 Good morning. My name is Maury Galbraith. I am the executive director at the Western Interstate Energy Board. Holly Taylor, Melanie Snyder, David Manning, all at WEB, helped develop this presentation. The outline for today's presentation is the Western Interstate Energy Board and its partner organizations, two energy policy issues in the West, and three WEB summer internship projects. Starting with the Western Interstate Energy Board and its partner organizations. The Western Interstate Energy Board is an organization that was created by Western governors. WEB's purpose is to enhance the economy of the West and contribute to the well-being of the region's people. WEB accomplishes this mission by providing the tools and framework necessary to support cooperative efforts to promote energy policy in the West. The legal basis for WEB is the Western Interstate Nuclear Compact, which was enacted by Compact member states and ratified by Congress in 1970, at a time when it was believed that nuclear power was going to be too cheap to meter. However, the governors had the foresight to write the Compact broadly to encompass nuclear and related fields, and therefore to cover all energy matters, including both electricity and non-electricity matters. As you will see through the course of this presentation, WEB works closely on a wide range of energy issues. WEB's efforts started with the Compact member states, but in 1977, the governors wanted to expand regional energy discussions beyond the Compact signatory states, allowing additional Western states and provinces to participate in this work. WEB is now an organization of 11 Western states and three Western Canadian provinces that work to promote energy policy that has developed through the cooperative efforts of these states and provincial partners and in collaboration with the federal government. WEB also provides funding and manages energy projects of regional significance that are proposed by member states and provinces and approved by the WEB board. WEB's board members are appointed by the governors and premiers of our member states and provinces. The president may also appoint a federal representative to the board. This is the current list of governor and premier appointees to the board. Dr. Laura Nelson, director of the Utah Governor's Office of Energy Development, is the WEB chair. Jenea Scott, commissioner of the California Energy Commission, is the WEB member representative from the state of California. Actions of the board require approval by a majority of board members. In practice, however, decision making has almost always been done by consensus. The WEB High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee was created around 1983 in response to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act, which was the federal government's first attempt to deal with the issue of nuclear waste legislatively. This act created the prospect of a near-term, large-scale nuclear waste transportation campaign, which prompted the western states to create the committee. WEB is a natural home for this committee due to WEB's roots in the western interstate nuclear compact, as well as its developed expertise in interstate coordination and cooperation. Since its creation, the High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee has worked with the federal government, particularly the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as well as other states, tribes, and industry in attempting to develop a safe, uneventful, and publicly accepted transportation program for nuclear waste. The High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee has written comments, policies, primers, and draft plans, and been an active participant in many planning groups. Recently, the High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee developed nine major policy positions related to spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste transportation. This consensus work has been approved by all the High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee members and has been adopted by a unanimous vote of the Western Interstate Energy Board. The High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee is comprised of representatives of 11 western states who are appointed by their state's WEB board member. High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee members come from a variety of state offices. Here you see there are representatives from state energy, highway patrol, and homeland security offices. The common thread is that they always are people who have experience in radiological matters. Many of the High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee members have been on the committee for over 10 years, which provides valuable continuity and depth of knowledge and experience. The current High-Level Radioactive Waste Committee chair is Ken Niles from the Oregon Department of Energy, and the vice chair is Rich Baker from the Arizona Department of Health Services Bureau of Radiation Control. Another WEB committee is the Committee on Regional Electric Power Cooperation, or CREPSE, for short. CREPSE is a joint committee of the Western Interstate Energy Board and the Western Conference of Public Service Commissioners. CREPSE's membership is informal. John Chapman, director of the Idaho Governor's Office of Energy, and Ann Randall, commissioner at the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission serve as the co-chairs of CREPSE. Otherwise, CREPSE is comprised of public utility commissioners, energy and facility siting agency officials, and consumer advocates in western states and Canadian provinces that work together to improve the efficiency of the western bulk electric system. Each spring and fall, CREPSE works with its partner organizations, WEB and YRAB, to bring interested parties together to explore and discuss current and emerging energy trends, challenges, and opportunities. Topics discussed at the recent joint CREPSE YRAB meeting included natural gas electric interface issues, Bitcoin mining and other unexpected large electricity loads, customer choice and large electricity loads departing, traditional investor-owned utilities, wholesale market expansion in the