 eight oh eight the cutting-edge here in a given monday and we're here with marco manglesore well we're here with him virtually but in fact marco is in thailand uh... hi marco thanks for joining the show well over a good morning to you my dear friend jane so what he got from bangkok yes indeed we we stand the globe in the search of of nuggets for pink tech and and all of the viewers yeah so you're in bangkok i'm envious actually but you were mentioning before the show that bangkok has had a uh... a dry season this year can talk about it yet but you think i could cross the region uh... read just recently in bangkok post yesterday in fact that the dryest season of uh... about ten years and this uh... this is rather apropos and scarily so and that uh... i read as well as to compete in the post that uh... estimated that within the next handful of years almost a third of the world's population will be in a water scarce or water uh... security uh... problem and that's really uh... the case in parts of southeast Asia would that depend so much on uh... the make on river for it's up to them for for millions of people and that's not an exaggeration and the water for the make on start from the the southern part of china and in high altitude and they have quite a few dance up there and then that's where the make on the beginning of this mighty journey for for it's great distance until then and that the media the site on the river or that near saigon uh... in vietnam south vietnam the make on river gulf is about the long and short of it is but the tremendous amount of politics uh... that's going on have been going on regarding water here uh... as one more down get put up and there's the friction over uh... the chinese and other upstream countries releasing adequate amounts of water so that the downstream downstream people can can do what they need to do so i'll actually be in the one for long uh... one of my favorite to agent cities right on the make on and allow loud pdr uh... in several days will be a very great thing to see just what that river level is uh... during this dry a very bright season that water is everything in southeast asian so much of it comes from the make on and that comes from china uh... so it must affect agriculture must affect life in general to be short on water right that's why this friction right well agriculture and the number of people j all along and close to the make on that rely on fish catching fish processing fish product it's huge and we're talking millions of people who for generations you know going back for for a very very very long time rely on the make on for the substance uh... for them and their families and for for a very important sort of protein but it's really a big deal in terms of uh... what happens to water who controls that how much water comes down the river at any given time it's a very big deal you know marco one of my one of my favorite uh... resources in fact my favorite news source at the top of the heap is the new york times that you mentioned to me that uh... your cousin who lives in in bangkok hannah beaches are named and she writes for the new york times and you've seen her on this trip can you talk about what it's like to be a reporter a journalist for the new york times uh... in southeast asia in thailand yet pretty well and give you just a little background about my cousin hannah uh... my uncle kites beach uh... he served in the u of marine corps uh... in world war two he was actually uh... war correspondent uh... hardscrapple kid who came from a not a small town in poor rural mississippi and wrote his way up to be one of the top notch for foreign correspondents in american press corps one of all the prize covering uh... korea the korean conflict and uh... his third wife uco beach uh... japanese national they have one kid one child and that was hannah hannah beach but she's actually hop off hopper holly and and japanese and she followed in a proper footsteps much to uh... to my my great pride of the father and mother's pride and she worked for years and years as a reporter for time magazine and living mostly in being in the Beijing and chung high and two net years ago or so the new york times made a play on her and she switched over to the time to became a copy station bureau chief based here in bangkok with her with her husband brook with the journalist in his own right and to just really sweet sweet son uh... who are about eight and ten years old and that she's a fantastic writer jim i'm so impressed by nana and i got a chance to have a lovely lunch with her couple days ago here and she's covered some input from really credible story of including the the tragedy uh... the genocide of the uh... of the rohingya uh... in in berma mea mar who were chased out by the nationalist but it's uh... government they're led by on country who has taken according to a people quite the fault from great from from winning a novel piece by years ago to being up something of uh... of uh... nationalist uh... uh... who was uh... been very uh... supportive of what the military and doing in that part of berma so she and i've covered that but i'm in that youth refugee camp there and bang with that she put a hundred thousand people on covered the south china see stuff between uh... china which which protests against the u of naval and air all and and airports brothers there in the region so yet she's really in a hot spot here uh... and been able to cover a lot of incredibly juicy stories and i i'd so appreciate what she's doing and she i'd say early forties and just have a very sweet and and yet incredibly op-ed my approach to to journalism and uh... and uh... real pleasure to be able to see her now it is a great career is that i mean that this kind of uh... you know posting really suggest how wonderful it can be um... be with your professional spouse and uh... do stories like that i think i think uh... you know young people are focused on doing that you know in the old days i would suggest people they should join the state department not sure you feel the same way about it now but i do feel that that way about journalism especially overseas journalism so we'll be looking for her byline into new york times hannah beach b e c h right marco correct yeah and actually she else from from uh... company that did quite well for quite a number of years called beach craft a uh... a manufacturer of uh... of aircraft american aircraft i'm not sure there's no