 and this is Guillermo Sabatier, your host for today, and I'm the Director of International Services for HSI and welcome to Perspectives on Energy. Today I'm going to discuss the, after this midterm election, you know, what are we going to expect, right, given what's happened, right? Now, there's been a slight shift in the House. Most of the Democrats may retain control of the Senate, but there's definitely Republican control of the House. So what does that what does that all mean with regards to energy policy, right? Well, today I just so happened great timing. I went to one of the webinars for the U.S. Energy Administration, usca.org, and they pretty much had like a good hour discussion on kind of pretty much what I suspected and I got a few more insights. But let's go through a few of these. I'm sure some folks are a little unsettled given the fact that the power has shifted slightly. But overall, I think I got a pretty good feel for a lot of bipartisan cooperation. It looks like a lot of the Republicans that were elected and I'm going to say it seems to be a victory for moderates. It looks like the days of extremism one way or the other are kind of like tapering down. And we're seeing, I guess what we call Cougar has prevailing in a sense, right? That being said, I mean, former President Trump declared a the announced that he's going to run for election. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, where I live, hasn't really specifically said he's not going to run for president. So we'll see what happens even though he just got reelected for governor with a wide margin. So chances are we may see some more than in the future. But let's dive right into it. I had a few notes from today's webinar. And it is quite interesting some of the things that we talked about. Well, one thing that we might expect, of course, to see is they are they have made already announcements that they will get go into some kind of oversight hearings, whether that is the Hunter Biden situation or that is anything having to do with the with the Ukraine and the Bidens before the selection happened. So that made the track from a lot of the policies that we're looking at when it comes to energy or even the inflation recovery act, right, the IRA, they call it. So probably along that line, there may be challenges to the Biden administration's IRA. And but for the most part, one of the things that I saw the recurring theme was especially from the right Republicans was a lot of discussion regarding innovation. They are fully on board of the fact that that we climate change is real and the fact that they need to make more of a move towards a carbon reduction. But we may be putting back from this whole all or nothing approach towards let's get there at all costs, but rather they'll have a more diversified, reliable march towards that the final climate going. And one of the things that they talk about quite a bit, of course, was nuclear energy. It seems like that that is definitely making quite the comeback. There are a few projects already in the works. And one of the things they're going to see quite what I said before in previous shows was small modular reactors, micro reactors, those things are definitely going to be at the forefront of this revolution. So it seems to me like you have a presentation there from the Nuclear Energy Institute. And what they were discussing was that they already have a number of projects already underway. There's a new scale nuclear at Idaho. There's another one in the Tennessee Valley Authority, they have another project that's gone there with a GE Hitachi, and many more, at least five others that they sounded off. So that is going to be quite a change. The interesting thing, of course, is going to be the fact that the NRC is or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is already has a pretty big backlog on approving a lot of these projects that have been submitted. So really, as quickly as they can approve them, usually they are, and of course, those projects will be carried out in areas that welcome that type of technology, right? You may see that in certain areas specifically, when you have a transition from coal in a lot of places, you see a lot of these facilities that are being retired, namely coal-fired plants. And it becomes quite severe for the community, the economy in that area, especially in local ice matter. And for the most part, these are mostly cooperatives, rural cooperatives, rural municipalities. And they are the ones that hit the hardest, since they're not getting a lot of access to gas pipelines. So sure, replacing a coal-fired plant with some wind farms and renewable sounds great, but that is not a steady base load generation that is highly viable and generation that's not easily dispatched. We saw what happened in some of the states where they have a lot of renewable resources and the variability and the impact that had on reliability. So we'll see what comes from this particular change. But one of the things that they did discuss, of course, is that there's going to be possible political advantages, but rather economic advantages to areas that request and embrace and welcome this type of energy resource. Certain states, of course, are going to benefit a great deal, especially when they have a lot of industrial loads. And this may be a pivotal point, especially if we plan on bringing manufacturing back to the US, which it seems like we're looking at as well. The other challenge, of course, is they're still looking at widespread EV adoption, and that will be linked with distributed energy resources. So as more and more solar gets up on rooftops, you may be seeing quite the acceleration of electric vehicle adoption. Now, that is two parts of a multi-part plan. Eventually, once you have the batteries and the solar, which usually