 I'm a longtime member of the National Capital Area Chapter. For those of you who aren't members, I got to tell you, this is far and away the best thing that goes on in Washington for energy people, for networking, for, you know, exploring different topics and such. We have terrific monthly luncheons. We have this annual conference, and we're affiliated with both the national and the international associations for energy economics, which also have excellent programs and publications and such. You know, in my 42 years doing energy in Washington, I don't think there's anything else that is, that I feel has brought me so much value for the effort and the minuscule dollars that has ever required me to put in, so I certainly recommend people to pay attention to that. But my role here is to introduce our luncheon speaker. And we're here to talk about the nexus of energy and water. And if anyone who has paid attention to the history of Western civilization realizes that the Industrial Revolution started with that nexus, it started with the power of falling water and the ability of that falling water to turn the early industrial machinery that wove fabrics and ground grain and ground other materials, and when we got into the more modern energy era and began recognizing that we could distribute energy in the form of electricity and be energizing a more modern economy in that way, that also started with water. And the original federal policy on energy, if you don't count the oil pipeline ICC act and the oil pipelines, the original federal power act, the original title of that written in 1920, was for hydropower, was for generation of electricity with hydropower dams. And we got around to amending it in 1935, take care of everything else, all the interstate and wholesale transmission issues. So there's probably no sector of the electricity industry that has a longer and to some extent more important history than the sector of hydroelectric power generation. And we all tend to sort of slough that off and okay, that's then and no longer, we're all going to focus on all these current issues now, you know, been there, done that. You're going to find out, it isn't that way actually. And we still get 8% of our electricity from hydroelectric generation. But what Linda Church-Chiacci is going to be telling us about is the potential that's still there and the importance that it has and the significance that hydroelectric generation brings to our economy and it is basically energy from water. And as a function of that, it is subject to the water issues we've been hearing about in terms of drought, in terms of location, in terms of water rights, in terms of competing uses, recreational uses, fish, irrigation. Linda has, if my math is right, going into her 20th year at the 22nd year at the National Hydro Power Association and that is the trade group for the hydroelectric industry. So it's a great pleasure for me to introduce Linda as the spokesperson for the founding sector of the energy water nexus. Thank you very much. Make sure that you can hear me here. And I'm going to, as the introductory remarks stated, hydro power has been a very, very important part of our energy mix. And my remarks today, we'll talk a little bit about that. I know you've already had an opportunity to talk about hydro in the sense, I mean of water in the sense of the issue as a coolant as well as looking at it from an energy extraction standpoint. So now we're going to take a look at it from a whole new lens and that is to really look at it as a fuel source because that's certainly what it is for the hydroelectric industry. Perry had said as we were sitting on the table eating our lunch that the hydroelectric industry is really in the crux of the nexus of the whole water and energy issue. And certainly I believe that is very true. I'm going to move to our slide here. My hope in trying to provide you with a quick overview of what the hydro industry is today is to really look at some of the myths that have surrounded the industry, some of which John and I were talking about briefly at lunchtime. Many think that hydro power is a Northwest resource and so they really don't understand the full value of the resource from a national perspective. They think that it's tapped out, that we're not building new dams in this country so obviously hydro power couldn't be growing. They think it's past say that it's part of that wonderful history that John just talked about and that he really doesn't have a role in our energy future. And they think there's wide environmental opposition to it so therefore why would you want to do it? Well as I go through my presentation I would hope that we would have leave the room today with a whole different impression of the industry and realize that none of that really is true. Now a quick background about NHA. We are the national spokesman for the hydroelectric industry. It includes both conventional hydro, in-stream, hydro kinetic, ocean and tidal. We are a diverse industry and we provide an opportunity for that diverse industry to come together and focus pretty much on policy. We have 200 member companies that includes both generators and service industry and our generator is extremely varied and that includes investor owns, publics and IPPs. And they're all around the United States. So we're really looking into the future within our industry and if we set a vision to actually double our current contribution to the grid system to bring another 100,000 megawatts to the grid. Now taking a look at hydro power, we're two-thirds of our renewable generation in the United States as John mentioned, we're 8% of today's electric generation. We produce 100 gigawatts of capacity and 22 gigawatts of that is actually pump storage. I'm going to take you through a few slides here very quickly just to show you the growth of the hydroelectric industry, some of that history as the years have gone by. It's been a very important generation source. It's taken our country through some very tough times. As you can see, the projects are all over the country from the early years of that industrial period to the building period around World War II and post-World War II and today. That's our hydro fleet. Here are some key characteristics of the fleet as it exists today. Note that the size of these projects are for the most part small. 