You want to be an Amfican.
All right, it's a great return after the big stuffing sloany here seven hundred ww you welcome to it, and welcome to the cold. And with that cold means energy demand is starting to peak again. And we take it for granted because we have this little thing called a thermostat and we set it and we don't you know, here, kick on you. Oh, thank goodness, we've got some heat and you really don't think about it until you get the bill. And the reason why we get the bills
as high as they are is because of demand. So the surge is driven by well, look look around us or Butler County, Columbus. Right, we've got these data centers going up.
AI. We have electrification of vehicles.
Twenty percent of all new car sales are either hybrid or the nine percent are just full of evs. Heat pump sales are going up. That's your air conditioning and heating. It's a heat pump now. And six out of ten heating installations here in Ohio are heat pumps. And so we're especially vulnerable things like brownouts because the supply doesn't
meet the capacity in them. So the buck guy Institute's tasked with working with the US Department of Energy on solutions for this, and Ray Hedderman is here once again to discuss Ray.
Welcome back, Hi Ben, I'm doing well, Scott, Thank you for having me.
All Right, that's the thirty thousand foot view down to Earth here. What's really driving this whole thing? But I'd imagine part of this has to do with innovation is the regulatory barriers. Typically with energy, we see a lot of that.
Yeah, absolutely, I mean, let's just recap what's happened. Normally, energy projects take a long time to build out, and energy demand was flat, so you're not going to go out and you're not going to build a whole bunch of new power plants if you're not expecting customers. Then all of a sudden, the last few years, you know, artificial intelligence. Everybody has phones, people are looking at Instagram, Facebook,
you know, using AI. AI takes about ten times as much power today to get that answer as a Google question ten years ago. So energy demand is skyrocketing and so now we need those data centers. The problem is, Scott, regulatory regulations have made it so painful to build energy power plants that we're simply not getting electricity online fast enough. And that's where we're going to see start seeing power spikes,
potential brownouts. We're actually seeing data centers being told no, you can't be built because we don't have enough energy to meet the needs. What we've done at the Buckeye Institute is work with state lallmakers and now we're working with federal regulators to say this is what needs to be happen so we can build the electricity to keep electricity affordable and reliable.
How I just also has to do with the political whipso of Washington, DC. Whereas you had Trump We're going to do the Keystone XL pipeline. Great, we're gonna roll that thing out, and then Biden comes along says, no, we're not doing it anymore. Now Trumst's bag at office wile we're going to start doing it again.
Well, you know you've seen that. You've seen like the Trump administration saying hey, we're going to close intermittent energy. You've had Democrats saying we're going to phase out coal plants. I mean the last year the Biden administration, they said we're going to eliminate basically make it almost impossible for coal and natural gas plants to operate. That's why you know pjm Our energy grid that Ohio shares with a
lot of other Blue states on the Atlantic Ocean. Dave Yost many other states sued the federal government saying, you can't do this because if you're turning off coal plants are twilling off solar plants, where's our electricity going to come from? That's dependable. I mean, if you look outside Ohio right here in central Ohio, it's not an uncommon December day, right, it's great, the sun doesn't shine as much.
Solar is great for some states, it's not ideal for the state of Ohio and scott The other thing that's happened is you've had a lot of other states that have made a big deal, like New Jersey. Again, we share the energy grew with New Jersey. They destroyed their coal plants, that destroyed natural gas, and they based it all on optional wind and intermittent injury sources. But those simply don't have the same reliability or produce the same amount of base load power, and so now do New Jersey.
A lot of other states have found themselves in an energy crisis. And are scrambling to meet the growing demand.
Ray if you travel through well the central part of the state where you are, but up north a little bit, or to drive Indianapolis to Chicago, you see a ton of wind farms, a lot of turbines out there. But as good as that, as fine as this is, how much of energy productions? That represent what percent?
I thought them five percent? In the state of Ohio. Look, we get most of our stuff from natural gas. Historically, Ohio has been a coal heavy steak. Coal produced the majority of Ohio's electricity into the last ten years when natural gas, you know, you being able to tap into the shell crescent, has taken the place. So we get most of our energy from natural gas, coal, nuclear, and then it falls down the solar and wind. And again you know that's true for a lot of states, particularly
on those of us east of the Mississippi. You know, we get a lot from natural gas nuclear. And what we're seeing right now again is, you know, because of the spike, people are scrambling to get power online. You know, a Microsoft, for example, has investing hundreds of millions of dollars to re open three Mile Island nuclear power plant. That tells you what businesses are looking at when they see the demand for future energy production and what they
need to do. And really what needs to happen is Washington needs to say, Okay, why are we not seeing power plants come online? We see prices are increasing. You open up your electricity bill, you know, you know when it's time to rebid, you're going to be facing higher electricity prices. So why aren't we seeing more production being built?
