22.4]
Meredith: [00:37:53] I am a great fan of Doomberg, but you can’t really say Doomberg is inexpensive, It’s $300 a year and it really costs me some. Imagine if I said, Do you really want to spend $300 a year on a green chicken? And the answer is yes. [00:38:08][15.6]
Meredith: [00:38:10] And what do you most people do? They say, What do you mean green chicken? I’m going to say that Doomberg Is actually a group of people and they don’t show their face on on and they’re anonymous. And the Stokes Chicken is a green cartoon chicken. So that’s kind of fun. [00:38:28][18.1]
Stuart Turley: [00:38:28] I think it’s brilliant. [00:38:29][0.4]
Meredith: [00:38:29] You can you can go a long way, if you will, if you’re reading Robert Bryce Irena Slav Utility Drive, and then for your own personal I think we’re all live somewhere. Okay. So wherever you live, try to follow your local distribution utility and your local RTO if you have an article or if you don’t have an RTO, follow your local PUC. [00:38:55][26.1]
Meredith: [00:38:56] You want to know about what’s happening and I assure you, everything that happens is so long winded and so complicated that it’s not going to show up in your newspaper. They don’t have the rule. You have to look on the Web for that kind of information but you can educate yourself on the web for free about your own locality. [00:39:15][18.5]
Stuart Turley: [00:39:16] Nice and rubber we’ve been sitting here yakking at you you know, Meredith is probably you and I. Meredith and I are Oh, you’re being your cheerleaders and everything. But I’ve had the pleasure of also I read has been on your podcast, if I remember correctly and fortunately I talked to Irina every month from Bulgaria and she is just a classy lady. Do you have anything else to add for education, Robert Because you both are true treasures in the industry. [00:39:45][29.1]
Robert: [00:39:46] Well, shucks, I mean, I feel like we have a little mutual admiration society here, so I’ll I’ll I’ll second what Meredith said on those resources. I’d add Roger Pilkey, Jr. I think he’s a great guy, an important. An independent thinker when it comes to these issues. [00:40:01][15.2]
Stuart Turley: [00:40:02] Right. [00:40:02][0.0]
Robert: [00:40:02] Particularly when it comes to climate issues in the IPCC reporting. And he’s been a I’m not I’ll say he’s a contrarian only. He’s a contrarian in that. He’s not he’s not he is not one of these people who’s just going along with the orthodoxy. [00:40:15][12.9]
Robert: [00:40:16] He is a very independent thinker and he brings mathematics to it and he has a background and his Ph.D. was in political science, but he has an undergrad and a master’s, I believe in math. So he’s very he’s very clever and he’s very good at explaining what’s going on with numbers, with graphics. [00:40:32][15.8]
Robert: [00:40:32] So I would recommend Roger but I would also say more broadly, what is. Key. To people, ordinary people, to be understood, to understand what is going on. You have to know some basic math and basic physics that is that is critical. [00:40:47][15.0]
Robert: [00:40:48] And let’s be clear. Why? Why do we have so much bad policy? Well, our who are policy makers? They’re all lawyers. Well, why are they lawyers? Because they couldn’t do the math to get into engineering school. That’s just. [00:40:59][10.8]
Meredith: [00:41:01] Stu. [00:41:01][0.0]
Robert: [00:41:01] But the but. So why do they do what they do? Well, because it sounds good. Well, why do they pass all the stuff? Because it sounds good. But if you were an engineer and you knew some of the math and the physics behind this, you would say, Well, that’s Crazytown, right? We are not going to do that. [00:41:13][11.9]
Robert: [00:41:13] So but more specifically, and I joke around a little bit here, but I’d say those things are very, you know, seriously general public. The American public in general is is innumerate and illiterate in science. They don’t understand basic math. They don’t understand basic physics. So you have to be able to understand what the numbers are. And this is one of the things I pride myself and work very hard at is to make the numbers and the physics simple, right? [00:41:36][22.8]
Robert: [00:41:36] So more specifically, understand what power density is. Why is it why is it a problem for wind and solar? It’s because their power density is so low, they don’t care where you put your wind turbine. The power density is one watt per square meter to where you put your solar panel it’s going to be about ten watts per square meter. A nuclear power plant, though, 2000 watts per square meter. [00:41:53][17.0]
Robert: [00:41:54] So why do I care about nuclear? Why do I promote nuclear? Yes, climate change, sure. But I want to spare land for nature. I’m a birdwatcher, an avid bird watcher. I have been for 30 years. Why in the hell are we putting up wind turbines that are killing some of our most iconic wildlife in the name of climate change? It’s absolute lunacy, and the companies that are doing it are getting away with it. [00:42:12][18.8]