62% are under 5 megawatts. That's a big surprise to folks. They think a Hoover. They think a Grand Coulee. But the average hydro facility is actually very small. And the number to the right there, the number of DMs that are powered in the United States, most people see a dam and they think it's got to be a hydro dam. But in reality, only a small percentage of the dams in the United States actually are powered. It's only 3%. So that certainly leaves a tremendous amount of room for the industry to grow and that's where a lot of our focus has been to retrofit those existing non-powered facilities. We're a unique industry. We're very different than other renewables. 51% of our generation is federally owned. And if you take that other 49%, state and local communities own a portion of that. Then if you look at the non-federal membership that's divided up, the rest of that is divided up from the private ownership side between IPPs and IOUs. So it makes for a very, very diverse industry, a very difficult industry sometimes just to actually come together on certain policy positions. This shows you our supply chain in the last several years. We've been really looking to see what our economic impact is to the overall United States. This is only 10% of our industry that's reported so far, the suppliers that they use. It's a rather significant number and as you can see it's pretty much around the United States except for that central middle portion of the U.S. And we're hoping to fill that out as we continue to collect data. Now looking at the hydro industry and its future, as I said, we are a growth industry. We're focusing on another 60,000 megawatts to bring to the grid system by 2035. And this pie chart really depicts where we think that it's going to come from. As you can see, it comes from a whole host of different types of hydro ranging from current conventional hydro pump storage, wave and tidal. And I want to point out that this is actually based on a 2009 study. There's been some additional analysis that's been done by DOE since then. And we know that these numbers are actually very conservative and we expect these numbers to go up. This goes back to looking at those 80,000 dams that are non-powered. And one of the things that I love about this particular slide is it really shows you where the bulk of those dams are. And the fact that a good portion of them are in sections of the country that have been heavily dependent on coal. And so what we see is a real opportunity to power those dams as we retire some of the older coal plants in the United States without losing our base load power. Because hydropower brings good, clean base load energy to the grid system. And that's something that's going to be continually important as we do our energy planning. Well, another way to look at this is to look what's in the pipeline at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. There's 81,000 megawatts of new hydro sitting in front of FERC today. 564 projects. And what I love about looking at this is that there are 47 different states that currently are looking at hydro development. So surely it's not a Northwest issue. It's certainly all over the United States. It is growing. There's a lot of opportunity. And a lot of these projects may not get built. But I think what's important about this is that it shows the huge interest in hydro development today. And the fact that these are historic numbers. We've never seen these type of numbers before. This is looking at it from another study that's come out of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. And it really shows how important the core of engineers is going to be to the future of the industry. As you look at the 81 of those 100 sites that have been identified in this study, they're certainly the largest and the most low hanging fruit opportunities to develop. And that's within the core system. So as a result, the association has spent a lot of time over the last year and a half trying to work with the core to try to improve their licensing process to ensure that we can speed and reduce some of the delays and may speed up the decision making to build those particular projects. We also have a lot of opportunity to grow on the existing hydroelectric system. There's another 12 gigawatts that we've identified in that system through upgrades and new capacity building. And in fact, since 2005, when the hydroelectric industry was finally recognized in the tax incentive policies, 110 projects have received PTC certification at FERC, which is acquired under the law, that they've had an average of 10% gain as a result in their generation. Now, in fact, what we have seen since 2005, a lot of the growth and interest in the hydroelectric industry has occurred since then, since it was first acknowledged in the production tax credit, and since then some additional tax incentive programs. Another area where we're seeing growth is in conduit energy. There's a host of new conduit projects that are being proposed. Most of these are in the Bureau of Reclamation System. And we are now, as a consequence, working with the Bureau to try to speed up their licensing process and improve it, because they haven't seen this type of growth and development in the system in the past. Making great progress has been an awful lot of interest. And one of the interesting things that's happened is that we're actually seeing new technologies being developed to take advantage of these new sites that are opening up. And what you're seeing is a slide from Natel, which is a brand new type of turbine that's been designed specifically to go into conduit systems. This is just another chart to show you some of the growth opportunities in the system. And right now, the Bureau of Reclamation has 30 projects currently under development, some of that's conduit, some of that is small hydro. And