And part of it comes back to those regulatory barriers, you know, the blocks that are at the local level, state level, federal level lawsuits for environmental review those have all created a massive choke point that means that we're really facing a deficit and electricity production that is choking out the growing economy.
I mean you mentioned the environmental reviews. How much does that bogg the process down?
Well, you know, you take a look at there's so many album and what you're seeing is nif the environmental review that by the way, people on both the left and right are saying, hey, this is not meant to be a weapon to slow things down. We've seen that being able to slow those productions down for years. That's the National Environmental Policy Act about four and a half years, slowing down from the review connections. And so you know what happens, Scott is the way regulations work is they
move in sequence. Right. It's kind of like a to train, right, you know, one car starts moving, the next car, the next car, the next car. So if you take you know, a year at the local level, a year at the state level, a year at the federal level, you're taking four and a half years or some environmental reviews. You know, you can sit there and be taking your six plus years for some big power plants to be built. And we've seen action take at the state level, you know.
With House Bill fifteen, Ohio is saying, look, we need to speed this up. We need to make sure that regulators have only a certain amount of time to review so they can't delayies in those projects. And we'd like to see the same thing done at the federal level, because I mean, at least we can still build things
here in Ohio. Other states that have more state regulations, like California, New Jersey, for example, they can't build anything because people were able to block production using these rules using lawsuits, which means electricity prices are going to remain high.
Ry Hetterman's here Buckeye Institute working with the US Department of Energy and Solutions to fast track improving our infrastructure and power supply because we are near at peak demand and you know with the winter months here too, we also have data centers and the light going online. The demand for electricity is greater than ever, and yet the
infrastructure is way behind. We've often talked about brownouts and blackouts that have happened at West and it's and it's you know, I don't know how close we are, but they say, certainly the Midwest ray is very vulnerable to this because of those data centers are going online at record numbers. These are like small towns, and I think most people don't understand just how much energy one of these data centers requires.
Yeah. Absolutely, you know, It's basically you can sit there and say, look, you know, one of these data centers can consume more energy than the Manhattan right in New York City, And so that just kind of called everybody
by surprise, and so they're saying what can be done. Well, you know, one of the things that we again that Hospital fifteen did that I'm a big fan of, is what we call behind the and what that means is if you're building a data center, you can actually build your own power plants, you know, to directly power your business. You can fast track that through the regulatory process and be able to power your own business. And that's kind of what we want to see the market working. We've
seen some of those basically power plants be approved. One was approved just before Thanksgiving. I think those type of solutions right where businesses working together, maybe they're going to share a power plant with another business. Those are the type of solutions that are going to get us out of this crisis and help us move ahead because relying
on the way we've been doing things simply doesn't work. Scott, to give you an idea, just very quickly, there are one hundred and ninety seven thousands power requests to pjm Ohio's grid. One hundred and ninety seven thousand by somebody who wants to generate power to connect to the PGM grid. To PJAM doesn't have enough personnel to get through them.
And part of the problem is, you know, these are everything from five megawatts solar and whim smaller production plants, but that takes the same amount of power, has a two hundred and fifty megawatt natural gas plant. So, you know, we have a lot of requests that are going online.
People are gaining the system, flogging it up, and so we just need a way to cut through prioritize better which power plants are going to deliver reliable energy to keep prices load for consumers, to keep light time for businesses.
Yeah, and that makes a lot of sense if you've private interested. Hey, you know what, we'll build our own infrastructure here. The hell with you guys. What kind of power plants are we're seeing going online?
Yeah? Sure, so right now, we've seen a lot of natural gas here in Ohio work and moving forward on that. You've also seen some renewable behind the meter as well, you know. I mean people sometimes will drive by you might see a big windmill at a car dealership, for example, you know, trying to produce power on site to deliver to those businesses. Other states are starting to see experiments
with small nuclear power plants. Again. You know, I mentioned Microsoft, for example, investing in reopening Three Mile Island for the benefit of Microsoft by themselves. Other companies are also contracting to build a smaller nuclear power plants using hydro using geothermal energy. You know, there's a lot of ways to be able to get electricity in businesses or reacting the way you'd expect them to do. What makes the most sense, what's the most cost competitive, and where my business is located.
