 Aloha, Aloha Friday, Stan the Energy Man here, half way through summer already. Can you believe it? Just amazing. Well, today we're going to talk about something a little bit different. We're going to talk a little bit of politics because it's been a crazy season. So today's political atmosphere is super charged with the rhetoric. So how does the average American sort through all the sound bites, the hype, and get to the heart of the issues? So today, our distinguished panel will break down a few of the energy-related topics so American voters can make their decisions based on sound logic and science. We have with us today Mr. Dr. Dave Villanero, who studied at the University of Baton Blanc in the French Riviera, and did his thesis on alcohol consumption among juvenile canines and arctic. We also have with us Dr. Rachel James from the University of Bahamas, Ilderum, who did her thesis on dating habits of post-juvenile male Drosophila confined to high school petri dishes. And of course, I'm your host, Dr. Stan Osserman, University of Waimanalo, MIT, Makapu Institute of Teletherapy. Oh, come on. So now that we've got our credentials established, we're here to talk about what's really going on in politics. We're serious from here on out. We have so much fun at work, we just have to continue on the show here today. So thanks to our show, but we really are going to talk about important stuff today. We're going to talk a little bit about climate change and some of the things going on in our world that have to do with politics and talk about energy and politics. So really, this is Dave Villanero and Rachel James, both of them work with me at HCAT. And we thought we'd have a little bit of fun there, so hope you enjoyed it. Anyway, welcome to the show. Good to have both of you here. And we deal with energy day in and day out, all day long, all kinds, transportation, grid, everything. So let's talk a little bit about some of the things that we're working every day. And I wrote a bunch of questions down here that have to do with some of the things we're looking at. So let's start with Alexa. Is Alexa up? Alexa, what's weather change or climate change? Uh-oh, she's not listening anymore. Right, right. Okay, we'll talk about climate change. The first question I'd like to discuss is, is climate change real and is it man-made? So, Rachel, what do you think? I mean, are we making a lot to do about nothing? Is this something that naturally happens in cycles or are all the scientists really just out there, you know, saying all this stuff for nothing? What's going on? Well, so climate change does happen naturally. And so the conversation about climate change is less whether or not climate change is man-made, but the pace at which the climate is changing. So it's certainly been changing at a pace that's been induced by human activity. So I'd say yes, climate change is natural. Yes, it's exacerbated by our activity. Okay. Dr, I would agree with you as well on that assessment. I think climate change is definitely real. I think humankind has contributed significantly to that natural trend of eating the climate and global climate change. I think we can all agree on that. The one interesting thing to point out though is a lot of times people take statistics and they kind of change a little bit here and it has a whole different meaning. So there's an old saying that there's lies, downlies and statisticians. So when you hear something like 9 out of 10 scientists agree that climate change is caused by man. But really what the survey said was 9 out of 10 scientists agree that man has a role in climate change. It's two totally different things. So on the side that says climate change is like everything and man's doing everything, they lock onto the 9 out of 10 scientists say man caused climate change. That's really not what the survey said. And on the other side it's like that's all bogus stuff, it's not really what the thing said. And then you have the arguments. I agree. What we do is get past those arguments and talk about like you said Rachel, we have a role in it. It's obvious we have a role in it because our cars pollute. Like I said on one of my shows and you found entertaining, you wouldn't wrap your lips around your exhaust pipe and start breathing that stuff. It's not good for you. So if you wouldn't breathe it right off of your car, what makes it good for the atmosphere and the climate? So next question would be, so why should the US do anything about it? When you look at our sky, look at our background, look in Hawaii, we're nice and clean and pristine all the time, but then look at India or China or some other big industrial countries and it's ugly. So what's the US's role in climate change? Why should we be taking all the burden on ourselves and forcing ourselves to do carbon credits and all this stuff? So in the climate change discussion particularly, I'm a big fan of we should do better because we know how to do better and so waiting for someone to verify or confirm that climate change is happening or say that we're contributing to it, we have the technology and we have the expertise, we have the opportunity to do better and so we should. So for me that's really kind of the beginning and the end of the discussion, but on a global scale, similarly we have an opportunity to be at the forefront of doing things a better way and because climate change impacts the globe, it's important that everybody kind of play a part and we have all the tools at our disposal so we have but to use them. Dave? I'd like to add on to what Rachel said. I think we do have the technology and