then there's pump storage. As I said, there's 22 gigawatts of pump storage in the system today. It's playing an important role in terms of integrating wind and other variable technologies and helping to stabilize our grid system. But I think it's interesting to note that of the 81,000 megawatts that certainly sit before FERC, over half of them, 48,000 megawatts are pump storage projects. And most of them, and a lot of them are being proposed in the West. And a lot of this is because of the influx of wind and solar we're seeing into the system and the need for the utilities to actually provide the stability of the grid in those areas of the country. So we are a growing industry. But we do have challenges. We have a long lead time in our development and the timing of the incentive programs doesn't really align very well with the hydro development process itself. Just to give you an example, in the time it takes to both to site and build a single gas fire plant or a wind facility, hydro still hasn't finished its very first phase of its licensing process. In fact, it'll take another six to eight years for it to finish the licensing process and construct the facility. That's how you're looking at anywhere from about nine years from start to finish before you can actually put a hydro plant into production. So as you can see, the boom and bust that we've seen in incentive policy has been a real disadvantage for the hydroelectric industry. Because without the long term certainty of that program, it's very hard to know when you start to build a project whether you're going to have that incentive program available to you at the end. And so that's the reason why NHA has been focusing its policy priorities on trying to build some level playing field in the terms of looking at the incentive programs, trying to make them long term, trying to reduce our regulatory process. We've done a great working relationship with the environmental community and other stakeholders in looking at the licensing process, formed a strong coalition. And as a result, we have some proposals that are moving very quickly through Congress to address some of these and speed up the process. I think we're the only energy source right now in the last Congress and in this Congress that have actually received a bill passed out of the house unanimously. It has become a real bipartisan area for the policymakers to come together and agree on support. And as I said, we have a broad coalition with the environmental community industry and other policy think tanks working with us to try to improve the process for focusing on small hydro conduit processes, the areas in the core of engineers and as well as the bureau. One of the things that's also important is the continuation of working with the R&D program within the Department of Energy. NHA really appreciates the program that's there. It's a small program, but it's played a significant role in helping us build and develop the new technologies to take advantage of the opportunities that we're seeing in the system today. So we are a changing industry, certainly. We have, as I said, we are a growing industry. We have played a very important role from terms of the grid system and maintaining that grid system. But we also have spent a good deal of time and effort over this last decade taking tremendous and making tremendous investments in environmental applications. We've learned an awful lot about fish behavior and how to improve our projects for improved fish passage, as well as upstream and downstream impacts. And we also have really taken a look at our water use and trying to develop new technologies to maximize the efficiencies of that water use. And as I said, we're developing some really exciting new turbines that have both environmental improvements as well as water efficiencies. Most of this work that we have done in terms of the technology deployment has been done in cooperation and in partnership with the Department of Energy. So making a look at the turbine programs, the areas that we just move on to, the two areas that we've been focusing on is environmental improvements from the standpoint of fish passage, as well as looking at it from the standpoint of improving downstream habitat. And this is a picture of the minimum gap runner that was developed. It's now deployed in the Northwest, not only at Grant County PUD, but a number of the projects in the Northwest and the federal projects are actually using this turbine in their systems. What we found in the work that we've done on this set, we received a 14% efficiency in turbine performance, a 4% efficiency in water use, which is obviously relevant to today's topic because we're producing more energy with less water, and a 98% fish survivability rate. So we believe that this turbine work is really making a difference for the industry. It's been a very important part of our work going forward. Another area is the aerating turbine that we've been focusing on. This is a turbine that was developed particularly for rivers like in the southeast, where there's a tendency to have more shallow rivers and temperature issues and dissolved oxygen issues. These turbines make a tremendous difference for downstream passage. And as I said, they are being used in a number of our facilities in the southeast. And what we're finding is that their application are going to become more and more important, particularly as we look at drought issues and at the consequences of climate change. So back to our topic of today, the water and energy nexus, giving you kind of a quick overview of the growth that our industry is certainly seeing. And much of the work that we have done over the last several decades in improving the industry and certainly addressing some of the issues that the industry has had over time. But obviously, we're looking at it from the standpoint of the energy and water nexus issue. Water is important to us because it is our fuel source and we can't live without it. And if we have less of it, it's obviously going to affect our industry and have a tremendous impact. So we care about it. We care