all right. thank you. i know we've got some great conversations going on out there, but we want to get right into this next panel which is going to be a really compelling one. you might remember about a year ago a little over a year ago winter of 2021 the texas power outage that made the national news and was such a disaster. so this next panel is going to talk about avoiding blackouts the future of us energy policy and lessons learned from the winter 2021 texas power outage, and i know they're going to talk about the global crisis as well. i'm going to introduce the panel moderator and then they're going to come on to the stage and then she will introduce the panelists. jackie picked deason is host of the jackie daly show which educates entertains and engages america on all things energy. you really should check out her podcast. so wherever you find your podcasts you will find the jackie daley show it airs sundays on the blaze.com radio and errors on the dial in texas each saturday, and as i mentioned that the podcasts are weekly which you can find on iheartradio spotify itunes wherever you get your podcasts. jackie was previously a senior fellow at the texas public policy foundation and also served as general counsel to an engineering firm specializing in energy national security and environmental cleanup. she served for many years as a legal counsel on capitol hill to the chairman of the subcommittee on the constitution and the former ranking midi committee ranking member of the commercial and administrative law subcommittee advising on the oversight of federal agencies. jackie studied economic spanish and world history at marshall university oxford university and the university of zaragoza in spain. she is an alumna of vanderbilt university law school where she served as the president of the law school's federalist society chapter. jackie has an extensive network from which she draws guests for the jackie daley show including industry leaders representing all parts of the energy sector government officials journalists and political insiders often. jackie will know the day's most wanted guests and be able to secure the guests with a personal call and i can personally testify but she already knew and had interviewed most of the speakers we have here today. jackie is from the ohio river valley where the shale runs deep. she descends from a long line of energy workers including roughnecks railroaders coal miners and nuclear energy specialists. you can follow jackie at jackie daily host on twitter i encourage you to do so and let's give a warm welcome to our panel. if you believe it then you can there's a reason that this time can be are taking seat. sure, miss these down before i get started. alright my honor and pleasure to introduce our guests. robert brice behind me. yes. there he is. here's the co-producer of the documentary juice which aired here last night how electricity explains the world. robert is a text to space author journalist podcaster film producer and public speaker over three decades. his articles have appeared in the wall street journal new york times national review field and stream and the austin chronicle. the documentary i just mentioned choose he produced along with austin based film director. tyson culver released in mid-2020 and is now now available on numerous streaming platforms. he's published six books the most recent a question of power electricity and the wealth of nations and spent 12 years as a reporter for the austin chronicle. 2006 to 2010 he was the managing editor of the houston-based energy tribune and 2010 to 2019 as senior fellow at the manhattan institute. he lives in austin with his wife lauren here at the end. here's an art art teacher photographer and master potter. on this side is blue halsey from continental resources? he's also senior vice president of hse. he is responsible for strategic leadership of corporate hsc and esg programs. along with guiding corporate policy and regulatory initiatives and this is the harold ham's company as you probably know. he's past chairman of the north dakota petroleum council currently serves as the chairman of the petroleum alliance of oklahoma. board member of the domestic energy producers alliance or deepa kelso4 is secure america and the oklahoma city national memorial museum. and native, oklahoma. he has degrees from oklahoma state and the university of tulsa law school. so we'll get started. this is great. let's see the beacons uniforms, but i guess they'll do. good afternoon. i'm going to talk about what happened in texas, and this is a personal story for me. my wife lauren is here last february 15th. we were blacked out for 45 hours. going to talk about why that happened. then i'm going to address my slide deck just a few minutes ago after hearing some of andrew desler's comments with alex epstein and then i'm going to talk about the eu and what has happened in the eu because the texas and eu cases are very important because they are so similar. okay, so i'm not going to read this slide to you. i'll let you read it 700 people died. not all of them because of lack of electricity. but i want underscore this point. the urcott grid came this close that close. from a complete meltdown bill magnus said on february 25th in the emergency board of directors meeting that the ercott grid was within about four and a half minutes of a complete shutdown. now, i'm not going to spend much time on this but think for just a minute. 26 million texans plunged into darkness when it was snowing sideways. the temperatures were falling and you couldn't travel the roads were impassable. had that happen, texas would have had what biologists call a mass mortality event. it wouldn't have been 700 people died. it would have been tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of people died. and it would have had ramifications throughout the entire rest of the country because texas i'm from oklahoma. i'm not here bragging about, texas. texas accounts for about 10% of everything in america the population gdp but for food fuel transportation, it is a critical state. and once if the system had gone black getting it restarted after going system black would have been effectively impossible not just for days but perhaps for weeks. it would have caused a nationwide recession. so, let's be clear about the stakes here at about what almost happened because of mismanagement of the texas grid. okay, so the key point here. what is the key, you know after the the ercott disaster all kinds of reports came out a lot of academics, so don't blame renewables. don't blame renewables. oh and those silly texans, you know, those silly republicans down there. they're saying oh, oh the renewables were partly to cause for this. yes, absolutely. 