 Okay, we're back, we're live. We just had this really fabulous show with Governor John Whyay and Senator Brian Schatz. That was terrific. And then we had the law across the sea with Mark Schlave. It's been a great day so far, a great week. And now we have Mina, maybe Marco, me, and me on a Monday talking about energy. And we're going to catch up on energy, try to make sense of it today. And maybe we can catch up with Marco, too. I hope so. Welcome to the show, Mina. Thanks, Jay. Nice to be here in person. Great to have you. Great to have you. So, you know, what comes to mind is we have an election coming soon, tomorrow, for example. And, you know, bets seem to be on Hillary Clinton, but, you know, who knows? We don't know where those red states are going and, you know, who knows, it could be a big surprise. I keep finding ordinary, reasonable, rational people who say under stress, under interview pressure that they're actually voting for Trump. So can't be sure. Oh, here's, here's, wait, yeah. Marco, can you let us call on Skype and then we can click you in, okay? 553-5002, okay, we'll call you in a minute, yeah. So anyway, there's a lot of issues that, you know, national issues about everything in the world. I saw on 60 Minutes Last Night, a very interesting focus group and, you know, people from both sides of the tracks, people, all economic groups, all occupations, all economic levels, all unhappy and mad at each other, mad at the country, mad at the candidates, mad at the parties, we have, we are fragmented and somehow I feel this has got to affect energy as an initiative, no matter who wins. I think you, you know, everybody saw what was happening with the stock market, you know, and it was on a downward trend, you know, given the FBI supposedly investigation of Clinton and, you know, all that uncertainty that was causing and now I think it's a little bit more even today. Yeah. Oh, it went up, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, that's the uncertainty of the election and how we're being perceived and especially in energy issues, you know, or if someone like Trump gets in and we're going to fall off the wagon and revert back to coal. Right. He was there touting coal in the coal country and you really wonder how serious he was, but if he does that, whoa, we're going backward a mile a minute. Yeah, so I think, you know, climate change issues, energy issues, moving towards cleaner energy, you know, those issues are highly reliant on the outcome of this election. Yeah, it makes it hard, you know, to plan, actually. Exactly. You know, one of the things is, you know, so people cannot even visualize what's going to happen late Tuesday night because, you know, there's talk about, well, it's all rigged and well-conceived, no concession, and, you know, I've been hearing stories about how people are galvanizing for immediate impeachment already following the election. I mean, this is a huge stress on the Constitution, the system, the public confidence in the system. The social compact that we have all grown up with is now somehow threatened. Exactly. And that's what's really sad, that this partisanship and divisiveness amongst the country. And how do we move forward once this stage is over, that we do have a precedent when you have, especially the Congress saying that, you know, we're not going to consider, if it's Clinton, we're not going to consider any Supreme Court appointees, or... Even from John McCain said that. Yeah. So that's in the mainstream Republican rank and file saying things like that, steadily. So yeah, you know, public service is supposed to be an honorable profession moving forward, looking out for the public good, solving problems. I mean, I wish we could get back to that, and rather than this just, ugliness. Yeah, you know, and it's funny that elected legislators, public officials, don't seem to follow the Constitution. If you don't confirm another appointee in the Supreme Court, any side of the tracks, that means you're changing the number of judges on the Supreme Court. But the number of judges is in the U.S. Constitution. You're effectively disregarding the Constitution. And if I make an oath of office to, you know, abide by the Constitution, support, defend the Constitution, and I ignore it or try to change it, you know, laterally without process that way, am I in violation of my oath of office? It's rhetorical, but I think it's a real question. Yeah, I think so too. I think there are a couple of articles in the Washington Post about, you know, does the Senate really relinquish its right on the confirmation process, you know, by not acting? Yeah. You know, so does that give the president the ability just to nominate someone and have them fill the vacancy and the Senate by not acting relinquishes its right to qualify someone and confirm someone? You know that this week here, interestingly enough at the Cancer Center at UH Medical School, there's a conference going on with German companies and government officials here to tell us what Germany is doing on energy. And you know, it's interesting that for a long time we have seen ourselves, Hawaii has seen itself as a leader, a global leader, you know, they will beat a path to our door to find out how we do our energy. I'm not sure it's that way anymore. I think Germany is here to tell us what they do in Germany rather than, you