west, reliability implications of the increasing speed of the grid, and reliability coordination services in the western interconnection. The western interconnection regional advisory body, or YRAB for short, is a sister organization to WEB. YRAB is a regional advisory body established under the Federal Power Act, section 215J. YRAB has statutory authority and an obligation to advise the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, and the Western Electricity Coordinating Council on bulk electric system reliability matters in the western interconnection. YRAB speaks with a single voice, speaking on behalf of the states and provinces in the western interconnection, to advise these entities on important reliability matters. YRAB works hard to achieve consensus among all of its members, which have a diverse set of resources and objectives. Here is a list of YRAB's member representatives. Janea Scott, Commissioner at the California Energy Commission, is the YRAB Chair. David Clark, Commissioner at the Utah Public Service Commission, is the YRAB Vice Chair. Lastly, we have the Western Energy and Balance Market Body of State Regulators, or EIM BOSER for short. The EIM BOSER is an organization that works to provide a forum for state public utility commissioners to learn about the California Independent System Operator and the Western Energy and Balance Market. The Western Energy and Balance Market is a real-time wholesale electricity market that uses security-constrained economic dispatch to serve real-time customers across a wide geographic footprint. CREPSI, mentioned previously, was instrumental in the creation of the Western Energy and Balance Market. A CREPSI group initiated a request for information on the technical design of the Energy and Balance Market, and later CREPSI members participated in the development of the Energy and Balance Market governance structure. The EIM Body of State Regulators holds four meetings each year and works collectively to develop and submit comments, reflecting a common position on Western EIM issues to the Energy and Balance Market governing body or to the California Independent System Operator. In 2018, understanding that the Energy and Balance Market is one of the most important region-wide energy issues in the West, we've took on staff duties for the EIM Body of State Regulators. We've now worked to facilitate market-related learning opportunities for and to support the efforts of the EIM Body of State Regulators. The Energy and Balance Market Body of State Regulators is comprised of one commissioner from each of the State Public Utility Commissions in which a regulated, load-serving utility participates in the Western EIM. Jordan White, commissioner at the Utah Public Service Commission, is the EIM Body of State Regulator Chair. Christine Raper, commissioner at the Idaho Public Utilities Commission, is the EIM Bosser Vice Chair. The second part of our presentation today focuses on current energy policy issues in the West. The Western Interstate Energy Board has identified 10 policy issues that are currently under debate. One, electricity market regionalization. Two, solar PV and energy storage. Three, electricity vehicle policy. Four, carbon policy and coal unit retirements. Five, electric grid resiliency. Six, natural gas and electric system interdependencies. Seven, electric system resource adequacy. Eight, PERPA or Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act reform. Nine, high-level radioactive waste disposal and transportation. And 10, electric system transmission planning. I am going to touch on three of the 10 issues at a little more depth. First of all, focusing on electricity market regionalization in the West. The history of the electricity market debate in the West is a long one. There have been two waves of debate. The first wave occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This wave was driven by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, which proposed a standard market design for all regions of the U.S. These efforts led to the creation of the California ISO. The rest of the West considered a series of market proposals. Over the course of many years, these proposals went by the names Indigo, Grid West, RTO West, and Desert Star. None of these proposals were successful, and the market debate in the West came to a close with the California electricity crisis of 2000-2001. The second wave of debate began in 2013 and was driven by utility experts and state regulatory utility commissioners, motivated by the cost savings from wide area economic dispatch and the challenges of integrating renewable resources. This wave has resulted in the creation of the Western Energy and Balance Market. This wave of debate continues as utilities and states discuss expanding the Western Energy and Balance Market to include a day ahead market. There are three principal ways that states have chosen to structure regulatory market models for electric utilities. The traditional bilateral market model is the most common in the West. Electric utilities are vertically integrated monopolies that own generation, transmission, and distribution assets. A state public utility commission typically sets the rates and oversees the consumer practices of these utilities. At the other end of the spectrum, we have the restructured market model. In this model, electric utilities are forced to divest ownership of their generation assets. For-profit merchant generators respond to market price signals to build and retire generating units, and customers have full retail choice. This is the market model used in Texas and many states in the Eastern interconnection. The Western experience with the California electricity crisis in 2000-2001 has made this option a non-starter for the rest of the West. The joint dispatch market model represents a midpoint between these two extremes. The utility retains some ownership of generation assets, but must compete with merchant generators in day ahead and real-time electricity markets. This is the model of the current California independent system operator and the Southwest Power Pool. Tony Clark, a former commissioner at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, has diagnosed