business they they'd be primarily i think small model aircraft uh... for private use not to much general aviation yeah well let's uh... let's aviate back to what why for a moment uh... you've been doing as you always do analysis of uh... various uh... sources of renewable energy and of course the big one uh... for you and provision solar healer your company uh... is uh... solar so you you made some calculations recently about how it's doing and you actually have a chart about how it's doing can we talk about that yeah i'd be happy to i'd be happy to interact i just submitted a piece uh... to the civil beat on the subject of my year-in-review annual uh... take on what's going on the solar industry in why which i've been a part of for quite a number of years and the good news is that uh... good news for me and and those of us in the industry and and the state with large i would also add is that the uh... the solar coaster has come to call it which is the uh... the the nature or the volume of business being done uh... affects the solar coaster either going up or going down depending on the month depending on the year and the solar coaster uh... for Hawaii across the the four counties of our state uh... went up uh... by forty one percent this past uh... year in twenty nineteen which uh... after two down years or two slow years of of solar coasters so to speak and in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen the solar coaster went up uh... from uh... me get the number for you in a moment yeah let's see the chart twenty eighteen four thousand eight hundred thirty pd permit across the state in twenty eighteen and sixty six thousand eight hundred twenty four in twenty nineteen which represented the net gain of of forty one percent which uh... is uh... nothing that's needed to hear the best year in terms of uh... pd permit to be to cross the way last year compared to or the best year since twenty sixteen so you know why that is yet uh... i think larger what one of one six significant factor uh... a lot of us believe that the federal investment tax credit which is uh... thirty percent covered thirty percent of the cost of the system whether you're a homeowner or business owner uh... essentially it's kind of free money in the sense from the fact that you can uh... deduct the cost of the system or have a credit of thirty percent of what you paid it uh... for your pv system you can use that off at your tax liability and that uh... federal investment tax credit has been available since georg w bush in two thousand five and it actually uh... which something we all knew it was going to go down from thirty percent to twenty six percent as of two weeks ago as in january first so my point being that it's been shown to my satisfaction that when it comes to decision-making behavior uh... individuals typically are more motivated to act at the prospect of losing something at the prospect of loss of value uh... as opposed to uh... increasing your value now the words are for example here if your stock worker called into the jay you know you really need to sell x y v stock in the next couple days fast because it's likely to go down you're probably going to be more motivated to follow his or her advice then if the same as such a bit of the deal you cannot pop up you've got to get it now plastics by some plastic in a going back to us that classic phone with a sixty-two graduate yeah i think it big yeah a big motivator was uh... the perception of the fear that they were going to the buyers were if they waited uh... to the next year they were going to lose money that's on the table for them now and uh... storage as well energy storage has been uh... a bigger part of the equation last year compared to the year before and the year before that so battery to become much more mainstream about seventy-plus percent of all new pv systems permitted uh... have energy storage that things are very very good thing and uh... you know beyond that she and i i i i'm humble enough to admit and acknowledge that even though i've been tracking the symmetry for a long long time and i've been in the history for even longer all the garden sometimes right now what the damn fellow culture going to do year-to-year so i think that you know it would be that there are other factors outside outside of energy that affect people spying decisions but let me let me ask you about the decisions of the legislature and i think uh... there was a piece i think it was your piece about uh... tax credits for storage we haven't got that straightened out in fact opening days this wednesday uh... day before your birthday i might add uh... and as far as i know and uh... you know they should be considering tax credit for storage don't you think they should be wrapping it around so people buy storage invest in storage and that will help uh... develop solar be be good for renewables in general don't you think but i couldn't agree more and no based on of the root of the practical political reality that a separate tax state tax credit for storage failed in the past for consecutive legislatures or legislative sessions uh... the more cynical part of me does not have much hope that they're going to get a right this section plus the uh... the reality as well as jay that i'm kind of a lone voice but what i can tell in the renewable energy industry in the state calling for this tax credit so in other words it doesn't appear to be much of a priority for my uh... my brethren and my sister and making that work up uh... in renewable energy here who don't seem to believe uh... that it should be made a priority because you know that the gig of the ledge you know you choose your priorities you hit hard you try to get a pass but you you you don't bring a whole wish list of ten or fifteen things though you know you want to be targeted in what you want to try to get them i i don't seem to have a whole lot of work from what i can tell the mothers to uh... to go and make it to top priority that's really too bad because it's it's an obvious benefit and we're gonna have to do it after a while and it smooths the curve it's uh... it's a statement of efficiency uh... it's really uh... a critical piece to get to uh... clean energy goals by twenty forty twenty forty five whatever and so uh... you know what i'm sad that the legislature hasn't done anything well i'm going to be in the middle of even watching our reading of the news that a Puerto Rico the past week