And so that's what the beauty of what we see kind of free enterprise working out is coming up with solutions and trying not to burden rate payers. You know, that's what we want to make sure is that we have affordable energy and businesses aren't taking advantage of rate payers and hopefully not you know, seeking out special tax breaks.
It would be great to roll back some tax and centers handout to big industry, big utilities, big tech along the way to make sure taxes are low, energy prices are kept affordable.
Yeah, no, Ray, it makes a lot of sense. And I'm a big proponent of these small nuclear plants, and I think, you know, once again, it's a great example of how private industry will lead the way and solve the problems that government can't. For those who believe in government solving all problems, well, there you go. There they're actually standing in the way. Are there going to be some trials tribulations, heartbreaks, accidents, etcetera.
Sure, there always is.
When it comes to technology, sadly, but that's part of the learning and growing experience as long as those responsible are held to a standard. That said, though, I think this is the advent of new power generation, and I think about you know, some of the like Microsoft reopening through Mile Island, or smaller like suitcase type of nuke facilities or machines that produce enough energy to fire a plant.
But it also is hoped to typical America. I mean, imagine the day where and I don't know if it will be in our lifetime, but imagine that the technology gets so good you just buy one of these power units on Amazon, they ship it to you, You PLoP it in like a battery, and it lasts probably longer than you're alive, and then you know, it goes back to the recycling center and what they do with they
spent phil Rodgs is yet to be determined. But nonetheless, it seems like neighborhoods Hoa's small towns will have their own many nuclear plant to power or we may just have one in our own house in fifty years.
Yeah, you know, Scott, that's exactly right. I mean you're looking at the space talking to people involved in these businesses, both from producers and high energy consumers. There's a lot of innovation that's going on through private enterprise. People saying, hey, you know what, let's try to use gia thermal right out less where it makes her sense. You know, given the geology out there. You know, they're actually experimenting drilling down to the Earth's cross being able to tie about
some of that geothermal energy. That's a great solution for some of those companies, you know, small neuclear reactors. You are seeing more businesses pulling together and basically forming micro grids you know, behind the meter. That a way to say, hey, let's go on our own power sources so we don't have to wait a couple of years to go through the PJAM regulations. That's the type of innovation I think
that has really made this country great. That's why I'm really optimistic about the future because we know what the need is, we know the demands there, businesses know what they need to do to power themselves, and we have a solution for the future. You know, we can sit there, work together, innovate development these things and really keep America moving forward. And I look at the opposite end of
the spectrum right again. I looked to Europe where a few years ago, you know, they came out and said, we can't compete with the United States because our electricity prices are so unaffordable. You know, German MENUF factoring has fallen off a clock because electricity is so important to the manufacturing sector. Europe made terrible policy choices by trying
to regulate this market. I am thankful that here in Ohio, you know, we're making different choices, moving to remove regulations on businesses, to encourage innovation, to encourage investment, to try to boost energy so to keep prices lower.
Well, but in Ohio even will the bureaucracy and will the status quo machine keep this from moving forward?
I you know, Scott, I'm optimistic, I think because we're already seeing this working again. You know, we've seen a couple of billion dollars behind the meter projects already move forward. Right, So these private businesses are putting their money where their
hopes are. That's what I'm looking at again. The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio is approving some of these projects are all going to be private behind the meter to power some of these data centers, to power some of these manufacturing I think Ohio is building a model that should be emulated copied by other states. You know, we're able to take advantage of it, and if federal regulators can move faster, that'll be better for us as well.
But HP fifteen, I think is a really good piece of legislation that is encouraging a lot of private enterprise. And again, you know, reading from the news reports, reading the filings before the Public Utilities Commission, there's billions of dollars of private investment that's taking place right now thanks to HP fifteen, allowing businesses to power up more quickly.
All right, He's ray headed been to the Buckeye Institute working with the Department of Energy on solutions to solve our power crisis.
And it's looming. It really is.
Imagine a day like, for example, Class of twenty twenty five, Ray, you show them a picture of a flat circular thing with a hole in the middle. It's kind of translucent, and they don't know what that. It's called a compact disc Imagine Class of twenty one, twenty five, when you show them a picture of a utility poll with all those wires out, and I go, what the hell is that? Hopefully that, hopefully that's what the future is here at the Buckey's date.
All the best, buddy, Thanks.
Again, take a lot, Scott, always a pleasure.
Take care of.
Let's get a news update in in just a few minutes here moving forward on the Scottslan Show. Another thing that is facing extinction social Security. Some sobering news about your Social Security benefits that Washington doesn't want you to know. That's some clickbait right there. Hang out, we'll get into it right after news on seven hundred WLW