the current problem with electricity markets. During the first wave of market debate in the United States, all states pursued a single goal, affordable electricity. States that did not have it, like California and Texas, pursued restructured electricity markets. States that did have affordable electricity, like the rest of the West, did not pursue market deregulation. A decade later, during the second wave of market debate, the policy landscape has changed. States are now pursuing multiple energy policy goals, job creation, tax preservation, and politically popular generation. Value pluralism has replaced value monism in the electricity industry. Electricity markets were never designed for job creation, tax preservation, politically popular generation, or any other value other than affordable power. States are concerned about ceding control of state energy policy to a disinterested, invisible hand of a competitive wholesale electricity market. But Mr. Clark has also identified one clear success of wholesale electricity markets, security constrained economic dispatch. The cost savings from this dispatch are significant. Benefits for full-year participants in the Western Energy and Balance Market during 2017 ranged from $9.9 million to $37 million. The one-time upfront investment needed to upgrade utility energy management systems and SCADA systems were on the order of $3 million. This is a clear success of security constrained economic dispatch. Expanding the EIM to include a day-ahead market that economically commits or turns on generating assets has the potential to provide similar benefits. Discussions among Western states are ongoing. This brings us to the second energy policy issue I'd like to discuss. There has been significant growth in solar photovoltaics in the West, and it is being driven by a combination of state and local commitments, utility goals, and rapidly falling costs. Clean energy goals are motivating utility-scale solar development and falling costs are making it more appealing for residential and commercial customers to invest in solar. Additionally, to help address the challenges of more intermittent generation on the system, regulators are designing programs to ensure that energy storage is included in utility planning processes. Solar PV and energy storage will be important to ensuring grid reliability while achieving numerous state, local, and utility clean energy goals. State renewable portfolio standards have been and will continue to be important drivers of renewable growth. The figure on the right shows Western states that have an RPS, but there is a suite of other policies and goals that are also helping motivate clean energy investment. For example, California has set a goal to achieve a 100% carbon emissions-free electricity sector by 2045. This will require a wide scope of changes, including a reduced reliance on natural gas. At least 90 cities have declared an intent to adopt 100% renewable energy goals. Many other cities have set goals to significantly reduce carbon emissions. Utilities are also revising their energy plans to reduce carbon emissions. For example, in December 2018, two electric utilities, XL Energy and Platte River Power Authority, announced significant emission reduction goals. XL Energy stated that it will achieve an 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2030 and eliminate carbon emissions from its power plants by 2050. Platte River Power Authority approved a goal of achieving 100% carbon-free energy by 2030. These commitments are being facilitated in part by following solar PV costs. For example, this figure shows that the benchmark cost of a residential solar PV system has fallen from $7.34 a watt to $2.70 a watt in under 10 years. The increased affordability of PV is making it easier for smaller residential and commercial customers to invest in distributed PV. These following prices, in addition to state and local commitments, are driving rapid growth in both utility scale and distributed solar. To give you a sense of what size systems have been contributing to this growth, the figure on the left shows that over a quarter of solar generation is from distributed systems, such as those on residential or commercial rooftops. And the figure on the right shows that of these distribution-connected systems, over 50% of generation comes from residential installations. The rest of PV generation in the west is from larger utility scale projects. However, increasing solar penetration can create challenges to operating the electric grid. This figure shows a scenario run by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, simulating a week of dispatch in 2050 with high penetration of solar and wind generation. To integrate the high level of solar generation during the day, shown in yellow, other generators have to follow significant down and up ramps, which is mostly done with hydro, shown in the green color, and natural gas shown in the brown color. Also, some curtailment is required, which is shown in red. In addition to existing system ramping capabilities, energy storage offers a valuable tool for integrating high levels of solar by balancing intermentancy and reducing the severity of the feared duct curve. The figure here shows the investments in utility scale battery storage increased markedly in 2015. And since then, significant storage development has continued. This growth has been driven by state and utility commitments, as well as by the economic value of storage. So how is WEBE engaged in these solar and energy storage issues? WEBE provides technical assistance to states on perceived barriers to distributed PV deployment. There are three main areas where WEBE is offering assistance to states. First, state interconnection processes are requirements that outline the rules of the road for connecting a PV generator or storage system to the grid. WEBE research in this area seeks to streamline the process for requesting and reviewing new PV projects. In mid-2018, WEBE staff published a report on western state interconnection standards, which is shown at the right of the slide. Another report on emerging interconnection issues will be published in February 2019. Second, WEBE is currently working