about conserving it. We care about making sure that it's going to be there. We also are concerned about it because our other issues are ramifications. For one, we're playing such a huge role in the integration of variable renewables that to lose some of our hydro is going to take away one of the tools that we have for integration. And we see that as a real significant problem. We're particularly in the northwest and in the western part of the United States where hydro is playing a real significant role in integration. The other area is by reducing hydro, we're taking away one of the huge arsenals that we currently have in helping us reduce greenhouse gases. So it is a very important technology going forward. We want to ensure that it is conserved and available for our use. So this particular slide offers some things for us to consider. Number one, water is a fuel source of our projects. But it's also, you have to think of this in the context of the fact that our projects are multi-purpose. They provide water supply, flood control and stream events, irrigation and recreation, all having an impact on water. All of these purposes are important. All are affected by overuse and by the changes that are going to be brought on by climate change. So our projects really spend a lot of their effort in terms of balancing and managing all these various purposes. Two, hydro powers use of water in the energy production is non-consumptive. I know we were talking a little bit earlier about the consumptive use of hydro. And I think people sometimes are confused about this. So water that goes through the turbine returns to the river virtually unchanged. But some of the other project purposes for that, like irrigation, obviously is a water consumer. And so as you look at the whole issue of consumption and you apply that to the various energy sources, one of the things that we like to keep and tell people is that you have to look at the other water uses and the multi-purposes of that project and allocate that out because the energy production itself does not consume. It may be the other specific purposes that that project is meeting that is, has that consumptive use. The third area is that water is a constrained resource. We know that we certainly see that in the industry as we are relicensing projects. It's becoming increasingly important and obvious to us that there are a lot of, it's a lot of interest and competition for that water. That's true within the energy sector as well as outside the energy sector. And we know that climate change is going to make this all the more an issue. We see a lessening in our snowpack that's going to refuel the rivers and over spring and summer that we've relied on for decades. That's changing. We see it and we know it. Our projects are affected by it. Water's now coming in different forms and at different times. You may get a whole bunch of water all at one time and then none over the summer months. We're seeing more droughts. So we understand certainly the impact that that has to our hydro systems. And obviously it means we have less water to actually produce our energy. So all this means is that we need to plan for and be able to manage these changes. My fourth point is that industry has focused on adaptability. We have years of experience with water variations. This experience is helping industry adapt to this change. We know how to manage drought conditions. We know how to deal with water and extreme water events. We know that the patterns and the duration is going to change. We know that what we're used to and how we see these patterns is going to be different. But the good news is there's a lot of analytical work that's being done on this right now. And there's some good exchanges of information within the industry that's helping us plan. And what we think is planning is really going to be the most important aspect of being able to address some of these changes and virtual the fact that we need to share information and work more closely together. The other thing to keep in mind with our system is that it's incredibly flexible. Our machines have wide ranging flow systems. It's not ideal always to work. And they're designed, and every turbine is specifically designed for that facility. It's not something off the shelf. They're designed to operate in certain modes and in certain conditions. But the great thing about the industry is that it does have some flexibility to go beyond that. It wears the machines out sooner. It's, I said, it's not ideal. But it allows us to have a tool to help address some of the changes we're seeing within the water systems so that we can plan better and continue to produce energy, provide the water that we need for those other project purposes, and do the integration that's expected and called on more and more today in our hydro systems. But given all of that, it's all the more reason for us to look at the effects of climate, the energy water nexus from a very broad lens. I'd like to become the presentation that was made with regard to the western area of looking in IRCOT, how all those different water users and needs come together and trying to plan for that. If we can do that within our water, within all the various needs of the various purposes of water, as well as interrelating that with the energy needs, I think we can plan a lot better for the future. Just want to spend a few minutes talking about operational excellence. This is a program that NHA has started about a year and a half ago. The goal really is to look at all of our hydro projects to bring the federal system together with the non-federal system and share information, to share information on incidents that may occur, to find better best practices and work together. One of the things that we will be using this new process for is to share information on what is happening in terms of water and water use and climate change so that we can plan better as our water obviously is interrelated. Many of our projects that we have share the same river basins with the Corps of Engineer and the Bureau. And we need to work together. We need