know, to find out what we do here in Hawaii. Of course, it's probably going to be a two-way street to some extent, but I'm very interested in knowing what they do. You know, I was in Germany in May and spoke at an international conference and to tell them about the Hawaii experience. And you know, Germany was very proud because that weekend, that the previous weekend, they had hit a hundred percent win. It depends on how much wind you have, actually. But, you know, they were very proud of that accomplishment and rightfully so. But you know, their grid is different because they're interconnected. They can, you know, move that power throughout the European nation. They have an inter-Island cable, don't they? They have a big cable. They have lots of transmission. So doing it within an island, especially isolated island units, island grids, is much more difficult. But Germany has experimented, provided new technologies in a lot of Pacific Island nations. They've made some investments in Pacific Island nations. For example, one of the technology developers that's here this week did some work in tanga, and especially in load shifting. But again, tanga doesn't have, I believe, I've never been to tanga, but I don't believe it has, you know, the economic scale that we do, the expectation of reliability that we do. So, you know, for a highly developed economy like ours, you know, not, we can't use developing island nations as models for us. But one thing seems clear is that Germany does have technology. It doesn't have great weather, and it doesn't have great sunshine. And for that matter, I don't think its wind is all that good either, you know, in terms of consistent flow of wind. But it's determined, and they know how to do mechanical engineering and all that, and electrical engineering. So they're out here in tanga, and for that matter, they're out here in Hawaii trying to sell their technology. They're trying to make money. And I think, again, you know, the technology is advancing very quickly. And, you know, we do provide an excellent testbed, you know, especially in an economy like ours that with so many different components, so, you know, partnering with them and how to integrate and manage the system is really important. Yeah. You know, we had a show last week, and we talked to the, let's see, he was the Chamber of Commerce, the German Chamber of Commerce in, I think it was in Los Angeles, talked, we had the Honorary Council here, a Council for Germany here in the studio. So this is a, you know, this is a full-fledged effort here. This is serious business by Germany. And I'm sure they're not limiting it to Hawaii, they're elsewhere. So the question is, you know, how do we respond to this? You and I know that conferences may or may not, you know, actually yield any ongoing benefit. And I wonder if anybody's really listening to the Germans who are trying to sell their technology. And I feel that, you know, that'd be a function of how the utility responds, how the PUC responds, how industry in general responds. And on that, Nate, on that, you know, I don't think we got over next area yet. I think we're still, like, in shock over that, and we have to get together and come together. It's sort of like the election, you know, after the trauma of the election, can we come together? Right, yeah. I think one of the things that we have to do, Hawaii has to do, to move forward, we have to be able to articulate all our challenges very clearly so that we find the right technologies to help us move forward. And I don't believe, how can I say this diplomatically? You know, in some of the requests, we've been reactive to it rather than going out to these new technologies, businesses, and saying exactly what our problem is and what do you have as solutions for us? Yeah. And do that on a competitive basis. Well, let me ask you this, Meena. You've thought about this for a long time, decades. And in one very hard-lipped position or another. And you've seen a lot of history go by here on energy in Hawaii. It's been historic, really, on your watch. And here we are, OK? It's election day 2016. And I say that only because I think that's a stark day, also, in some ways. If I made you queen, if I made you governor, if I gave you all the power in the world, and based on what you know, what you've seen, what you are thinking about now, what would you do to move the needle ahead right now in Hawaii? If I could go backwards. I mean, and I'm just being really, really truthful here. Next era would be the owners of the Hawaiian electric company. And because I think they were a very forward-looking company, and it's really the electric utility that's the driver in this and in the planning situation. And in my look at them, they appear to be a very progressive company that understands the evolution of the business model and technology moving forward. I think they were not evaluated fairly. And consumers are going to pay a high price for that. And so we may make some progress, but we're going to stumble a lot, and we're going to pay a higher price for that. Well, that being the case, let's call it the Camelot of Next Era. Just assume for with me for a moment that they're here. They're controlling the utility. They bring all their resources, deep pockets, engineering, whatnot to Hawaii. How does it go? What I mean, in your mind's eye, it goes through