the skills. I think more importantly, United States has demonstrated leadership and has leadership and must continue to demonstrate the leadership to counteract the changes in the climate right now. I think that's probably the key. I'd agree with you there and I think that's really what the US should be taking the lead and even Hawaii should be taking the lead. People look to Hawaii as a pristine place and a place that should be kept naturally beautiful for visitors and things. So even more than the regular continental United States, the folks in Hawaii have a natural bent towards a great climate and we ought to be leading the way and helping the US lead the way. So our role shouldn't be to dictate it but I think as Americans we should take our responsibility as leading the way in climate change and showing the way it could be and should be and make it economically profitable too. I think that's another piece. A lot of times folks attach climate change to well it's not cost effective. I mean we've got this fossil fuel, it's cheaper, let's just use that and then on the other side you've got, but it's dirty and you guys are just being greedy and you get into the argument about what to do but there's a medium in there where you can make the change and make it economically viable and lead the way also and maybe that's the road we should take. So how should we do it? How should we try in Hawaii particularly? How should Hawaii try and lead the way in climate and solving climate change issues and leading the way in renewable energy in particular? I think we should do it with both hands in the air going as fast as we can and we should say woo as we're doing it. Seriously, I think we should do it that way. We are primed not only because we're an island and we need to but because we have the intellect, we have the will, we have the historical knowledge, we have the ancestral knowledge here of people practicing how to live in tandem with the environment so we have a really strong basis upon which to build. Sure, the key word that you hear nowadays is sustainability and that's exactly right. A hundred years ago, the Hawaiians had a sustainable agriculture and environment and fisheries and set the example a hundred years ago so why can't Hawaii lead the way today? So, Dave, what are some of the ways you think that Hawaii could lead? I think that Hawaii is leading the change right now. Again, as you mentioned, the 2045 mandate for renewable energy for electric production is absolutely huge. Exactly, exactly. That shows an understanding, a collective understanding of the state, not only by the government but the people that live here. We are on an island and I think we understand probably more than most people throughout the world that we have limited resources and we need to protect those resources and do everything in our power to make that happen. And I think that goes back to your point of leadership too. I mean, a good leader just doesn't have to sit there and ram things down on people but just say, look, we need to set the example. And I think you're right, Governor Ige, almost called him General Ige, Governor Ige sent a great example and the legislature by setting the 100% renewable by 2045 was just like that reverberated around the world. Now people look to Hawaii and go, wow, that's really aggressive. And I think that's the kind of thing we need to do. So really what we've basically said is, you know, climate change is a man-made, I'm sure we contribute to it. And no matter whether you think it's a natural recurring cycle or whether you're contributing to it on a massive scale, the right thing to do is just to start living cleaner and have our technologies cleaned up, industries cleaned up, oceans and rivers and streams cleaned up and our highways, our transportation sector needs to get cleaned and not just the cars, the airplanes, the boats and work towards a cleaner environment. So is climate change important? It certainly is. I mean, it's definitely been getting warmer this year, whether it's a natural cycle or not, we'll get through it and we'll live through it. But we should always just be focusing on doing what we can do to preserve our environment and preserve our natural beauty, especially here in Hawaii. So we're going to take a quick break here and come back and talk about some other topics on energy and what we can do about it to go cleaner and greener. Aloha, I'm Kirsten Baumgart Turner, host of Sustainable Hawaii. Every Tuesday at noon we talk about issues important to Hawaii's sustainability, the issues of conservation, renewable energy, land management, food and energy security and other issues that are extremely important as the World Conservation Congress approaches in the first week of September and next year's World Youth Congress that's taking place here that's focusing on sustainability as well. Please tune in, join us as we highlight all the good things that are happening to achieve sustainability in Hawaii. Mahalo. Hello, and I'm Patrick Bratton. Please join me for Global Connections every Thursday at 1 p.m. where we talk with a variety of guests about various international issues, historical issues, both here in Hawaii and abroad, range from security, human rights, ethics and all sorts of other things. So please join me. I look forward to talking with you and seeing some of my guests. Hey, welcome back to my lunch hour. Actually, it's our lunch hour because we're all from HCAT, Stand Energy Man here with Rachel James and Dave Malinero, my crew at HCAT. We deal with energy and renewable resources all day long in sustainability, so we're