to share information in order for us to be able to plan better for the future. So we're excited about this program. We think it's going to make a huge difference in helping industry prepare. So I'm going to leave you with a few thoughts for consideration and then hopefully we can get into some discussion. One of the things that I'd like you always to keep in your back of your minds is that water is a shared resource. We need to better understand the interrelationships and work more closely together from an energy and a water perspective and find ways that we can bring all the various uses into the planning and discussion to have a real understanding of whether water is going to be there when we need it. Second point is that hydro is an important part of our energy portfolio. Most importantly, it's never been more relevant than it is today. Partly because it's so adaptable. Partly because it can integrate in a way no other resource can. Partly because it can be treated from the standpoint of a base salt energy, a peaking energy, a load following energy source. There's nothing really quite like it. Utilities today love their hydro. They'd love to get more of it. Unfortunately, the long lead time dissuades them but we know that it's been a very, very important source within their overall portfolio and it certainly has played a huge role in our grid system and protecting that grid system and in our energy security. My third point is to remember that the dams in the United States for the most part are multi-purpose and that means we need to take a closer look at them when we look at the water and energy nexus and we need to allocate across all those purposes the consumptive nature of those projects as we look to plan and see the various impacts of the various sources. And fourth, we have a challenge in front of us but cooperation, collaboration and good planning will help us address this important issue and certainly help us manage the journey ahead. So I hope I've dispelled some of your myths about hydro and I'm happy to be able to answer any questions you might have with regard to the industry, its growth. Did not get into some of the legislation but we've had some very great successes in improving our licensing process from a legislative perspective. I also know that you do tours and I welcome you to, we certainly will open our industry and we welcome you to come and tour a hydro facility, learn more about it and learn more how it's operated and how it's changing today. Some of the new applications certainly not very far from here we have great fish letters for you to see and all sorts of new environmental technologies that's been deployed. And finally I did bring some brochures with me, our conference is just two weeks away, it's here in Washington. If you have an interest to learn more about what's happening in the hydro industry we welcome you to come to our conference. We're also doing a finance summit in June if you have an interest in the economics of hydro and how to attract investment to it. That's what that particular summit in New York is gonna be focusing on. So thank you very much and I'm happy to address any of your questions. Thank you very much Linda and I'm sure we'll have some very good questions. I just wanna take a quick show of hands. How many people coming here today would have guessed that we could double the amount of hydroelectric capacity that we have in this country in a reasonable fashion? Oh it's good. Yeah, I mean I can't raise my hand. So and I think it's really a pretty profound comment on the energy water nexus to think that we can go to our most traditional energy form of water use and double it cleanly with the incredible flexibility that it has. So Linda let me start with one question and you mentioned the economics of it. How does a new kilowatt of hydro capacity come in in cost relative to some of the other ways that we can add electric capacity to the country? Is there a rule of thumb or is there an average? I know it would vary obviously from project to project but is it competitive or is it something where we're really making a major investment in the capital cost because the operating cost is zero forever? Well again it depends as you say on the type of project and the size of the project. Obviously the larger the project, the more generation you're gonna have when you're done to cover some of those the high capital costs the better. Our licensing process is very expensive. We've been told by some of our developers that the licensing cost of a hydro facility runs about 25 to 35% of the total cost of development. And that's true of whether you've got a project that you're building that's a 500 megawatt project or a small one megawatt project. So again depending on the size of the project. It also depends on what you're doing in the sense of the site itself. If you're building on an existing infrastructure not creating another dam obviously you're gonna have less civil works than that so it's gonna cost less. And so it averages about between 1,000 and 6,000 in kilowatt for development. But we look at it also and it is a good deal because it's long term. Our licenses average between 35 and 50 years. So the fact is that we look at these projects as very very long term life. And that helps to reduce those costs. The unfortunate thing however is is that investors don't look at it that way. Investors want it to return very quickly and so that's one of the reasons why the tax incentives have been very important to us to help underwrite some of those costs. Okay, well let's start with questions. Start over in the far corner there. Southeast, you've got rice fields and things like that. Much of it's irrigated. You can actually put the low flow pumps and generators within those. Are you doing any work with low flow hydro because that's something that you could increase for its local jobs? There is an interest obviously in that. One of the great things that we're seeing in the industry right now is there is an interest in looking at how to produce hydro in many, many aspects. We move a lot of water in this country. And