Christmas future. How does it go? Well, I think the best example that we have, that's a real-life example that we're living right now, is the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. They're very calculated. They're very conscious of their cost and the cost to the member. I'm a member. But they're willing to experiment. So they're moving forward, taking into consideration advancing technology, economics, and environmental concerns. So we have a great example in the cooperative. Are you suggesting that a cooperative would be appropriate for the rest of the state? No, it's not ownership. It's leadership. And they have a very progressive board with their own strategic plans and their own targets, which are higher than the near-term targets are higher than the state RPS. And they have a CEO who understands financing really well. And they have a CEO who understands his system very well. And how much renewables they can integrate. They really had some remarkable progress in Kauai. You spent a lot of time there, so you can see it happening. But aside from leadership now, I make you leader for all this. What steps would you take? What would you focus on in terms of the kinds of renewables, the kinds of technology, the kinds of bringing the community together in a better system? What would you do? I think right now we have to get our head wrapped around on the utility side of the meter and the infrastructure investments that are needed on that side. So that's taking the macro approach. If we want transformation, we have to concentrate on the big picture investment, the long-term investment that will get us to our targets. What is that? Solar farms? Utility scale solar farms, more utility scale projects, upgrade of the grid, smart meters. And so those are major kinds of investments that need to take place on substantial capital exactly in long term. These are the long-term. And this is where the rate pair of money and the tax pair of money should be focused. For far too long, we focused on the micro stuff. And that's good that we were early adopters in a lot of area. But the small stuff, the individual stuff is not really it can help drive transformation. But if we really want to take everyone along, whether you have a rooftop solar panel or not, the investments have to be made on the system itself. The larger macro system. What about the economics of that? You know, people have gotten into the, in my view, the misperception that clean energy is cheap energy. But somebody has to pay for new infrastructure, new technology. How would you handle that as the queen? Right, exactly. That's where the public money should be invested. Public money, meaning legislative public money? Well, taxpayer money or rate pair funds. That's where it should be invested, where it can bring the greatest benefits to all rather than the individual stakeholders. And this is where the rates have to be adjusted. Rate design has to move forward. So, you know, people who make the individual investments are fairly compensated for their investments, but not subsidized. So, yeah, that's the balancing act that we have to do. And that's what we need to be cognizant of, that if we want transformation, transformation is going to occur in the public infrastructure investments. And whether it's the electric grid, whether it's the communication systems, you know, fiber optics. Sure, the internet. Yes. You know, connecting all the black boxes together. Right. Or even our larger water infrastructure, our larger fuel infrastructure, you know, these take long-term planning, they're major investments, and they're big dollars. Now, what about the socialization aspect? I mean, Hawaii has evolved into, you know, sort of an ongoing demand for transparency, an ongoing demand for larger structures to listen to the people and all that. And sometimes that has been useful or at least conciliatory, other times it has been downright destructive. How would you handle that as a queen, trying to do these things? I would be a benevolent queen, by the way. I know you would. I know you're a benevolent member of our think-tech community anyway, so thank you. Well, you know, actually I've written about this a lot because it's, you know, especially like in relationship to our grid, you know, it's kind of like the tragedy of the commons. I mean, you know, you can only take so much and then you start affecting everybody. And so, you know, we have to be cognizant of that. You know, capitalism is good. You know, it's a good driver for our economy, right? But again, it has to be balanced with, you know, social responsibility and that we all benefit from, you know, good policies rather than just, I don't believe in the trickle-down effect. Well, I'll have to get people on board in one way or another and handle, you know, the whole socialization aspect of it. And this leads me to a discussion of something that's been happening this morning, namely a meeting of the Hawaii Energy Policy Forum, the steering committee specifically, to determine what are the issues that should be covered in the legislative briefing that customarily and annually, and this year again, will take place in the legislature around the opening time, January 15th or so. So you're familiar with the possibilities that have been raised. I wonder if we could talk about that. Not because it's been decided, yet it