i mean that's what people got clobbered by multiple you know substantial earthquakes and it's found that you know that what's again you have many many Puerto Ricans who were suffering big time in the dark the point being that even after spending billions of dollars to uh... to to fix that grid to upgrade the grid there's still a lot that needs to be done more billions needed to stand but she had to start from again to me we don't mind here's on fire with this kind of stuff that we have an ostrich like mentality in the state of Hawaii uh... where hardening the grid uh... having more distributed solar renewable energy in storage it should be made to me uh... uh... a very top priority at least as important as as uh... having a c in the public schools and you know i'm saying that kind of time to take a little bit not have worked out how we're waiting i would they see in the public schools category yeah right well we are waiting because it will happen you know it's not a question of uh... whether but only when so let me ask you about hydrogen where it fits you know there was only a little conversation about this at the uh... legislative briefing uh... the white energy policy legislative briefing uh... in the state capital auditorium last friday as one business day ago uh... and you know it strikes me that people and the legislature they don't fully understand the value of of using hydrogen as a way to store it is a storage mechanism furthermore it is a transportation mechanism in the sense that you can get the hydrogen in one place and and ship it in an attack to another place and then leave it there until you need it uh... batteries are hard to move around but uh... tanks of hydrogen are easier uh... where is hydrogen fit in all of this is hydrogen are a complement to batteries uh... do you think there's a place for it going forward and what is that place well absolutely i mean we have to be all and in in the state of for a given are continued again here on fire reality of more than eighty percent of the state's energy is is imported in the form of oil to the state in more than eighty percent despite decades and decades and decades of effort to reduce our our dame's addiction dependence on oil so uh... by hydrogen is definitely part of the next now the key part of of for ramping up hydrogen production infrastructure distribution in use is to be able to produce it in a cost-effective fashion and in order to produce if you have to have or you have to have a demand for so if we talk about what people like all folks you they're a blue planet and others you know the supply and demand have to be carefully calibrated and that's kind of where we're at now just the beginning and you know ideally uh... renewable energy in the form of a safe solar or win that doesn't have any place to go with a one when the grid at any given time uh... that fairly take all that renewable energy and if we have hundreds of megawatts award renewable coming online hopefully in an example of your bill will be more time during peak generation from these renewable sources when this energy this renewable energy could and should be used to electrolyze water which we typically of no shortage of uh... including of course recently with you provincial rain across much of the state electrolyze water with renewable energy and uh... and produce hydrogen store and use it uh... but we're just the very very beginning of this this rather long and arduous i think it's going to be too to have hydrogen a part of our energy economy but yeah i mean we have to be all in with the bees which are growing year to year to year but also hydrogen which has uh... as of as of as an energy carrier energy source have a lot of uh... uh... attributes uh... in terms of what you can do with it and and uh... both transportation power generation so yeah we should be all in with hydrogen because uh... we still have a lot of long way to go to do it it's up for our independence our energy security yeah i was very important discussion and it should always uh... every discussion of renewables should include discussion on on storage on tax credits to incentivize storage on hydrogen on tax credits for hydrogen in the same way uh... and i i would like to see that discussion continue uh... the energy policy forum uh... meeting last friday was uh... was interesting there was some inspired speakers there uh... our friend uh... jennifer potter was there she was terrific and scott's you was very good the newly anointed uh... uh... c o of one electric and others were good too i'm looking forward to more discussions like that but uh... marco let's take a short break when we come back i would like to uh... take a look with you at the latest news on pgv in the big island and put up and see what you thermal looks like in this mix this portfolio of renewables we'll be right back after this break aloha i'm keisha king host of at the crossroads where we have conversations that are real and relevant we have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in hawaii and all around the world won't you join us on think tech hawaii dot com or on youtube on the think tech hawaii channel our conversations are real relevant and lots of fun i'll see you at the crossroads aloha hi guys i'm your host lili and keamick from lili and vegan world and i come to you live every second friday from three p m and this is the show where i talk about the plant-based lifestyle and veganism so we go through recipes some upcoming events uh... information about health regarding your health and uh... just some ideas on how you can have a better lifestyle eat healthier and have fun at the same time so you join me i look forward to seeing you and uh... aloha okay energy eight oh eight the cutting-edge we have marco manglestof on the phone from uh... bangkok thailand and we're talking about all kinds of things including things in uh... in southeast asia uh... energy uh... everywhere that it that it is of issue and that really is everywhere in the world uh... people for you go too much further i want to when i ask you one thing that occurred me while you were talking about uh... the dry period in uh... in thailand marco uh... it did people attribute that is it properly attributed to climate change or is it just a matter of harsh of water shortage from the dams the chinese are building upstream in the make-up i think it's both j i think it's both that uh... uh... there is a commission uh... that