so we're beginning to look at how water is used, how it's moved and what those flows are and whether there's opportunities. So we call that the hydro kinetic technologies. There's been some research done by the Department of Energy in that area. We're seeing new turbines that are going into water waste water systems and water supply systems. There's a ski resort in the Southwest that actually recovers the water and it is running the ski lifts off of it from the melt from their snow making machines. And so there's all these new applications that we never would have imagined just 10, 15, 20 years ago. Very, very small micro turbines. So yes, there is an interest in that. I haven't seen anybody try to do it yet in the rice field. But a lot of the conduit energy industry, the industry that we're looking at now ranges from the Natel project that I showed you that very large, kind of accordion new turbine design to much smaller kind of micro little turbines that would apply and work in a manmade channel for irrigation. Right here? Obama has the Reconstruction Act to sort of try to address those issues. So I was wondering how much of this money are allocated too highly, if you know? And what do you do with all those old dams? Do you upgrade them or especially big ones? What are the projects in regards to those? Could you use the microphone and repeat it? I couldn't hear it very well either. Sorry. Well, basically I had two questions. One of them is that Obama's Reconstruction Act allocates money towards renewing the water systems in the United States. And I was wondering how much is a chunk that goes to hydro, upgrading hydro, maybe renewing it, if any. And then the other question, you have all those old dams that were built in 30s, 40s, and especially big ones. What do you do about them? Do you, are you renewing them or what are the sort of projects to make them more efficient maybe? Yeah, those, sorry. With regard to the Obama program, I would want to know the answer. You might, yeah, I think you could go out if you don't. Sorry, again. As with regard to the Obama program, I would love to know the answer to that. We've had some conversations. We might suspect that if any money does go, it'll go to the federal system, not to private development. And there's a lot of investment by privates now on the federal system. The federal system is old. In fact, we just did some analysis working with the Department of Energy, including the federal system and the non-federal side. And so something, a huge number of turbines that are over 50 years old. There's something like 40 to 50% of the turbines in the United States that we're using in our system is more than 50 years old. So we have an older system that certainly is going to require some new reinvestment. And I would hope that some of that money that the administration's talking about will go into the federal system and help upgrade. Because the non-federal system's done a lot of upgrade work. And the real work now is left in the federal system. So it's great to see if they're gonna put that kind of investment in. With regard to dams and when they get old, what happens to them? For the most part, if you look at this infrastructure, particularly the large infrastructure, it was built for other purposes, not hydro. Hydro would have been an afterthought to help pay for the cost of that water project. So for the most part, for those projects, they're still playing the role that they were intended to play, whether it be water supply or irrigation or flood control. So we don't see them coming down. The issue really is maintaining their safety. And we have a really good dam safety program. It's operated out of the states in FERC that takes a look at those dams and ensures that they're continued safety to the country. If it's determined that they no longer serve a purpose, some of them are coming down. And in that case, it's years of study to get a sense of what the environmental impacts are gonna be in ensuring that we do it in a safe and a productive way. Does that answer your question? Mark? I'm a consulting engineer and especially is pricing electricity. And I'm also vice president of NCAC, addressing the last issue first. Yeah, NCAC will be contacting you about arranging a tour for our members. We're going to double the capacity, or we hope to double the capacity of the hydro system in the United States according to your numbers. Of the existing hydro, relatively small part of that is IPPs. And even smaller part were initially built as IPPs as opposed to being built by an utility and then converted from a utility-owned entity to IPP. Of the new plants, how much of that are IPPs, how much are expected to be IPPs versus owned by governments, by municipal utilities versus standard utilities? Are we seeing a huge shift in the ownership from the standard ratio or the old ratio and for the new ratio? That's a great question. We certainly have seen an NHA was formed by a group of IPPs that built hydro over 20 or 30 years ago. And they certainly played a huge role in the industry in developing these projects. As we look at the development today, there is a combination. I mean, there are IPPs that are still in there. I think the guiding rule is how large they are and what their capital investment in support is because of the long lead time in hydro development. We've seen a lot of IPPs start to build and then end up because the licensing process gets so difficult for them, particularly when you're building on a core facility, which a lot of us are doing now, or a bureau facility, it's just so dragged out because you have the FERC process that's intertwined also with the other, but the FERC process after you go through all of that simply gives you the license to go talk to the core of engineers, and then you have to go to the core process. And so for an IPP type to go through that long period of time, it's really hard for them to get that long-term funding. So what we're seeing is that they're selling out their rights to the license to a utility generator for them to finish the project after they get that so far