hasn't been decided, but at least what are the candidates for discussion? Well, I think, you know, what will likely come up is tax credits for energy storage. And I think that's a huge mistake because our existing tax credits include energy storage. And I think if you have a separate tax credit specific for energy storage, you're gonna be giving public monies to the same individuals to benefit on their own. And we've been spending hundreds of millions of dollars already on 20% of the population. So I don't doubt given the state that the solar industry is in, you know, they're looking for lifelines right now, but I don't believe it's a warranted lifeline. We shouldn't reverse the decision on NEM and that energy metering. We shouldn't go back and give new incentive tax credits, right? We should let the market decide. The market is broken. Because this is an area that's heavily subsidized. And you know, I've heard people say, well, you're getting all the subsidies, the fossil fuel. But again, it's benefiting the individual side of the meter. It's not, these are public monies being invested in individuals rather than the public as a whole. And so thinking with you today, it sounds to me like one thing the Energy Policy Forum could consider as a focus for the legislative briefing is, and you mentioned it earlier, infrastructure. How do we, what kind of infrastructure should we focus on? How can we get it built? How can we integrate it all the pieces together not only on the one side or the other side, but on all the sides, connect it up. And of course, how can we pay for it? Right. You know, because the utility may not have the money. There may not be another next era down the road, at least not immediately. So we have issues. Big issues. You know, only government can drive these big and facilitate these big public infrastructure projects, whether it's roads or public transportation, the electric grid, or like I said, water issues, fuel infrastructures. And so we need to pay attention to that and pay attention to the planning process, which is necessary to have continuity. I mean, I've seen too many good plans get dumped because of an administration change. Oh, isn't that the truth? That's so true. Mina, I mean, from your lips, I tell you, that's absolutely true. How do you, but how do you avoid that? Right. It's the way things work. You cannot plan these big public infrastructure investments according to political cycles. You can't do it in two and four year cycles. You know, this reminds me of the old issue, and I know it was not successful at the time, when Neil Abercrombie first took off. It's around the time you were originally appointed, I think, yeah? That's a good point of me. It was the idea of an authority, because an authority outlives a political cycle. Robert Moses in New York. But I kind of disagree with you on that. Go ahead. You know, I think we have really good policy out there, but there are some agencies that have to have that continuity. One of those agencies is the Public Utility Commission, and that's why commissioners have six-year terms. You know, to allow for that continuity that goes beyond political cycles. But what about the administrative side, the operational side, call it the executive side? Right, and so, I mean, there's a reason why there are civil service positions. I, again, to have that institutional memory, the professionalism in moving on. Maybe this should be a subject in the briefing. The other thing that occurs to me about the briefing is that maybe we need to break down, of course, multiple speakers, you know, to discuss this and to advise the legislature, but break down the kinds of infrastructure we're talking about. So somebody, perhaps, ought to talk about utility-scale solar farms. Somebody ought to talk about utility-scale wind farms. Not only the technology of it, but the contractual legal relationships involved in putting them together. Who does what? That might be getting down into the weeds, though. Okay. I think what we're missing here is, you know, a bigger picture and how everything is integrated in moving forward. Who speaks? Who would you have briefing the legislature this year? I don't know. I mean, if I knew that, we would have had the agenda all set up already before I got to this, to our discussion right here. No, it's really hard because we're no longer talking about projects. We're no longer talking just about renewable energy generation. I mean, we're talking about an entire ecosystem. Right. And we have to see it that way. Yeah. Otherwise. That means that you and I are gonna have to have further discussions about this. And the steering committee of the energy policy forum is gonna have to look at it from that point of view. Right. And so is the legislature. Yeah, it's no longer linear decisions. You do this and you get that. You know, it's really big. Yeah. And we're talking about, you know, these evolutions that are taking place right now, rapidly on the technology side, but, you know, as you get things off the ground, it's slower. But this is a 30-year plan. Yeah. And we have to be proactive. Right. That's Meena Morita, former chair of the PUC, a legislator who dealt in energy, will lead the legislature in energy for many years here on Think Tech. Meena Morita, maybe Marco and me on Mondays. We'll do this again right here. All right. Thanks, Jay. Thanks.