it's made up of uh... the chinese the type came out in blouse and it means and uh... people from folks in berma newmark uh... because uh... the make-up is a common resource though there's certainly discussion going on and uh... and cooperation to some extent but you know the cooperation has its limits right and especially if there's a greater demand for water than they have to be supply at any given time you know so it's a it's a rather rather hot and and and and and friction uh... laden topic of time well you know what the climate change is all the more important uh... i'm afraid uh... that the world isn't doing that much about it not not dealing dealing with it properly i mean we we might react to storms extreme weather but we we should try to avoid fossil fuel we should uh... you know uh... have mechanisms by which uh... emissions are reduced uh... and the fact that the united states is denying as a as a country as a nation is denying climate change through uh... donald trump is very troubling not only in the united states but in the world uh... because because as the united states goes in this regard so goes the world if we're not excited about it when i do anything about it indeed we're not uh... then you know the world is going to do less and the result is uh... as a as a species where we are at greater risk and you know uh... in the other the other thing about it is that uh... you know before we talked about energy uh... and we weren't we weren't really dealing so much on a global level we were dealing maybe in a more local level but now i think we have to deal with climate change on a global level and uh... you know before we had environmental impact statements that really dealt with local impacts of local environments now what we do our projects however big or small should also take into account uh... the global effects like a global environmental impact statement as far as climate change is concerned uh... and more and more i think we have to be we have to be into that and more and more we should talk about it but anyway i wanted to get to put a geothermal venture uh... because now it appears uh... that uh... coming back online even even within the next few months uh... and you must be following that closely wherever you are so uh... tell us what's happening as far as you know and what the impacts are you have big news jay big news i mean that's part of the news but on the seven thirty-first the uh... for the pgb for geothermal which is owned by embedded based on that's an international company that has geothermal and other resources for a different part of the world they submitted a uh... amended and revised our purchase agreement to the public utilities commission which is something that they see has been wanting them to do for a while now as a precursor to getting a plant back online and i had a chance to go with uh... the manager there mike alakini big guy uh... manager pgb went on a tour of the facility couple several weeks ago and it was really jaw-dropping in terms of this this island of a power plant with all this infrastructure sprawling uh... around over quite a territory surrounded on uh... almost all sides by lava and uh... the the resourcefulness of the driving dedication of both of the pgb guys in our map spring it's pat that plan back online functional you know no shortage of uh... uh... serious money needed to to to do that so the the revised our purchase agreement is certainly would be approved a better deal for holy electric repairs the all-in cost of electricity on a new ppb would be depending on how you calculate somewhere in the ten to eleven cents a kilowatt hour range all in and compared that to the current avoided cost which is the uh... the the pricing mechanism for the first twenty five megawatts of that plant the uh... what it cost in the fourteen to fifteen cents a kilowatt hour range right now and that goes up a part of world up it would be better economically for a couple of their for better for big island resident and the other news uh... it's was uh... welcome a lot of people with that the output of that plan would go up from a max thirty eight mags to somewhere around forty six so if that were to happen if the commission approves what what if and when pgb does come back online which uh... they certainly want to come back online local want to come back online what people on the island come back online uh... bring up the renewable percentage after the first full year of operation from the current uh... somewhere around the low forty which is what i think one like to go report help go to be for twenty nineteen it'll bring it up to somewhere in the seventy plus range so we would be seventy percent renewable and power generation but it's not percent uh... with pgb coming back online which would instantly ball the big island back to the number one position which we were in for quite a number of years until bill uh... the eruptions of twenty eighteen which not got that plant in main of that year so yeah my crystal ball would say that it's going to be probably several months until the commission uh... makes an official ruling it could be thinner and then uh... my guess is going to be forty eight months uh... until sending to get approval of the trip to report a month until they're up to full power and providing those government to make a lot to to help go right now they're in testing mode and uh... you know so far so good from what i understand and and uh... we'll see how how it plays out it's all good it's all good to have a uh... of the very very aided uh... uh... diversified portfolio that's all good to have it all it's all good to have uh... geothermal and it's all good to to see a company that has the what you call it business will and resources to come back like this after such a devastating uh... eruption anyway uh... marco great to talk to you we're out of time i'll look forward to our next conversation i want you to enjoy a trip and learn a lot about everything and when you come back when we speak next in a couple weeks uh... i'm hoping we can find out what you've learned thank you marco well absolutely i'll be in uh... the one for bottom of the one that may come in two weeks and i look forward to uh... to talking uh... more with you jay and uh... and picking up right where we left off my friend again happy happy new year holly marco he got to you sir shouldn't get quite a lot of marco thanks so much you're welcome thank you