Robert: [00:42:13] So there is an anti environmental ism that is occurring because the general public doesn’t understand what is really going on. So I would encourage, you know. Yeah. Self-promotion. Robert Bryce Dot Substack Rt.com. But read my books. Putting in my first book, Power Hungry is a tutorial on power density my latest book, A Question of Power. I talk about power density and why it matters. [00:42:34][20.9]
Robert: [00:42:34] You have to start with some foundation, and that’s one of the reasons why Meredith, I think, has been so successful. She’s a chemist, she’s a woman. You know, I joke and I say, Well, how did this, you know, this diminutive Jewish grandmother from Vermont gave all this? She’s a genius at technical stuff. She’s been this is how she’s trained. [00:42:51][17.1]
Robert: [00:42:52] So she brings this background to be able to help people understand it, because she has this background in understanding what this thing is really about. And that’s been one of the reasons why she’s had the success that she’s had. But she and I and all these other people, you can’t just do that. You know, people, if they care, they have to put some time into it. They have to understand what power density is and they have to make that effort. [00:43:14][22.0]
Robert: [00:43:15] And then the other thing they can do is talk to their neighbors and say, you know, here’s what I think it is, and try and educate not just the policymakers and attend the meetings and do the rest of it, but help understand other people understand these issues. [00:43:26][11.3]
Meredith: [00:43:27] I want to say one more thing that is, I probably should have said earlier, and that is when I was talking about free ability, free ways to educate yourself. I would say Robert Bryce is podcasts and and, and your podcasts just do are, are very important because the thing is that it’s it’s so it’s not intimidating. You’re listening to people talk to educated people people who know what they’re talking about and you don’t have to feel intimidated. [00:43:55][27.6]
Meredith: [00:43:55] The number of times I have tried to explain something to someone and I, I really attempt to be just a just a person trying to explain something. I am just a person trying to. And I get back well, I’m not a scientist, so I don’t know, you know, and you don’t want you have the feeling that only scientists can can understand things. [00:44:17][21.7]
Meredith: [00:44:17] So that’s one of the wonderful things about podcasts is that in the conversation you begin to understand things that you would perhaps if you were reading a book or even a well-written blog. [00:44:29][12.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:44:30] Boy, well said, guys, we got about one more minute here and I tell you, you guys made my day and we are going to be publishing this thing out everywhere. We’re going to be tagging you and I just really appreciate both of you so much. Last word going around. Each of you got about a minute and we’re off and run and tell us how to get a hold of you. [00:44:51][20.8]
Robert: [00:44:51] Meredith, Ladies first. [00:44:52][0.8]
Meredith: [00:44:52] Oh, you can get a hold of me pretty easily. I have a website called Meredith and. All one word dot com. I have a Twitter name and Meredith ain’t going all one word. I am Gmail address Meredith saying 101 word. I think it’s pretty, pretty straightforward. So I’m always eager to hear from you. Write your blog posts at my website. [00:45:15][22.4]
Stuart Turley: [00:45:15] And Robert, last word here. Bring us in. [00:45:18][2.7]
Robert: [00:45:18] I’m ubiquitous. I’m on TikTok, I’m on YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram. You can’t escape me. I’m the king of all media. But seriously, I’m on Substack. I’m working hard to grow my Substack. Robert Bryce Start Substack. WSJ.com The website. RobertBryce.com. You can find out my my movie My film Juice How Electricity Explains World we didn’t talk about that. [00:45:39][20.8]
Robert: [00:45:40] That’s juicethemovie.com so I’m easy to find but it’s been a pleasure real pleasure to me to be on with Meredith who I was work I’ve admired for a long time and and I think that would end with this. [00:45:52][12.4]
Robert: [00:45:53] I think what Meredith and I share, and I’m proud to say this, is that we have a purpose and we’ve found that in our dotage, maybe that if we we found a place where we are able to try and broaden the conversation and educate people and that’s what we care about and that we hope that I am speaking for her now and maybe a little presumptuous, but that our work will have an impact and that can can drive some some sane policy. [00:46:20][27.5]
Robert: [00:46:21] And because we are in danger of making things, we are, I think, in many cases making our grid less reliable, less affordable, less resilient. And we need a big dose of sanity and sobriety here to make sure we course correct. [00:46:34][12.6]
Robert: [00:46:34] And it’s one of the reasons why I think Meredith’s work has been so important. So all at the risk of being pompous and speaking for her, I’ll just make that point that I encourage your listeners to to read her book and to educate themselves because these issues are critically important. [00:46:48][14.0]
Stuart Turley: [00:46:49] Absolutely. Well, thanks, guys, very much and we will see you guys next time on the Energy News Beat. My name’s Stuart Turley. CEO. Have a great one! [00:46:49][0.0]