with the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab on research that evaluates potential rate designs for PV customers that could address concerns around utility revenue erosion or what has been called the utility death spiral. Finally, WEBE is actively engaged in reliability issues that can arise from higher penetrations of distributed PV. While more distributed PV on the system can introduce new reliability challenges, the capabilities of advanced inverters also present an opportunity for solar PV to support system reliability. This brings us to the third energy policy issue I'd like to discuss, electric vehicle policy in the west. EV adoption is poised to significantly increase nationwide and could help reduce domestic dependence on oil and has the potential to reduce carbon emissions from the transportation sector. States across the west have been instrumental in moving the ball forward, from the aggressive EV targets in California to the autonomous EV testing in Arizona. Western states are using a number of different policy mechanisms to support the growth of EVs, such as EV tax credits, access to HOV lanes, and subsidized charging. While decarbonization of the electric system often receives more attention, addressing emissions from the transportation sector is critical to reducing emissions economy-wide. As the figure on the left shows, in 2016 the electricity and transportation sectors were each responsible for 28 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. The figure on the right shows that in 2015 almost 40 percent of the emissions in California were from the transportation sector. Notably, California has a goal of five million EVs on the roads by 2030, as well as an economy-wide emissions reduction target. Because EVs can be charged by an increasingly clean power mix, EV adoption presents a clear opportunity to reduce emissions from the transportation sector. So how fast will the transition to EVs be? People don't replace their vehicles very often. If adoption is simply driven by changing consumer preferences household by household on typical vehicle replacement time scales, EV adoption is likely to be gradual. However, there is a transformational change of foot in how people use vehicles. The sharing economy and urbanization are making it easier for many households to get by without a car, and a fleet of highly utilized autonomous EVs could be used to serve a significant proportion of transportation needs. A paradigm shift away from traditional ownership and use and towards higher utilization of shared vehicles could drive transformational adoption of EVs. At higher levels of adoption, EVs present potential challenges for the electric power system. For example, significant EV adoption could lead to increases in peak demand and the ramping requirements, especially with uncontrolled charging. The figure shows the California ISO demand under a hypothetical high EV scenario. The yellow shows simulated non-EV demand, and the blue shows demand from unoptimized EV charging. As you can see, when combined with significant solar generation during the day, peak demand increases and the ramp down in the morning and the ramp up in the evening both become more pronounced with uncontrolled EV charging. There are a number of potential advantages, however, of high EV adoption as well. If properly managed, EV charging could help reduce system ramps. The figure on the left takes the simulation from the previous slide and then optimizes EV charging behavior indicated in the blue. The severity of the morning and afternoon ramps is decreased as this optimized charging pattern fills in some of the belly of the duck. Additionally, five states in the west have not decoupled electric utility revenues from volumetric sales. In states without decoupling, EV adoption could help reverse the trend of following utility demand caused by distributed generation and energy efficiency, counteracting the utility death spiral by expanding utility services into transportation. The figure on the right shows a projected increase in utility sales caused by increased electrification. The dark gray bar shows potential growth in electricity demand caused by EV adoption. So what does this mean for the west? Western states have been working both individually and collaboratively to support electric vehicle policy. For example, in 2017, eight states signed a memorandum of understanding to work on a joint EV plan, which includes designating EV highway corridors, expanding EV charging infrastructure, and encouraging EV adoption. This is a state and regional issue well-suited for WEB's mission. WEB held a detailed panel discussion on issues related to EVs during a regional meeting in 2018 and will continue its engagement around EVs in future meetings and research efforts. This brings us to the third section of today's presentation, WEB's summer internship projects with Stanford University. In 2017, summer interns completed a project on the role and operation of coal units in the western U.S. In 2018, summer interns completed a project on resource adequacy issues in the west. And in 2019, summer interns will work on priorities for the transportation of spent nuclear fuel in the west. I will summarize each of these projects and describe their components. In the summer of 2017, Stanford interns used the Environmental Protection Agency's Continuous Emissions Monitoring System data to identify changing patterns in coal unit operations in the west. The figure on the left shows the operation of the two generating units at the Centralia coal plant in November of 2001. This figure shows a typical baseload generating pattern. The figure on the right shows the operation of the same two units in November of 2016. The pattern on the right shows a much more variable operation of the two units. Having identified changing operations at specific coal units, the students turned their attention to the entire western coal fleet. In 2001, there were 95 coal units operating in the western United States. This represents 34,675 operating days of coal units. The students used machine learning techniques to determine the percentage of unit operating days spent in different operating patterns. For example, the