66 billion. these are screen grabs. i'm going to show you a lot of screen grabs today. these are screen grabs from the wind industry lobbies own website and the solar industry's lab their own numbers say approximately 63 billion. i added in a little bit of you know estimate for sigma for billion dollars. spin on wind and solar in the years before the blackouts. why did they spend $66 billion because they got 22 billion dollars in subsidies. that's data from bill peacock. who's done the analysis on this? i mean what kind of other business would you get into it? you get a third of the money you spend in the form of subsidies. so what did that mean then? well you see a massive change in generation because of the subsidies. hello. wind energy increases by about 20 percent cold by about 20% net gas stays effectively flat solar rises a little bit nuclear falls a little bit. the other thing that has never mentioned and i do mean never not in texas monthly not in new york times not in these other, you know national publications that in the years before the blackouts six gigawatts 62 6.2 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity was retired. under pressure from the sierra club environmental groups etc, but you don't hear that. of course that's not discussed because it doesn't fit the narrative. okay, so what's driving this why again did this happen? because the federal subsidies are driving the investment in ercott as well as the rest of the grid in the united states. it's a simple graphic. it's the only kind i can make probably the homeliest slide. you'll see all day. this is congressional research service data that i matched with bp data. pointing out on a per unit of energy produced basis a denominated in exit joules. i could put it in btus. i could put it in gallons of oil equivalent doesn't matter and exit joules roughly one trillion cubic feet of natural gas roughly one quadrillion btus if you don't know your si units you should but the denominator is the same on per the dollars per unit of energy produced basis. the solar industry is getting roughly 250 times more federal tax. love than the nuclear sector. wind industry something like what is it a hundred and done the math lately, but oh, yeah those hydrocarbon guys. caching in. when it comes to federal tax credits, well the numbers don't support that. so this is the story and we didn't hear it from professor dressler talking about the subsidies driving solar and wind. i know. oh it's cheaper. it's cheaper. it's cheaper. i had to control my reflex over there. okay. this is the slide that more than any other explains what happened? this is a slide that art berman created art graciously allowed me to use it. not going to use the pointer. i'm going to walk over here. so what happened? this is this is january 30th in texas. it's a nice day. the wind was blowing and what happens when drives out natural gas. it drives out some coal. and that's what wind does when the wind is blowing it. it reduces the amount of gas on the system. but then look right here. february 15th when my lights went out. what happened? solar and wind disappeared 66 billion dollars spent on wind and solar and they went to cancun with ted cruz, hahaha. gone disappeared went on vacation. oh, but don't blame us. it's not our fault. it's the gas guys really. the gas guys go to almost zero on january 30th, they go to about 50. well, i don't know. what is that 40,000 megawatts in a span of a few hours. and they're the ones to blame. just not true. it is just not true. another screen grab exactly six months to the day after my lights went out screen grab from urcott's website. you can find it yourself. here's february 15th. ercotte warns of power shortages four months to the day when when we had appeal it was hot. hot that day. in austin throughout texas power demand is at 70,000 megawatts about what it was about on february 15th when they started load shedding wind goes to zero. that's not the only one. okay, so this is just earlier last month again high power demand. we're at 50,000 megawatts wind again goes to almost zero again and again and again. they're not required to provide power when power is dear. and therein is the rub. and dr. desler said oh we'll just fix. you know, we'll just what he was saying is you have to subsidize the thermal generators to come into the market when they're when they're needed. and so that the wind and solar guys. can free ride and that's the right word on the thermal generators. wouldn't mackenzie their report? you don't have to believe me. one of the biggest most, you know respected energy consultancies in the world. issued their analysis in december. what did they say the worst of the problems occurred during an extended wind drought? and i heard this. oh, well, we'll just build more transmission. i'll come back to that. but it was over ercott my so pjm spp for 12 days. a lot of people saying oh, well, there's gas. there was a lot of gas. it was run down the availability of gas prior to the blackouts. fell yeah it did because the wind wasn't blowing. and what do they say as a share of wind power rises sheriff colon gas decline managing the grid to maintain supply is increasingly important. yeah. hello. duh. i'm not a paid consultant, but i can agree with that one. but these market deficiencies are leading the leading contributor to making the ear cut system less reliable. they're saying the market is being distorted by federal subsidies, and i just showed you that slide. but it gets worse. this is data from ercott's website. on their projected additions to the ercott grid between now and the between 2020 and the end of next year. that's 28 gigawatts of solar that's nearly equal to all of the existing existing solar in california today. the amount of combined cycle gas being added is effectively zero why because you know these business guys. they're pretty sharp. they know they can't make money in or cut. they're not going to build a power plant. that won't pay back the money. they can't even get lending from banks to do it because the banks are going to say. well, where are you? how are you gonna make your money your return on your investment? here's what it looks like. again a homely graph the only kind i can make but by the end of next year, we could have 72 gigawatts of wind and solar that's more than the in combined capacity of every form of gas generation in texas. this is just i mean we're preparing for a disaster that is potentially even