here to talk to you a little bit about it today. And I think we finally got Alexa to work. So, Alexa, what's climate change? How come she did it two seconds ago and now she's not doing it? She's camera shot. I'm telling you. We've got to get our computers going here. They're letting us down. Okay, Alexa, what is climate change? Global warming and climate change, our terms for the observed century scale rise in the average temperature of the Earth's climate system and its related effects. There you go, but I don't know if I'd want to count on technology to save the world if that's how this is going to go. At least we try there. That's Alexa, our studio computer that knows everything. So let's talk a little bit about energy security and energy resiliency in Hawaii and in the U.S. A lot of people talk about energy security in terms of where we buy our fossil fuels and making sure that we can keep the price where we want it and things like that. And then, of course, we work with the military and the military energy security is, hey, when I need the energy on my base to do my mission, it better be there because I can't have a cyber attack or something take down my power and I lose power to all my mission critical assets. So what are some of the things about energy security and energy resiliency that you think are going to start with Dave this time? It is absolutely imperative that we become energy independent as a nation. We have relied too long on fossil fuels from foreign entities, foreign entities that we've had to go fight wars in support of and, you know, you're a former general officer in the military. I served a long time in the military as well. We know firsthand the cost of not being energy independent from the human perspective. Terrible losses, terrible family challenges that are induced by that. But there's also an economic and economics, the economics of making that happen where we are not shelling out money to foreign entities, foreign countries to provide energy to us. Got to change. Energy security is paramount. But when I think about security, I think a lot about developing nations and because so much of the push is to replicate what First World Nations are doing, much of everyday life has depended on something that has some sort of an energy draw. And so in a sense of security for a town or a city or a small community, like to run your city, you're going to need energy and if you can't have reliable energy like the rest of your systems are very likely to fail. And so from just a development standpoint with the population growing so rapidly and everybody pushing for what we have here in the West, it's very, very important that people look to being independent in their energy production and storage and all the movement but they need to be able to contain and maintain it. Okay, so on the mainland there's all kind of sources of energy. You've got hydroelectric dams that are producing a lot of really cheap energy and nuclear power plants which we don't have in Hawaii for probably really good reasons to think here. You know, and so electrical energy can be relatively cheap and renewable and it is many places on the mainland but here in Hawaii we're basing a lot of ours on fossil fuel either, mostly petroleum but to most people surprise coal. I think about 10% of our electricity here is generated by coal which is a great natural resource that we have in the U.S. and gives us energy independence with other costs that people are really cautious of and then the transportation side. You know, the U.S. uses more gasoline and fuel oil by far than any other western country or any other country. I think even if we produced all our own domestic oil and natural gas and everything we would have a hard time meeting the demand especially as energy requirements grow. I mean we're not going to say we don't only need this much energy now we're actually going to start needing more and more as well as China, as well as India. So what are some of our options? I mean, even if we all started driving plug-in electric cars right now is that realistic or hydrogen cars right now? I mean how fast can you switch to a technology like that and how do we eat that elephant? You know, how do we make that change and make it work, make it real? I think we have to combat or change 100 plus years of mindset with fossil fuel consumption. We also have to adapt and modify infrastructure that's developed over those over the past century, century and a half that have supported fossil fuels. So will batteries, cars, will hydrogen fuel cell vehicles dominate the next decade or two? Probably not, but you have to start somewhere and you've got to start today. Rachel? Yes, you eat an elephant one bite at a time. And so we have to take those bites. And so that's part, you know, electric plug-ins that's part hydrogen fuel cell vehicles but that's a large part of cultural change and a lot of its information and helping people understand their impact on the globe and not just in a do-good thing so people live better but a very tangible, if you change this habit it will have dramatic impact on the atmosphere. So I think getting that message out that's incremental change but that's lasting change and so that cultural shift I think will help support the technology transformations that will happen over the next few decades. I don't think people understand what capabilities we have right now with battery and photovoltaic hydrogen fuel cells and even biodiesel biofuels and it's a matter of education and Rachel and I talked about that a lot at the office about how to get that message out how to become