largest picture in this figure on the left shows that 52% of the operating days in 2001 were in baseload mode. Moving to the middle of the figure, 9% of the operating unit days were in shutdown mode or zero output. And the remaining 39% of operating days were in variable patterns. This figure shows the same analysis of the western coal fleet in 2016. You will see that baseload operation has decreased from 52% in 2001 to 22% of unit operating days in 2016. Unit days of shutdown increased from 9% in 2001 to 21% in 2016. And variable operating days increased to 57% of total unit operating days in 2016. The students presented this analysis to western policymakers and regulators in a final webinar. The western interconnection regional advisory body used the students analysis in written advice it submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Electric Grid Resiliency Issues. Again, to summarize, the key findings of the 2017 summer internship were that baseload operations decreased from 52% of unit operating days in 2001 to 22% of unit operating days in 2016. Since 2011, the majority of coal units have spent less than 30% of their days in baseload operation. Offline operation increased from 9% of coal unit operating days in 2001 to 21% in 2016. The students' webinar is available at the link provided. Finally, the success of the summer internship led to a collaborative effort between the Western Interstate Energy Board and the Stanford Bits and Watts Program titled the Western Interconnection Data Analytics Project. The WIDAP project uses the EPA's Continuous Emissions Monitoring System Database to provide public information regarding the electric generation and emissions of all the coal and natural gas units operating in the West since 2001. The link to the WIDAP website is provided on this slide. This brings us to our 2018 summer internship project with Stanford University titled Resource Adequacy in the West. In 2018, summer interns prepared two reports, one titled Resource Adequacy in the West, the current state of affairs and ideas for the future, and the second titled Resource Adequacy in the West, a proposed information sharing framework. The current affairs report summarized the basics of resource adequacy. The figure in the top left shows these basics. The column labeled load shows forecasted peak load in dark blue. Utility planners add a planning reserve margin of 15% shown in light blue. The height of the two bars is the target level of resource capacity needed to keep the lights on for this hypothetical utility. The column labeled physical capacity shows the capacity of existing resources. The utility has a reserve margin or surplus capacity of 25%. In this case, the utility is deemed to be resource adequate. Many utilities in the West have started to rely on market purchases to meet their resource adequacy requirements. The chart on the right shows pacific cores reliance on market purchases, the aqua wedge second from the top to meet its resource adequacy requirements. The strategy of relying on the market can be a good one, low cost and reliable, if the purchases are supported by other utilities in the region. In this example, utility B is able to reasonably rely on market purchases shown in yellow to meet its resource adequacy requirements because utility A has surplus physical capacity. The regional balance is shown in the upper right. Relying on market purchases can be a good thing in a region that has surplus capacity. However, relying on market purchases in a region without excess capacity can be risky business. If all of the region's utilities experience the same heat wave or same cold snap, then there may not be enough generating capacity to simultaneously meet all of their requirements. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that market purchases in the West are unspecified, which means that the contracts do not identify the specific generating resources providing the capacity. Regional resource adequacy analysis is becoming more and more important with the retirement of coal units in the West. This chart shows Westwide resource adequacy analysis from WEX 2016 summer power supply assessment. The colored bars show Westwide reserve margins over a 10-year period. The black line shows the targeted level of reserves. Under most scenarios, the entire West remains resource adequate through the end of 2026. But this Westwide analysis may not provide sufficient information to reassure utilities or its regulators that a reliance on market purchases is worth the risk. A 2017 report from the Government Accounting Office identified some of these concerns. It stated, consistent data on resource adequacy are not available in regions without capacity markets. More specifically, the data on capacity commitments, which are an indicator of resource adequacy in regions with capacity markets, are not available in other regions. In the information sharing framework report, the summer interns identified a range of possible solutions. The best solution would establish a regional entity with authority, rigorously estimate regional peak load, identify resource adequacy gaps, determine resource adequacy need, and run sub-regional bidding processes for load-serving entities. The best or perfect world solution is likely to be highly controversial due to the authority structure and the intensive data requirements. The student interns proposed a second best solution that would share information, aggregate utility load forecasts, identify regional reserve margins, document assumptions and methods, and provide publicly available reports on resource adequacy in the West. Key findings of the 2019 summer internship include that there is skepticism about reliance on market purchases because there is no identification of the physical generating resources. There is skepticism about the single utility approach to resource adequacy because it results in a costly regional overbuild of capacity. It determined that the current trade-off appears to be between too little reliability and too much cost and that a potential solution is improved analysis and information sharing. The student's webinar is available at the Wink provided. This brings us to the 2019 WEB Stanford