worse than the one we near. we just narrowly avoided. so what do we know i won't i won't go into all these i've said that the rto model is broken. regional transmission organization model is broken. i could give you chapter and verse on the amount of litigation that is now underway something. i wrote about it in forbes 131 insurers have sued ercott. orcutt doesn't have any money or cut some market manager at those insurers prevail and it appears they might because the dallas court of appeals just ruled recently that that doesn't have sovereign immunity. what are they are they state entity or not a state any well, i don't think they're a state entity. and if they are who's gonna pay all those property casual property and casualty losses losses the personal injury losses. unless the legislature steps in says king's x. we're not paying anything. i mean, this is a mess and it's going to get worse and one of the other key points. here's the gas grid and the electric grids have merged but they're still regulated separately. showed you the slide about the call on gas that you know, you've retired we retired all this this coal and gas was assumed. oh, well, you're just going to be the battery. we haven't told you. you're the battery. we're gonna pay you to be the the battery, but you're the battery. and then when you don't show up, we're going to have you know people complain about you. but the problem is not fixed not by a long shot. okay. professor destroyers in here too bad, sorry wind and solar say the exact same way. we're here. i wish he was sitting in the front row. oh, it's cheaper. okay fine. my friend lee kordner says there are three things when you're planning new additions to the grid three things where you're going to put it. how you gonna connect it, how do do you pay for it? he didn't have one word. like so many of the academics these spreadsheet jockeys. you produce these elaborate computer models. we have a computer model since we can do this. okay fine. well, maybe you got to leave palo alto and stanford and mit and you know, cal berkeley and go to small towns in, iowa. or maybe spend a little time in rural, california because in rural, california in shasta they just rejected a big wind project. cherokee county, kansas, reno county kansas, san bernardino county, california the largest county by area in america in 2019 banned large-scale renewables this is in the state of california, which has a hundred percent clean electricity mandate by 2045 and a net zero goal. by 2045 vermont is listed there bernie bros. any bernie bros in the crowd? i doubt it. bernie sanders has been one of the biggest promoters of renewables in the senate. he ran in 2016 on a platform that said we went 100% renewable. so that's great. you can't build wind turbines in vermont? can't build them in new york. and you can't build them in, california. where you're going to put it, how are you going to connect it? how are you going to pay for it, but it's not just wind. it's solar two again this oh, well, the solar is cheaper. okay, fine. ignore uighur slave labor ignore the fact that the us state department just sanctioned the import of solar panels and poly silicon from xinjiang province. where 40% of the world's poly silicon for solar was being sourced. forget that you can still call your clean energy clean energy even though you got a little slave labor in there. we'll just ignore that. where you going to put it? i just made this slide just a few minutes ago. that tough thing from nbc news. they published that march 6th. i was like, yes. thank you. a big media outlet reporting on what's really happening on the ground in america. you won't read about this in the washington post. actually. they did a pretty good story the other day about a tall grass prairie in texas. you won't read about it in npr. i wrote a piece of colette i published monday. decrying they're terrible coverage of the renewable business. you won't read about the new york times the new york times will not cover the backlash against wind and solar in the state of new york. but the problem with solar the same problem with wind needs big footprints. can all across the country people are saying we don't want your stuff. how are you going to connect it? c3 group in atlanta, i finally got some good data on. high voltage transmission how much is actually being built? that third line we're building about 1700 miles of high voltage transmission, 230 kilovolts and above since 2008. the amount of interstate that is crossing state lines is a less than that far like 250 miles. but even if we grant you that's 1700 miles a year at current rates doubling high voltage transmission to get to 90% renewable electricity will take 140 years. and yet these phds i've just had it. i've had it. oh, well, we'll do it all with wind and solar. okay, fine. oh and we're just gonna double high voltage transmission. okay. well explain it to leave slowly because i'm from tulsa. you got to go slower with blue because he's from sky tube really really slow. how you gonna build it? if you think building pipelines and putting them in the ground is hard tried doing the same thing with electrical infrastructure. that's 150 feet or 200 feet high. state of iowa has passed a law prohibiting the use of imminent domain for high voltage transmission. all across the country rural communities are saying we don't want high voltage transmission across our property our county our town. the grid we have is largely the grid we're going to have so it's not just massive amounts of high voltage transmission. it's cartoonish amounts of land. my daughter mary made this slide for me. i quite like it just because it really pops. two different two different analyzes one by david keith and lee miller at harvard from 2018 botslav schmill. who's a savant on all these issues? meeting existing electricity demand with with wind alone. that's not the objective. nobody's proposing that would require two california's worth of land. to california's, you can't even build a single wind turbine in california and yet these these people are saying oh, yeah, we'll just do it again. we'll put it out there, you know in flyover country. eastern colorado, kansas, you know those trump voters out there. we'll put it out there. really? again, my slide data. i've been collecting since 2015 more than 323 communities from coast to coast from maine to hawaii have rejected a restricted wind projects. in the last eight years. wind industry has never challenged my numbers. they want to act like this doesn't exist. the facts are the facts. w edwards deming said it right and god. we trust every