a change agent to help people understand what really, what technologies are out there now that we can use to start that change. So what's the big shift going to be? You've got the Elon Musk on one side saying batteries and you've got Toyota on the Mariah saying it's going to be hydrogen fuel cell vehicles so is it in either or is it in all of the above and who's going to pick up the pace and kind of do the long haul? What do you think Rachel? I'm like, Dr. David? What do you think? No, it's all of the above truly but a lot of it has to do with infrastructure and so whatever in the all of the above will encompass either existing infrastructure and a trajectory to fast pace a change or if a place has an opportunity to establish brand new what the future is going to be then that infrastructure has to be there and so as we talk about educating people and making sure people like the common folk are aware of what's capable it's really important that our legislators, our leaders are aware of what's necessary for not only the country but for states and what their capabilities are and what they are proficient at already and what they can easily transition toward so laying that foundation I think is important and that will really dictate how fast the transformation takes place And what's the relationship going to be as we try and go to 100% renewables on the grid to try and to go closer to renewables in transportation? I mean we made that point before that they're now interconnected if you have plug-in vehicles on your grid that can be energy storage as well as a draw on the grid as well as a load when you need to to shed renewable energy so plug-ins have that role so how do we get to that point where maybe the grid and the transportation sector are closer what kind of things should we be looking at? You want to add that one, Dave? Well, the microgrid that's currently under development at Hickam through AppRoles you're intimately familiar with is I think going to be a great R&D project to help demonstrate how those technologies can transfer from just a microgrid to perhaps communities City and County of Honolulu perhaps nationwide as well so we're not sure what that grid all those technologies will be and what the capabilities that might be there from that grid but that there's some certain adaptability that will come from it Okay, Rachel? Certainly having the conversation between departments is essential so I mean now we converse regularly with the Department of Transportation we speak with HECO we speak to community leaders from various walks of life as well as who chair various committees so we have strong support there and people being more open to having a more diverse conversation and not so siloed so I think that's an important first step and then the other side is those small bites of the elephant and so if we talk about hydrogen and we want to talk about hydrogen and energy, electricity side then we can talk about implementing things like hydrogen grills or propane dispension but also having hydrogen as an option and so integrating these new technologies into people's everyday lives is important to start that infrastructure development and then as the technologies come on board so like with fuel cell vehicles as that technology advances and more vehicles are available there's already that seeding of technology within that infrastructure development and wherever the community that's adopting it's going to be so here in Hawaii we're primed to generate our own hydrogen we have such depth of available renewable resources that we can generate that cleanly and so if we can start there and start placing these new technologies in people's regular day-to-day activities that's just the basis for change so part of that cultural change and then part of that developing the infrastructure so I think that you have to have that segue to be able to make lasting change okay let's pull that thread a little bit further then you know right now we have Hawaiian Electric as a publicly regulated electric utility we have Hawaii Gas as a publicly publicly regulated utility both of them are monopolies and they're regulated publicly because they are monopolies and they serve the people of Hawaii are we going to see a shift from electricity to gas of some kind and if so is it going to be natural gas liquid natural gas or should we go right to hydrogen or what kind of options do you think we have there that's the education piece for me I mean as a publicly regulated utility the public should have a voice but the decision makers so our commissioners in the PUC and it's great because I see so many of them out there having these conversations with one another but also with community members as well as with people in the industry so providing that information for what the people of Hawaii want is really important to make informed decisions and so what the answer will be I don't think should be up to an entity to identify I think it should be a collective effort but it's necessary that people have the knowledge available to them to make informed choices I think too to add to what Rachel said we need to really this is going to be a difficult change no matter what going from fossil fuels we continue to rely on natural gas or fossil fuels for power generation transportation that's the easy solution I think we've really got to stretch and push our leadership nationally and locally to help facilitate that change and help lead that transformation we really can't go backwards we've come so far the technologies there again it's about demonstrating the leadership at all levels then our schools and