along. So it's really, it continues to be a combination of what we're seeing in the industry that's actually developing projects. And a lot of it depends on how much money you've got that is sitting there as your supply in order to get you through that system. We are seeing also the publics have a huge interest in their building. And that's because they're using bond referendum and they have, I think, more access to capital than we're certainly seeing from an IPP perspective. So I think there are fewer IPPs than we would like to be selling the business, but there's still a contingent out there that is still working in the hydroelectric industry, but it is a mixed group. And it's not so much utilities unless they're public utilities that are building right now. Oh, okay, right here. Chuck Polak from Duke University. To your third point, do you have a sense of what the cost is of running a turbine on a multi-purpose facility rather than a pure dedicated hydro facility that the loss of efficiency you talked about and just putting a turbine into a flood control facility? I mean, is it half of what you think otherwise? Well, the cost is gonna be the same. You're gonna be less efficient if you're full-generated. You could be multi-purpose. That's true. But when you design these projects, you're gonna design these projects with the understanding of what all the purposes are. And you're gonna end up with some of these projects having to pay for some of those other services as well. That's particularly true when you're building on the federal system. If you're building on a bureau project, you're gonna be charged fees to pay for all of the multi-purpose aspects of that dam of school, raise your cost. And it makes it sometimes extremely difficult to build as a result. And that's one of the issues we've been working with the bureau on. But the actual facility itself, in terms of building it, the costs are gonna be determined by the license and how long the licensing process is gonna take. And then the fees are gonna be attached to those other multi-purposes. But for the most part, when you see a hydro facility, it's serving a lot of other purposes beyond just the energy, particularly in the West. Did that answer your question to somebody? Okay, we're pushing up against our two o'clock next panel, but I think we'll take a couple more quick questions. So, one right here. What's the future of the plight? Is it just more the same in terms of distribution and size? Or is there a new and different type of sort of foot print? I think that looking into the future, we're seeing some good-sized projects being built right now. There are four projects in the Ohio River being built by Ampo, Ohio. And those projects are fairly significant. Again, it's being built by a public. They are bringing about another 450 megawatts to the system through those four projects. But then, and we're seeing on the Susquehanna River, the Holt Wood Project, they've doubled some of their current capacity, so it's a larger facility. But for the most part, what we're seeing, they're few and far between. You're gonna see a few projects that are 100 megawatt, 150 megawatt, 250 megawatt. And a lot of the rest of them are gonna be the conduit, small kind of hydro applications. They're gonna be in a range of different kinds of technologies that will be the makeup of that. But then there's also the pump storage projects. As I said, over half of the funding project licenses before FERC are pump storage. And they tend to be larger. Our historic pump storage projects run anywhere from about 300 to 1,000 megawatts. They're harder to build, they're more expensive. It takes about a billion dollars to build a 1,000 megawatt pump storage plant. But there are several that have been proposed in that system. And some of the others are more immediate to moderate sized projects. But the larger projects are probably gonna be more pump storage. Okay, one last question. The big issue for a micro-hydro type project is that it's in the licensing process itself. You don't get many breaks on size when you're working in trying to license a hydro facility. So, and I get rightly so. I mean, you're working in water, so you're gonna do a number of studies. So studies are expensive. They could be over several seasons where you're looking at fish behavior and fish impact. And as a result, your costs are way up. And so if you have a very, very small micro-hydro project, they can't underwrite those costs and be able to bring that project online at any kind of reasonable investment. And we certainly see this. We've got a lot of companies that are looking at small micro-hydro type applications that started out in the hydro-kinetic area and moved to the conventional hydro because they couldn't make it in the hydro-conventional or in the hydro-kinetic area, now doing small hydro. And they're still struggling just because of the cost of studies and the licensing process itself makes it too difficult for them to build. So it's a real deterrent. We have been spending time in one of the bills that we had to move through Congress is to really look at this issue and try to speed up that licensing process to reduce the delays and try to bring it within a two-year process. The reason being, we want to be more competitive with wind and gas plants that you can build within a two-year period at a reduced cost level while still preserving the environmental values, not giving up any kind of the environmental laws that are there. Then that makes sense for us to do. So that's really the focus because any developer of a small hydro-micro China project will tell you it's the licensing process itself. And this is not the bash for first done a lot, try to improve the process. It's just there's so many stakeholders involved in licensing at the federal and state and local level. And that's what we're trying to speed up and improve. And if we can get that down to a reasonable period with reasonable costs, I think you'll see some more of that type of development. Well, I hope you'll join me in thanking Linda for what I think was a fine damn talk.