University summer internship. This project focuses on bringing together information about spent nuclear fuel generated by commercial power plants into an easy-to-use database that can then be used for policy development and transportation planning by interested stakeholders. Some background, nuclear power reactors generate electricity by harnessing nuclear fission, the same power that creates some of the destructive force of atomic bombs. Once the fuel in a nuclear power reactor is spent, as in no longer able to fission, it is removed from the reactor and replaced with fresh fuel. However, the spent nuclear fuel is now highly radioactive and must be separated from the living environment in order to protect against the potentially destructive effects of that radioactivity. This separation currently is done by putting the spent nuclear fuel into what's called dry cask storage, encasing the fuel in large stainless steel and concrete containers which typically live right next to the nuclear reactor the fuel was removed from. Plans are in rather slow motion though to move the spent fuel to either a consolidated storage space like the current storage spaces but with all the fuel moved away from their reactor sites and living together or to a permanent repository where the fuel would be isolated from the living environment theoretically forever. The movement of the spent fuel to a centralized location would require a large-scale transportation program of unusual complexity due to the special nature of the radioactivity. Here is a map of some possible routes that would take spent nuclear fuel to a proposed permanent repository in Nevada. The black and yellow symbols are the commercial nuclear power plants. The red lines are proposed truck routes. The purple lines are proposed rail routes. This gives a sense of the scale of the spent nuclear fuel transportation campaign. Up to 46 of the 50 states would have shipments pass through their borders. In transportation planning selection of routes is just one of the many factors that must be considered. Routes are a key consideration for the states however not only because they guide where resources must be allocated for training and other preparedness activities but also because states want to have a say in which cities and counties the fuel passes through. Note the four nuclear power plants in California particularly the southernmost one. This is the San Onofre nuclear generating station or songs a source of heated debate over the spent fuel stored there since it permanently shut down in 2013. Many people near songs would like the spent fuel removed as soon as possible fearing the risks of earthquakes rising sea levels and other potential dangers. People who live in communities along transportation routes far from the spent fuel storage sites however are often not as keen to see the highly radioactive materials start moving through their neighborhoods. States must balance the concerns of citizens like those who live near songs as well as those living in transportation corridor communities informing spent fuel storage disposal and transportation policy. This is a table that aggregates some of the data that the Stanford summer interns will be working with. When a nuclear power reactor is commissioned the utility signs a contract with the federal government in which the Department of Energy agrees to take the spent nuclear fuel generated by the reactor. As part of this contract utilities must report to the U.S. Energy Information Administration or EIA specifics about their fuel including its weight its uranium enrichment the reactor type and when it is put in and taken out of the reactor. Here we see a count of the total number of nuclear fuel assemblies which is one large fuel unit that have been removed from reactors between 1968 and 2013. We also see the amount of fuel that has been removed expressed in metric tons of uranium almost 70,000 metric tons in 45 years. This reported information about spent nuclear fuel is available to the public upon request from the EIA. It is emailed to requesters in Microsoft Access format which although a convenient way to send large data files is a clunky format unfriendly to manipulation and analysis. Our Stanford summer interns first goal will be to put the large data set into a form more suitable to analytic queries and policy guidance. Once this first goal is achieved the interns will work with WEB staff and the high-level radioactive waste committee to tease out some of the implications of the spent nuclear fuel's characteristics. Characteristics include the spent fuel's age, its radiological heat, its geographic distribution. The later is particularly relevant in regards to the routes the spent fuel will take to its destination. That vital consideration previously mentioned whether or not the federal government or private entities end up conducting the actual spent fuel transportation the states will need to be intimately involved in planning and operations. Not only must the program be near perfect technically it must be regulatory sound politically supported and publicly acceptable in order to succeed. Having accurate information about spent nuclear fuel and useful tools with which to analyze the information can greatly aid the states as they help shape and run this complex program. Our Stanford summer interns will provide some of this aid by creating the spent nuclear fuel database and working out some of the policy implications of the data contained therein. The interns will conduct a webinar to share their work widely not just with state representatives but also with some of the many stakeholders interested in nuclear power nuclear waste and hazardous materials transportation. The Western Interstate Energy Board office is located near the state capitol in the heart of beautiful downtown Denver, Colorado. At WEB we strive to provide our interns with a quality mentor led experience providing our interns with opportunities to explore current energy policy matters to produce relevant work products and to present their work to state regulators and policy makers. Thank you for viewing this presentation we look forward to future collaborations with Stanford University and their summer interns.