then the community leadership at the national level we've got to press forward so let me pull up a little further too is the technology really there are we really ready to make those changes I mean do you really feel like like hydrogen is there we can put it in people's stoves and water heaters and things that propane or other natural gas products are used for now you know in President Kennedy at the beginning of the in the 1960s he said we're going to go to the moon by the end of the decade I don't think he had any idea what the spaceships would look like what the program is going to look like but we knew the technology was there and the work that was being developed that's the same mindset I think we have to have now I think you're right I think you're really really right on and we had some great meetings this week with the folks in the military side out at Hickam with the prize conference that was put on by Paycom and we learned a lot out there too and I think the technology is there an interesting thing we saw at the conference where we heard was the technology advisors to the major commands were there and the Navy SEAL that was there advising the special ops community he pointed out too that lithium batteries are great they are, they're great, they're light they can do everything but there's one big problem you can't put them on a ship you can't put them on a submarine because lithium is considered a hazardous material when you ship it or move it and the Navy and the military in general have really tight protocols on making sure things pass certain wickets before you put them in a multi-billion dollar ship or on a multi-multi-million aircraft so you have to look at the technologies and see not only that it's new and it's great and it's current, you know, we can do it but does it fit? So is that part there? Are we really ready to shift to a new gas and a new way of storing electricity and when hydrogen are we ready for that? I'd say that we're on the cusp of shifting but I mean, so change can happen in a number of ways, primarily can happen because you push the change and then catastrophe will force you to change so it would be preferred if we didn't wait for the catastrophe that we press ahead with the knowledge that we have but certainly those regulations aren't fully in place it's not standard across the board for how we implement use of these different technologies and helping people understand how to mitigate the, I mean health and safety concerns of using different materials in different ways and things are not fully vetted but if we wait for a catastrophe to happen and then try to figure it out it's not to say that it will be any safer at that time so I think of flexing your muscles and building them and you don't get bigger muscles if you don't flex them a bit so you know as we have these technologies we have to use them we have to push it to their limit and they should fail and we should learn from those failures and fail forward. And the irony that hit me when the seal was talking about the batteries on the submarine was the fact that the submarines have electrolyzers in them not to make hydrogen they get rid of the hydrogen they're making oxygen for the crew of the submarine using an electrolyzer and they've been doing it for decades so that system has already proven technology on a ship where they have really tight stringent controls and yet they could be saving the hydrogen and putting it in like hydride storage so I think that capacity instead of batteries for their seals so in the discussions we had this past week it's actually been all of the technologies all around us and sometimes you got to cross over and talk to people about well this guy uses electrolysis for oxygen he never thought of using hydrogen in his batteries for energy storage as energy storage and it's something that's unnatural for submarines so you're right I think we have the technology here's the big question and I want you to predict we got fossil fuels that are good for a long time yet we're not going to run out like this week or this month but how far ahead do we have to start to make sure we have that next generation of energy ready to go I mean do we really need a long head start like decades or you know how fast when President Kennedy said we're going to go to the moon in a decade how fast is fast enough or realistic to make the change change has to be done in big increments incremental change usually doesn't succeed in whether it's a sports team or business or whatever entity it's got to be it can't be incremental or you fall backwards so I think we've got to start now continue on that path we have the technology again we've certainly got the leadership and the infrastructure and capable assets throughout the United States to implement things and yeah let's start now why you Rachel go big or go home that's good do it now and I would only say we just got to pace ourselves because you know we do have to think about jobs and keeping people employed if you if you went to all micro grids and lost the grid all those linemen are out of jobs I mean you have to think of how you're going to transition people's careers and things as we make these changes so anyway we covered a lot we hope we had a good discussion will help you think about what to think about with climate change and energy security in the United States and hopefully that'll make your decision on politics a little easier this year so until next week when I'll be talking to the guy who runs Proton on site one of the manufacturers of hydrogen hydrolysis equipment we'll see you then on Stan Henry man along