is your vehicle, or you build, for example, a power wall, like a Tesla power wall, then the next step will be, of course, for the utilities to be able to dispatch that as a generation resource, or better yet, be able to aggregate that and treat that as a virtual power plant. And that's something that we may be seeing a lot more of in the next few years. Now, one of the things that they discussed regarding innovation was, of course, in great part is the advancing of nuclear technology. Right now, we're using technology that dates back to the 80s, and a lot of countries that are competitors are definitely, they may some leaps and bounds ahead of us. So we don't have that far to catch up, but we definitely have some catching up to do in the regards that there have been more investments in that field overseas than we've done here. So, but pretty sure that we're going to, within this decade, we're going to definitely meet, if not surpass the rest of the world in nuclear. And of course, that will be nuclear that's going to be dispatchable, much like you see in France. So interesting times. And of course, that'll be probably the way to be able to meet these zero carbon emission goals as we go towards 2035, 2040 and 2050. So that is one of the things that discussed. The other interesting thing that we're looking at is definitely a great opportunity for a bipartisan approach to solving these energy issues. And the other thing, of course, is that they're going to be treating energy as a national security, they're looking at a national security perspective. No longer will this be just, let's get to zero carbon emissions at any cost. It'll be, well, how is this being weaponized against us and how do we better position ourselves to be able to leverage both this zero carbon emission renewable resources, but at the same time make sure we have energy security and energy reliability. Of course, that also has an impact on whether we attract the industrial projects to these areas because the cost of energy is too high. These projects will simply go elsewhere. And that could be another country, but that can also happen internally to the US, right? So you may have a region where energy costs are really, really low compared to others. For example, that is Florida for now has a rather low cost of energy compared to the rest of the country. So that in turn is attracting a lot of industry, not just from states like California and the Northeast, but even they're attracting industrial and commercial customers even from Texas. So we're seeing that happen already. So I see a lot more of that movement taking place and industrial opportunities will probably pop up right where there is a low cost of energy, right? So pretty exciting things coming up as well. So not that record. Now, one of the things that also was interesting and the fact that there has been a lot of concern given the fact that the economy played a major role in this change in the election. But at the same time, it just seems like it wasn't going to be the red tide that everybody feared or expected. For some folks, it was the welcome news for others. They were disappointed. They wanted to see a bigger tide for others. They were rather relieved. There wasn't that that's severe. So all depends on where you stand on the political fence. But the point is that the change was moderate. And speaking of moderate from a different perspective, it's hopefully less extreme. How am I to run, right? And as they were saying, right, with these political changes, right? And nobody wanted to see if there's a moderate right candidate. The last thing they want to see is somebody get around them to the further right. Same thing with a moderate left candidate. They don't want to see a candidate go get ahead of them that's from, you know, further left. So ideally, everybody wants to work around a center. And that seems probably the best way to kind of see in that regard, at least an energy policy, right? We can probably maybe, maybe agree and move forward and actually get some things done. Another concern they had, of course, was just simple. There probably will be more natural gas pipelines, natural gas exports, natural gas extraction. And, and the, and our likelihood we're going to see a lot more pipeline and drilling taking place. We have an abundant resource in that regard. And we'll probably be able to sell that to our allies in Europe and make really good use of that resource. Now, that being said, I mean, Europe right now is, is, is on the verge of experiencing some some kind of energy shortfalls, especially since when it was already begun. So in most cases, will help a lot of our allies and our friends avoid buying natural gas and energy from Russia. But, you know, there are countries that are still buying it from them. It was India, Turkey, and in some part Poland as well. So that, that'll be an interesting turn of events, especially what's been happening recently over there in the Ukraine. And given that, it's, it's a, there's also a concern, right? When it comes to energy, what would happen with how we support the Ukraine, how we support their struggle against Russia. So part of that, of course, is, is Ukraine for the most part is very so sufficient with energy, but they will be needing more help with the actual equipment and infrastructures given the fact that those are suffering constant attacks during this conflict. So we'll be seeing what happens there. Right now, there's seems to be some likelihood that they will continue with that support, even though there's opposition to supporting that that effort in support of Ukraine. So that is a concern for some, for some. So a couple of other things that we saw, there was discussion of our, of course, everything else that that we've learned is there's there's been a great deal of emphasis on reliability. What happened with the renewable resources in the last year, whether it was California or a couple of other states, that variable resource does not does not really function well when reliability is as a must. So some of those solutions, of course, are more battery, more storage. Others are these hydrogen, but usually the overwhelming solution to that is, is, is uses transitional fuel, which is natural gas when it's available. But it just seems for the near term, and within within this decade, nuclear is making a resurgence. And that's something that we will see going forward in the shape of small nuclear reactors. It more than likely will not be those large nuclear facilities. It'll be something rather small and lots of them everywhere. Now, now, one thing that I really don't, of course, that all depends. And I said earlier that all depends whether the area that that particular area is is is accepting of that type of resource, right? Or rather, they welcome that Hawaii may not be as welcoming as opposed to say, Texas, or the Midwest, or the Northeast, or even a floor. Florida has two separate nuclear facilities. And California has not decided to delay the shutdown of their last nuclear reactor. So, so, of course, that is those are very large facilities. I suspect you're going to see a lot more of those deployed throughout the country. And, for example, these large facilities are about 2000 megawatts. These SMRs are about 30 to 50 megawatts a piece. So you may be seeing hundreds and thousands of those deployed throughout the country. And of course, that that may be more common commonly seen in rural areas or cooperatives generating cooperatives, especially. There was quite a bit of discussion regarding hydrogen and generating either the blue, the green hydrogen that would be another form of storage. So there's a few entities that are out there out there to develop that. Of course, that fell into the realm of innovation along with batteries. So that technology, of course, something that they're looking into granted the fact that lithium batteries are really mostly slated for automotive purposes. The utility scale battery more likely will be the heavier, less expensive iron salt type of the technology that can that can be cycled hundreds of times, if not thousands of times. So we'll probably be seeing some more of that as well. And one of the other things that we noticed as well during that discussion was the fact that definitely quite a lot more drilling permits will be issued. And so that will that we will see maybe not as much as oil, but definitely there'll be permits for natural gas. As far as the price of transportation fuel, the gasoline petroleum diesel, that that is definitely something that may be addressed at some point regarding we're looking at here. Diesel is definitely a shortage of the part of the addressing that first and followed by regular automotive gasoline. So now what kind of impact will that have on the economy more likely it'll it'll probably motivate the economy, but that of course will have some minor impact on carbon emissions at this point. So that's that was pretty much it. I mean, a lot of discussion involving involving some of the some of the concerns regarding the political climate. Fortunately, it wasn't the for for some folks, you know, they're they're really concerned about our red wave. But for the most part, it was a it was a slight moderate correction in that regard. And now there's kind of like a balance between Senate and House. And so we'll see what happens then. Mind you that there's no runoff election happening for the Senate coming up soon. So we'll see what Senator is elected out of out of Georgia. So that'll be an interesting race to watch that may determine how things work. I mean, in our likelihood of my state the same as we have it now. But definitely definitely some changes coming coming down the pike, as we answer this, what they call it late introduction. And then we start January with a whole new whole new political makeup in the house. So now going back to the inflation reduction act of the IRA, there may be some pushback on that. There was a lot of opposition initially when when when they were first trying to get that approved. Now they're that they may go back and maybe maybe not abolish some items on there, but perhaps make some amendments to the changes regarding that particular that particular act. So we will see at that point what that might be. But again, it's usually done with the spirit of innovation. And that is what you're hearing a lot from the Republicans, right? Usually it's a lot of innovation that they're looking forward to. And even, for example, states like Texas, right? Texas is as red as it can get. Yet 20, sorry about that noise, yet 25% of their generation mix for their peak was either wind or solar. So there is definitely a move and acceptance for renewable resources, even in the red as the states. So the only challenge there is that they want it to be more reliable and have a better mix and of course have it deployable. So we look forward to that. And again, that'll hopefully be a change that we look forward to in our regard. So that I think is all we have in a nutshell regarding these political changes and what we saw happen after the election. Not a lot of change in that regard, but definitely we're going to be seeing a move towards nuclear, maybe some challenges to the IRA, a little bit of oversight hearings, and then a lot of bipartisan work and a lot of focus on innovation and a lot of that innovation will probably be in the form of new forms of nuclear energy and small modular reactors. So that's all I have for today. Thank you for joining me. And if you have any questions or have any comments, please feel free to write those below and we'll try and respond to us. Thank you again.